"TAGGART" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

the canteen. Then he would leave the water to the porcupines, and they deserved it.
He dipped his cupped hands into the water and gulped a mouthful which he held in
his mouth, letting the parched tissues soak it up ever so gradually, then allowing
a cool trickle to find its way down his raw throat.
The gelding whinnied pleadingly and he allowed the horse to drink again, although
there was scarcely more than a swallow or two in the bottom of the hole. He scooped
out more sand and the hole began to fill up. He managed another swallow, and a delicious
coolness began to spread through him.
There was shade under the cottonwood, and concealment, so he stretched out on the
sand and lay still, relaxing little by little as exhaustion took over. From time
to time the horse drank, then he began cropping on some brown grass nearby. Swante
lay still and listened to the sounds, and he heard the porcupines sucking at the
water.
Turning his head he saw them there, watching him warily, but drinking, too, not six
feet from where he lay.
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TAGGART 21
When they were gone he cleaned out the pool and dug into his pack for what remained
of his coffee. He built a small fire of dry sticks under the cottonwood and made
the coffee. Desperately as he wanted food, he would not kill one of the porcupines,
for they had brought him to water. Actually they had saved his life.
No desert man will camp near a water-hole, for water in the desert is too precious
to others beside himself, and wild creatures will not approach a water-hole when
a man is near. The porcupines had been a rare exception, their need perhaps as great
as his own.
When he left the water-hole, it was only to move back a short distance, for he needed
time to recover from the effects of his long thirst. He spread his blanket and slept,
too soundly for safety, but with the sleep of utter exhaustion.
He awakened before daylight and led the gelding to the hole, where they both drank
again, and when fresh water, now clear and cold, had collected again, he filled his
canteen. The porcupines had been there during the night, for the marks of their tiny
hands were all about.
The sun was just showing itself over the mountains when he finally left. The place
where he had found water was in the mouth of a wash running into Tonto Creek from
the Sierra Anchas; and emerging from the brush, he found a faint Indian trail that
led back into the mountains, running alongside the wash. There were no signs of recent
travel.
It was not the trail he had been planning to take, but it was one even less likely
to be discovered. Without doubt it led to the top of the plateau.
Following this trail into a notch in the Sierra Anchas, he drew up in the shade of
a massive cliff, and turning in the saddle he glanced back along the way he had come.
Wind moved stealthily among the piiions on the mountain near him, breathing cool
and fragrant across his heat-baked cheeks, and behind him the land lay vast and empty
under the blazing sun. The Tonto Creek valley, the Mazatal Mountains riding beyond
it.
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22 Louis L'AMOUR
Nothing ...
The land lay vast, red-brown-pink. Sand-colored mountains splashed with the green
of juniper. Here and there were shadows of clouds, and occasional shadows in the