The Regulators читать онлайн

eone want to tell me what in the name of Christ Jesus the Redeemer went on here?” he asked.No one replied, and after a moment Johnny Marinville realized they were all looking at him. He stepped forward, read the little plaque pinned to the pocket of the man’s crisp uniform blouse, and said: “Outlaws, Captain Richardson.”“I beg your pardon?”“Outlaws. Regulators. Renegades from the wastes.”“My friend, if you see anything funny about this-”“I don’t, sir. No indeed. And it’s going to get even further from funny when you look in there.” Johnny pointed toward the Wyler house, and as he did suddenly thought of his guitar. It was like thinking about a glass of iced tea when you were hot and thirsty and tired. He thought of how nice it would be to sit on his porch step and strum and sing “The Ballad of Jesse James” in the key of D. That was the one that went, “Oh, Jesse had a wife to mourn for his life, three children they were brave”. He supposed his old Gibson might have a hole in it, his house looked pretty well trashed (looked as if it was no longer sitting exactly right on its foundations, for that matter), but on the other hand, it might be perfectly fine. Some of them had come through okay, after all.Johnny started in that direction, already hearing the song as it would come from under his hand and out of his mouth: “Oh, Robert Ford, Robert Ford, I wonder how you must feel? For you slept in Jesse’s bed, and you ate of Jesse’s bread, and you have laid Jesse James down in his grave.”“Hey!” the cop who looked like Ben Johnson called truculently. “Just where in the hell do you think you’re going?”“To sing a song about the good guys and the bad guys,” Johnny said. He put his head down and felt the hazy heat of the summer sun on