"Трумэн Капоте. The grass harp (Луговая арфа, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

prisoner gazing from the jail. We reached the field of Indian grass at the
same moment as the sun. Dolly's veil flared in the morning breeze, and a
pair of pheasants, nesting in our path, swept before us, their metal wings
swiping the cockscomb-scarlet grass. The China tree was a September bowl of
green and greenish gold: Gonna fall, gonna bust our heads, Catherine said,
as all around us the leaves shook down their dew.

Two


If it hadn't been for Riley Henderson, I doubt anyone would have known,
or at least known so soon, that we were in the tree.
Catherine had loaded her oilcloth satchel with the leftovers from
Sunday dinner, and we were enjoying a breakfast of cake and chicken when
gunfire slapped through the woods. We sat there with cake going dry in our
mouths. Below, a sleek bird dog cantered into view, followed by Riley
Henderson; he was shouldering a shotgun and around his neck there hung a
garland of bleeding squirrels whose tails were tied together. Dolly lowered
her veil, as though to camouflage herself among the leaves.
He paused not far away, and his wary, tanned young face tightened;
propping his gun into position he took a roaming aim, as if waiting for a
target to present itself. The suspense was too much for Catherine, who
shouted: "Riley Henderson, don't you dare shoot us!"
His gun wavered, and he spun around, the squirrels swinging like a
loose necklace. Then he saw us in the tree, and after a moment said, "Hello
there, Catherine Creek; hello. Miss Talbo. What are you folks doing up
there? Wildcat chase you?"
"Just sitting," said Dolly promptly, as though she were afraid for
either Catherine or I to answer. "That's a fine mess of squirrels you've
got."
'Take a couple," he said, detaching two. "We had some for supper last
night and they were real tender. Wait a minute, I'll bring them up to you."
"You don't have to do that; just leave them on the ground." But he said
ants would get at them, and hauled himself into the-tree. His blue shirt was
spotted with squirrel blood, and flecks of blood glittered in his rough
leather-colored hair; he smelted of gunpowder, and his homely well-made face
was brown as cinnamon. "I'll be damned, it's a tree-house," he said,
pounding his foot as though to test the strength of the boards. Catherine
warned him that maybe it was a tree-house now, but it wouldn't be for long
if he didn't stop that stamping. He said, "You build it, Collin?" and it was
with a happy shock that I realized he'd called my name: I hadn't thought
Riley Henderson knew me from dust. But I knew him, all right."
No one in our town ever had themselves so much talked about as Riley
Henderson. Older people spoke of him with sighing voices, and those nearer
his own age, like myself, were glad to call him mean and hard: that was
because he would only let us envy him, would not let us love him, be his
friend.
Anyone could have told you the facts.
He was bom in China, where his father, a missionary, had been killed in
an uprising. His mother was from this town, and her name was Rose; though I