Читать книгу The Hawkline Monster - Richard Brautigan - Страница 17

· Cora ·

Cameron had brought the trunk full of guns into the house with him. He didn’t want to leave the guns unattended in the stagecoach. Greer and Cameron never carried guns on their persons not unless they intended to kill somebody. Then they carried guns. The rest of the time the guns stayed in the trunk.

The barbed-wire drummer sat there in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand and from time to time he would look down at the trunk that was beside Cameron, but he never said anything about it.

He was curious enough, though, about Magic Child to ask her what her name was.

“Magic Child,” Magic Child said.

“That’s a pretty name,” he said. “And if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re quite a pretty girl.”

“Thank you.”

Then, to be polite, he asked Greer what his name was.

“Greer,” Greer said.

“That’s an interesting name,” he said.

Then he asked Cameron what his name was.

“Cameron,” Cameron said.

“Everybody here’s got an interesting name,” he said. “My name is Marvin Cora Jones. You don’t come across many men who’s middle name is Cora. Anyway, I haven’t and I’ve been to a lot of places, including England.”

“Cora is a different kind of middle name for a man,” Cameron said.

Magic Child got up and went over to the stove and got some more coffee for Greer and Cameron. She also poured some for the barbed-wire drummer. She was smiling. There was a huge platter of doughnuts on the table and everybody was eating them. Widow Jane was a good cook.

Like a mirror the house continued to reflect the motion of the bed upstairs.

Greer and Cameron each had a glass of milk, too, from a beautiful porcelain pitcher on the table. They liked a glass of milk now and then. They also liked the smile on Magic Child’s face. It had been the first time that Magic Child had smiled.

“They named me Cora for my great-grandmother. I don’t mind. She met George Washington at a party. She said that he was really a nice man but he was a little shorter than what she had expected,” the barbed-wire drummer said. “I meet a lot of interesting people by telling them that my middle name is Cora. It’s something that gets people’s curiosity up. It’s kind of funny, too. I don’t mind people laughing because it is sort of funny for a man to have the name of Cora.”