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

He walked away from me and stopped right on the edge of the slope. A pronghorn
lifted her head from the sage, eyed us for a second, then trotted slowly away,
her white sides flashing in the scorching sun. I wiped my face on my sleeve. I
swear the Rainmaker wasn't even sweating. He stood there, looking like he was
standing on a city street, just staring out at the sage and rock and dust that
stretched to the horizon. This time of year, dry as it was, there wasn't any
grass left to speak of. Just sage, and greasewood, and rabbit brush.

I got out, too, thinking that this was stupid, that this guy was a scare, and
he'd wave his hands around, and then sneak off when nobody was looking. And I
realized I was thinking all this in my uncle's voice. So I quit. And just
listened to the desert. It talks, you know. Real quiet-- the sound of dust
sifting against rock, and wind whispering through sage stems, sand shifting
under a mule deer's hoof or a jackrabbit's paws. It doesn't notice us much. I
told More about that, too. Once. She didn't cry, but it bothered her. I could
tell.

The Rainmaker stood there in the blazing sun, arms at his sides, just staring
into space with this kind of distant look on his face. And for a moment...just a
few seconds, I guess...I felt something. It was like the air got solid. I don't
mean I couldn't breathe or anything. But it was like I could feel it -- the air,
could feel the clouds in it, hung up and leaking on the Cascade Mountains, could
feel the cool dampness beyond them where all that water evaporating from the
summer ocean was pushing inward. And I could feel...a weak spot. Where that nice
damp air could push our way.

A ground squirrel scuttled over my toes. I jumped back, startled, and lost the
feeling. Figured I'd just imagined it. I kicked a shower of dust after the
vanished critter. Looked up to see the Rainmaker smiling at me.

"Tomorrow evening" he said, like he was agreeing with me. "We were lucky --
finding that weakening in the high pressure ridge."

I nodded and swallowed. Because his eyes were older even than old Mr. Long's,
and he was a hundred and two, The Rainmaker looked out over Dad's pasture again,
and now he just looked sad. "It's tough to believe in what you see," he said
softly. "When everyone knows it can't be true. Come on. I'll take you home."

I shivered, and didn't answer him as I got back into the car. He drove me back
down the track, and then up the main driveway to our house. And it wasn't until
I had gotten out at the front door and he was driving away that I realized I'd
never told him where I lived.

THE SKY WAS CLEAR that night, with just a sliver of a moon, and the Milky Way
swept a white path across the sky, so clear that you could believe that it was a
road, like in the old Indian tales, where you could ride a horse up it, right up
into that sky.
"Hey, it's gonna rain tomorrow." Uncle Kenny had dropped by for dinner, like he
did just about every night. "Can't you tell?"