"K. D. Wentworth - Outhouse Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

Outhouse Moon
K.D. Wentworth


"Ain't nothin' good ever happens under an Outhouse Moon, boy."
Willy watched in disgust as Grandpa's weak whiskery chin worked on the
mouthful of shredded tobacco for a moment. He dodged out of the way as the old
man leaned over and aimed for the spittoon.
"Mind you keep this here young'un home tonight, Alline." Closing his
eyes, Grandpa tipped his chair back against the faded cherries and bananas on
the kitchen wallpaper. "Dark things'll be afoot on a night like this."
"Ma!" Panic welled up inside Willy as he paused with his hand on the
doorknob. "You know I'm going over to Rick Peterson's. You promised!" Outside,
the fall wind skittered dry leaves across the windowpane like dead folks'
fingernails.
Grandpa's brownish-gray eyes slid sideways to look knowingly at him.
"There'll be things out there tonight what could eat a young'un up afore he
knowed what happened to him. You might never come home to your ma and me, boy.
How would you like that, caught out there in the dark forever?"
Willy felt ridiculously close to tears for a man of eleven years. "Ma,
you promised!"
"Don't you raise your voice to me, young man." Up to the elbows in soap
suds, his mother looked up from the cracked porcelain sink and groped for a
dish towel. "Besides, it's getting late. I thought you were going over to the
Petersons' before it got dark."
Willy's fingers tightened around the coolness of the worn brass
doorknob. "We're—we're going coon hunting. Rick got a new hound for his
birthday."
She wiped her hands on the threadbare towel. "Don't be ridiculous. You
wouldn't so much as touch a dog if your life depended on it."
"We're just going to run some of his hounds for an hour or two and see
how the new one goes." Willy did hate dogs with their sloppy wet noses and
great bone-white teeth, but he hated Rick teasing him about it even more.
After tonight, no one would be able to say that he was afraid of dogs ever
again. "There's no harm in it. Pa used to—"
The unfinished sentence hung there in the air between them like a blow
waiting to fall. Willy swallowed hard, trying not to say anymore than he
already had. He didn't want to make his mother cry again.
"I see." Her weary face, drained of color now, tightened until her
cheekbones stood out stark white against her skin. "You were just going
traipsing off all over the countryside without telling me, is that it?"
He hung his head. "I was gonna tell you."
"When? After you broke your neck and laid out there all night in the
cold and wet?"
_ —like your Pa did._
Willy heard the words as plainly as if she'd actually said them.
Suddenly, he could almost see his pa again, sitting here in the kitchen,
letting Willy help him off with his heavy boots after a long day's work.
"You better think on this, boy. Look what happened to your pa and he
weren't out under no Outhouse Moon neither." The front legs of Grandpa's chair