"Walter Jon Williams - The Last Ride of German Freddie" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

He could see thoughts working their way across her face. She was drunk, of course, and that slowed
things down. "So the Romans— the Roman warriors—thought of themselves as good? By definition,
good?"
Freddie nodded. "All the aristocrats did—all aristocrats, all conquerors. The aristocratic political party in
ancient Rome called themselves the boni—the good. They assumed their own values were universal virtues,
that all goodness was embedded in themselves— and that the values which were not theirs were debased.
Look at the words they use to describe the opposite of their bonus—plebeian, 'common,' 'base.' Even in
English—debased means 'made common.'" He warmed to the subject, English words spilling out past
his thick German tongue. "And in Greece the rulers of Megara used esthlos to describe themselves—'the
true,' the real, as opposed to the ordinary, which for them did not have a real existence." He laughed. "To
believe that you are the only real thing. That is an ego speaking! That is a ruler—very much like the
Brahmins, who believe their egos are immortal but that all other reality is illusion . . ."
He paused, words frozen in his mouth, as he saw the identical, quizzical expression in the faces of both
Ringo and Josie. They must think I'm crazy, he thought. He took a sip of soda water to relieve his nervousness.
"Well," he said, "that is some philological thought for you."
"Don't stop," said Josie. "This is the most interesting thing I've heard all night."
Freddie only shook his head.
And suddenly there was gunfire, Freddie's nerves leaping with each thunderclap as he ducked
beneath the level of the bar, his hand reaching for the pistol that, of course, he had left in his little room.
Ceiling lathes came spilling down, and there was a burst of coarse laughter. Freddie saw Curly Bill
Brocius standing amid a gray cloud of gunsmoke. Unlike Freddie, Brocius had disregarded the town
ordinance forbidding firearms in saloons or other public places, and in an excess of bonhomie had fanned
his modified revolver at the ceiling.
Freddie slowly rose to his feet. His heart lurched in his chest, and a kind of sickness rose in his throat. He
had to hold on to the bar for support.
Josie sat perfectly erect on the mahogany surface, face flushed, eyes wide and glittering, lips parted in
frozen surprise. Then she shook her head and slipped to the floor amid a silken waterfall of skirts. She

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looked up at Freddie, then gave a sudden gay laugh. "These men of strife, these boni" she said, "are
getting a little too good'for my taste. Will you take me home, sir?"
"I—" Freddie felt heat rise beneath his collar. Gunsmoke stung his nostrils. "But Mr. Behan—?"
She cast a look over her shoulder at the new sheriff. "He won't want to leave his friends," she said.
"And besides, I'd prefer an escort who's sober."
Freddie looked at Ringo for help, but Ringo was too drunk to walk ten feet without falling, and
Freddie knew his abstemious habits had him trapped.
"Yes, miss," he said. "We shall walk, then."
He led Josie from the roistering crowd and walked with her down dusty Allen Street. Her arm in his felt
very strange, like a half-forgotten memory. He wondered how long it had been since he had a woman on
his arm—seven or eight years, probably, and the woman his sister.
In the darkness he sensed her looking up at him. "What's your last name, Freddie?" she asked.
"Nietzsche."
"Gesundheit!" she cried.
Freddie smiled in silence. She was not the first American to have made that joke.
"Don't you drink, Freddie?" Josie asked. "Is, it against your principles?"
"It makes me ill," Freddie said. "I have to watch my diet, also."
"Johnny said you came West for your health."
It was phrased like a statement, but Freddie knew it was a question. He did not mind the intrusion: he
had no secrets. "I volunteered for the war," he said, and at her look, clarified, "the war with France. I caught
diphtheria and some kind of dysentery—typhus or cholera. I did not make a good recovery, and I could not