"Jean and Jeff Sutton - The Boy Who Had The Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sutton Jean and Jeff)

with weeds -- his recognition came totally without conscious memory. It was as
if his strange surroundings had been conjured up in some nightmarish dream.
Who am I? The question came again, this time more forcefully. Swirling
out from some hidden place in his mind, it brought with it an anxiety that
caused him to tremble anew. Trying to remember was like looking into a black
and bottomless well; the effort was almost a pain. Closing his eyes, he fought
to think.
 J-E-D-R-O...Letter by letter the name formed in his mind. Flaring there
in the darkness of his thoughts, it gave him an odd sense of identity. The
name (for he instinctively knew that it was a name) had seeped out from that
region of blankness from which he himself had seemed to come. I am Jedro! He
gripped the window ledge filled with the knowledge while the name surged
through his consciousness like a pleasant stream. He was Jedro!
A door slammed somewhere below, followed by the loud clomp of boots
coming closer. Frightened, he sprang back into bed and watched the door. It
opened and a heavy-set man with coarse, mean features stepped into the room.
His grimy trousers, faded shirt, and muddy boots were oddly at one with his
dark, scowling face.
"Awake, eh?" he snarled. "It's about time." Staring down at the boy, he
rubbed his nose on his sleeve.
Terrified, Jedro asked, "Where am I?"
"Where are you? Ha, you are dumb."
"Please," he whispered.
"My name is Mr. Krant, and you're here to work on my ranch."
"Please, Mr. Krant, how did I get here?"
Krant's eyes narrowed. "The fewer questions you ask, the better off
you'll be," he warned.
"But..."
"Get up," he roared. "Get dressed and go downstairs. I can't have you
loafing around all day."
"Yes, sir," Jedro answered hurriedly. Frightened and bewildered, he
hastened to comply. Krant left the room, clomping back down the stairs.
That's the way it had been that morning, when first he had awakened in
the attic room -- back at the edge of his memory, beyond which there was
nothing. Dressing, he'd hurried downstairs. Krant's wife, Lena, had served him
a bowl of cold mush. Thin and sloppy, with stringy gray hair that she seemed
to be continually brushing back from her narrow face, she didn't speak until
he began to eat.
Then she said to her husband, "He looks puny."
"I'll build him up," growled the rancher.
"Hmmmph!" She eyed Jedro disparagingly. Shifting uncomfortably, he
looked down into his bowl.
"Hurry up and slop it down," snarled Krant. "I can't wait all day."
Hastily gulping the mush, he trailed the rancher from the house. The big
yellow sun, balanced on the morning horizon, held an alien look that startled
him. Halting to gaze at it, he felt a slow hammering somewhere deep inside him
-- the hammering of a thought trying to break through into his consciousness.
That sun wasn't, wasn't.
"Hurry up," barked Krant. Jedro tore his eyes from the gleaming yellow
ball and hurried after him.