Отрывок из книги
THE PINEYS used to hog the whole of the lozenge between the Shore Road and the White Horse Pike. But no longer is that region a mystery; too many thoroughfares have let in the light. Not so with the Barrens farther south, an irregular sweep of country that has defied unveiling for a hundred years. Highways have been bored across it, but step off them on either side and it is as though you had passed through a wall and closed a door behind you. Seen from the air, this area seems compact, an even blot of forest pierced by the oases of a dozen farms, each distant from the rest and solitary. But to a man on foot or on horse it has a diversity beyond belief. Bayous as sombrous as any in the Florida Everglades widen into creeks that narrow into runs. Marshes rise into sparsely wooded tablelands that plunge down unexpectedly into swales darkened by primeval trees.
No view anywhere, only discoveries. And roads. Roads that cross each other or intertwine or break at right angles for no reason. Roads that sometimes make a complete circle, like a lost dog. Roads linked to obsolete and forgotten treasure; this to a marl pit, that to a reds tone quarry and another to a bog of buried cedar. Wood roads to rare sand, to vanished cranberry patches and even to faint earthworks thrown up as far back as the Revolution. Roads that tunnel through laurel twenty feet high. Obliterated roads, studded with young pines, that end nowhere. Still other roads, wide open, that tumble downward and cease in surprise at the edge of an impassable void.
.....
Meg gave him a wide-eyed look tinged with sadness. “Sorry,” she said. “Tomorrow won’t do.”
“Oh, all right,” said Teller.
.....
