"McCammon Robert R. - They Thirst" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

forgotten. He started toward the door, but his mother caught his shoulder.
"Hush!" she whispered, and together they waited, their shadows filling the far
wall.
More hammering on the door-a heavy, leaden sound. The wind screamed, and it was
like the wail of Ivon Griska's mother when the sealed coffin was lowered into
the frozen dirt.
"Unbolt the door!" Papa said. "Hurry! I'm cold."
"Thank God!" Mama cried out. "Oh, thank God!" She moved quickly to the door,
threw back the bolt, and flung it open. A torrent of snow ripped at her face,
the wind distorting eyes, nose, and mouth. Papa, a huddled shape in his hat and
coat, stepped into the dim firelight, and diamonds of ice sparkled in his
eyebrows and beard. He took Mama into his arms, his massive body almost
engulfing her. The boy leapt forward to embrace his father, grateful that he was
home because being the man of the house was much more difficult than he had
imagined. Papa reached out, ran a hand through the boy's hair, and clapped him
firmly on the shoulder.
"Thank God you're home!" Mama said, clutching onto him. "It's over, isn't it?"
"Yes," he said. "It's over." He turned and closed the door, letting the bolt
fall.
"Here, step over by the fire. God in Heaven, your hands are cold! Take off your
coat before you catch your death!" She took the coat as he shrugged it from his
shoulders, then his hat. Papa stepped toward the fire, palms outward to receive
the heat. Flames glittered briefly in his eyes, like the glitter of rubies. And
as he passed his son, the boy crinkled up his nose. Papa had brought home a
funny smell. A smell of ... what was it? Think hard.
"Your coat is filthy!" Mama said, hanging it on a hook near the door. She
brushed at it with a trembling hand. She felt the tears of relief about to flood
from her, but she didn't want to cry in front of her son.
"It's so cold in the mountains," Papa said softly, standing at the rim of the
firelight. He kicked out with the toe of one scarred boot, and a log shifted,
revealing a finger of flame. "So cold."
The boy watched him, seeing a glaze of ice from Papa's snow-whitened face begin
to melt in droplets. Papa suddenly closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and
shivered. "Ohhhhhhhhm," he breathed, and then his head came around, eyes
opening, looking into his son's face for silent seconds. "What are you staring
at, boy?"
"Nothing." That smell. So funny. What was it?
Papa nodded. "Come over here beside me."
15
The boy took a single step forward and then stopped. He thought of horses and
coffins and sobbing mourners.
"Well? Come over here, I said."
Across the room the woman was standing with one hand still on the coat. There
was a crooked smile on her face, as if she'd been slapped by a hand that had
snaked from the shadows. "Is everything all right?" she asked. In her voice a
note quavered like a pipe organ in the Budapest cathedral.
"Yes," Papa said, reaching out for his son. "Everything is fine now because I'm
home with my loved ones, where I belong."
The boy saw a shadow touch his mother's face, saw it darken in an instant. Her
mouth was half-open, and her eyes were widening pools of bewilderment.