Читаем Upsetting the Balance полностью

Lugging a heavy picnic basket uphill on a hiking trail in Arkansas summer wasn’t Sam Yeager’s idea of fun. But getting away from the Army and Navy General Hospital for a while-to say nothing of getting away from the Lizards-was worth some discomfort. And he wasn’t about to let Barbara carry the picnic basket, not when her belly was starting to bulge.

She glanced over at him. “You’re red as a beet, Sam,” she said. “Really, nothing will happen if I take that for a few minutes. Just because I’m expecting doesn’t mean I’m made out of cut glass. I won’t break.”

“No,” Yeager answered stubbornly. “I’m all right.” The path rounded a corner. The pines to either side opened out onto a grassy meadow. “Besides,” he went on with a grin not altogether free of relief, “this looks like a perfect spot.”

“Why, so it does,” Barbara said. At first he thought that was hearty agreement. Then, when he listened to it again in his mind, he suspected she would have agreed had the meadow been a dismal swamp. She was ready to stop walking, and she was ready to have him stop toting that basket.

The meadow wasn’t so closely trimmed as it might have been had the federal government not had more urgent things to worry about. Long grass didn’t bother Yeager; he’d played in outfields where it wasn’t a whole lot shorter. He set down the basket, flipped open the lid, pulled out a blanket, and spread it on the ground. As soon as Barbara sat down on it, he did, too.

Now that the hauling was done, the picnic basket became her responsibility. She reached in and got out ham sandwiches wrapped in cloth napkins from the hospital-waxed paper was a thing of the past. The bread was homemade and sliced by hand; the ham came from a Hot Springs razorback; the mustard had never seen the inside of a factory. It might have been the best sandwich Sam had ever eaten. After it came hard-boiled eggs and a peach pie that gave the ham sandwich a run for its money.

The only rough spot in the road was the beer. Several people in Hot Springs were brewing, but what they turned out didn’t stack up too well against store-bought brands. It wasn’t cold, either. But Sam could drink it, and he did.

When he was through, he lay back on the blanket with a sigh of contentment. “I wish I had me a cigarette,” he said. “Otherwise, the world looks like a pretty fine place right now.” Barbara didn’t answer. He glanced over to her. She hadn’t done justice to either that magnificent sandwich or the peach pie. “Come on,” he told her. “You’re eating for two.”

“I know,” she said. “Sometimes I still have trouble keeping down food for one, though.” She looked a trifle green. Defensively, she added, “It’s better than it was a couple of months ago. Then I thought having a baby meant starving to death-or rather, eating something and then tossing it up right away. Thank heaven I’m not doing that any more.”

“You said it,” he answered. “Well, I’m not going to agitate you about it, not now. It’s too nice a day-now that that picnic basket’s sitting here on the blanket.” He consoled himself: “It’s downhill on the way back-and the basket’ll be lighter, too.”

A lazy breeze drifted through the pines, filling the meadow with their spicy scent. High overhead, a hawk circled. Blue larkspur and violets, great blue sage and purple cone splashed the rainbow here and there across the green grass. Bees buzzed from one flower to another. Flies snacked on the remains of the feast, and on the picnickers.

Barbara let out a squeak. Sam jumped; he’d been lulled by the peaceful surroundings-the most peace he’d known in quite a while. “What’s the matter?” he asked. He reached into the pocket of his chinos. If peace dissolved, as it had a way of doing, he was armed with nothing better than a pocketknife.

But Barbara pointed to the blanket and said, “A little green lizard just ran across there. I didn’t see it till it jumped out of the grass. Now it’s gone again.”

“I know the ones you mean,” Sam said, relaxing. “They can change colors-sometimes they’re brown instead of green. People around here call ’em chameleons on account of that, but I don’t think they are, not really. They don’t have the funny eyes real chameleons do, the ones that go every which way like Lizards’ eye turrets.”

Barbara sniffed. “I was looking for sympathy, not herpetology,” she said, but she was laughing while she said it. Then everything but concentration drained from her face. Her face was turned toward Sam, but she was looking inward. “The baby’s moving,” she murmured. Her eyes got wide. “Moving, heck-he’s kicking like nobody’s business. Come here, Sam. You should be able to feel this.”