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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"You're hiding a punch line, Mr. Reventlo. Cancer, I bet." 'No. It
merely induces the user to spit vast streams of red spittle, turns the
teeth black as a coal-scuttle, and dyes the mouth and gums a nice,
horrid brick red. Makes a young girl look as if she's been eating the
hemorrhoids out of a camel. Fair takes your breath away, it does. Your
appetites for dalliance or dinner, too. There's a goodly number of
ladies who may be my daughters and not know it, but none of them could,
by any stretch of the imagination, be Avrile Benteen's. You may trust me
on this," Reventlo said with dark assurance.
Lovett chuckled softly and endorsed Reventlo's account. "Maybe that's
why so many people do it with their eyes closed," he offered,
"I would hazard a guess," said the Brit, "that Elmo and Avrile pioneered
the practice." A shudder. "Let us pass on to some more agreeable topic."
"Looks like Myles is knocking off," Lovett observed.
"I said, something more agreeable," Reventio groused, but managed a wave
and smile for the survivalist.
"You guys work fast," Myles said, scanning the wall as he approached,
nodding his approval so that drops of sweat fell from his beard.
"Lisien, we won't have to do much blasting to clear the airstrip.
Soil's, so thin there, most of the trees and stuff can barely get a
grip. All we gotta do is put fifty men to work pulling stuff down to
drag away."
"Or one belly-scraping Letoumeau," Lovett observed. "We won't have to
renegotiate for that."
"Man, what a D-8 Caterpillar could do," Myles said.
"It's a nice thought, but even if I found one I'm not sure I could get
it here," said Reventlo.
"Do what you can," Lovett said, brushing off his trousers, collecting
empty water gourds.
"But first I must launch from Fundabora. If you don't mind a new
directive, lads, we should spend tomorrow clearing a path for that nice
new antique engine."
Myles: "Getting antsy, Cris?"
Reventlo: "If you think I'm anxious, try and imagine the niindset of a
certain digger in Alice Springs. They've heard of handcuffs in the
Northern Territory, too." His tone said he was half in earnest. ' So
their last hour of labor that day was spent learning how to clear,
undergrowth from bedrock. It appeared that they might clear a narrow
path as far as the road in one day, provided they could use their crew
from the maintenance sheds. I They found Coop and Benteen already
picking at the buffet provided nightly in the council house lobby, using
sections of some broadicaf as plates. Evidently the staff had decided to
provide more everyday far-e on this night. When Benteen referred to the
leaf as breadfruit, Reventlo objected that breadfruit leaves had
fingerlike projections.
"At the end of the branch, yes," Benteen said. "Not at the base."
"I won't debate you on islander expertise," the Brit smiled.
"I was raised on breadfuit, in breadfruit, and under breadfruit," she
confided. "A shady tree that makes good canoes, bark fiber mats, a nice
bland mush like yarn, and a decent place-setting if you don't like
washing dishes. Try it like poi," she said, using two fingers to spoon
some of the stuff to her mouth.
Chip pointed to another mass of mushy food in a huge clamshell. "I
thought this was breadfruit," he said.
"Taro's a root," she said; "dug up like turnips, only better.
"Great. There's paste, and there's paste," he said. 'I forgot; the
breadfuit sap makes glue, too," she said, laughing. "Ignore the taro and
breadfruit, then, and have some fried bananas."
"That's different; ftied paste," Chip said with patently false
enthusiasm, reaching for a handful of some crackly protein.
"Oh, shut up and eat your grasshoppers," Benteen said, giggling as Chip
snatched his hand back. "Use your eyes, Chip. Those are just
funny-looking shrimp, actually," she went on, popping one into her
mouth. "And this is crab over here, and there's coconut milk, too. Or
would you rather tear into an MRE?"
"Gah," said Lovett, helping himself to the taro. "I'll take these
Guamanian grits, thanks."
They took their meals out to the C-47 to discuss their progress. Coop
brightened at the idea of working in the cave. "I won't mind a break
from the sheds," he said. "Couple of days more and we may have Benteen
trying out the Letoumeau. Meanwhile the sheds are like an oven in the
afternoon and I'm welding in there. 'Course, where our friend Pilau
is-,-comic relief ain't far off."
"We're going to need him and that half-track," said Lovett, "so be nice
to him."
"That's getting easier to do," Coop replied, "even though there's dumb,
and there's dumber, and then there's Pilau."
"What's he done now," Lovett asked. 'Not as dumb as Coop thinks,"
Benteen countered. "That pluperfect little bureaucrat Merizo has been
lusting after the scooters; you knew that." Lovett nodded assent and she
went on: "So this morning he came to the sheds with a couple of his TV
wrestlers and insisted we show him how'to drive a Cushman. So I had to
leave Coop to give lessons."
"Nothing wrong with that," Myles said.
"I suppose not, but given the fact that we know how Pilau got those
stripes on his back and legs, you can't expect me to enjoy Merizo's
enjoyment when he's ripping up and down the drive at top speed with me
for a passenger."
I'll m jealous," said Reventlo, grinning.
"Oh, yes, he looks for bumps. I think he likes it when my front bounces
off his back."
"The cad," Reventlo said, enjoying himself immensely. "And he dresses as
such a gentleman! I take it he didn't crash and bum with you."
"Not with me," Benteen said, now smiling at her thoughts. "But he said
he'd be needing to take a drive alone later. And he did.
Reventlo blinked. "And," he prompted.
"And his builyboys bodily carried the Cushman back to us later," Coop
put in, "front fork bent to shit, headlight busted, splash guards like
pretzels. I'm fixing it, though. Seems that Merizo had driven out to the
village and was terrorizing everybody for about thirty seconds-until he
decided to turn around and do it again. For that, he had to use the
brake.
By now, Lovett had already begun to laugh. "And Pilau had oiled it
again," he managed to say.
"You can really kill a punch line, Wade," said Coop.' "That's what
happened. You could see Merizo was cruising for a bruising the way he
gunned away from the shed. And he got his bruising; went ass over
teakettle right in front of his peons in the village, laid himself out
cold. I checked the scooter out and asked Pilau the big question. He
denied it, but hell, I could see and smell the evidence. I backed him up
anyhow; Benteen convinced the big guys that Merizo's brakes had just
plain failed. Nobody's fault that Merizo got a broken arm.
"I love it," Benteen said. "It was not an innocent mistake. Pilau gets
his revenge, and his victim's none the wiser."
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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