by Stephen King
Quint looked nervously around at the grass, which rose higher than his head. Then his lips tightened and he returned his attention to Jonas.
“If they attack, they’ll try to take the ball,” Jonas continued. “And sai, mark me well: any man who doesn’t die protecting it will wish he had.” He lifted his chin at the vaqs, who sat astride their horses in a line behind the black cart. “Tell them that.”
“Aye, boss,” Quint said.
“When you reach Lengyll’s party, you’ll be safe.”
“How long should we wait for yer if ye don’t come?”
“Til hell freezes over. Now go.” As Quint left, Jonas turned to Reynolds and Renfrew. “We’re going to make a little side-trip, boys,” he said.
10
“Roland.” Alain’s voice was low and urgent. “They’ve turned around.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. There’s another group coming along behind them. A much larger one. That’s where they’re headed.”
“Safety in numbers, that’s all,” Cuthbert said.
“Do they have the ball?” Roland asked. “Can you touch it yet?”
“Yes, they have it. It makes them easy to touch even though they’re going the other way now. Once you find it, it glows like a lamp in a mineshaft.”
“Does Rhea still have the keeping of it?”
“I think so. It’s awful to touch her.”
“Jonas is afraid of us,” Roland said. “He wants more men around him when he comes. That’s what it is, what it must be.” Unaware that he was both right and badly out in his reckoning. Unaware that for one of the few times since they had left Gilead, he had lapsed into a teenager’s disastrous certainty.
“What do we do?” Alain asked.
“Sit here. Listen. Wait. They’ll bring the ball this way again if they’re going to Hanging Rock. They’ll have to.”
“Susan?” Cuthbert asked. “Susan and Sheemie? What about them? How do we know they’re all right?”
“I suppose that we don’t.” Roland sat down, cross-legged, with Pusher’s trailing reins in his lap. “But Jonas and his men will be back soon enough. And when they come, we’ll do what we must.”
11
Susan hadn’t wanted to sleep inside-the hut felt wrong to her without Roland. She had left Sheemie huddled under the old hides in the comer and taken her own blankets outside. She sat in the hut’s doorway for a little while, looking up at the stars and praying for Roland in her own fashion. When she began to feel a little better, she lay down on one blanket and pulled the other over her. It seemed an eternity since Maria had shaken her out of her heavy sleep, and the open-mouthed, glottal snores drifting out of the hut didn’t bother her much. She slept with her head pillowed on one arm, and didn’t wake when, twenty minutes later, Sheemie came to the doorway, blinked at her sleepily, and then walked off into the grass to urinate. The only one to notice him was Caprichoso, who stuck out his long muzzle and took a nip at Sheemie’s butt as the boy passed him. Sheemie, still mostly asleep, reached back and pushed the muzzle away. He knew Capi’s tricks well enough, so he did.
Susan dreamed of the willow grove-bird and bear and hare and fish-and what woke her wasn’t Sheemie’s return from his necessary but a cold circle of steel pressing into her neck. There was a loud click that she recognized at once from the Sheriff’s office: a pistol being cocked. The willow grove faded from the eye of her mind.
“Shine, little sunbeam,” said a voice. For a moment her bewildered, half-waking mind tried to believe it was yesterday, and Maria wanted her to get up and out of Seafront before whoever had killed Mayor Thorin and Chancellor Rimer could come back and kill her, as well.
No good. It wasn’t the strong light of midmorning that her eyes opened upon, but the ash-pallid glow of five o'clock. Not a woman’s voice but a man’s. And not a hand shaking her shoulder but the barrel of a gun against her neck.
She looked up and saw a lined, narrow face framed by white hair. Lips no more than a scar. Eyes the same faded blue as Roland’s. Eldred Jonas. The man standing behind him had bought her own da drinks once upon a happier time: Hash Renfrew. A third man, one of Jonas’s ka-tet, ducked into the hut. Freezing terror filled her midsection-some for her, some for Sheemie. She wasn’t sure the boy would even understand what was happening to them. These are two of the three men who tried to kill him, she thought. He’ll understand that much.
“Here you are, Sunbeam, here you come,” Jonas said companionably, watching her blink away the sleepfog. “Good! You shouldn’t be napping all the way out here on your own, not a pretty sai such as yourself. But don’t worry, I’ll see you get back to where you belong.”
His eyes flicked up as the redhead with the cloak stepped out of the hut. Alone. “What’s she got in there. Clay? Anything?”
Reynolds shook his head. “All still on the hoss, I reckon.”
Sheemie, Susan thought. Where are you, Sheemie?
Jonas reached out and caressed one of her breasts briefly. “Nice,” he said. “Tender and sweet. No wonder Dearborn likes you.”
“Get yer filthy blue-marked hand off me, you bastard.”
Smiling, Jonas did as she bid. He turned “his head and regarded the mule. “I know this one; it belongs to my good friend Coral. Along with everything else, you’ve turned livestock thief! Shameful, shameful, this younger generation. Don’t you agree, sai Renfrew?”
But her father’s old associate said nothing. His face was carefully blank, and Susan thought he might be just the tiniest tad ashamed of his presence here.
Jonas turned back to her, his thin lips curved in the semblance of a benevolent smile. “Well, after murder I suppose stealing a mule comes easy, don’t it?”
She said nothing, only watched as Jonas stroked Capi’s muzzle.
“What all were they hauling, those boys, that it took a mule to put it on?”
“Shrouds,” she said through numb lips. “For you and all yer friends. A fearful heavy load it made, too-near broke the poor animal’s back.”
“There’s a saying in the land I come from,” Jonas said, still smiling. “Clever girls go to hell. Ever heard it?” He went on stroking Capi’s nose. The mule liked it; his neck was thrust out to its full length, his stupid little eyes half-closed with pleasure. “Has it crossed your mind that fellows who unload their pack animal, split up what it was carrying, and take the goods away usually ain’t coming back?”
Susan said nothing.
“You’ve been left high and dry, Sunbeam. Fast fucked is usually fast forgot, sad to say. Do you know where they went?”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was low, barely a whisper.
Jonas looked pleased. “If you was to tell, things might go easier for you. Would you agree, Renfrew?”
“Aye,” Renfrew said. “They’re traitors, Susan-for the Good Man. If you know where they are or what they’re up to, tell us.”
Keeping her eyes fixed on Jonas, Susan said: “Come closer.” Her numbed lips didn’t want to move and it came out sounding like Cung gloser, but Jonas understood and leaned forward, stretching his neck in a way that made him look absurdly like Caprichoso. When he did, Susan spat in his face.
Jonas recoiled, lips twisting in surprise and revulsion. “Arrr! BITCH!” he cried, and launched a full-swung, open-handed blow that drove her to the ground. She landed at full length on her side with black stars exploding across her field of vision. She could already feel her right cheek swelling like a balloon and thought, If he’d hit an inch or two lower, he might’ve broken my neck. Mayhap that would’ve been best. She raised her hand to her nose and wiped blood from the right nostril.
Jonas turned to Renfrew, who had taken a single step forward and then stopped himself. “Put her on her horse and tie her hands in front of her. Tight.” He looked down at Susan, then kicked her in the shoulder hard enough to send her rolling toward the hut. “Spit on me, would you? Spit on Eldred Jonas, would you, you bitch?”
Reyn
olds was holding out his neckerchief. Jonas took it, wiped the spittle from his face with it, then dropped into a hunker beside her. He took a handful of her hair and carefully wiped the neckerchief with it. Then he hauled her to her feet. Tears of pain now peeped from the comers of her eyes, but she kept silent.
“I may never see your friend again, sweet Sue with the tender little titties, but I’ve got you, ain’t I? Yar. And if Dearborn gives us trouble, I’ll give you double. And make sure Dearborn knows. You may count on it.”
His smile faded, and he gave her a sudden, bitter shove that almost sent her sprawling again.
“Now get mounted, and do it before I decide to change your face a little with my knife.”
12
Sheemie watched from the grass, terrified and silently crying, as Susan spit in the bad Coffin Hunter’s face and was knocked to the ground, hit so hard the blow might have killed her. He almost rushed out then, but something-it could have been his friend Arthur’s voice in his head-told him that would only get him killed.
He watched as Susan mounted. One of the other men-not a Coffin Hunter but a big rancher Sheemie had seen in the Rest from time to time-tried to help, but Susan pushed him away with the sole of her boot. The man stood back with a red face.
Don’t make em mad, Susan, Sheemie thought. Oh gods, don’t do that, they’ll hit ye some more! Oh, yer poor face! And ye got a nosebleed, so you do!
“Last chance,” Jonas told her. “Where are they, and what do they mean to do?”
“Go to hell,” she said.
He smiled-a thin, hurty smile. “Likely I’ll find you there when I arrive,” he said. Then, to the other Coffin Hunter: “You checked the place careful?”
“Whatever they had, they took it,” the redhead answered. “Only thing they left was Dearborn’s punch-bunny.”
That made Jonas laugh meany-mean as he climbed on board his own horse. “Come on,” he said, “let’s ride.”
They went back into the Bad Grass. It closed around them, and it was as if they had never been there… except that Susan was gone, and so was Capi. The big rancher riding beside Susan had been leading the mule.
When he was sure they weren’t going to return, Sheemie walked slowly back into the clearing, doing up the button on top of his pants as he came. He looked from the way Roland and his friends had gone to the one in which Susan had been taken. Which?
A moment’s thought made him realize there was no choice. The grass out here was tough and springy. The path Roland and Alain and good old Arthur Heath (so Sheemie still thought of him, and always would) had taken was gone. The one made by Susan and her captors, on the other hand, was still clear. And perhaps, if he followed her, he could do something for her. Help her.
Walking at first, then jogging as his fear that they might double back and catch him dissipated, Sheemie went in the direction Susan had been taken. He would follow her most of that day.
13
Cuthbert-not the most sanguine of personalities in any situation-grew more and more impatient as the day brightened toward true dawn. It’s Reaping, he thought. Finally Reaping, and here we sit with our knives sharpened and not a thing in the world to cut.
Twice he asked Alain what he “heard.” The first time Alain only grunted. The second time he asked what Bert expected him to hear, with someone yapping away in his ear like that.
Cuthbert, who did not consider two enquiries fifteen minutes apart as “yapping away,” wandered off and sat morosely in front of his horse. After a bit, Roland came over and sat down beside him.
“Waiting,” Cuthbert said. “That’s what most of our time in Mejis has been about, and it’s the thing I do worst.”
“You won’t have to do it much longer,” Roland said.
14
Jonas’s company reached the place where Fran Lengyll’s party had made a temporary camp about an hour after the sun had topped the horizon. Quint, Rhea, and Renfrew’s vaqs were already there and drinking coffee, Jonas was glad to see.
Lengyll started forward, saw Susan riding with her hands tied, and actually drew back a step, as if he wanted to find a comer to hide in. There were no comers out here, however, so he stood fast. He did not look happy about it, however.
Susan nudged her horse forward with her knees, and when Reynolds tried to grab her shoulder, she dipped it to the side, temporarily eluding him.
“Why, Francis Lengyll! Imagine meeting you here!”
“Susan, I’m sorry to see ye so,” Lengyll said. His flush crept closer and closer to his brow, like a tide approaching a seawall. “It’s bad company ye’ve fallen in with, girl… and in the end, bad company always leaves ye to face the music alone.”
Susan actually laughed. “Bad company!” she said. “Aye, ye’d know about that, wouldn’t ye, Fran?”
He turned, awkward and stiff in his embarrassment. She raised one booted foot and, before anyone could stop her, kicked him squarely between the shoulderblades. He went down on his stomach, his whole face widening in shocked surprise.
“No ye don’t, ye bold cunt!” Renfrew shouted, and fetched her a wallop to the side of the head-it was on the left, and at least evened things up a bit, she would think later when her mind cleared and she was capable of thinking. She swayed in the saddle, but kept her seat. And she never looked at Renfrew, only at Lengyll, who had now managed to get to his hands and knees. He wore a deeply dazed expression.
“You killed my father!” she screamed at him. “You killed my father, you cowardly, sneaking excuse for a man!” She looked at the party of ranchers and vaqs, all of them staring at her now. “There he is, Fran Lengyll, head of the Horsemen’s Association, as low a sneak as ever walked! Low as coyote shit! Low as-”
“That’s enough,” Jonas said, watching with some interest as Lengyll scuttled back to his men-and yes, Susan was bitterly delighted to see, it was a full-fledged scuttle-with his shoulders hunched. Rhea was cackling, rocking from side to side and making a sound like fingernails on a piece of slate. The sound shocked Susan, but she wasn’t a bit surprised by Rhea’s presence in this company.
“It could never be enough,” she said, looking from Jonas to Lengyll with an expression of contempt so deep it seemed bottomless. “For him it could never be enough.”
“Well, perhaps, but you did quite well in the time you had, lady-sai. Few could have done better. And listen to the witch cackle! Like salt in his wounds, I wot… but we’ll shut her up soon enough.” Then, turning his head: “Clay!”
Reynolds rode up.
“Think you can get Sunbeam back to Seafront all right?”
“I think so.” Reynolds tried not to show the relief he felt at being sent back east instead of west. He had begun to have a bad feeling about Hanging Rock, Latigo, the tankers… about the whole show, really. God knew why. “Now?”
“Give it another minute,” Jonas said. “Mayhap there’s going to be a spot of killing right here. Who knows? But it’s the unanswered questions that makes it worthwhile getting up in the morning, even when a man’s leg aches like a tooth with a hole in it. Wouldn’t you say so?”
“I don’t know, Eldred.”
“Sai Renfrew, watch our pretty Sunbeam a minute. I have a piece of property to take back.”
His voice carried well-he had meant that it should-and Rhea’s cackles cut off suddenly, as if severed out of her throat with a hooking-knife. Smiling, Jonas walked his horse toward the black cart with its jostling show of gold symbols. Reynolds rode on his left, and Jonas sensed rather than saw Depape fall in on his right. Roy was a good enough boy, really; his head was a little soft, but his heart was in the right place, and you didn’t have to tell him everything.
For every step forward Jonas’s horse took, Rhea shrank back a little in the cart. Her eyes shifted from side to side in their deep sockets, looking for a way out that wasn’t there.
“Keep away from me, ye charry man!” she cried, raising a hand toward him. With the other she clutched the sack with th
e ball in it ever more tightly. “Keep away, or I’ll bring the lightning and strike ye dead where ye sit yer horse! Yer harrier friends, too!”
Jonas thought Roy hesitated briefly at that, but Clay never did, nor did Jonas himself. He guessed there was a great lot she could do… or that there had been, at one time. But that was before the hungry glass had entered her life.
“Give it up to me,” he said. He reached the side of her wagon and held his hand out for the bag. “It’s not yours and never was. One day you’ll doubtless have the Good Man’s thanks for keeping it so well as you have, but now you must give it up.”
She screamed-a sound of such piercing intensity that several of the vaqueros dropped their tin coffee-cups and clapped their hands over their ears. At the same time she knotted her hand through the drawstring and raised the bag over her head. The curved shape of the ball swung back and forth at the bottom of it like a pendulum.
“I’ll not!” she howled. “I’ll smash it on the ground before I give it up to the likes o’ you!”
Jonas doubted if the ball would break, not hurled by her weak arms onto the trampled, springy mat of the Bad Grass, but he didn’t think he would have occasion to find out, one way or the other.
“Clay,” he said. “Draw your gun.”
He didn’t need to look at Clay to see that he’d done it; he saw the frantic way her eyes shifted to the left, where Clay sat his horse.
“I’m going to have a count,” Jonas said. “Just a short one; if I get to three and she hasn’t passed that bag over, blow her ugly head off.”
“Aye.”
“One,” Jonas said, watching the ball pendulum back and forth at the bottom of the upheld bag. It was glowing; he could see dull pink even through the cloth. “Two. Enjoy hell, Rhea, goodbye. Thr-”