"Michener, James - The Covenant (uc) (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Michener James A)

down to the water and began rooting in the soft mud, searchin
for roots and drinking noisily through its little mouth. ---
When the sun was about to creep over the two conical hills tha
marked the eastern end of the lake, a herd of eland came t
drink-big, majestic antelopes that moved with rare grace, an
when they appeared, a little brown man who had been watchin
through the night, hidden in deep grass, whispered a prayer o
thanks: 'If the eland come, there is still hope. If that rhinocero

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stays, we can still eat.'
Gumsto was typical of his clan, four feet ten inches high,
yellowish brown in color, thin and extremely wrinkled, Indeed,
there were few areas of his body that did not contain deep inden-
tations, and sometimes within a square inch twelve lines would
run up and down, with eight or nine crisscrossing them. His face
looked like the map of a very old watershed, marked by the trails
of a thousand animals, and when he smiled, showing small white
teeth, these wrinkles cut deeper into his countenance, making him
look as if he were well past ninety. He was forty-three and his
wrinkles had been with him since the age of twenty-two; they were
the mark of his people.
The clan for which he was responsible numbered twenty-five;
more would prove too difficult to feed; fewer, too vulnerable to
attacks from animals. His consisted of himself as leader, his
tough old wife Kharu, their sixteen-year-old son Gao, plus
assorted males and females of all ages and all possible relation-
ships. The safety of this clan was his obsession, but at times he
could be diverted. When he looked up to greet the sun, as he did
each morning, for it was the life-giver, he saw the two rounded
hills, exactly like a woman's breasts, and he thought not of the
safety of his clan but of Naoka.
She was seventeen, widowed when the rhinoceros now drinking
at the lake killed her hunter husband. Soon she would be eligible
to take a new mate, and Gumsto looked on her with longing. He
realized that his wife was aware of his passion, but he had a
variety of plans for circumventing her opposition. Naoka had to
be his. It was only reasonable, for he was the leader.
His attention was deflected by a thunder of hooves. Zebra
lookouts had spotted the two lions and had sounded retreat. Like
a swarm of beautifully colored birds, the black-and-white
animals scrambled up the dusty bank of the lake and headed for
safety.
But the male who had seen fit to wander off, dissociating