The ferry was rather peculiar. Instead of the moorage, mechanisms and other things that came up in my head with the word “steam”, there was no trace. There were two large boats, fastened together by a metal grid on which the boards were fixed. This ferry chuckled, creaked, but took me to the car. Vladimir the ferryman, like a real carrier on the river of time, blew his nose loudly, spat, and seized the pole sticking out of the water.

- You, lad, give to others. There lies! - Vova raced on the pole, moving this raft from its place.

- I give! - In fact, I managed to give with difficulty. But I puffed, sweated, putting power in a pole lowered to the bottom. - Anchor?

“What anchor?” - Vova smiled broadly, showing teeth sticking out of tobacco yellow. - There is no flow. Rope tie and good. And spring! Yes! In the spring everything is like on Niagara!

- What is a waterfall? - Hmm, a couple - three such walker and steel muscles to the envy of the pitches are provided.

- What? Not. There is nothing falling here. - The raft moved smoothly, hitting the depth, loosening the load on my swollen muscles. - In winter, the ice is thick. Spring water rushing! In the meantime, the sun warms up, the ice will pass, you have time to prepare the ferry. And a little - right on the water. The people go to the church.

- For the transportation of money you take? - How much does it take for such work?

- What is the fee? - He shrugged. - Here it is necessary to lay down. Circumvent braid. - He leaned on the pole, mowing at me. All gone. He wiped sweat from his forehead. - Money from the community is paid for the ferry from the area, and all right. What money to take?

- A. - Who pays, what community, from which district, how much? Some questions. This is all clear to him. For me, his answer is a solid rebus. - And often, like this? - The pole in my hand was trembling.

- Yes, good. - He aimed sixth at the shore. - Here we are at home. Come on, podvazhivay!

Steel cable still was. While I was holding the ferry from sliding down the formed current, the ferryman jumped off, twisted the handle of either the winch, or the air-raid siren. The thin cable tense, jumped out of the water, pulled the ferry to the shore, pulling out his nose on the sandy tongue.

- Everything. We arrived. - He happily smiled. - Back easier.

- And how many of you live here? - The place from here was seen as deserted.

- Yes, I'm alone. - He pulled the board, dropped on board the ferry. - Been me.

- Who? - What kind of beast is a bob.

- Well, how is it? Widowed, children are all in the city.

- And the other relatives? - The car must be gently lowered. In the sand can get stuck. Where are the boards?

- Only nephew Yuri. In the area lives. Occasionally arrives. But coming.

The car cautiously slid off the ferry, also gently rolled across the boards on the sand and soared up to the knoll, behind which stood a small group of houses, a small but beautiful carved and aerial church. Rolling over to the houses, I stopped the car, turned off the engine, opening my ears to loud silence flowing with the wind. What a beauty! I climbed higher to the trigonometric sign, looking around at everything. The snake of the river glitters, compressed from all sides by the forest, as from the picture they stand at home, the church seems to dissolve in the quivering air. Beauty! I spun around, arms outstretched. Do you know how in childhood - you are spinning, spinning, and then you stop, and everything jumps around, changes forms? And now, for some reason, I wanted to spin, look at this world through mosaic eyes.

- What are you doing? - Volodya unexpectedly stood in front of me with a stake in his hand.They have here that count indispensable attribute of clothing?

- In childhood, so that's cool. - I smiled happily - from ear to ear. - Then you fall, and everything is spinning in your head! Childhood remembered.

- A. - He nodded. - And then look.

- What to look at? - I was overwhelmed with something so positive that I was ready to hug and kiss him. Of course, Vova did not know what homosexuality is and in what forms it manifests, therefore, I would definitely have got a dry, steel fist in his face.

- Yes, here is all that. - The answer was exhaustive.

- So that? - It is necessary to clarify, so as not to be deceived without knowing it.

- You see, Serge. - He leaned on the stake, looked at the other side of the river, from where we started twenty minutes ago. - You spent the night in a bad place.

- Is it like a bad one? Explain. - I sat on the ground, he sat down opposite, putting a stake in front of him. Like a weapon.

- After the meteorological station burned down together with the girls, everyone started there. As the arriving correspondents of the half-tales told us. “Does he mean abnormal phenomena?” “And then,” he sighed, “people began one after another like flies to die.” We slept like marmots and died in a dream. One only woke up, drank a bottle of vodka in one gulp, said that the women were hot there and gave up his soul. Since then, this village we all go around. - Your mother! Is that so ?! Here, damn it, got it! ?? Who to say? Do not believe it! I, in fact, with ghosts with all heavy and without stopping? !! - And who comes there who comes or goes crazy, or becomes like a ghoul.

- Yeah. - About the ghouls understandable. - Therefore, the stake is aspen, bringing to the island with the church, checking, and my circling here is regarded as confusion?

- Well, sort of. - Vova wiped his nose, nodded to me. - Well, what, Seryoga? Do what we will?

- Certainly not a stake on the head! - I laughed.

- Well, we'll see. - He smiled, but inside I squeezed everything. After all, if anything, not stale. Stabbed a stake, and then another, and planted like a pig on a spit. Hmm.

- Which house is free? I want to stay with you for a couple of days. - Indeed, it is necessary to wake up from the experience, besides, the body required rehabilitation. Would love me to the death of these beauties, had he not appeared with a stake.

- It's possible. - He got up, pointed to the houses. - Here are the four, all free. Choose, live. Only there it is necessary to heat it. And for this, it is necessary to saw and chop firewood.

- Just like in a fairy tale. To get something, you have to do something.

- So, this. People told the tale, wisdom was passed on. - A storyteller-folklorist stretched, straightening muscles. - Come on, see what's there and how.

- Come on. - I got up, shook off his pants from sticking grass. - You won't beat the stake, Vladimir?

- And what about you, Seryoga, to beat, if you are normal? Bad bit, but normal. - The psychologist by nature went down, carrying a stake on his shoulder.

It was not a tricky business to cut, chop firewood for the fire in the house, but it took time. In the evening, tired, I pulled a brandy out of my drink box and went to visit my neighbor. Hospitable neighbor surprised by such a set of snacks that I was confused.

- Did you do everything yourself? - The hand involuntarily seized a salted tomato. M !!! What a delicious!

- Part yes. Part of the nephew's wife helped. And part of Irinka did.

- Relative?

- Well, sort of. - He crushed his lips, as if thinking something. - Sit down! What to pull? - And reached for the bottle. - Stop, and you happen to be wrong?

- What? - Some puzzles from him. Zakhar-riddle you ours!

- Not drunk?

- Not seen. - I smiled. - Moreover, with such a snack, a squirrel does not threaten us, for sure.

- Who? Squirrel? - He looked at me in surprise. Ugh! We must understand where you are, with whom you are. And then the whole evening will be the evening of solving charades on both sides!

- Well, delirium tremens. When...

- I know that. - He poured half a glass of himself, me, put the bottle back. - Do not be afraid. If you fall, then put it. Your hut anyway, only by tomorrow's morning will warm up. So that.

- For the meeting! - Do not drink for a successful rescue from sexual ghosts, vampires? Then just a stake ogrebu.

- With a date! - Volodya slowly and sedately drank half a cup, put it on the table, zanyuhal palm. - Grrrr.Warm

- Cognac. - I was fascinated looking at him. Strong! Just like that, and immediately half a cup? Strong! Here you need an eye, but an eye. Isn't he drunk? - Good French cognac. He bought in France.

- Bought in France? - He repeated like an echo, took the bottle, spun ...