"Susan Palwick - Going After Bobo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Palwick Susan)

she weren't saving for nursing school. The only people I can think of who might live
there are the ones who work for the development companies.

So we don't get coyotes in our driveway any more, but they're still around.

They travel in back of the houses, next to the six-foot fences people put around their
yards. There's still sagebrush between the subdivisions, and rabbits, and you can still
follow those little strips of wildness to the really wild places, up on the mountain.

Coyotes are unbelievably smart, and they'll eat anything if they have to, and it doesn't
bother them when people cut the land into pieces. They like it, because the
boundaries between city and wilderness are where rodents live, and rodents are
about coyotes' favourite food, aside from cats. So when we cut things up for them,
there are more edges where they can hunt. It doesn't hurt that we've killed most of
the wolves, who eat coyotes when they can, or that coyotes look so much like dogs.
They can sneak in just about any place. Dr Mills says there are coyotes living in New
York City now, in Central Park. There are millions of them, all over the country.
Ranchers and farmers hate them because they're so hard to kill, and because even if
you kill them, there are always more. But I can't hate them, not even for eating cats.
They're smart and they're beautiful, and they're just trying to get by, and as far as I
can tell, they're doing a better job of it than we are. They know how to work the
system. That's what Dad thought he was doing, but he wasn't smart enough.

I lay there, listening to that coyote and to all the dogs, still trying not to think, but
thinking anyway: about what a weird town this is, where you get casinos and coyotes
both, where the developers are covering everything with new subdivisions, but
there's still a mountain where you can die. After a while it got quiet again, and I
peeked out of the window and saw more snow. A while after that I heard the bells
jangling downstairs, and heard Mom's feet hitting her bedroom floor and thudding
down the stairs. When she and David started yelling at each other, I pulled my pillow
over my head and finally managed to go to sleep.

****

It wasn't snowing when I woke up on Saturday, but it looked like it might start again
any minute. The transmitter signal still hadn't moved, and when I thought about
Bobo out there in the cold, I felt my own heart freezing in my chest. I heard voices
from downstairs, and smelled coffee and bacon. Mom and David were both home,
then. I threw on clothing and grabbed the handheld and ran down to the kitchen.

"Good morning," Mom said, and handed me a plate of bacon and eggs. She was
wearing sweats and looked pretty relaxed. David was wearing his bathrobe and
scowling, but David always scowls. I wondered what he was doing up so early.
"Any change on the screen, Mike?"

"No," I said. I knew she didn't think there ever would be, and I wondered why she'd
asked. David's face had gone from scowling to murderous, but that was all right,
because I planned to be out the door as soon as possible.

"OK," Mom said. "We're all going up there after breakfast."