Them Bones (Howard Waldrop) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

Leake VII

‘Antiquity – I like its ruins better than its reconstructions.’

–Joubert

They looked like a thousand parrots had committed suicide for them.

There were six of them, plus their servants, runners and so forth.

They reached the village about an hour after we first heard their horns and conch shells. They were shorter than Took’s people, darker than the standard, and two of them had mustaches.

They were the Meshicas, the Huastecas. Took told me they came this time every year to meet with Sun Man and arrange a Flower War with all us hefty moundbuilder types.

They smiled a lot while they were here. They looked as if the smiles were pasted on.

Snappy dressers, too, if your idea of beauty is to throw peacocks, roosters and pheasants together in a blender.

I was glad to see them go. Everybody’s breechcloth looked dingy and tell-tale gray while they were around.