by Stephen King
“If it’s all right to ride Millie, I can saddle her myself. I feed her, and she’s my special friend. People say mules ain’t smart, but Millie is.”
“Let’s see if you can do it without getting kicked,” I said.
It turned out he could, and smartly. He mounted up and said, “I guess I’m ready.” He even tried to give me a smile. It was awful to look at. I was sorry for the plan I’d set in motion, but all I had to do was think of the carnage we were leaving behind and Sister Fortuna’s ruined face to remind myself of what the stakes were.
“Will she skit in the wind?” I asked, nodding at the trim little mule. Sitting on her back, Young Bill’s feet came almost down to the ground. In another year, he’d be too big for her, but of course in another year, he’d probably be far from Debaria, just another wanderer on the face of a fading world. Millie would be a memory.
“Not Millie,” he said. “She’s as solid as a dromedary.”
“Aye, and what’s a dromedary?”
“Dunno, do I? It’s just something my da’ says. One time I asked him, and he didn’t know, either.”
“Come on, then,” I said. “The sooner we get to town, the sooner we’ll get out of this grit.” But I intended to make one stop before we got to town. I had something to show the boy while we were still alone.
* * *
About halfway between the ranch and Debaria, I spied a deserted sheepherder’s lean-to, and suggested we shelter in there for a bit and have a bite. Bill Streeter agreed willingly enough. He had lost his da’ and everyone else he’d known, but he was still a growing boy and he’d had nothing to eat since his dinner the night before.
We tethered our mounts away from the wind and sat on the floor inside the lean-to with our backs against the wall. I had dried beef wrapped in leaves in my saddlebag. The meat was salty, but my waterskin was full. The boy ate half a dozen chunks of the meat, tearing off big bites and washing them down with water.
A strong gust of wind shook the lean-to. Millie blatted a protest and fell silent.
“It’ll be a full-going simoom by dark,” Young Bill said. “You watch and see if it ain’t.”
“I like the sound of the wind,” I said. “It makes me think of a story my mother read to me when I was a sma’ one. ‘The Wind Through the Keyhole,’ it was called. Does thee know it?”
Young Bill shook his head. “Mister, are you really a gunslinger? Say true?”
“I am.”
“Can I hold one of your guns for a minute?”
“Never in life,” I said, “but you can look at one of these, if you’d like.” I took a shell from my belt and handed it to him.
He examined it closely, from brass base to lead tip. “Gods, it’s heavy! Long, too! I bet if you shot someone with one of these, he’d stay down.”
“Yes. A shell’s a dangerous thing. But it can be pretty, too. Would you like to see a trick I can do with this one?”
“Sure.”
I took it back and began to dance it from knuckle to knuckle, my fingers rising and falling in waves. Young Bill watched, wide-eyed. “How does thee do it?”
“The same way anyone does anything,” I said. “Practice.”
“Will you show me the trick?”
“If you watch close, you may see it for yourself,” I said. “Here it is . . . and here it isn’t.” I palmed the shell so fast it disappeared, thinking of Susan Delgado, as I supposed I always would when I did this trick. “Now here it is again.”
The shell danced fast . . . then slow . . . then fast again.
“Follow it with your eyes, Bill, and see if you can make out how I get it to disappear. Don’t take your eyes off it.” I dropped my voice to a lulling murmur. “Watch . . . and watch . . . and watch. Does it make you sleepy?”
“A little,” he said. His eyes slipped slowly closed, then the lids rose again. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“Did you not? Watch it go. Watch it slow. See it disappear and then . . . see it as it speeds up again.”
Back and forth the shell went. The wind blew, as lulling to me as my voice was to him.
“Sleep if you want, Bill. Listen to the wind and sleep. But listen to my voice, too.”
“I hear you, gunslinger.” His eyes closed again and this time didn’t reopen. His hands were clasped limply in his lap. “I hear you very well.”
“You can still see the shell, can’t you? Even with your eyes closed.”
“Yes . . . but it’s bigger now. It flashes like gold.”
“Do you say so?”
“Yes . . .”
“Go deeper, Bill, but hear my voice.”
“I hear.”
“I want you to turn your mind back to last night. Your mind and your eyes and your ears. Will you do that?”
A frown creased his brow. “I don’t want to.”
“It’s safe. All that’s happened, and besides, I’m with you.”
“You’re with me. And you have guns.”
“So I do. Nothing will happen to you as long as you can hear my voice, because we’re together. I’ll keep thee safe. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Your da’ told you to sleep out under the stars, didn’t he?”
“Aye. It was to be a warm night.”
“But that wasn’t the real reason, was it?”
“No. It was because of Elrod. Once he twirled the bunkhouse cat by her tail, and she never came back. Sometimes he pulls me around by my hair and sings ‘The Boy Who Loved Jenny.’ My da’ can’t stop him, because Elrod’s bigger. Also, he has a knife in his boot. He could cut with it. But he couldn’t cut the beast, could he?” His clasped hands twitched. “Elrod’s dead and I’m glad. I’m sorry about all the others . . . and my da’, I don’t know what I’ll do wi’out my da’ . . . but I’m glad about Elrod. He won’t tease me nummore. He won’t scare me nummore. I seen it, aye.”
So he did know more than the top of his mind had let him remember.
“Now you’re out on the graze.”
“On the graze.”
“Wrapped up in your blanket and shinnie.”
“Shaddie.”
“Your blanket and shaddie. You’re awake, maybe looking up at the stars, at Old Star and Old Mother—”
“No, no, asleep,” Bill said. “But the screams wake me up. The screams from the bunkhouse. And the sounds of fighting. Things are breaking. And something’s roaring.”
“What do you do, Bill?”
“I go down. I’m afraid to, but my da’ . . . my da’s in there. I look in the window at the far end. It’s greasepaper, but I can see through it well enough. More than I want to see. Because I see . . . I see . . . mister, can I wake up?”
“Not yet. Remember that I’m with you.”
“Have you drawn your guns, mister?” He was shivering.
“I have. To protect you. What do you see?”
“Blood. And a beast.”
“What kind, can you tell?”
“A bear. One so tall its head reaches the ceiling. It goes up the middle of the bunkhouse . . . between the cots, ye ken, and on its back legs . . . and it grabs the men . . . it grabs the men and pulls them to pieces with its great long claws.” Tears began to escape his closed lids and roll down his cheeks. “The last one was Elrod. He ran for the back door . . . where the woodpile is just outside, ye ken . . . and when he understood it would have him before he could open the door and dash out, he turned around to fight. He had his knife. He went to stab it. . . .”
Slowly, as if underwater, the boy’s right hand rose from his lap. It was curled into a fist. He made a stabbing motion with it.
“The bear grabbed his arm and tore it off his shoulder. Elrod screamed. He sounded like a horse I saw one time, after it stepped in a gompa hole and broke its leg. The thing . . . it hit Elrod in the face with ’is own arm. The blood flew. There was gristle that flapped and wound around the skin like strings. Elrod fell against the door and started to slide down. The bear g
rabbed him and lifted him up and bit into his neck and there was a sound . . . mister, it bit Elrod’s head right off his neck. I want to wake up now. Please.”
“Soon. What did you do then?”
“I ran. I meant to go to the big house, but sai Jefferson . . . he . . . he . . .”
“He what?”
“He shot at me! I don’t think he meant to. I think he just saw me out of the corner of his eye and thought . . . I heard the bullet go by me. Wishhh! That’s how close it was. So I ran for the corral instead. I went between the poles. While I was crossing, I heard two more shots. Then there was more screaming. I didn’t look to see, but I knew it was sai Jefferson screaming that time.”
This part we knew from the tracks and leavings: how the thing had come charging out of the bunkhouse, how it had grabbed away the four-shot pistol and bent the barrel, how it had unzipped the rancher’s guts and thrown him into the bunkhouse with his proddies. The shot Jefferson had thrown at Young Bill had saved the boy’s life. If not for that, he would have run straight to the big house and been slaughtered with the Jefferson womenfolk.
“You go into the old hostelry where we found you.”
“Aye, so I do. And hide under the tack. But then I hear it . . . coming.”
He had gone back to the now way of remembering, and his words came more slowly. They were broken by bursts of weeping. I knew it was hurting him, remembering terrible things always hurts, but I pressed on. I had to, for what happened in that abandoned hostelry was the important part, and Young Bill was the only one who had been there. Twice he tried to come back to the then way of remembering, the ago. This was a sign that he was trying to struggle free of his trance, so I took him deeper. In the end I got it all.
The terror he’d felt as the grunting, snuffling thing approached. The way the sounds had changed, blurring into the snarls of a cat. Once it had roared, Young Bill said, and when he heard that sound, he’d let loose water in his trousers. He hadn’t been able to hold it. He waited for the cat to come in, knowing it would scent him where he lay—from the urine—only the cat didn’t. There was silence . . . silence . . . and then more screaming.
“At first it’s the cat screaming, then it changes into a human screaming. High to begin with, it’s like a woman, but then it starts to go down until it’s a man. It screams and screams. It makes me want to scream. I thought—”
“Think,” I said. “You think, Bill, because it’s happening now. Only I’m here to protect you. My guns are drawn.”
“I think my head will split open. Then it stops . . . and it comes in.”
“It walks up the middle to the other door, doesn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Not walks. Shuffles. Staggers. Like it’s hurt. It goes right past me. He. Now it’s he. He almost falls down, but grabs one of the stall doors and stays up. Then he goes on. He goes on a little better now.”
“Stronger?”
“Aye.”
“Do you see his face?” I thought I already knew the answer to that.
“No, only his feet, through the tack. The moon’s up, and I see them very well.”
Perhaps so, but we wouldn’t be identifying the skin-man from his feet, I felt quite sure. I opened my mouth, ready to start bringing him up from his trance, when he spoke again.
“There’s a ring around one of his ankles.”
I leaned forward, as if he could see me . . . and if he was deep enough, mayhap he could, even with his eyes closed. “What kind of ring? Was it metal, like a manacle?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Like a bridle-ring? You know, a hoss-clinkum?”
“No, no. Like on Elrod’s arm, but that’s a picture of a nekkid woman, and you can hardly make it out nummore.”
“Bill, are you talking about a tattoo?”
In his trance, the boy smiled. “Aye, that’s the word. But this one wasn’t a picture, just a blue ring around his ankle. A blue ring in his skin.”
I thought, We have you. You don’t know it yet, sai skin-man, but we have you.
“Mister, can I wake up now? I want to wake up.”
“Is there anything else?”
“The white mark?” He seemed to be asking himself.
“What white mark?”
He shook his head slowly from side to side, and I decided to let it go. He’d had enough.
“Come to the sound of my voice. As you come, you’ll leave everything that happened last night behind, because it’s over. Come, Bill. Come now.”
“I’m coming.” His eyes rolled back and forth behind his closed lids.
“You’re safe. Everything that happened at the ranch is ago. Isn’t it?”
“Yes . . .”
“Where are we?”
“On Debaria high road. We’re going to town. I ain’t been there but once. My da’ bought me candy.”
“I’ll buy you some, too,” I said, “for you’ve done well, Young Bill of the Jefferson. Now open your eyes.”
He did, but at first he only looked through me. Then his eyes cleared and he gave an uncertain smile. “I fell asleep.”
“You did. And now we should push for town before the wind grows too strong. Can you do that, Bill?”
“Aye,” he said, and as he got up he added, “I was dreaming of candy.”
* * *
The two not-so-good deputies were in the sheriff’s office when we got there, one of them—a fat fellow wearing a tall black hat with a gaudy rattlesnake band—taking his ease behind Peavy’s desk. He eyed the guns I was wearing and got up in a hurry.
“You’re the gunslinger, ain’tcha?” he said. “Well-met, well-met, we both say so. Where’s t’other one?”
I escorted Young Bill through the archway and into the jail without answering. The boy looked at the cells with interest but no fear. The drunk, Salty Sam, was long gone, but his aroma lingered.
From behind me, the other deputy asked, “What do you think you’re doing, young sai?”
“My business,” I said. “Go back to the office and bring me the keyring to these cells. And be quick about it, if you please.”
None of the smaller cells had mattresses on their bunks, so I took Young Bill to the drunk-and-disorderly cell where Jamie and I had slept the night before. As I put the two straw pallets together to give the boy a little more comfort—after what he’d been through, I reckoned he deserved all the comfort he could get—Bill looked at the chalked map on the wall.
“What is it, sai?”
“Nothing to concern you,” I said. “Now listen to me. I’m going to lock you in, but you’re not to be afraid, for you’ve done nothing wrong. ’Tis but for your own safety. I have an errand that needs running, and when it’s done, I’m going to come in there with you.”
“And lock us both in,” said he. “You’d better lock us both in. In case it comes back.”
“Do you remember it now?”
“A little,” said he, looking down. “It wasn’t a man . . . then it was. It killed my da’.” He put the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Poor Da’.”
The deputy with the black hat returned with the keys. The other was right behind him. Both were gawking at the boy as if he were a two-headed goat in a roadshow.
I took the keys. “Good. Now back to the office, both of you.”
“Seems like you might be throwing your weight around a little, youngster,” Black Hat said, and the other—a little man with an undershot jaw—nodded vigorously.
“Go now,” I said. “This boy needs rest.”
They looked me up and down, then went. Which was the correct thing. The only thing, really. My mood was not good.
The boy kept his eyes covered until their bootheels faded back through the arch, then he lowered his hands. “Will you catch him, sai?”
“Yes.”
“And will you kill him?”
“Does thee want me to kill him?”
He considered this, and nodded. “Aye. For what he did to my
da’, and to sai Jefferson, and all the others. Even Elrod.”
I closed the door of the cell, found the right key, and turned it. The keyring I hung over my wrist, for it was too big for my pocket. “I’ll make you a promise, Young Bill,” I said. “One I swear to on my father’s name. I won’t kill him, but you shall be there when he swings, and with my own hand I’ll give you the bread to scatter beneath his dead feet.”
* * *
In the office, the two not-so-good deputies eyed me with caution and dislike. That was nothing to me. I hung the keyring on the peg next to the jing-jang and said, “I’ll be back in an hour, maybe a little less. In the meantime, no one goes into the jail. And that includes you two.”
“High-handed for a shaveling,” the one with the undershot jaw remarked.
“Don’t fail me in this,” I said. “It wouldn’t be wise. Do you understand?”
Black Hat nodded. “But the sheriff will hear how you done with us.”
“Then you’ll want to have a mouth still capable of speech when he gets back,” I said, and went out.
* * *
The wind had continued to strengthen, blowing clouds of gritty, salt-flavored dust between the false-fronted buildings. I had Debaria high street entirely to myself except for a few hitched horses that stood with their hindquarters turned to the wind and their heads unhappily lowered. I would not leave my own so—nor Millie, the mule the boy had ridden—and led them down to the livery stable at the far end of the street. There the hostler was glad to take them, especially when I split him off half a gold knuck from the bundle I carried in my vest.
No, he said in answer to my first question, there was no jeweler in Debaria, nor ever had been in his time. But the answer to my second question was yar, and he pointed across the street to the blacksmith’s shop. The smith himself was standing in the doorway, the hem of his tool-filled leather apron flapping in the wind. I walked across and he put his fist to his forehead. “Hile.”
I hiled him in return and told him what I wanted—what Vannay had said I might need. He listened closely, then took the shell I handed him. It was the very one I’d used to entrance Young Bill. The blackie held it up to the light. “How many grains of powder does it blow, can’ee say?”
Of course I could. “Fifty-seven.”