1
As they stepped into the stable, which was lit by one dim gas lamp, a shadow moved out of one of the stalls. Roland, who had belted on both guns, now drew them. Sheemie looked at him with an uncertain smile, holding a stirrup in one hand. Then the smile broadened, his eyes flashed with happiness, and he ran toward them. Roland bolstered his guns and made ready to embrace the boy, but Sheemie ran past him and threw himself into Cuthbert's arms. "Whoa, whoa," Cuthbert said, first staggering back comically and then lifting Sheemie off his feet. "You like to knock me over, boy!" "She got ye out!" Sheemie cried. "Knew she would, so I did! Good old Susan!" Sheemie looked around at Susan, who stood beside Roland. She was still pale, but now seemed composed. Sheemie turned back to Cuthbert and planted a kiss directly in the center of Bert's forehead. "Whoa!" Bert said again. "What's that for?" " 'Cause I love you, good old Arthur Heath! You saved my life!" "Well, maybe I did," Cuthbert said, laughing in an embarrassed way (his borrowed sombrero, too large to begin with, now sat comically askew on his head), "but if we don't get a move on, I won't have saved it for long." "Horses are all saddled," Sheemie said. "Susan told me to do it and I did. I did it just right. I just have to put this stirrup on Mr. Richard Stock-worth's horse, because the one on there's 'bout worn through." "That's a job for later," Alain said, taking the stirrup. He put it aside, then turned to Roland. "Where do we go?" Roland's first thought was that they should return to the Thorin mausoleum. Sheemie reacted with instant horror. "The boneyard? And with Demon Moon at the full?" He shook his head so violently that his sombrero came off and his hair flew from side to side. "They're dead in there, sai Dearborn, but if ye tease em during the time of the Demon, they's apt to get up and walk!" "It's no good, anyway," Susan said. "The women of the town'll be lining the way from Seafront with flowers, and filling the mausoleum, too. Olive will be in charge, if she's able, but my aunt and Coral are apt to be in the company. Those aren't ladies we want to meet." "All right," Roland said. "Let's mount up and ride. Think about it, Susan. You too, Sheemie. We want a place where we can hide up until dawn, at least, and it should be a place we can get to in less than an hour. Off the Great Road, and in any direction from Hambry but northwest." "Why not northwest?" Alain asked. "Because that's where we're going now. We've got a job to do ... and we're going to let them know we're doing it. Eldred Jonas most of all." He offered a thin blade of smile. "I want him to know the game is over. No more Castles. The real gunslingers are here. Let's see if he can deal with them." 2 An hour later, with the moon well above the trees, Roland's ka-tet arrived at the Citgo oilpatch. They rode out parallel to the Great Road for safety's sake, but, as it happened, the caution was wasted: they saw not one rider on the road, going in either direction. It's as if Reaping's been cancelled this year, Susan thought . .. then she thought of the red-handed stuffies, and shivered. They would have painted Roland's hands red tomorrow night, and still would, if they were caught. Not just him, either. All of us. Sheemie, too. They left the horses (and Caprichoso, who had trotted ill-temperedly but nimbly behind them on a tether) tied to some long-dead pumping equipment in the southeastern comer of the patch, and then walked slowly toward the working derricks, which were clustered in the same area. They spoke in whispers when they spoke at all. Roland doubted if that was necessary, but whispers here seemed natural enough. To Roland, Citgo was far spookier than the graveyard, and while he doubted that the dead in that latter place awoke even when Old Demon was full, there were some very unquiet corpses here, squalling zombies that stood rusty-weird in the moonlight with their pistons going up and down like marching feet. Roland led them into the active part of the patch, nevertheless, past a sign which read how's your hardhat? and another reading we produce oil, we refine safety. They stopped at the foot of a derrick grinding so loudly that Roland had to shout in order to be heard. "Sheemie! Give me a couple of those big-bangers!" Sheemie had taken a pocketful from Susan's saddlebag and now handed a pair of them over. Roland took Bert by the arm and pulled him forward. There was a square of rusty fencing around the derrick, and when the boys tried to climb it, the horizontals snapped like old bones. They looked at each other in the running shadows combined of machinery and moonlight, nervous and amused. Susan twitched Roland's arm. "Be careful!" she shouted over the rhythmic whumpa-whumpa-whumpa of the derrick machinery. She didn't look frightened, he saw, only excited and alert. He grinned, pulled her forward, and kissed the lobe of her ear. "Be ready to run," he whispered. "If we do this right, there's going to be a new candle here at Citgo. A hellacious big one." He and Cuthbert ducked under the lowest strut of the rusty derrick tower and stood next to the equipment, wincing at the cacophony. Roland wondered that it hadn't torn itself apart years ago. Most of the works were housed in rusty metal blocks, but he could see a gigantic turning shaft of some kind, gleaming with oil that must be supplied by automated jets. Up this close, there was a gassy smell that reminded him of the jet that flared rhythmically on the other side of the oilpatch. "Giant-farts!" Cuthbert shouted. "What?" "I said it smells like . . . aw, never mind! Let's do it if-we can ... can we? " Roland didn't know. He walked toward the machinery crying out beneath metal cowls which were painted a faded, rusting green. Bert followed with some reluctance. The two of them slid into a short aisle, smelly and baking hot, that took them almost directly beneath the derrick. Ahead of them, the shaft at the end of the piston turned steadily, shedding oily teardrops down its smooth sides. Beside it was a curved pipe - almost surely an overflow pipe, Roland thought. An occasional drop of crude oil fell from its lip, and there was a black puddle on the ground beneath. He pointed at it, and Cuthbert nodded. Shouting would do no good in here; the world was a roaring, squealing din. Roland curled one hand around his friend's neck and pulled Cuthbert's ear to his lips; he held a big-bang up in front of Bert's eyes with the other. "Light it and run," he said. "I'll hold it, give you as much time as I can. That's for my benefit as much as for yours. I want a clear path back through that machinery, do you understand?" Cuthbert nodded against Roland's lips, then turned the gunslinger's head so he could speak in the same fashion. "What if there's enough gas here to bum the air when I make a spark?" Roland stepped back. Raised his palms in a "How-do-I-know?" gesture. Cuthbert laughed and drew out a box of sulfur matches which he had scooped off Avery's desk before leaving. He asked with his eyebrows if Roland was ready. Roland nodded. The wind was blowing hard, but under the derrick the surrounding machinery cut it off and the flame from the sulfur rose straight. Roland held out the big-banger, and had a momentary, painful memory of his mother: how she had hated these things, how she had always been sure that he would lose an eye or a finger to one. Cuthbert tapped his chest above his heart and kissed his palm in the universal gesture of good luck. Then he touched the flame to the fuse. It began to sputter. Bert turned, pretended to bang off a covered block of machinery - that was Bert, Roland thought; he would joke on the gallows - and then dashed back down the short corridor they'd used to get here. Roland held the round firework as long as he dared, then lobbed it into the overflow pipe. He winced as he turned away, half-expecting what Bert was afraid of: that the very air would explode. It didn't. He ran down the short aisle, came into the clear, and saw Cuthbert standing just outside the broken bit of fencing. Roland flapped both hands at him - Go, you idiot, go! - and then the world blew up behind him. The sound was a deep, belching thud that seemed to shove his eardrums inward and suck the breath out of his throat. The ground rolled under his feet like a wave under a boat, and a large, warm hand planted itself in the center of his back and shoved him forward. He thought he ran with it for a step - maybe even two or three steps - and then he was lifted off his feet and hurled atthe fence, where cuthbert was no longer standing; Cuthbert was sprawled on his back, staring up at something behind Roland. The boy's eyes were wide and wondering; his mouth hung open. Roland could see all this very well, because Citgo was now as bright as in full daylight. They had lit their own Reaping bonfire, it seemed, a night early and much brighter than the one in town could ever hope to be. He went skidding on his knees to where Cuthbert lay, and grabbed him under one arm. From behind them came a vast, ripping roar, and now chunks of metal began to fall around them. They got up and ran toward where Alain stood in front of Susan and Sheemie, trying to protect them. Roland took a quick look back over his shoulder and saw that the remains of the derrick - about half of it still stood - were glowing blackish red, like a heated horseshoe, around a flaring yellow torch that ran perhaps a hundred and fifty feet into the sky. It was a start. He didn't know how many other derricks they could fire before folk began arriving from town, but he was determined to do as many as possible, no matter what the risks might be. Blowing up the tankers at Hanging Rock was only half the job. Farson's source had to be wiped out. Further firecrackers dropped down further overflow pipes turned out not to be necessary. There was a network of interconnected pipes under the oilpatch, most filled with natural gas that had leaked in through ancient, decaying seals. Roland and Cuthbert had no more than reached the others when there was a fresh explosion, and a fresh tower of flame erupted from a derrick to the right of the one they had set afire. A moment later, a third derrick - this one sixty full yards away from the first two - exploded with a dragon's roar. The ironwork tore free of its anchoring concrete pillars like a tooth pulled from a decayed gum. It rose on a cushion of blazing blue and yellow, attained a height of perhaps seventy feet, then heeled over and came crashing back down, spewing sparks in every direction. Another. Another. And yet another. The five young people stood in their comer, stunned, holding their hands up to shield their eyes from the glare. Now the oilpatch flared like a birthday cake, and the heat baking toward them was enormous. "Gods be kind," Alain whispered. If they lingered here much longer, Roland realized, they would be popped like corn. There were the horses to consider, too; they were well away from the main focus of the explosions, but there was no guarantee that the focus would stay where it was; already he saw two derricks that hadn't even been working engulfed in flames. The horses would be terrified. Hell, he was terrified. "Come on!" he shouted. They ran for the horses through shifting yellow-orange brilliance. 3 At first Jonas thought it was going on in his own head - that the explosions were part of their lovemaking. Lovemaking, yar. Lovemaking, horseshit. He and Coral made love no more than donkeys did sums. But it was something. Oh yes indeed it was. He'd been with passionate women before, ones who took you into a kind of oven-place and then held you there, staring with greedy intensity as they pumped their hips, but until Coral he'd never been with a woman that sparked such a powerfully harmonic chord in himself. With sex, he had always been the kind of man who took it when it came and forgot it when it didn't. But with Coral he only wanted to take it, take it, and take it some more. When they were together they made love like cats or ferrets, twisting and hissing and clawing; they bit at each other and cursed at each other, and so far none of it was even close to enough. When he was with her, Jonas sometimes felt as if he were being fried in sweet oil. Tonight there had been a meeting with the Horsemen's Association, which had pretty much become the Farson Association in these latter days. Jonas had brought them up to date, had answered their idiotic questions, and had made sure they understood what they'd be doing the next day. With that done, he had checked on Rhea, who had been installed in Kimba Rimer's old suite. She hadn't even noticed Jonas peering in at her. She sat in Rimer's high-ceilinged, book-lined study - behind Rimer's ironwood desk, in Rimer's upholstered chair, looking as out of place as a whore's bloomers on a church altar. On Rimer's desk was the Wizard's Rainbow. She was passing her hands back and forth above it and muttering rapidly under her breath, but the ball remained dark. Jonas had locked her in and had gone to Coral. She had been waiting for him in the parlor where tomorrow's Conversational would have been held. There were plenty of bedrooms in that wing, but it was to her dead brother's that she had led him ... and not by accident, either, Jonas was sure. There they made love in the canopied bed Hart Thorin would never share with his gilly. It was fierce, as it had always been, and Jonas was approaching his orgasm when the first oil derrick blew. Christ, she's something, he thought. There's never in the whole damned world been a woman like - Then two more explosions, in rapid succession, and Coral froze for a moment beneath him before beginning to thrust her hips again. "Citgo," she said in a hoarse, panting voice. "Yar," he growled, and began to thrust with her. He had lost all interest in making love, but they had reached the point where it was impossible to stop, even under threat of death or dismemberment. Two minutes later he was striding, naked, toward Thorin's little lick of a balcony, his half-erect penis wagging from side to side ahead of him like some halfwit's idea of a magic wand. Coral was a step behind him, as naked as he was. "Why now?" she burst out as Jonas thrust open the balcony door. "I could have come three more times!" Jonas ignored her. The countryside looking northwest was a moon-gilded darkness . . . except where the oilpatch was. There he saw a fierce yellow core of light. It was spreading and brightening even as he watched; one thudding explosion after another hammered across the intervening miles. He felt a curious darkening in his mind - that feeling had been there ever since the brat, Dearborn, by the some febrile leap of intuition, had recognized him for who and what he was. Making love to the energetic Coral melted that feeling a little, but now, looking at the burning tangle of fire which had five minutes ago been the Good Man's oil reserves, it came back with debilitating intensity, like a swamp-fever that sometimes quits the flesh but hides in the bones and never really leaves. You 're in the west, Dearborn had said. The soul of a man such as you can never leave the west. Of course it was true, and he hadn't needed any such titmonkey as Will Dearborn to tell him ... but now that it had been said, there was a part of his mind that couldn't stop thinking about it. Fucking Will Dearborn. Where, exactly, was he now, him and his pair of good-mannered mates? In Avery's culabozo? Jonas didn't think so. Not anymore. Fresh explosions ripped the night. Down below, men who had run and shouted in the wake of the early morning's assassinations were running and shouting again. "It's the biggest Reaping firework that ever was," Coral said in a low voice. Before Jonas could reply, there was a hard hammering on the bedroom door. It was thrown open a second later, and Clay Reynolds came clumping across the room, wearing a pair of blue jeans and nothing else. His hair was wild; his eyes were wilder. "Bad news from town, Eldred," he said. "Dearborn and the other two In-World brats" Three more explosions, falling almost on top of each other. From the blazing Citgo oilpatch a great red-orange fireball rose lazily into the black of night, faded, disappeared. Reynolds walked out onto the balcony and stood between them at the railing, unmindful of their nakedness. He stared at the fireball with wide, wondering eyes until it was gone. As gone as the brats. Jonas felt that curious, debilitating gloom trying to steal over him again. "How did they get away?" he asked. "Do you know? Does Avery?" "Avery's dead. The deputy who was with him, too. 'Twas another deputy found em, Todd Bridger . . . Eldred, what's going on out there? What happened?" "Oh, that's your boys," Coral said. "Didn't take em long to start their own Reaping party, did it?" How much heart do they have? Jonas asked himself. It was a good question - maybe the only one that mattered. Were they now done making trouble ... or just getting started? He once more wanted to be out of here - out of Seafront, out of Hambry, out of Mejis. Suddenly, more than anything, he wanted to be miles and wheels and leagues away. He had bounded around his Hillock, it was too late to go back, and now he felt horribly exposed. "Clay." "Yes,eldred?" But the man's eyes - and his mind - were still on the conflagration at Citgo. Jonas took his shoulder and turned Reynolds toward him. Jonas felt his own mind starting to pick up speed, ticking past points and details, and welcomed the feeling. That queer, dark sense of fatalism faded and disappeared. "How many men are here?" he asked. Reynolds frowned, thought about it. "Thirty-five."he said. "maybe." "How many armed?" "With guns?" "No, with pea-blowers, you damned fool." "Probably . . ." Reynolds pulled his lower lip, frowning more fiercely than ever. "Probably a dozen. That's guns likely to work, you ken." "The big boys from the Horsemen's Association? Still all here?" "I think so." "Get Lengyll and Renfrew. At least you won't have to wake em up; they'll all be up, and most of em right down there." Jonas jerked a thumb at the courtyard. "Tell Renfrew to put together an advance party. Armed men. I'd like eight or ten, but I'll take five. Have that old woman's cart harnessed to the strongest, hardiest pony this place has got. Tell that old fuck Miguel that if the pony he chooses dies in the traces between here and Hanging Rock, he'll be using his wrinkled old balls for earplugs." Coral Thorin barked brief, harsh laughter. Reynolds glanced at her, did a double-take at her breasts, then looked back at Jonas with an effort. "Where's Roy?" Jonas asked. Reynolds looked up. "Third floor. With some little serving maid." "Kick him out," Jonas said. "It's his job to get the old bitch ready to ride." "We're going?" "Soon as we can. You and me first, with Renfrew's boys, and Lengyll behind, with the rest of the men. You just make sure Hash Renfrew's with us, Clay; that man's got sand in his craw." "What about the horses out on the Drop?" "Never mind the everfucking horses." There was another explosion at Citgo; another fireball floated into the sky. Jonas couldn't see the dark clouds of smoke which must be rushing up, or smell the oil; the wind, out of the east and into the west, would be carrying both away from town. "But - " "Just do as I say." Jonas now saw his priorities in clear, ascending order. The horses were on the bottom - Farson could find horses damned near anywhere. Above them were the tankers gathered at Hanging Rock. They were more important than ever now, because the source was gone. Lose the tankers, and the Big Coffin Hunters could forget going home. Yet most important of all was Parson's little piece of the Wizard's Rainbow. It was the one truly irreplaceable item. If it was broken, let it be broken in the care of George Latigo, not that of Eldred Jonas. "Get moving," he told Reynolds. "Depape rides after, with Lengyll's men. You with me. Go on. Make it happen." "And me?" Coral asked. He reached out and tugged her toward him. "I ain't forgot you, darlin," he said. Coral nodded and reached between his legs, oblivious of the staring Clay Reynolds. "Aye," she said. "And I ain't forgot you." 4 They escaped Citgo with ringing ears and slightly singed around the edges but not really hurt, Sheemie riding double behind Cuthbert and Caprichoso clattering after, at the end of his long lead. It was Susan who came up with the place they should go, and like most solutions, it seemed completely obvious . . . once someone had thought of it. And so, not long after Reaping Eve had become Reaping Mom, the five of them came to the hut in the Bad Grass where Susan and Roland had on several occasions met to make love. Cuthbert and Alain unrolled blankets, then sat on them to examine the guns they had liberated from the Sheriff's office. They had also found Bert's slingshot. "These're hard calibers," Alain said, holding one up with the cylinder sprung and peering one-eyed down the barrel. "If they don't throw too high or wide, Roland, I think we can do some business with them." "I wish we had that rancher's machine-gun," Cuthbert said wistfully. "You know what Cort would say about a gun like that?" Roland asked, and Cuthbert burst out laughing. So did Alain. "Who's Cort?" Susan asked. "The tough man Eldred Jonas only thinks he is," Alain said. "He was our teacher." Roland suggested that they catch an hour or two of sleep - the next day was apt to be difficult. That it might also be their last was something he didn't feel he had to say. "Alain, are you listening?" Alain, who knew perfectly well that Roland wasn't speaking of his ears or his attention-span, nodded. "Do you hear anything?" "Not yet." "Keep at it." "I will . . . but I can't promise anything. The touch is flukey. You know that as well as I do." "Just keep trying." Sheemie had carefully spread two blankets in the comer next to his proclaimed best friend. "He's Roland . . . and he's Alain . . . who are you, good old Arthur Heath? Who are you really?" "Cuthbert's my name." He stuck out his hand. "Cuthbert Allgood. How do y'do, and how do y'do, and how do y'do again?" Sheemie shook the offered hand, then began giggling. It was a cheerful, unexpected sound, and made them all smile. Smiling hurt Roland a little, and he guessed that if he could see his own face, he'd observe a pretty good bum from being so close to the exploding derricks. "Key-youth-bert," Sheemie said, giggling. "Oh my! Key-youth-bert, that's a funny name, no wonder you're such a funny fellow. Key-youth-bert, oh-aha-ha-ha, that's a pip, a real pip!" Cuthbert smiled and nodded. "Can I kill him now, Roland, if we don't need him any longer?" "Save him a bit, why don't you?" Roland said, then turned to Susan, his own smile fading. "Will thee walk out with me a bit, Sue? I'd talk to thee." She looked up at him, trying to read his face. "All right." She held out her hand. Roland took it, they walked into the moonlight together, and beneath its light, Susan felt dread take hold of her heart. 5 They walked out in silence, through sweet-smelling grass that tasted good to cows and horses even as it was expanding in their bellies, first bloating and then killing them. It was high - at least a foot taller than Roland's head - and still green as summer. Children sometimes got lost in the Bad Grass and died there, but Susan had never feared to be here with Roland, even when there were no sky-markers to steer by; his sense of direction was uncannily perfect. "Sue, thee disobeyed me in the matter of the guns," he said at last. She looked at him, smiling, half-amused and half-angry. "Does thee wish to be back in thy cell, then? Thee and thy friends?" "No, of course not. Such bravery!" He held her close and kissed her. When he drew back, they were both breathing hard. He took her by the arms and looked into her eyes. "But thee mustn't disobey me this time." She looked at him steadily, saying nothing. "Thee knows," he said. "Thee knows what I'd tell thee." "Aye, perhaps." "Say. Better you than me, maybe." "I'm to stay at the hut while you and the others go. Sheemie and I are to stay." He nodded. "Will you? Will thee?" She thought of how unfamiliar and wretched Roland's gun had felt in her hand as she held it beneath the serape; of the wide, unbelieving look in Dave's eyes as the bullet she'd fired into his chest flung him backward; of how the first time she'd tried to shoot Sheriff Avery, the bullet had only succeeded in setting her own clothing afire, although he had been right there in front of her. They didn't have a gun for her (unless she took one of Roland's), she couldn't use one very well in any case ... and, more important, she didn't want to use one. Under those circumstances, and with Sheemie to think about, too, it was best she just stay out of the way. Roland was waiting patiently. She nodded. "Sheemie and I'll wait for thee. It's my promise." He smiled, relieved. "Now pay me back with honesty, Roland." "If I can." She looked up at the moon, shuddered at the ill-omened face she saw, and looked back at Roland. "What chance thee'll come back to me?" He thought about this very carefully, still holding to her arms. "Far better than Jonas thinks," he said at last. "We'll wait at the edge of the Bad Grass and should be able to mark his coming well enough." "Aye, the herd o' horses I saw - " "He may come without the horses," Roland said, not knowing how well he had matched Jonas's thinking, "but his folk will make noise even if they come without the herd. If there's enough of them, we'll see them, as well - they'll cut a line through the grass like a part in hair." Susan nodded. She had seen this many times from the Drop - the mysterious parting of the Bad Grass as groups of men rode through it. "If they're looking for thee, Roland? If Jonas sends scouts ahead?" "I doubt he'll bother." Roland shrugged. "If they do, why,we'll kill them. Silent, if we can. Killing's what we were trained to do; we'll do it." She turned her hands over, and now she was gripping his arms instead of the other way around. She looked impatient and afraid. "Thee hasn't answered my question. What chance I'll see thee back?" He thought it over. "Even toss," he said at last. She closed her eyes as if struck, drew in a breath, let it out, opened her eyes again. "Bad," she said, "yet maybe not as bad as I thought. And if thee doesn't come back? Sheemie and I go west, as thee said before?" "Aye, to Gilead. There'll be a place of safety and respect for you there, dear, no matter what . . . but it's especially important that you go if you don't hear the tankers explode. Thee knows that, doesn't thee?" "To warn yer people - thy ka-tet." Roland nodded. "I'll warn them, no fear. And keep Sheemie safe, too. He's as much the reason we've got this far as anything I've done." Roland was counting on Sheemie for more than she knew. If he and Bert and Alain were killed, it was Sheemie who would stabilize her, give her reason to go on. "When does thee leave?" Susan asked. "Do we have time to make love?" "We have time, but perhaps it's best we don't," he said. "It's going to be hard enough to leave thee again without. Unless you really want to . . ." His eyes half-pleaded with her to say yes. "Let's just go back and lie down a bit," she said, and took his hand. For a moment it trembled on her lips to tell him that she was kindled with his child, but at the last moment she kept silent. There was enough for him to think about without that added, mayhap ... and she didn't want to pass such happy news beneath such an ugly moon. It would surely be bad luck. They walked back through high grass that was already springing together along their path. Outside the hut, he turned her toward him, put his hands on her cheeks, and softly kissed her again. "I will love thee forever, Susan," he said. "Come whatever storms." She smiled. The upward movement of her cheeks spilled a pair of tears from her eyes. "Come whatever storms," she agreed. She kissed him again, and they went inside. 6 The moon had begun to descend when a party of eight rode out beneath the arch with come in peace writ upon it in the Great Letters. Jonas and Reynolds were in the lead. Behind them came Rhea's black wagon, drawn by a trotting pony that looked strong enough to go all night and half the next day. Jonas had wanted to give her a driver, but Rhea refused - "Never was an animal I didn't get on with better than any man ever could," she'd told him, and that seemed to be true. The reins lay limp in her lap; the pony worked smart without them. The other five men consisted of Hash Renfrew, Quint, and three of Renfrew's best vaqueros. Coral had wanted to come as well, but Jonas had different ideas. "If we're killed, you can go on more or less as before," he'd said. "There'll be nothing to tie you to us." "Without ye, I'm not sure there'd be any reason to go on," she said. "Ar, quit that schoolgirl shit, it don't become you. You'd find plenty of reasons to keep staggerin down the path, if you had to put your mind to it. If all goes well - as I expect it will - and you still want to be with me, ride out of here as soon as you get word of our success. There's a town west of here in the Vi Castis Mountains. Ritzy. Go there on the fastest horse you can swing a leg over. You'll be there ahead of us by days, no matter how smart we're able to push along. Find a respectable inn that'll take a woman on her own . . . if there is such a thing in Ritzy. Wait. When we get there with the tankers, you just fall into the column at my right hand. Have you got it?" She had it. One woman in a thousand was Coral Thorin - sharp as Lord Satan, and able to fuck like Satan's favorite harlot. Now if things only turned out to be as simple as he'd made them sound. Jonas fell back until his horse was pacing alongside the black cart. The ball was out of its bag and lay in Rhea's lap. "Anything?" he asked. He both hoped and dreaded to see that deep pink pulse inside it again. "Nay. It'll speak when it needs to, though - count on it." "Then what good are you, old woman?" "Ye'll know when the time comes," Rhea said, looking at him with arrogance (and some fear as well, he was happy to see). Jonas spurred his horse back to the head of the little column. He had decided to take the ball from Rhea at the slightest sign of trouble. In truth, it had already inserted its strange, addicting sweetness into his head; he thought about that single pink pulse of light he'd seen far too much. Balls, he told himself. Battlesweat's all I've got. Once this business is over, I'll be my old self again. Nice if true, but... ... but he had, in truth, begun to wonder. Renfrew was now riding with Clay. Jonas nudged his horse in between them. His dicky leg was aching like a bastard; another bad sign. "Lengyll?" he asked Renfrew. "Putting together a good bunch," Renfrew said, "don't you fear Fran Lengyll. Thirty men." "Thirty! God Harry's body, I told you I wanted forty! Forty at least!" Renfrew measured him with a pale-eyed glance, then winced at a particularly vicious gust of the freshening wind. He pulled his neckerchief up over his mouth and nose. The vaqs riding behind had already done so. "How afraid of these three boys are you, Jonas?" "Afraid for both of us, I guess, since you're too stupid to know who they are or what they're capable of." He raised his own neckerchief, then forced his voice into a more reasonable timbre. It was best he do so; he needed these bumpkins yet awhile longer. Once the ball was turned over to Latigo, that might change. "Though mayhap we'll never see them." "It's likely they're already thirty miles from here and riding west as fast as their horses'll take em," Renfrew agreed. "I'd give a crown to know how they got loose." What does it matter, you idiot? Jonas thought, but said nothing. "As for Lengyll's men, they'll be the hardest boys he can lay hands on - if it comes to a fight, those thirty will fight like sixty." Jonas's eyes briefly met Clay's. I'll believe it when I see it, Clay's brief glance said, and Jonas knew again why he had always liked this one better than Roy Depape. "How many armed?" "With guns? Maybe half. They'll be no more than an hour behind us." "Good." At least their back door was covered. It would have to do. And he couldn't wait to be rid of that thrice-cursed ball. Oh? whispered a sly, half-mad voice from a place much deeper than his heart. Oh, can't you? Jonas ignored the voice until it stilled. Half an hour later, they turned off the road and onto the Drop. Several miles ahead, moving in the wind like a silver sea, was the Bad Grass. 7 Around the time that Jonas and his party were riding down the Drop, Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain were swinging up into their saddles. Susan and Sheemie stood by the doorway to the hut, holding hands and watching them solemnly. "Thee'll hear the explosions when the tankers go, and smell the smoke," Roland said. "Even with the wind the wrong way, I think thee'll smell it. Then, no more than an hour later, more smoke. There." He pointed. "That'll be the brush piled in front of the canyon's mouth." "And if we don't see those things?" "Into the west. But thee will, Sue. I swear thee will." She stepped forward, put her hands on his thigh, and looked up at him in the latening moonlight. He bent; put his hand lightly against the back of her head; put his mouth on her mouth. "Go thy course in safety," Susan said as she drew back from him. "Aye," Sheemie added suddenly. "Stand and be true, all three." He came forward himself and shyly touched Cuthbert's boot. Cuthbert reached down, took Sheemie's hand, and shook it. "Take care of her, old boy." Sheemie nodded seriously. "I will." "Come on," Roland said. He felt that if he looked at her solemn, upturned face again, he would cry. "Let's go." They rode slowly away from the hut. Before the grass closed behind them, hiding it from view, he looked back a final time. "Sue, I love thee." She smiled. It was a beautiful smile. "Bird and bear and hare and fish," she said. The next time Roland saw her, she was caught inside the Wizard's glass. 8 What Roland and his friends saw west of the Bad Grass had a harsh, lonely beauty. The wind was lifting great sheets of sand across the stony desert floor; the moonlight turned these into foot racing phantoms. At moments Hanging Rock was visible some two wheels distant, and the mouth of Eyebolt Canyon two wheels farther on. Sometimes both were gone, hidden by the dust. Behind them, the tall grass made a soughing, singing sound. "How do you boys feel?" Roland asked. "All's well?" They nodded. "There's going to be a lot of shooting, I think." "We'll remember the faces of our fathers," Cuthbert said. "Yes," Roland agreed, almost absently. "We'll remember them very well." He stretched in the saddle. "The wind's in our favor, not theirs - that's one good thing. We'll hear them coming. We must judge the size of the group. All right?" They both nodded. "If Jonas has still got his confidence, he'll come soon, in a small party - whatever gunnies he can put together on short notice - and he'll have the ball. In that case, we'll ambush them, kill them all, and take the Wizard's Rainbow." Alain and Cuthbert sat quiet, listening intently. The wind gusted, and Roland clapped a hand to his hat to keep it from flying off. "If he fears more trouble from us, I think he's apt to come later on, and with a bigger party of riders. If that happens, we'll let them pass . . . then, if the wind is our friend and keeps up, we'll fall in behind them." Cuthbert began to grin. "Oh Roland," he said. "Your father would be proud. Only fourteen, but cozy as the devil!" "Fifteen come next moonrise," Roland said seriously. "If we do it this way, we may have to kill their drogue riders. Watch my signals, all right?" "We're going to cross to Hanging Rock as part of their party?" Alain asked. He had always been a step or two behind Cuthbert, but Roland didn't mind; sometimes reliability was better than quickness. "Is that it?" "If the cards fall that way, yes." "If they've got the pink ball with em, you'd better hope it doesn't give us away," Alain said. Cuthbert looked surprised. Roland bit his lip, thinking that sometimes Alain was plenty quick. Certainly he had come up with this unpleasant little idea ahead of Bert . . . ahead of Roland, too. "We've got a lot to hope for this morning, but we'll play our cards as they come off the top of the pack." They dismounted and sat by their horses there on the edge of the grass, saying little. Roland watched the silver clouds of dust racing each other across the desert floor and thought of Susan. He imagined them married, living in a freehold somewhere south of Gilead. By then Farson would have been defeated, the world's strange decline reversed (the childish part of him simply assumed that making an end to John Farson would somehow see to that), and his gunslinging days would be over. Less than a year it had been since he had won the right to carry the six-shooters he wore on his hips - and to carry his father's great revolvers when Steven Deschain decided to pass them on - and already he was tired of them. Susan's kisses had softened his heart and quickened him, somehow; had made another life possible. A better one, perhaps. One with a house, and kiddies, and - "They're coming," Alain said, snapping Roland out of his reverie. The gunslinger stood up, Rusher's reins in one fist. Cuthbert stood tensely nearby. "Large party or small? Does thee ... do you know?" Alain stood facing southeast, hands held out with the palms up. Beyond his shoulder, Roland saw Old Star just about to slip below the horizon. Only an hour until dawn, then. "I can't tell yet," Alain said. "Can you at least tell if the ball - " "No. Shut up, Roland, let me listen!" Roland and Cuthbert stood and watched Alain anxiously, at the same time straining their ears to hear the hooves of horses, the creak of wheels, or the murmur of men on the passing wind. Time spun out. The wind, rather than dropping as Old Star disappeared and dawn approached, blew more fiercely than ever. Roland looked at Cuthbert, who had taken out his slingshot and was playing nervously with the pull. Bert raised one shoulder in a shrug. "It's a small party," Alain said suddenly. "Can either of you touch them?" They shook their heads. "No more than ten, maybe only six." "Gods!" Roland murmured, and pumped a fist at the sky. He couldn't help it. "And the ball?" "I can't touch it," Alain said. He sounded almost as though he were sleeping himself. "But it's with them, don't you think?" Roland did. A small party of six or eight, probably travelling with the ball. It was perfect. "Be ready, boys," he said. "We're going to take them." 9 Jonas's party made good time down the Drop and into the Bad Grass. The guide-stars were brilliant in the autumn sky, and Renfrew knew them all. He had a click-line to measure between the two he called The Twins, and he stopped the group briefly every twenty minutes or so to use it. Jonas hadn't the slightest doubt the old cowboy would bring them out of the tall grass pointed straight at Hanging Rock. Then, about an hour after they'd entered the Bad Grass, Quint rode up beside him. "That old lady, she want to see you, sai. She say it's important." "Do she, now?" Jonas asked. "Aye." Quint lowered his voice. "That ball she got on her lap all glowy." "Is that so? I tell you what. Quint - keep my old trail-buddies company while I see what's what." He dropped back until he was pacing beside the black cart. Rhea raised her face to him, and for a moment, washed as it was in the pink light, he thought it the face of a young girl. "So," she said. "Here y'are, big boy. I thought ye'd show up pretty smart." She cackled, and as her face broke into its sour lines of laughter, Jonas again saw her as she really was - all but sucked dry by the thing in her lap. Then he looked down at it himself . . . and was lost. He could feel that pink glow radiating into all the deepest passages and hollows of his mind, lighting them up in a way they'd never been lit up before. Even Coral, at her dirty busiest, couldn't light him up that way. "Ye like it, don't ye?" she half-laughed, half-crooned. "Aye, so ye do, so would anyone, such a pretty glam it is! But what do ye see, sai Jonas?" Leaning over, holding to the saddle-horn with one hand, his long hair hanging down in a sheaf, Jonas looked deeply into the ball. At first he saw only that luscious, labial pink, and then it began to draw apart. Now he saw a hut surrounded by tall grass. The sort of hut only a hermit could love. The door - it was painted a peeling but still bright red - stood open. And sitting there on the stone stoop with her hands in her lap, her blankets on the ground at her feet, and her unbound hair around her shoulders was ... "I'll be damned!" Jonas whispered. He had now leaned so far out of the saddle that he looked like a trick rider in a circus show, and his eyes seemed to have disappeared; there were only sockets of pink light where they had been. Rhea cackled delightedly. "Aye, it's Thorin's gilly that never was! Dearborn's lovergirl!" Her cackling stopped abruptly. "Lovergirl of the young proddy who killed my Ermot. And he'll pay for it, aye, so he will. Look closer, sai Jonas! Look closer!" He did. Everything was clear now, and he thought he should have seen it earlier. Everything this girl's aunt had feared had been true. Rhea had known, although why she hadn't told anyone the girl had been screwing one of the In-World boys, Jonas didn't know. And Susan had done more than just screw Will Dearborn; she'd helped him escape, him and his trail-mates, and she might well have killed two lawmen for him, into the bargain. The figure in the ball swam closer. Watching that made him feel a little dizzy, but it was a pleasant dizziness. Beyond the girl was the hut, faintly lit by a lamp which had been turned down to the barest core of flame. At first Jonas thought someone was sleeping in one comer, but on second glance he decided it was only a heap of hides that looked vaguely human. "Do'ee spy the boys?" Rhea asked, seemingly from a great distance. "Do'ee spy em, m'lord sai?" "No," he said, his own voice seeming to come from that same distant place. His eyes were pinned to the ball. He could feel its light baking deeper and deeper into his brain. It was a good feeling, like a hot fire on a cold night. "She's alone. Looks as if she's waiting." "Aye." Rhea gestured above the ball - a curt dusting-off movement of the hands - and the pink light was gone. Jonas gave a low, protesting cry, but no matter; the ball was dark again. He wanted to stretch his hands out and tell her to make the light return - to beg her, if necessary - and held himself back by pure force of will. He was rewarded by a slow return of his wits. It helped to remind himself that Rhea's gestures were as meaningless as the puppets in a Pinch and Jilly show. The ball did what it wanted, not what she wanted. Meanwhile, the ugly old woman was looking at him with eyes that were perversely shrewd and clear. "Waiting for what, do'ee suppose?" she asked. There was only one thing she could be waiting for. Jonas thought with rising alarm. The boys. The three beardless sons of bitches from In-World. And if they weren't with her, they might well be up ahead, doing their own waiting. Waiting for him. Possibly even waiting for - "Listen to me," he said. "I'll only speak once, and you best answer true. Do they know about that thing? Do those three boys know about the Rainbow?" Her eyes shifted away from his. It was answer enough in one way, but not in another. She had had things her way all too long up there on her hill; she had to know who was boss down here. He leaned over again and grabbed her shoulder. It was horrible - like grabbing a bare bone that somehow still lived - but he made himself hold on all the same. And squeeze. She moaned and wriggled, but he held on. "Tell me, you old bitch! Run your fucking gob!" "They might know of it," she whined. "The girl might've seen something the night she came to be - am-, let go, ye're killing me!" "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead." He took another longing glance at the ball, then sat up straight in the saddle, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called: "Clay! Hold up!" As Reynolds and Renfrew reined back, Jonas raised a hand to halt the vaqs behind him. The wind whispered through the grass, bending it, rippling it, whipping up eddies of sweet smell. Jonas stared ahead into the dark, even though he knew it was fruitless to look for them. They could be anywhere, and Jonas didn't like the odds in an ambush. Not one bit. He rode to where Clay and Renfrew were waiting. Renfrew looked impatient. "What's the problem? Dawn'll be breaking soon. We ought to get a move-on." "Do you know the huts in the Bad Grass?" "Aye,most. Why - " "Do you know one with a red door?" Renfrew nodded and pointed northish. "Old Soony's place. He had some sort of religious conversion - a dream or a vision or something. That's when he painted the door of his hut red. He's gone to the Manni-folk these last five years." He no longer asked why, at least; he had seen something on Jonas's face that had shut up his questions. Jonas raised his hand, looked at the blue coffin tattooed there for a second, then turned and called for Quint. "You're in charge," Jonas told him. Quint's shaggy eyebrows shot up. "Me?" "Yar. But you're not going on - there's been a change of plan." "What - " "Listen and don't open your mouth again unless there's something you don't understand. Get that damned black cart turned around. Put your men around it and hie on back the way we came. Join up with Lengyll and his men. Tell them Jonas says wait where you find em until he and Reynolds and Renfrew come. Clear?" Quint nodded. He looked bewildered but said nothing. "Good. Get about it. And tell the witch to put her toy back in its bag." Jonas passed a hand over his brow. Fingers which had rarely shaken before had now picked up a minute tremble. "It's distracting." Quint started away, then looked back when Jonas called his name. "I think those In-World boys are out here, Quint. Probably ahead of where we are now, but if they're back the way you're going, they'll probably set on you." 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?" Reynolds 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