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

"I'd sure take it, if it came." Dad popped another beer. "Hell, I'd pay the
man." He helped himself to a slice of meat loaf with a grunt. "Pass me the
potatoes, will you, Sandy?"

"Did I tell you we found the Rojas kid's car?" Uncle Kenny said. "Back along
White Horse Creek." He reached for the meat loaf. "I guess the coyotes cleaned
things up."

"Julio ?" Mom paused, the steaming bowl of potatoes in her hand. "He went back
to Oaxaca. To visit his mother."

"Guess not?" Uncle Kenny forked meatloaf onto his plate. "Drug deal gone bad, is
my guess."

"No!"

"Don't kid yourself, Sandy." My uncle chewed, reached for his beer. "He was
selling. Everybody knew it."

Hard to believe." Dad tilted his beer can to his lips. "He was a hard worker,
that kid. Worth his pay-- and that's rare enough these days. Kids don't know how
to work anymore. They grow up and figure that an hour with a shovel'll kill
'em." He looked at Mom. "You gonna hold onto those all night?"

Mom looked down at the bowl in her hands. With a jerky movement, she set it in
front of Dad. Then she carried her untouched plate into the kitchen. Uncle Kenny
finished his dinner and went over to click through the TV channels. Dad opened
another beer. I slipped out of the house and walked up the rise behind the barn.
You could see over toward the spring range from up here. Julio used to sit on a
rock that stuck out over the dry wash behind the barn and play his guitar. He
taught me chords. He told me how it was, growing up in Mexico. I told him about
the ghosts once. He told me that his family had a party for the dead every year
--that they're around. Same as us. I was about to go back to the house when I
spotted a ghost walking along the lip of the wash. It disappeared near the rock
where Julio used to sit. Early in the spring, I found some withered flowers on
that rock. I went back to the house where Mom shoved a too-big piece of apple
pie at me and didn't ask me where I'd been.

"Sky cloudin' up yet? Smellin' rain in the air.?" Uncle Kenny laughed and forked
pie into his mouth, but the look he gave me stung like the flick of a quirt.

I told Mom I was tired, and went on up to bed.

"He's in love," I heard Uncle Kenny say as I climbed the stairs.. "He's got all
the signs."
I got onto the bed, but it was still hot up here, even with the fan on. I turned
the light off and just lay on top of my sheets in my T-shirt and shorts. When I
heard Mom's footsteps on the stairs,. I realized I'd been waiting for her to
come up. I pulled the sheet over me and sat up in the dark.