Excerpt
across and was too tired to swim back, he had to walk barefoot
through the rocks and the sagebrush and look out for rattlers. Once
he got a ride, but mostly he made his way to the bridge and walked
across, and then it was a long way up along the warehouses back to
his cabin. Mr. Winter told him he shouldn’t swim in the river
because it couldn’t be trusted, he could drown.
Sam Winter leaned back in his office chair and looked up the avenue
at the crowd. Parade like that, you’d think it was Apple Blossom
morning. Lined up along the railroad tracks like a bunch of
damn stooges listening to that blockhead trying to get reelected.
Smart move, though, coming through on the train. Probably did
him some good. Tom Dewey’s going to have to watch himself.
Winter saw Poodie James round the corner onto the avenue.
Look at that, Poodie lunging ahead, grinning all the time, talking
with people. At any rate, he thinks he’s talking. Sam smiled.
Bunch of grunts and growls and I don’t know what all coming out
of that little man. Saw him the other day down in front of the
hobby shop. Always four or five boys around him, Poodie grinning
and making strangling noises and those kids hanging on his every
word, or moan or whatever it is. He’s interesting to have around
town. I just wish Pete Torgerson wouldn’t get so upset about him.
Damn Torgerson and his rigid ideas about what’s right for folks.
It’s curious, Winter thought, all that slow, patient work he does
with the Boy Scouts and the kids at the YMCA camp, then he fixates
on a harmless little deaf man, carries on like a fool. Hard to
know what makes a man tick.
Well, Winter thought, let’s go back to work. Or maybe he said
it. These days when he was alone he wasn’t too sure whether his
ruminations took speech.
“Who you talking with in there, Judge?” Margaret Johnston
asked through the half-open office door.
“Just thinking out loud, I guess, Margaret.”
Sam shrugged, put on his black robe and his solemn face, ran a
hand through his shock of grey hair and walked out of his chambers.
Libros Libertad 