Читаем Cat Who Went Up the Creek полностью

One quiet logger who was not a part of the raucous group tried to join one of the groups around the tables. He was shooed away, and someone shouted, “Vamoose, Stinko.” Wandering over to the bar, he was rebuffed again, and one of the river-drivers barked, “Casse-toi, Bouc Puant!” Whitey sent him to sit at the end of the bar and told Lucy to take him a drink. Sitting there alone, Stinko pulled a mouth-organ from his pocket and entertained himself with simple tunes.

It was a lively Saturday night at the Hotel Booze. Two lumberjacks sang several verses about “the frozen logger who stirred his coffee with his thumb.” Two sailors walked around the room on their hands, and one of them did cartwheels the length of the bar top, while barflies yelped and grabbed their drinks. “How about pourin’ some more eagle-sweat, Whitey?”

At the card table, tempers were flaring. “You cheatin’ hell-pup!” Fists started to swing. Immediately Jake was on the scene, collaring the two rowdies, one in each hand and giving them the bum’s rush out the side door, leading to the alley. He returned brushing the dust off his hands, and Whitey signaled to the trio of sailors, who sang, “Michael, row the boat ashore, hallelujah!” Quietly the evicted pair sneaked back into the saloon, one of them holding a red-stained rag to his nose and acting as a crutch for the other, who was limping.

“Whitey!” someone shouted. “Why ain’t George here? Has he gone to get his teeth fixed?”

“George won’t be comin’ here any more,” said the saloonkeeper. “He got in a fight Thursday night and was sluiced.”

“Sluiced! Holy Mackinaw! Where’ve they got ’im?”

“In Pete’s funeral parlor next door. Can’t bury him till Monday. They’ve got him on ice. Pete built him a pine box, but George didn’t have money for a headstone, so we’re taking up a collection.” Whitey put a tin cup on the bar and rattled the coins in it. One by one the mourners filed past and dropped a few pennies in the cup.

Then a lumberjack yelled, “Let’s go and get ’im! Let’s bring ol’ George back for one last drink together!”

“Yahoo!” Six volunteers bolted out the side door, while Whitey and the barmaids poured and served, and the customers cheered and stamped their boots.

Soon there was kicking at the alley entrance, and Jake opened the double doors to admit the pallbearers with a six-foot pine box. The roomful of rowdies was strangely silent.

The pallbearers shouted, “Move three stools away! . . . Gotta prop ’im up! . . . Lean the box against the bar! . . . Whitey, got a crowbar? . . . Hang onto the box. . . . Keep it upright!”

With the wrenching sound of boards and nails, the lid of the coffin came off, and the audience gasped. There was George—stiff, chalk-faced, still in his bloody clothing.

Two gunshots shattered the breathless quiet! And the lights went out.

The room was in darkness only long enough for the reenactors—including the white-faced George—to line up, facing the audience, who responded with whoops, cheers, applause, whistles and yahoos.

The Rikers had to leave, but Qwilleran and most of the others attending the preview mingled with the players and congratulated them.

Whitey explained, “This is a reenactment of a true incident that took place right here in the Hotel Booze. His name wasn’t George. We don’t know what his name was or which of the headstones in the old loggers’ cemetery is his. My great-grandfather was a stonecutter, and the story has been handed down in our family.”

Qwilleran singled out Stinko for congratulations and questions. “Whose idea was it to have a character with a B.O. problem?”

“It was Roger’s idea,” was the answer, “but I volunteered. It gave me a chance to do a little character acting and play my harmonica. They say the stench in lumber camps was horrendous: Forty men sleeping in one big shanty, drying their snow-soaked socks around a potbellied stove, with no facilities for washing up. Phooey!”

Qwilleran handed out compliments: To Jake for his strong-arm act; to the river-driver for his French accent; to the girls for their provocative maneuvers. He learned that the singing sailors came from the chorus of Pirates of Penzance, and the acrobats were high school gymnasts.

Jake said to him, “Have you heard anything about a movie being made in Moose County—about the logging era?”

“Not a word! Where did you hear it?” As a journalist Qwilleran hated being in the dark—about anything.

“Well, I’m working at my father’s gas station this summer, and a guy with an out-of-state license said he was an advance man, lining up muscle-men as extras in a lumberjack film. He told me to keep it under my hat because another film producer had the same idea, and they wanted to beat the competition.”

“Hollywood epic or independent documentary?”

“He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask, because I wasn’t interested. I have this job with my dad and a commitment to the reenactors, plus I’m gonna be a father in August! First time!”

“Congratulations!”

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Ох как непросто быть попаданцем – чужой мир, вокруг всё незнакомо и непонятно, пугающе. Помощи ждать неоткуда. Всё приходится делать самому. И нет конца этому марафону. Как та белка в колесе, пищи, но беги. На голову землянина свалилось столько приключений, что врагу не пожелаешь. Успел найти любовь – и потерять, заимел серьёзных врагов, его убивали – и он убивал, чтобы выжить. Выбирать не приходится. На фоне происходящих событий ещё острее ощущается тоска по дому. Где он? Где та тропинка к родному порогу? Придётся очень постараться, чтобы найти этот путь. Тяжёлая задача? Может быть. Но куда деваться? Одному бодаться против целого мира – не вариант. Нужно приспосабливаться и продолжать двигаться к поставленной цели. По-кошачьи – на мягких лапах. Но горе тому, кто примет эту мягкость за чистую монету.

Алексей Изверин , Виктор Гутеев , Вячеслав Кумин , Константин Мзареулов , Николай Трой , Олег Викторович Данильченко

Детективы / Боевая фантастика / Космическая фантастика / Попаданцы / Боевики