Читать книгу Lucky Strike - Nancy Zafris - Страница 7

One of the things Harry liked to do was make up songs. He was a cheerful traveling salesman dressed in a seersucker suit, and he often visited us in camp. At first his singing was something we ignored, like a few raindrops, like Harry himself as he pitched his tent. Then came the downpour, the original words and music of Harry L. Lindstrom heard twice as they echoed off the canyon walls. At length it became up to us to close him down. No one could accomplish this with the effectiveness of my mother, who was fond of shooting off her pistol.

It was 1954. My brother, Charlie, was twelve and I was ten. We were camping out with my mother in the red rock of Utah, prospecting for uranium. An adventure was what we were after. We were alone and words like claim jumping painted exciting action images coated with violence. When one of the old prospectors offered my mother a pistol, she accepted. She discovered a desire to shoot off guns, and became first-class at it, a regular Annie Oakley. During the long silence that hung heavy after one of her blasts, you could hear breathing form a circle around you; you could feel the jumping of a heart that hardly belonged to you. Pretty soon without knowing it you were humming a secret tune of your own. I was always right on the verge of catching this song in full when bang would go another of her pistol shots and there they went, all the notes scattering like a flock of birds, until finally most of them returned and settled into this. It’s a bit different and some pieces are missing, but it’s enough to provide a pretty good idea.

Beth Waterman, Uranium Girl