by Stephen King
He started up the stairs, chuckling a little, his limp quite pronounced- it got worse late at night. It was a limp Roland’s old teacher, Cort, might have recognized, for Cort had seen the blow which caused it. Cort’s own father had dealt it with an ironwood club, breaking Eldred Jonas’s leg in the yard behind the Great Hall of Gilead before taking the boy’s weapon and sending him west, gunless, into exile.
Eventually, the man the boy had become had found a gun, of course; the exiles always did, if they looked hard enough. That such guns could never be quite the same as the big ones with the sandalwood grips might haunt them for the rest of their lives, but those who needed guns could still find them, even in this world.
Reynolds watched until he was gone, then took his seat at Coral Thorin’s desk, shuffled the cards, and continued the game which Jonas had left half-finished.
Outside, the sun was coming up.
Chapter V
WELCOME TO TOWN
1
Two nights after arriving in the Barony of Mejis, Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain rode their mounts beneath an adobe arch with the words come in peace inscribed above it. Beyond was a cobblestone courtyard lit with torches. The resin which coated these had been doctored somehow so that the torches glowed different colors: green, orangey-red, a kind of sputtery pink that made Roland think of fireworks. He could hear the sound of guitars, the murmur of voices, the laughter of women. The air was redolent of those smells which would always remind him of Mejis: sea-salt, oil, and pine.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Alain muttered. He was a big boy with a mop of unruly blond hair spilling out from under his stockman’s hat. He had cleaned up well-they all had-but Alain, no social butterfly under the best of circumstances, looked scared to death. Cuthbert was doing better, but Roland guessed his old friend’s patina of insouciance didn’t go very deep. If there was to be leading done here, he would have to do it.
“You’ll be fine,” he told Alain. “Just-”
“Oh, he looks fine,” Cuthbert said with a nervous laugh as they crossed the courtyard. Beyond it was Mayor’s House, a sprawling, many-winged adobe hacienda that seemed to spill light and laughter from every window. “White as a sheet, ugly as a-”
“Shut up,” Roland said curtly, and the teasing smile tumbled off Cuthbert’s face at once. Roland noted this, then turned to Alain again. “Just don’t drink anything with alcohol in it. You know what to say on that account. Remember the rest of our story, too. Smile. Be pleasant. Use what social graces you have. Remember how the Sheriff fell all over himself to make us feel welcome.”
Alain nodded at that, looking a little more confident.
“In the matter of social graces,” Cuthbert said, “they won’t have many themselves, so we should all be a step ahead.”
Roland nodded, then saw that the bird’s skull was back on the horn of Cuthbert’s saddle. “And get rid of that!”
Looking guilty, Cuthbert stuffed “the lookout” hurriedly into his saddlebag. Two men wearing white jackets, white pants, and sandals were coming forward, bowing and smiling.
“Keep your heads,” Roland said, lowering his voice. “Both of you. Remember why you’re here. And remember the faces of your fathers.” He clapped Alain, who still looked doubtful, on the shoulder. Then he turned to the hostlers. “Goodeven, gents,” he said. “May your days be long upon the earth.”
They both grinned, their teeth flashing in the extravagant torchlight. The older one bowed. “And your own as well, young masters. Welcome to Mayor’s House.”
2
The High Sheriff had welcomed them the day before every bit as happily as the hostlers.
So far everyone had greeted them happily, even the carters they had passed on their way into town, and that alone made Roland feel suspicious and on his guard. He told himself he was likely being foolish-of course the locals were friendly and helpful, that was why they had been sent here, because Mejis was both out-of-the-way and loyal to the Affiliation-and it probably was foolish, but he thought it best to be on close watch, just the same. To be a trifle nervous. The three of them were little more than children, after all, and if they fell into trouble here, it was apt to be as a result of taking things at face value.
The combined Sheriff’s office and jail o’ Barony was on Hill Street, overlooking the bay. Roland didn’t know for sure, but guessed that few if any hungover drunks and wife-beaters anywhere else in Mid-World woke up to such picturesque views: a line of many-colored boathouses to the south, the docks directly below, with boys and old men line-fishing while the women mended nets and sails; beyond them, Hambry’s small fleet moving back and forth on the sparkling blue water of the bay, setting their nets in the morning, pulling them in the afternoon.
Most buildings on the High Street were adobe, but up here, overlooking Hambry’s business section, they were as squat and bricky as any narrow lane in Gilead’s Old Quarter. Well kept, too, with wrought-iron gates in front of most and tree-shaded paths. The roofs were orange tile, the shutters closed against the summer sun. It was hard to believe, riding down this street with their horses’ hoofs clocking on the swept cobbles, that the northwestern side of the Affiliation-the ancient land of Eld, Arthur’s kingdom-could be on fire and in danger of falling.
The jailhouse was just a larger version of the post office and land office; a smaller version of the Town Gathering Hall. Except, of course, for the bars on the windows facing down toward the small harbor.
Sheriff Herk Avery was a big-bellied man in a lawman’s khaki pants and shirt. He must have been watching them approach through the spy hole in the center of the jail’s iron-banded front door, because the door was thrown open before Roland could even reach for the turn-bell in the center. Sheriff Avery appeared on the stoop, his belly preceding him as a bailiff may precede My Lord Judge into court. His arms were thrown wide in the most amiable of greetings.
He bowed deeply to them (Cuthbert said later he was afraid the man might overbalance and go rolling down the steps; perhaps go rolling all the way down to the harbor) and wished them repeated goodmorns, tapping away at the base of his throat like a madman the whole while. His smile was so wide it looked as if it might cut his head clean in two. Three deputies with a distinctly farmerish look about them, dressed in khaki like the Sheriff, crowded into the door behind Avery and gawked. That was what it was, all right, a gawk; there was just no other word for that sort of openly curious and totally unselfconscious stare.
Avery shook each boy by the hand, continuing to bow as he did so, and nothing Roland said could get him to stop until he was done. When he finally was, he showed them inside. The office was delightfully cool in spite of the beating midsummer sun. That was the advantage of brick, of course. It was big as well, and cleaner than any High Sheriff’s office Roland had ever been in before… and he had been in at least half a dozen over the last three years, accompanying his father on several short trips and one longer patrol-swing.
There was a rolltop desk in the center, a notice-board to the right of the door (the same sheets of foolscap had been scribbled on over and over; paper was a rare commodity in Mid-World), and, in the far comer, two rifles in a padlocked case. These were such ancient blunderbusses that Roland wondered if there was ammunition for them. He wondered if they would fire, come to that. To the left of the gun-case, an open door gave on the jail itself-three cells on each side of a short corridor, and a smell of strong lye soap drifting out.
They’ve cleaned for our coming, Roland thought. He was amused, touched, and uneasy. Cleaned it as though we were a troop of Inner Barony horse-career soldiers who might want to stage a hard inspection instead of three lads serving punishment detail.
But was such nervous care on the part of their hosts really so strange? They were from New Canaan, after all, and folk in this tucked-away corner of the world might well see them as a species of visiting royalty.
Sheriff Avery introduced his deputies. Roland shook hands with all of them, not t
rying to memorize their names. It was Cuthbert who took care of names, and it was a rare occasion when he dropped one. The third, a bald fellow with a monocle hanging around his neck on a ribbon, actually dropped to one knee before them.
“Don’t do that, ye great idiot!” Avery cried, yanking him back up by the scruff of his neck. “What kind of a bumpkin will they think ye? Besides, you’ve embarrassed them, so ye have!”
“That’s all right,” Roland said (he was, in fact, very embarrassed, although trying not to show it). “We’re really nothing at all special, you know-”
“Nothing special!” Avery said, laughing. His belly, Roland noticed, did not shake as one might have expected it to do; it was harder than it looked. The same might be true of its owner. “Nothing special, he says! Five hundred mile or more from the In-World they’ve come, our first official visitors from the Affiliation since a gunslinger passed through on the Great Road four year ago, and yet he says they’re nothing special! Would ye sit, my boys? I’ve got graf, which ye won’t want so early in the day- p'raps not at all, given your ages (and if you’ll forgive me for statin so bald the obvious fact of yer youth, for youth’s not a thing to be ashamed of, so it’s not, we were all young once), and I also have white iced tea, which I recommend most hearty, as Dave’s wife makes it and she’s a dab hand with most any potable.”
Roland looked at Cuthbert and Alain, who nodded and smiled (and tried not to look all at sea), then back at Sheriff Avery. White tea would go down a treat in a dusty throat, he said.
One of the deputies went to fetch it, chairs were produced and set in a row at one side of Sheriff Avery’s rolltop, and the business of the day commenced.
“You know who ye are and where ye hail from, and I know the same,” Sheriff Avery said, sitting down in his own chair (it uttered a feeble groan beneath his bulk but held steady). “I can hear In-World in yer voices, but more important, I can see it in yer faces.
“Yet we hold to the old ways here in Hambry, sleepy and rural as we may be; aye, we hold to our course and remember the faces of our fathers as well’s we can. So, although I’d not keep yer long from yer duties, and if ye’ll forgive me for the impertinence, I’d like a look at any papers and documents of passage ye might just happen to’ve brought into town with ye.”
They just “happened” to have brought all of their papers into town with them, as Roland was sure Sheriff Avery well knew they would. He went through them quite slowly for a man who’d promised not to hold them from their duties, tracing the well-folded sheets (the linen content so high that the documents were perhaps closer to cloth than paper) with one pudgy finger, his lips moving. Every now and then the finger would reverse as he reread a line. The two other deputies stood behind him, looking sagely down over his large shoulders. Roland wondered if either could actually read.
William Dearborn. Drover’s son.
Richard Stockworth. Rancher’s son.
Arthur Heath. Stockline breeder’s son.
The identification document belonging to each was signed by an attestor-James Reed (of Hemphill) in the case of Dearborn, Piet Raven-head (of Pennilton) in the case of Stockworth, Lucas Rivers (of Gilead) in the case of Heath. All in order, descriptions nicely matched. The papers were handed back with profuse thanks. Roland next handed Avery a letter which he took from his wallet with some care. Avery handled it in the same fashion, his eyes growing wide as he saw the frank at the bottom.” 'Pon my soul, boys! ’twas a gunslinger wrote this!”
“Aye, so it was,” Cuthbert agreed in a voice of wonder. Roland kicked his ankle-hard-without taking his respectful eyes from Avery’s face.
The letter above the frank was from one Steven Deschain of Gilead, a gunslinger (which was to say a knight, squire, peacemaker, and Baron… the last title having almost no meaning in the modem day, despite all John Farson’s ranting) of the twenty-ninth generation descended from Arthur of Eld, on the side line of descent (the long-descended gel of one of Arthur’s many gillies, in other words). To Mayor Hartwell Thorin, Chancellor Kimba Rimer, and High Sheriff Herkimer Avery, it sent greetings and recommended to their notice the three young men who delivered this document, Masters Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath. These had been sent on special mission from the Affiliation to serve as counters of all materials which might serve the Affiliation in time of need (the word war was omitted from the document, but glowed between every line). Steven Deschain, on behalf of the Affiliation of Baronies, exhorted Misters Thorin, Rimer, and Avery to afford the Affiliation’s nominated counters every help in their service, and to be particularly careful in the enumerations of all livestock, all supplies of food, and all forms of transport. Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath would be in Mejis for at least three months, Deschain wrote, possibly as long as a year. The document finished by inviting any or all of the addressed public officials to “write us word of these young men and their deportment, in all detail as you shall imagine of interest to us.” And, it begged, “Do not stint in this matter, if you love us.”
Tell us if they behaved themselves, in other words. Tell us if they’ve learned their lesson.
The deputy with the monocle came back while the High Sheriff was perusing this document. He carried a tray loaded with four glasses of white tea and bent down with it like a butler. Roland murmured thanks and handed the glasses around. He took the last for himself, raised it to his lips, and saw Alain looking at him, his blue eyes bright in his stolid face.
Alain shook his glass slightly-just enough to make the ice tinkle- and Roland responded with the barest sliver of a nod. He had expected cool tea from a jug kept in a nearby springhouse, but there were actual chunks of ice in the glasses. Ice in high summer. It was interesting.
And the tea was, as promised, delicious.
Avery finished the letter and handed it back to Roland with the air of one passing on a holy relic. “Ye want to keep that safe about yer person, Will Dearborn-aye, very safe indeed!”
“Yes, sir.” He tucked the letter and his identification back into his purse. His friends “Richard” and “Arthur” were doing the same.
“This is excellent white tea, sir,” Alain said. “I’ve never had better.”
“Aye,” Avery said, sipping from his own glass.” ’tis the honey that makes it so fearsome. Eh, Dave?”
The deputy with (he monocle smiled from his place by the notice-hoard. “1 believe so, but Judy don’t like to say. She had the recipe from her mother.”
“Aye, we must remember the faces of our mothers, too, so we must.” Sheriff Avery looked sentimental for a moment, but Roland had an idea that the face of his mother was the furthest thing from the big man’s mind just then. He turned to Alain, and sentiment was replaced by a surprising shrewdness.
“Ye’re wondering about the ice, Master Stockworth.”
Alain started. “Well, I…”
“Ye expected no such amenity in a backwater like Hambry, I’ll warrant,” Avery said, and although there was a joshing quality on top of his voice, Roland thought there was something else entirely underneath.
He doesn’t like us. He doesn’t like what he thinks of as our “city ways.” He hasn’t known us long enough to know what kind of ways we have, if any at all, but already he doesn’t like them. He thinks we’re a trio of snotnoses; that we see him and everyone else here as country bumpkins.
“Not just Hambry,” Alain said quietly. “Ice is as rare in the Inner Arc these days as anywhere else, Sheriff Avery. When I grew up, I saw it mostly as a special treat at birthday parties and such.”
“There was always ice on Glowing Day,” Cuthbert put in. He spoke with very un-Cuthbertian quiet. “Except for the fireworks, that’s what we liked about it most.”
“Is that so, is that so,” Sheriff Avery said in an amazed, wonders-will-never-cease tone. Avery perhaps didn’t like them riding in like this, didn’t like having to take up what he would probably call “half the damn morning” with them; he didn’t like their clothes, their fancy iden
tification papers, their accents, or their youth. Least of all their youth. Roland could understand all that, but wondered if it was the whole story. If there was something else going on here, what was it?
“There’s a gas-fired refrigerator and stove in the Town Gathering Hall,” Avery said. “Both work. There’s plenty of earth-gas out at Citgo- that’s the oil patch east of town. Yer passed it on yer way in, I wot.”
They nodded.
“Stove’s nobbut a curiosity these days-a history lesson for the schoolchildren-but the refrigerator comes in handy, so it does.” Avery held up his glass and looked through the side. “Specially in summer.”
He sipped some tea, smacked his lips, and smiled at Alain, “You see? No mystery.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t found use for the oil,” Roland said. “No generators in town, Sheriff?”
“Aye, there be four or five,” Avery said. “The biggest is out at Francis Lengyll’s Rocking B ranch, and I recall when it useter run. It’s HONDA. Do ye kennit that name, boys? HONDA?”
“I’ve seen it once or twice,” Roland said, “on old motor-driven bicycles.”
“Aye? In any case, none of the generators will run on the oil from the Citgo patch. Tis too thick. Tarry goo, is all. We have no refineries here.”
“I see,” Alain said. “In any case, ice in summer’s a treat. However it comes to the glass.” He let one of the chunks slip into his mouth, and crunched it between his teeth.
Avery looked at him a moment longer, as if to make sure the subject was closed, then switched his gaze back to Roland. His fat face was once more radiant with his broad, untrustworthy smile.