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confidant, but so was Lurleen. He was, perhaps, less publicly occupied than Lurleen
and had shown more interest in my problems, but that did not mean he was any
better equipped to deal with them. He was as short of supplies as anyone. But then,
since he had taken my share, perhaps I did have more of a claim on his attention
than on someone else's. That was not it, really, of course. The fact was that I liked
the man and trusted his good will toward me, which it seemed to me he had
demonstrated repeatedly. I thought that if we could just talk everything over, surely
I would find the sensible thing to do in this singularly unsensible situation.
I was probably being entirely too harsh on Vasily Vladovitch, for instance. He, too,
had shown his good will, and if he killed people occasionally, he did it less casually
than many people who had less realistic need of the blood of their fellow man. Or
woman.
The only one of his would-be converts he had been less than courtly to had been
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Giselle, and maybe be had, despite what he told me, reinstated her in his affections
and my cabin. Those Paris gowns had to come from somewhere. Poor Giselle. After
longer acquaintance with her dance hall skills, I could see that she was not as good
at them as the other girls. There had been no sign, judging from the fact that both
Millie and Sasha were walking around unharmed (if you didn't count nibbled
necks), that she had any aptitude for being a voodoo queen, as Maisie had
suggested. And she had been quite an overeager failure at vampiredom, if Vasily
Vladovitch was being truthful, and had had to be drummed out of the corps
(corpse?) for exceeding her authority and the length of her fangs.
All of these ruminations ran through my head along with the rhythm of my steps, so
that I failed to notice that the sky was growing dimmer, the golden light had turned
steely, a wind had come up making the spruces rock like hired mourners and
sending a fine dust of snow skimming across the trail ahead of me.
It was time to go back, but I knew it would be dark before I reached Grand Forks
again and there was always the chance that if it was growing dark, Lomax would be
making camp. If I walked but another half hour, I'd probably stumble over him.
And I was convinced I could hear the dogs howling. I hurried my footsteps and
pulled my collar up and my hat down. The wind tingled at the tip of my nose.
Perhaps because I had walked into a denser stand of trees, perhaps because I had
come into this part of the early winter after a sudden lapse of many days, I was
unprepared for the swiftness with which the light failed.
Still, the trail was clear and there was some traffic. From somewhere close by I
heard footsteps counterpointing my own. The woods distorted the sound so that I
could not at first tell from which direction the sound came. A well-remembered and
unloved voice enlightened me almost as soon as I stopped to ponder the matter.
"Hold it right there, little darlin'."
Drake stood behind me in the path. One of his handmade Mexican cigars dangled
from a singularly unfriendly grin. I might have tried dissembling except that to the
best of my memory Drake was not the sort of man who would address an unknown
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person in a male miner's togs by one of his quaint regional endearments.
"Why, Mr. Dr Blake! Whatever arc you doing so far from town? Aren't you worried
that some beleaguered fellow countryman will come in from the creeks with a rich
claim, and you will not be there in time to beat him to the recorder's office?"
"Yes'm, I do indeed worry about that kind of thing a mite, but a good politician
needs to learn to delegate authority. I have an assistant to handle the routine
matters. I wanted to tend to you personally."
"How kind."
"No, ma'am, I don't believe 'kind' is exactly the word I would use."
"I'm sorry to hear that. I had hoped you'd perhaps come to tell me that after your
uncouth behavior on our previous acquaintance, you had seen the light and wished
to apologize. Since that is not the case, I'll not take up any more of your valuable
time. I'm trying to overtake someone."
"Wouldn't be some old cripple with a mangy cat around his neck and a dog team,
would it now?"
"I wouldn't put it that way, no."
"Because if it is, he ain't stayin' healthy all that much longer neither."
"You're very ambitious so late in the day."
"Another new assistant. She'll enjoy chewin' on him more than I would.
Enthusiastic type, that Gigi. Finally found the kind of work she's cut out for. But you
and me, we'll just wait till the moon shows up. I like it when the moon's big and full.
Puts hair on my chest."
"I had no idea you were such a romantic, Mr. Drake."
"How well you know me, darlin'. The last time I succumbed to any sentimental
horseshit, I lost my ranch. If I had let my old partner feed Claytie and Lovanche to
the dragon with the rest of you, Kukulkan would have been pleased with me and let
me keep it instead of requirin' me to take up with this new profession."
"I was under the impression you always wanted to be in politics."
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"It's not politics I'm talkin' about. It's loboin'. I always was somethin' of a lone wolf,
but I never reckoned how complicated it can be."
"Do you intend to continue talking in riddles all night or are you going to explain
what on earth you're talking about?" I had a good idea, between the Dracula book
and Lomax's letter, and at this point I was getting so used to people seeming to be
what they weren't or turning into other things without so much as a by-your-leave
that I wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that Queen Victoria, upon contact
with saltwater, turned into a mermaid.
"Oh, I'm gonna do better than that, darlin'. I'm gonna show you just exactly what I
mean. You just stay right there and be as sweet as you are, and in no time at all
you'll get the point."
He grinned again and his teeth seemed somewhat longer. He flexed his hands and it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]