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

sentimentalist under the skin, and therein lay the chink in Fallon's armor of
larceny. For basically, no matter how much he might consider himself otherwise,
Macon Fallon was a gentleman in the best sense of the word.
Aware of his deficiency, he avoided every contact that might betray him into
thoughtfulness, gallantry, or consideration. He kept to himself, and when
necessity demanded that he deal harshly, he ruthlessly dealt so with those who
were themselves so inclined.
People, he told himself, were suckers. The fact that on several occasions he had
proved to be one himself only served to illustrate the point. Two assets
belonged to Fallon besides a glib tongue and a gift for handling the
pasteboards. One was a keen sense of observation; the other, an excellent memory
and a mind filled to overflowing with an enormous variety of usually useless
information.
Long ago he had discovered that while all people look, there are few who
actually see. Rarely did people look with intelligence, or recognize what they
were seeing. If they walked in the forest they saw only trees; or at best,
merely certain varieties of trees.
But Macon Fallon saw much more. He saw where a bear had stood on his hind legs
and had left his mark to other bears as high as he could reach upon the trunk;
he saw where a deer had passed, and how long since; where blight had touched a
tree, or where lightning had scarred one long ago. He saw these things, and
much, much more.
So, when he glimpsed the wagons his mind was not so gripped by the sight of them
that he failed to see lying in the brush, almost obliterated by the weather, a
faded sign: BUELL'S BLUFF.
Buell's Bluff?
Startled, he drew up and looked again and immediately the sign, the people of
the wagons, and his own fertile imagination became the base upon which he began
to construct a plan. His thoughts leaped ahead. If the plan worked he could, in
a few weeks, at most in a few months, ride into California completely solvent.
He drew himself still straighter in the saddle, cocked his hat at a still
jauntier angle, and attempted to look as spruce as he did not feel. The lambs
awaited, and he held the shears. A question remained: did the lambs have fleece?
His lethargy was gone, his weariness fell away, even the heat and his own
parched throat and cracked lips were forgotten; for here was opportunity, and no
man had ever needed one more.
Even as he advanced, he could not but wonder if he did not look like a dusty Don
Quixote ... if so, the black horse was, at least, no Rosinante. Undoubtedly he
was in worse shape than they, but he had probably had more experience with
adversity than they could possibly have had.
There were two men, two women of mature years, a boy of sixteen, two young
girls, and three smaller children. There was also a young man of perhaps
nineteen.
Sweeping off his hat as only he knew how, Fallon asked, "May I be of service?"
"Wheel broke." The speaker was a man of about forty-five, with sandy hair, a
well-shaped head, and a strong face. "We got the know-how, but we ain't got the
tools."
Macon Fallon stepped carefully from the saddle, trying not to stagger. With that
bulging watersack hanging from the side of the wagon, with that smell of bacon
frying, absolutely nothing was going to get him away from here. Yet he must seem