by Stephen King
"It's a game," Cantab said. "A don't-touch-the-corn game." He began to sing. Some of the children joined in, but most were too bewildered and frightened.
As the pairs crossed the road, growing taller and older as they came, Roland cast another glance to the east. He estimated the Wolves were still ten minutes from the other side of the Whye, and ten minutes should be enough, but gods, they were fast! It had already crossed his mind that he might have to keep Slightman the Younger and the Tavery twins up here, with them. It wasn't in the plan, but by the time things got this far, the plan almost always started to change. Had to change.
Now the last of the kids were crossing, and only Overholser, Callahan, Slightman the Elder, and Sarey Adams were still on the road.
"Go," Roland told them.
"I want to wait for my boy!" Slightman objected.
"Go!"
Slightman looked disposed to argue the point, but Sarey Adams touched one elbow and Overholser actually took hold of the other.
"Come'ee," Overholser said. "The man'll take care of yours same as he'll take care of his."
Slightman gave Roland a final doubtful look, then stepped over the ditch and began herding the tail end of the line downhill, along with Overholser and Sarey.
"Susannah, show them the hide," Roland said.
They'd been careful to make sure the kids crossed the ditch on the road's river side well down from where they had done their digging the day before. Now, using one of her capped and shortened legs, Susannah kicked aside a tangle of leaves, branches, and dead corn-plants-the sort of thing one would expect to see left behind in a roadside runoff ditch-and exposed a dark hole.
"It's just a trench," she said, almost apologetically. "There's boards over the top. Light ones, easy to push back. That's where we'll be. Roland's made a… oh, I don't know what you call it, we call it a periscope where I come from, a thing with mirrors inside it you can see through… and when the time comes, we just stand up. The boards'll fall away around us when we do."
"Where's Jake and those other three?" Eddie asked. "They should be back by now."
"It's too soon," Roland said. "Calm down, Eddie."
"I won't calm down and it's not too soon. We should at least be able to see them. I'm going over there-"
"No, you're not," Roland said. "We have to get as many as we can before they figure out what's going on. That means keeping our firepower over here, at their backs."
"Roland, something's not right."
Roland ignored him. "Lady-sais, slide in there, do ya please. The extra boxes of plates will be on your end; we'll just kick some leaves over them."
He looked across the road as Zalia, Rosa, and Margaret began to worm into the hole Susannah had disclosed. The path to the arroyo was now completely empty. There was still no sign of Jake, Benny, and the Tavery twins. He was beginning to think that Eddie was right; that something had gone amiss.
SIX
Jake and his companions reached the place where the trail split quickly and without incident. Jake had held back two items, and when they reached the fork, he threw a broken rattle toward the Gloria and a little girl's woven string bracelet toward the Redbird. Choose, he thought, and be damned to you either way.
When he turned, he saw the Tavery twins had already started back. Benny was waiting for him, his face pale and his eyes shining. Jake nodded to him and made himself return Benny's smile. "Let's go," he said.
Then they heard Roland's whistle and the twins broke into a run, despite the scree and fallen rock which littered the path. They were still holding hands, weaving their way around what they couldn't simply scramble over.
"Hey, don't run!" Jake shouted. "He said not to run and mind your f-"
That was when Frank Tavery stepped into the hole. Jake heard the grinding, snapping sound his ankle made when it broke, knew from the horrified wince on Benny's face that he had, too. Then Frank let out a low, screaming moan and pitched sideways. Francine grabbed for him and got a hand on his upper arm, but the boy was too heavy. He fell through her grip like a sashweight. The thud of his skull colliding with the granite outcrop beside him was far louder than the sound his ankle had made. The blood which immediately began to flow from the wound in his scalp was brilliant in the early morning light.
Trouble, Jake thought. And in our road.
Benny was gaping, his cheeks the color of cottage cheese. Francine was already kneeling beside her brother, who lay at a twisted, ugly angle with his foot still caught in the hole. She was making high, breathless keening sounds. Then, all at once, the keening stopped. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets and she pitched forward over her unconscious twin brother in a dead faint.
"Come on," Jake said, and when Benny only stood there, gawping, Jake punched him in the shoulder. "For your father's sake!"
That got Benny moving.
SEVEN
Jake saw everything with a gunslinger's cold, clear vision. The blood splashed on the rock. The clump of hair stuck in it. The foot in the hole. The spittle on Frank Tavery's lips. The swell of his sister's new breast as she lay awkwardly across him. The Wolves were coming now. It wasn't Roland's whistle that told him this, but the touch. Eddie, he uiought Eddie wants to come over here.
Jake had never tried using the touch to send, but he did now: Stay where you are! If we can't get back in time we'll try to hide while they go past BUT DON'T YOU COME DOWN HERE! DON'T YOU SPOIL THINGS!
He had no idea if the message got through, but he did know it was all he had time for. Meanwhile, Benny was… what? What was le mot juste? Ms. Avery back at Piper had been very big on le mot juste. And it came to him. Gibbering. Benny was gibbering.
"What are we gonna do, Jake? Man Jesus, both of them! They were fine! Just running, and then… what if the Wolves come? What if they come while we're still here? We better leave em, don't you think?"
"We're not leaving them," Jake said. He leaned down and grabbed Francine Tavery by the shoulders. He yanked her into a sitting position, moslyy to get her off her brother so Frank could breathe. Her head lolled back, her hair streaming like dark silk.
Her eyelids fluttered, showing glabrous white beneath. Without thinking, Jake slapped her. And hard.
"Ow! Ow!" Her eyes flew open, blue and beautiful and shocked.
"Get up!" Jake shouted. "Get off him!"
How much time had passed? How still everything was, now that the children had gone back to the road! Not a single bird cried out, not even a rustic. He waited for Roland to whistle again, but Roland didn't. And really, why would he? They were on their own now.
Francine rolled aside, then staggered to her feet. "Help him… please, sai, I beg…"
"Benny. We have to get his foot out of the hole." Benny dropped to one knee on the other side of the awkwardly sprawled boy. His face was still pale, but his lips were pressed together in a tight straight line that Jake found encouraging. "Take his shoulder."
Benny grasped Frank Tavery's right shoulder. Jake took the left. Their eyes met across die unconscious boy's body. Jake nodded.
"Now."
They pulled together. Frank Tavery's eyes flew open-they were as blue and as beautiful as his sister's-and he uttered a scream so high it was soundless. But his foot did not come free.
It was stuck deep.
EIGHT
Now a gray-green shape was resolving itself out of the dust-cloud and they could hear the drumming of many hooves on hardpan. The three Calla women were in the hide. Only Roland, Eddie, and Susannah still remained in the ditch, the men standing, Susannah kneeling with her strong thighs spread. They stared across the road and up the arroyo path. The path was still empty.
"I heard something," Susannah said. "I think one of em's hurt."
"Fuck it, Roland, I'm going after them," Eddie said.
"Is that what Jake wants or what you want?" Roland asked.
Eddie flushed. He had heard Jake in his head-not the exact words, but the gist-and he supposed Roland had, too.
"What about you?" Eddie asked.
Roland pulled in a deep breath, let it out. "I'll help if I can."
"You're not going after him, are you?" Eddie looked at Roland with mounting disbelief. "You're really not."
Roland glanced toward the dust-cloud and the gray-green cluster beneath it, which would resolve itself into individual horses and riders in less than a minute. Riders with snarling wolf faces framed in green hoods. They weren't riding toward the river so much as they were swooping down on it.
"No," Roland said. "Can't. Get under cover."
Eddie stood where he was a moment longer, hand on the butt of the big revolver, pale face working. Then, without a word, he turned from Roland and grasped Susannah's arm. He knelt beside her, then slid into the hole. Now there was only Roland, the big revolver slung low on his left hip, looking across the road at the empty arroyo path.
NINE
Benny Slightman was a well-built lad, but he couldn't move the chunk of rock holding the Tavery boy's foot. Jake saw that on the first pull. His mind (his cold, cold mind) tried to judge the weight of the imprisoned boy against the weight of the imprisoning stone. He guessed the stone weighed more.
"Francine."
She looked at him from eyes which were now wet and a little blinded by shock.
"You love him?" Jake asked.
"Aye, with all my heart!"
He is your heart, Jake thought. Good. "Then help us. Pull him as hard as you can when I say. Never mind if he screams, pull him anyway."
She nodded as if she understood. Jake hoped she did.
"If we can't get him out this time, we'll have to leave him."
"I'll never!" she shouted.
It was no time for argument. Jake joined Benny beside the flat white rock. Beyond its jagged edge, Frank's bloody shin disappeared into a black hole. The boy was fully awake now, and gasping. His left eye rolled in terror. The right one was buried in a sheet of blood. A flap of scalp was hanging over his ear.
"We're going to lift the rock and you're going to pull him out," Jake told Francine. "On three. You ready?"
When she nodded, her hair fell across her face in a curtain. She made no attempt to get it out of the way, only seized her brother beneath the armpits.
"Francie, don't hurt me," he moaned.
"Shut up," she said.
"One," Jake said. "You pull this fucker, Benny, even if it pops your balls. You hear me?"
"Yer-bugger, just count."
"Two. Three"
They pulled, crying out at the strain. The rock moved. Francine yanked her brother backward with all her force, also crying out.
Frank Tavery's scream as his foot came free was loudest of all.
TEN
Roland heard hoarse cries of effort, overtopped by a scream of pure agony. Something had happened over there, and Jake had done something about it. The question was, had it been enough to put right whatever had gone wrong?
Spray flew in the morning light as the Wolves plunged into the Whye and began galloping across on their gray horses. Roland could see them clearly now, coming in waves of five and six, spurring their mounts. He put the number at sixty. On the far side of the river, they'd disappear beneath the shoulder of a grass-covered bluff. Then they'd reappear, less than a mile away.
They would disappear one last time, behind one final hill-all of them, if they stayed bunched up as they were now-and that would be the last chance for Jake to come, for all of them to get under cover.
He stared up the path, willing the children to appear-willing Jake to appear-but the path remained empty.
Wolves streaming up the west bank of the river now, their horses casting off showers of droplets which glittered in the morning sun like gold. Clods of earth and sprays of sand flew. Now the hoofbeats were an approaching thunder.
ELEVEN
Jake took one shoulder, Benny the other. They carried Frank Tavery down the path that way, plunging ahead with reckless speed, hardly even looking down at the tumbles of rock. Francine ran just behind them.
They came around the final curve, and Jake felt a surge of gladness when he saw Roland in the ditch opposite, still Roland, standing watch with his good left hand on the butt of his gun and his hat tipped back from his brow.
"It's my brother!" Francine was shouting at him. "He fell down! He got his foot caught in a hole!"
Roland suddenly dropped out of sight.
Francine looked around, not frightened, exactly, but uncomprehending. "What-?"
"Wait," Jake said, because that was all he knew to say. He had no other ideas. If that was true of the gunslinger as well, they'd probably die here.
"My ankle… burning," Frank Tavery gasped.
"Shut up," Jake said.
Benny laughed. It was shock-laughter, but it was also real laughter. Jake looked at him around the sobbing, bleeding Frank Tavery… and winked. Benny winked back. And, just like that, they were friends again.
TWELVE
As she lay in the darkness of the hide with Eddie on her left and the acrid smell of leaves in her nose, Susannah felt a sudden cramp seize her belly. She had just time to register it before an icepick of pain, blue and savage, plunged into the left side of her brain, seeming to numb that entire side of her face and neck. At the same instant the image of a great banquet hall filled her mind: steaming roasts, stuffed fish, smoking steaks, magnums of champagne, frigates filled with gravy, rivers of red wine. She heard a piano, and a singing voice. That voice was charged with an awful sadness. "Someone saved, someone saved, someone saved my li-iife tonight," it sang.
No! Susannah cried to the force that was trying to engulf her. And did that force have a name? Of course it did. Its name was Mother, its hand was the one that rocked the cradle, and the hand that rocks the cradle rules the w-
No! You have to let me finish this! Afterward, if you want to have it, I'll help you! I'll help you have it! But if you try to force this on me now, I'll fight you tooth and nail! And if it comes to getting myself killed, and killing your precious chap along with me, I'll do it! Do you hear me, you bitch?
For a moment there was nothing but the darkness, the press of Eddie's leg, the numbness in the left side of her face, the thunder of the oncoming horses, the acrid smell of the leaves, and the sound of the Sisters breathing, getting ready for their own battle. Then, each of her words articulated clearly from a place above and behind Susannah's left eye, Mia for the first time spoke to her.
Fight your fight, woman. I'll even help, if I can. And then keep your promise.
"Susannah?" Eddie murmured from beside her. "Are you all right?"
"Yes," she said. And she was. The icepick was gone. The voice was gone. So was the terrible numbness. But close by, Mia was waiting.
THIRTEEN
Roland lay on his belly in the ditch, now watching the Wolves with one eye of imagination and one of intuition instead of with those in his head. The Wolves were between the bluff and the hill, riding full-out with their cloaks streaming behind them. They'd all disappear behind the hill for perhaps seven seconds. If, that was, they stayed bunched together and the leaders didn't start to pull ahead. If he had calculated their speed correctly. If he was right, he'd have five seconds when he could motion Jake and the others to come. Or seven. If he was right, they'd have those same five seconds to cross the road. If he was wrong (or if the others were slow), the Wolves would either see the man in the ditch, the children in the road, or all of them. The distances would likely be too great to use their weapons, but that wouldn't much matter, because the carefully crafted ambush would be blown. The smart tiling would be to stay down, and leave the kids over there to their fate. Hell, four kids caught on the arroyo path would make the Wolves more sure than ever that the rest of them were stashed farther on, in one of the old mines.
Enough thinking, Cort said in his head. If y
ou mean to move, maggot, this is your only chance.
Roland shot to his feet. Directly across from him, protected by the cluster of tumbled boulders which marked the East Road end of the arroyo path, stood Jake and Benny Slightman, with the Tavery boy supported between them. The kid was bloody both north and south; gods knew what had happened to him. His sister was looking over his shoulder. In that instant they looked not just like twins but Kaffin twins, joined at the body.
Roland jerked both hands extravagandy back over his head, as if clawing for a grip in the air: To me, come! Come! At the same time, he looked east. No sign of the Wolves; good. The hill had momentarily blocked them all.
Jake and Benny sprinted across the road, still dragging the boy between them. Frank Tavery's shor'boots dug fresh grooves in the oggan. Roland could only hope the Wolves would attach no especial significance to the marks.
The girl came last, light as a sprite. "Down!" Roland snarled, grabbing her shoulder and throwing her flat. "Down, down, down!" He landed beside her and Jake landed on top of him. Roland could feel the boy's madly beating heart between his shoulderblades, through both of their shirts, and had a moment to relish the sensation.
Now the hoofbeats were coming hard and strong, swelling every second. Had they been seen by the lead riders? It was impossible to know, but they would know, and soon. In the meantime they could only go on as planned. It would be tight quarters in the hide with three extra people in there, and if the Wolves had seen Jake and the other three crossing the road, they would all no doubt be cooked where they lay without a single shot fired or plate thrown, but there was no time to worry about that now. They had a minute left at most, Roland estimated, maybe only forty seconds, and that last little bit of time was melting away beneath them.