"Mary Rosenblum - Rainmaker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

back there if it rained. Dad could put the heifers in instead of sellin' 'era."
I looked at my uncle. "You don't have any cattle. You don't need the rain."

"Good idea." Hiram Belker, our neighbor to the east, spoke up from the crowd.
"Maybe some of that there water'll land on my back forty." He guffawed -- was
answered by more laughter.

"Why not?" Uncle Kenny slid his sunglasses into place and turned his shiny
mirrored gaze on me. "Hell, do my poor brother-in-law a favor. We'll make it a
public event. I'll put up a notice on the bulletin board in the Courthouse lobby
when our wizard here decides the rain's comin'. We can party." He grinned around
at the crowd. "Don't forget your umbrellas, folks."

He turned away and people turned with him, like he'd given an order. I looked to
see if the Rainmaker was mad about that, but he just looked tired. He noticed me
looking and gave me a small smile. I smiled back, wondering how he meant to do
it, then flinched as my uncle's hand landed hard on my shoulder.

"How 'bout we go get a burger, Donny-boy? We can watch for the clouds to show
up."

"It's kind of early for lunch." My voice sounded squeaky.

He opened his mouth to reply, but just then one of my uncle's' deputies tapped
him on the shoulder. "Kenny? Ronny Carter just called in." He shook a Marlboro
out of the squashed pack in his uniform pocket. "You'll never guess what he
found out in the sage on his summer range-over by White Horse Creek? The Roias
kid's old beater Chevy."

"Is he sure it's Rojas's?" Uncle Kenny pushed his hat back on his head. "I
thought he took off to Mexico to visit his mother, way back in November. Did he
find a body.?"

"Nope." The deputy dragged on his cigarette and blew out a blue lungful of
smoke. "Found the registration. Coyotes had all winter."

Uncle Kenny turned to me. "Let's go, Donny-boy."

"Excuse me." The Rainmaker had finished folding his umbrella. "I don't know my
way around here." He brushed dust carefully from gray slacks that looked prissy
alongside the jeans everybody else pretty much wore. "Perhaps your nephew could
show me where you expect this to fall? Or are you free to escort me?"

"Sure," I said, before Uncle Kenny could say anything. 'I'll show you."

Uncle Kenny just looked at me, long and hard, and then shrugged and spat.
"Whatever you want, kid." He turned his back on us, and walked off with his
deputy.

The motel lot was almost empty now. The crowd had left a scatter of crumpled