Читать книгу Faerie Tale - Raymond E. Feist - Страница 14

Gabbie stood in mute and pleasant surprise. At last she said, ‘All right!’ slowly drawing out the exclamation.

Jack smiled as he motioned for her to come and take the reins of the bay mare he had led. It was a beautiful, well-cared-for animal. Gabby took the reins. ‘They’re terrific.’

‘Mr Laudermilch raises Thoroughbreds and warm-blood crosses. He’s a friend of Aggie’s and I’ve helped out around his farm, so he lets me borrow one every so often. He used to race Thoroughbreds, but now he’s into jumpers.’

Gabbie admired the animals, noting the curve of the neck and the way the tail rose up, and the slightly forward-facing ears. ‘These have some Arabian in them,’ she declared, as she took the reins from Jack.

Jack nodded with a grin. ‘And quarter horse. These don’t compete. They’re what Mr Laudermilch calls “riding-around stock”. Yours is called My Dandelion and this is John Adams.’

She hugged the mare’s neck and patted it. ‘Hi, baby,’ she crooned. ‘We’re going to be buddies, aren’t we?’ She quickly mounted. Settling into the unusual position of the English saddle, she said, ‘God, this feels weird.’

Jack said, ‘I’m sorry. I thought you rode English.’

Gabbie shook her head as she spurred her mount forward. ‘Nope, cowgirl. I’ve ridden English before. It’s just been a long time.’ She waved at her foot. ‘Acme cowboy boots. I’ll pick up some proper breeches and high top boots in town. My knees will be a little bruised tomorrow, is all.’

They rode out towards the woods, Gabbie letting Jack take the lead. ‘Watch out for low branches,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘These paths aren’t cleared like riding trails.’

She nodded and studied his face as he turned back towards the path. She smiled to herself at the way his back moved as he reined his horse. Definitely a fox, she thought to herself, then wondered if there was a girlfriend back at the college.

The trail widened and she moved up beside him, saying ‘These woods are pretty. I’m more used to the hills around the Valley.’

‘Valley?’

‘San Fernando Valley.’ She made a face. ‘Ya know, fer sher, like a Valley girl, totally tubular, man. I mean, like bitchin’, barf out, and all that shit.’ She looked irritated at the notion. ‘I grew up in Arizona. That image grosses me out.’ Suddenly she laughed at the slip and was joined by Jack. ‘LA’s just reclaimed desert. Turn off the garden hose and all the green goes away. It’s all chaparral – scrub, you know – on the hills north of the valley. Some stands of trees around streams. A lot of eucalyptus – nothing like these woods. It’s mostly hot and dry, and real dusty. But I’m used to it.’

He smiled, and she decided she liked the way his mouth turned up. ‘I’ve never been west of the Mississippi, myself. Thought I’d get out to Los Angeles once a few years back, but I broke my leg sailing and that shot the whole summer.’

‘How’d you manage that?’

‘Fell off the boat and hit a patch of hard water.’

For a moment she paused in consideration, for he had answered with a straight face, then she groaned. ‘You bullshitter. You’re as bad as my dad.’

‘I take that as a compliment,’ he answered with a grin. ‘Actually, some fool who thought he could sail put the boat around in a gybe without warning any of us, and I caught the boom and got knocked overboard. Smashed my leg all up. I spent the next day and a half with a paddle for a splint while we headed back to Tampa. Spent nine weeks in a cast, then six more in a walking cast. The surgeon was great, but my leg’s not a hundred per cent. When it gets cold, I limp a little. And I can’t run worth spit. So I walk a lot.’

They rode in silence for a while, enjoying the warm spring day in the woods. Suddenly there was an awkward moment, as each waited for the other to speak. At last Jack said, ‘What are you studying?’

Gabbie shrugged. ‘I haven’t decided. I’m only a few units into my sophomore year, really. I’m sort of hung up between psychology and lit.’

‘I don’t know much about psych.’ She looked at him quizzically. ‘I mean, what you would do when you graduated. But either means grad school if you want to use them.’

She shrugged again. ‘Like I said, I’m barely a sophomore. I’ve got a while.’ She was quiet for a long time, then blurted, ‘What I’d like to do is write.’

He nodded. ‘Considering your parents, that’s not surprising.’

What was surprising, thought Gabbie, was that she had said that. She had never told anyone, not even Jill Moran, her best friend. ‘That’s the trouble, I guess. Everyone will expect it to be brilliant. What if it’s no good?’

Jack looked at her with a serious expression on his face. ‘Then it’ll be no good.’

She reined in, trying to read his mood. He looked away, thoughtfully, his profile lit from behind by the sun shining through the trees. ‘I tried to write for a long time before I gave up. A historical novel, Durham County. About my neck of the woods at the turn of the century. There were pans of it that I thought were fine.’ He paused. ‘It was pretty awful. It was difficult admitting it at the end, because enough of my friends kept encouraging me that I thought it was good for a long time. I don’t know. You just have to do it, I guess.’

She sighed as she patted the horse’s neck. Her dark hair fell down, hiding her face, as she said, ‘Still, you don’t have two writers for parents. My mother’s won a Pulitzer and my father was nominated for an Oscar. All I’ve managed is some dumb poetry.’

He nodded, then turned his mount and began riding along the trail. After a long silence he said, ‘I still think you just have to do it.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ she answered. ‘Look, did you keep any of the stuff your friends told you was great?’

With an embarrassed smile, he said, ‘All of it. The whole damn half novel.’

‘I’ll make you a deal. You let me see yours and I’ll let you see mine.’ Jack laughed hard at the school-yard phrase and shook his head. ‘What’s the matter? ’Fraid?’

‘No,’ Jack barely managed to croak as he continued to laugh uncontrollably.

‘Scaredy-cat,’ Gabbie mimicked, plunging Jack into deeper hilarity.

Jack finally said, ‘Okay, I give up. I’ll let you read my stuff … maybe.’

‘Maybe!’

The argument continued as they crested a small rise and vanished behind it. From deep within the woods a pair of light blue eyes watched their passing. A figure emerged from the underbrush, a lithe, youthful figure who moved lightly on bare feet to the top of the path. From behind a bole he watched Gabbie as she moved down the trail. His eyes caressed her young back, drinking in the sight of her long dark hair, her slender waist, and the rounded buttocks as she held a good seat on the horse’s back. The youth’s laughter was high-pitched and musical. It was an alien sound, childlike and ancient, holding a hint of savage songs, primitive revelries, and music-filled hot nights. His curly red-brown hair surrounded a face conceived by Michelangelo or a Pre-Raphaelite painter. ‘Pretty,’ the young man said to the tree, patting the ancient bark as if it understood. ‘Very pretty.’ Then, nearby, a bird sounded a call, and the youth looked up. His voice shrilled with inhuman tones, a whistling whisper, as if a mockingbird imitated the call. The little bird darted about, seeking the intruder in its territory. The youth shrieked in glee at the harmless jest, as the bird continued to search for the trespasser. Then the youth sighed as he considered the beautiful girl who had passed.

High above, among the leaves, a thing of blackness clung tenaciously to the underside of a branch. It had watched the two riders with as much interest as the youth. But its thoughts were neither merry nor playful. An urgent need arose within, halfway between lust and hunger. Beauty affected it as much as the youth. But its desires were different, for, while lust was the youth’s driving motivation, to the black thing under the tree branch beauty was only a beginning, a point of departure. And only the destruction of beauty allowed one to understand it. The fullness of Gabbie’s beauty could be realized only by a slow journey through pain and anguish, torment and hopelessness, ending with blood and death. And if the pain was artful, as the master had taught, such torment could be made to last for ages.

As it contemplated its alien dark thoughts, musing on the simple wonder of suffering, the black thing realized a truth. Whatever pleasure the girl’s destruction could produce would be nothing compared to the elation that could result from the destruction of the two boys. Such wonderful children, still innocent, still pure. They were the prize. Lingering terror and pain given to such as they would … The creature shuddered in dark anticipation at the image, then stilled itself, lest the one below take notice and make the black thing feel just such pain in turn. The youth stood another moment, one hand upon the tree, the other absently clutching at his groin as he held the image of the lovely human girl who had ridden past. Then, with a move like a spinning dance, the man-boy leaped back into the green vegetation, vanishing from mortal sight, leaving the small clearing empty save for the reverberations of impish laughter.

The black thing waited motionless after the youth vanished into the woods, for despite his youthful appearance, he was one to be feared, one who could cause great harm. When it was satisfied he was gone, and not playing one of his cruel tricks, it sprang with a powerful leap away from the tree. Its movements through the branches were alien, the articulation of its joints nothing of this world, as it hurried on its own errand of dark purpose.