And then the boy touched... «Власть пса»
anya_kindheart1 января 2022And then the boy touched his arm — touched it. ‘Phil — I’ve got rawhide to finish the rope.’
‘You’ve got it? What you doing with rawhide?’
And the boy’s hand remained right where it was. ‘I cut some up, Phil. I wanted to learn — to braid like you. Please take what I’ve got?’ They were facing each other, and the boy’s hand remained right where it was. ‘You’ve been good to me, Phil.’
Take what I’ve got. You’ve been good. Phil, at that moment in that place that smelled of years felt in his throat what he’d felt once before and dear God knows never expected nor wanted to feel again, for the loss of it breaks your heart.
Oh, sure. Could have been the boy’s offer was but a cheap means of getting his pretty little mother out of the soup. But wanting to braid like him! What reason for the boy to have rawhide but wanting to braid like him! To emulate him! Why else would he have cut up strips of rawhide? The boy wanted to become him, to merge with him as Phil had only once before wanted to become one with someone, and that one was gone, trampled to death while Phil, twenty years old, watched from the top rail of the bronc corral. Ah, God, but Phil had almost forgot what the touch of a hand will do, and his heart counted the seconds that Peter’s was on him and rejoiced at the quality of the pressure. It told him what his heart required to know.
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