"Robert Reed - The Dragons of Summer Gulch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

The Dragons of Summer Gulch

by Robert Reed

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A hard winter can lift rocks as well as old bones, shoving all that is loose up through the most stubborn
earth. Then snowmelt and flash floods will sweep across the ground, wiping away the gravel and clay.
And later, when a man with good vision and exceptional luck rides past, all of the world might suddenly
change.

"Would you look at that," the man said to himself in a firm, deep voice. "A claw, isn't it? From a mature
dragon, isn't it? Good Lord, Mr. Barrow. And there's two more claws set beside that treasure!"

Barrow was a giant fellow with a narrow face and a heavy cap of black hair that grew from his scalp and
the back of his neck and between the blades of his strong shoulders. Born on one of the Northern Isles,
he had left his homeland as a young man to escape one war, coming to this new country just in time to be
thrown into a massive and prolonged civil conflict. Ten thousand miseries had abused him over the next
years. But he survived the fighting, and upon his discharge from the Army of the Center, a grateful nation
had given him both his citizenship and a bonus of gold coins. Barrow purchased a one-way ticket on the
Western railroad, aiming to find his fortune in the wilderness. His journey ended in one of the new prairie
towns—a place famous for hyrax herds and dragon bones. There he had purchased a pair of quality
camels, ample supplies for six months of solitude, and with shovels enough to move a hillside, he had set
out into the washlands.

Sliding off the lead camel, he said, "Hold."

The beast gave a low snort, adjusting its hooves to find the most comfortable pose.

Barrow knelt, carefully touching the dragon's middle claw. Ancient as this artifact was, he knew from
painful experience that even the most weathered claw was sharp enough to slash. Just as the fossil teeth
could puncture the thickest leather gloves, and the edges of the great scales were nastier than any saw
blade sharpened on the hardest whetstone.

The claw was a vivid deep purple color—a sure sign of good preservation. With his favorite little pick,
Barrow worked loose the mudstone beneath it, exposing its full length and the place where it joined into
the front paw. He wasn't an educated man, but Barrow knew his trade: this had been a flying dragon, one
of the monsters who once patrolled the skies above a vanished seacoast. The giant paw was meant for
gripping. Presumably the dragons used their four feet much as a coon-rascal does, holding their prey and
for other simple manipulations. These finger claws were always valuable, but the thick thumb claw—the
Claw of God—would be worth even more to buyers. As night fell, Barrow dug by the smoky light of a
little fire, picking away at the mudstone until the paw was revealed—a palm-down hand large enough to
stand upon and, after ages of being entombed, still displaying the dull red color made by the interlocking
scales.