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

46
42 Louis L'AMOUR
invisible link, forged by some mysterious bond of stars and stillness. They were
drawn together by the silence, the loom of mountains, and the deep shadows where
the cliffs stood tall. Was he feeling what she felt? Was he, too, sensing that this
moment was the stuff of dreams? That here, for the moment at least, each belonged
to the other?
She put her hand to her hair in the darkness, feeling suddenly untidy. She had not
prepared herself to meet a lover this night, even one who would in a moment touch
his horse with a heel and ride on, moving out of her life and away from her consciousness,
like all those other faceless, featureless men of whom she had dreamed in the past.
He was there, close to her, a tall, still figure sitting on his saddle, and a man
who might be ... anyone.
He might ride on ... Suddenly, desperately, she wished to say something, some magic
word, some phrase that would make him stay, that would draw him to her and keep him
close. She knew suddenly that he must not ride on ... it was here he belonged, beside
her.
It was fantastic. The desert night had taken her good sense ... was she a silly,
romantic girl to be lured by shadows?
She was.
The dream gives its magic until the dream is realized, but even then something of
the dream remains ... the aura, the nostalgic, half-realized longing, that stays.
And this silent rider, dark upon his horse, until a word was spoken he was hers,
and hers alone.
Moments passed, and she was motionless, and the rider sat on his saddle. She saw
him replace his hat and her throat tightened at the thought that he might now ride
on, that replacing the hat was preliminary to a touch of the heel. His cigarette
glowed briefly again like a campfire's spark arrested in flight.
"A night like this is like no other night. There is a beauty in it that is scarcely
real."
It was a moment before Miriam realized the rider had spoken, and she was startled
... for in this brief standing still of time he had become almost a creation of her
fantasy.
47
TAGGART 43
"It is the desert."
There was a silence then that neither broke for minutes. Then he said, "It is late
for you to be out."
It was something that might have been said to a young girl in New England, in some
village there, after midnight. In this place, under the circumstances it bordered
on the ridiculous. "I am not a child, you know."
"You are a woman ... an Apache would even brave the dark for a young woman."
"I am not afraid. "
"Fear is not a bad thing. It is fear that saves men's lives ... it prepares a man
for trouble."
"How do you come to be here? At this place, I mean? Why did you stop?"
"My horse told me you were there. He also told me you were a woman."
"That's impossible."
"No. My horse does not like the smell of Indians, and he knows that smell, but he
likes women because he was raised by a woman who made a pet of him.