JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 80 из 425I picked it up, beginning to feel verymuch like an outsider here. I poked the blue-and-red cap at Mattie’s hand until her fingers closed on it.
I decided I also felt pretty good about the way things had turned out, and maybe I had a right to. I’ve presented the incident as if it was amusing, and it was, but it was the sort of amusing you never see until later. When it was happening, it was terrifying. Suppose there had been a truck coming from the other direction? Coming around that curve, and coming too fast?
A vehicle did come around it, a pickup of the type no tourist ever drives. Two more locals gawked their way by.
“Ma’am?” I said. “Mattie? I think I’d better get going. Glad your little girl is all right.” The minute it was out, I felt an almost irresistible urge to laugh. I could picture me drawling this speech to Mattie (a name that belonged in a movie like The Unj3rgiven or? ue Grit if any name ever did) with my thumbs hooked into the belt of my chaps and my Stetson pushed back to reveal my noble brow. I felt an insane urge to add, “You’re right purty, ma’am, ain’t you the new schoolmarm?”
She turned to me and I saw that she was right purty. Even with circles under her eyes and her blonde hair sticking off in gobs to either side of her head. And I thought she was doing okay for a girl probably not yet old enough to buy a drink in a bar. At least she hadn’t belted the baby.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “Was she right in the road?” Say she wasn’t, her eyes begged. At least say she was walking along the shoulder. “Well—”
“I walked on the line,” the girl said, pointing. “It’s like the cross-mock.” Her voice took on a faintly righteous tone. “Crossmock is safe.”
Mattie’s cheeks, already white, turned whiter. I didn’t like seeing her that way, and didn’t like to think of her driving home that way, especially with a kid.
“Where do you live, Mrs. — ?”
“Devore,” she said. “I’m Mattie Devore.” She shifted the child and put out her hand. I shook it. The morning was warm, and it was going to be hot by mid-afternoon—beach weather for sure—but the fingers I touched were icy. “We live just there.”
She pointed to the intersection the Scout had shot out of, and I could see—surprise, surprise—a doublewide trailer set off in a grove of pines about two hundred feet up the little feeder road. Wasp Hill Road, I recalled. It ran about half a mile from Route 68 to the water—what was known as the Middle Bay. Ah yes, doc, it’s all coming back to me now. I’m once more riding the Dark Score range.
I decided I also felt pretty good about the way things had turned out, and maybe I had a right to. I’ve presented the incident as if it was amusing, and it was, but it was the sort of amusing you never see until later. When it was happening, it was terrifying. Suppose there had been a truck coming from the other direction? Coming around that curve, and coming too fast?
A vehicle did come around it, a pickup of the type no tourist ever drives. Two more locals gawked their way by.
“Ma’am?” I said. “Mattie? I think I’d better get going. Glad your little girl is all right.” The minute it was out, I felt an almost irresistible urge to laugh. I could picture me drawling this speech to Mattie (a name that belonged in a movie like The Unj3rgiven or? ue Grit if any name ever did) with my thumbs hooked into the belt of my chaps and my Stetson pushed back to reveal my noble brow. I felt an insane urge to add, “You’re right purty, ma’am, ain’t you the new schoolmarm?”
She turned to me and I saw that she was right purty. Even with circles under her eyes and her blonde hair sticking off in gobs to either side of her head. And I thought she was doing okay for a girl probably not yet old enough to buy a drink in a bar. At least she hadn’t belted the baby.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “Was she right in the road?” Say she wasn’t, her eyes begged. At least say she was walking along the shoulder. “Well—”
“I walked on the line,” the girl said, pointing. “It’s like the cross-mock.” Her voice took on a faintly righteous tone. “Crossmock is safe.”
Mattie’s cheeks, already white, turned whiter. I didn’t like seeing her that way, and didn’t like to think of her driving home that way, especially with a kid.
“Where do you live, Mrs. — ?”
“Devore,” she said. “I’m Mattie Devore.” She shifted the child and put out her hand. I shook it. The morning was warm, and it was going to be hot by mid-afternoon—beach weather for sure—but the fingers I touched were icy. “We live just there.”
She pointed to the intersection the Scout had shot out of, and I could see—surprise, surprise—a doublewide trailer set off in a grove of pines about two hundred feet up the little feeder road. Wasp Hill Road, I recalled. It ran about half a mile from Route 68 to the water—what was known as the Middle Bay. Ah yes, doc, it’s all coming back to me now. I’m once more riding the Dark Score range.