"Barry B. Longyear - The Hangingstone Rat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

“We’re coming up on the moor,” Shad quacked. He was a mallard
duck bio and flew the cruiser remotely by means of his wireless interface.
He had once been a quite famous telly star doing adverts for an insurance
firm “in whiteface,” as he put it. We talked old movies for a while then fell
silent as we watched the rugged greenness of Dartmoor spread before us.

“Pick up the Vader prang beacon yet?” I asked him.

“We’re right on the wire.”

I looked over the vast expanses of hilly heather, broken only by
granite-topped hills, boulder fields, ponds, peat bogs, and stream-carved
cleaves. Among them the shadows of clouds seemed fixed in place. I
could see for miles. What I failed to see was the constabulary cruiser that
was supposed to be waiting for us. “I don’t see the cop supposed to meet
us, Shad.”

He glanced at me. “You’re the one who pointed out to me the low
esteem in which ABCD is held among the constabulary.”

“This juvenile anchor dragging grows tedious, nevertheless.”

“Hangingstone Hill up ahead,” announced Shad. “Ought to be a movie
title,” he concluded whimsically.

I smiled. “Hangingstone Hill, a western tale of murder and
vengeance, torn from the pages of history, directed by John Ford—”

“—Starring Susan Hayward and Gary Cooper,” completed Shad.

“I always loved Susan Hayward. Wasn’t there a Gary Cooper film
called The Hanging Tree?” I asked.

“Nineteen fifty-six,” said Shad, flaunting his vast cinematic knowledge.
The theater was never far from the former insurance duck’s thoughts. “Gary
Cooper and Maria Schell,” he continued. “You know, The Hanging Tree
was George C. Scott’s movie debut.”
 “Really. Well, Shad, I know why Hangingstone Hill carries such an
ominous name.”

“Oh?” He was silent for a beat. “You do?”

It does me good to stump the duck once in awhile. “It has to do with a
natural phenomenon, Shad: a rather big plate of rock called a logan stone
that hangs out over another rock on the side of the hill.”

“That’s disappointing,” Shad remarked. “With a name like
Hangingstone Hill the place ought to be covered in ghosts left over from
innumerable medieval neck stretchings. Turnkeys With Gibbets,” imagined
Shad aloud. “A Cranberry and Gravy Production. You can be the sheriff.