by Stephen King
The cause of all this had been forgotten as the effects played themselves out. Now Sheemie got to his feet and pelted across the room. His cheeks were wet with tears. He grasped one of Cuthbert’s hands, kissed it several times (loud smacking noises that would have been comic under other circumstances), and held the hand to his cheek for a moment. Then he dodged past Reynolds, pushed open the righthand batwing, and flew right into the arms of a sleepy-eyed and still half-drunk Sheriff. Avery had been fetched by Sheb from the jailhouse, where the Sheriff o’ Barony had been sleeping off the Mayor’s ceremonial dinner in one of his own cells.
8
“This is a nice mess, isn’t it?”
Avery speaking. No one answering. He hadn’t expected they would, not if they knew what was good for them.
The office area of the jail was too small to hold three men, three strapping not-quite-men, and one extra-large Sheriff comfortably, so Avery had herded them into the nearby Town Gathering Hall, which echoed to the soft flutter of the pigeons in the rafters and the steady beat-beat-beat of the grandfather clock behind the podium.
It was a plain room, but an inspired choice all the same. It was where the townsfolk and Barony landowners had come for hundreds of years to make their decisions, pass their laws, and occasionally send some especially troublesome person west. There was a feeling of seriousness in its moon-glimmered darkness, and Roland thought even the old man, Jonas, felt a little of it. Certainly it invested Sheriff Herk Avery with an authority he might not otherwise have been able to project.
The room was filled with what were in that place and time called “bareback benches”—oaken pews with no cushions for either butt or back. There were sixty in all, thirty on each side of a wide center aisle. Jonas, Depape, and Reynolds sat on the front bench to the left of the aisle. Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain sat across from them on the right. Reynolds and Depape looked sullen and embarrassed; Jonas looked remote and composed. Will Dearborn’s little crew was quiet. Roland had given Cuthbert a look which he hoped the boy could read: One smart remark and I’ll rip the tongue right out of your head. He thought the message had been received. Bert had stowed his idiotic “lookout” somewhere, which was a good sign.
“A nice mess,” Avery repeated, and blew liquor-scented wind at them in a deep sigh. He was sitting on the edge of the stage with his short legs hanging down, looking at them with a kind of disgusted wonder.
The side door opened and in came Deputy Dave, his white service jacket laid aside, his monocle tucked into the pocket of his more usual khaki shirt. In one hand he carried a mug; in the other a folded scrap of what looked to Roland like birch-bark.
“Did ye boil the first half, David?” Avery asked. He now wore a put-upon expression.
“Aye.”
“Boiled it twice?”
“Aye, twice.”
“For that was the directions.”
“Aye,” Dave repeated in a resigned voice. He handed Avery the cup and dumped the remaining contents of the birch-bark scrap in when the Sheriff held the cup out for them.
Avery swirled the liquid, peered in with a doubtful, resigned expression, then drank. He grimaced. “Oh, foul!” he cried. “What’s so nasty as this?”
“What is it?” Jonas asked.
“Headache powder. Hangover powder, ye might say. From the old witch. The one who lives up the Cöos. Know where I mean?” Avery gave Jonas a knowing look. The old gunny pretended not to see it, but Roland thought he had. And what did it mean? Another mystery.
Depape looked up at the word Cöos, then went back to sucking his wounded finger. Beyond Depape, Reynolds sat with his cloak drawn about him, looking grimly down at his lap.
“Does it work?” Roland asked.
“Aye, boy, but ye pay a price for witch’s medicine. Remember that: ye always pay. This ’un takes away the headache if ye drink too much of Mayor Thorin’s damned punch, but it gripes the bowels somethin fierce, so it does. And the farts—!” He waved a hand in front of his face to demonstrate, took another sip from the cup, then set it aside. He returned to his former gravity, but the mood in the room had lightened just a little; they all felt it. “Now what are we to do about this business?”
Herk Avery swept them slowly with his eyes, from Reynolds on his far right to Alain—“Richard Stockworth”—on his far left. “Eh, boys? We’ve got the Mayor’s men on one side and the Affiliation’s . . . men . . . on the other, six fellows at the point of murder, and over what? A halfwit and a spilled bucket of slops.” He pointed first at the Big Coffin Hunters, then to the Affiliation’s counters. “Two powderkegs and one fat sheriff in the middle. So what’s yer thoughts on’t? Speak up, don’t be shy, you wasn’t shy in Coral’s whoreden down the road, don’t be shy in here!”
No one said anything. Avery sipped some more of his foul drink, then set it down and looked at them decisively. What he said next didn’t surprise Roland much; it was exactly what he would have expected of a man like Avery, right down to the tone which implied that he considered himself a man who could make the hard decisions when he had to, by the gods.
“I’ll tell yer what we’re going to do: We’re going to forget it.”
He now assumed the air of one who expects an uproar and is prepared to handle it. When no one spoke or even shuffled a foot, he looked discomfited. Yet he had a job to do, and the night was growing old. He squared his shoulders and pushed on.
“I’ll not spend the next three or four months waiting to see who among you’s killed who. Nay! Nor will I be put in a position where I might have to take the punishment for your stupid quarrel over that halfwit Sheemie.
“I appeal to your practical natures, boys, when I point out that I may be either your friend or your enemy during your time here . . . but I’d be wrong if I didn’t also appeal to your more noble natures, which I am sure are both large and sensitive.”
The Sheriff now tried on an exalted expression, which was not, in Roland’s estimation, notably successful. Avery turned his attention to Jonas.
“Sai, I can’t believe ye’ll want to be causin trouble for three young men from the Affiliation—the Affiliation that’s been like mother’s milk and father’s shelterin hand since aye or oh fifty generations back; ye’d not be so disrespectful as all that, would ye?”
Jonas shook his head, smiling his thin smile.
Avery nodded again. Things were going along well, that nod said. “Ye’ve all yer own cakes to bake and oats to roll, and none of ye wants something like this to get in the way of doin yer jobs, do yer?”
They all shook their heads this time.
“So what I want you to do is to stand up, face each other, shake hands, and cry each other’s pardon. If ye don’t do that, ye can all ride west out of town by sunrise, far as I’m concerned.”
He picked up the mug and took a bigger drink this time. Roland saw that the man’s hand was trembling the tiniest bit, and wasn’t surprised. It was all bluff and blow, of course. The Sheriff would have understood that Jonas, Reynolds, and Depape were beyond his authority as soon as he saw the small blue coffins on their hands; after tonight, he must feel the same way about Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath. He could only hope that all would see where their self-interest lay. Roland did. So, apparently, did Jonas, for even as Roland got up, Jonas did the same.
Avery recoiled a little bit, as if expecting Jonas to go for his gun and Dearborn for the knife in his belt, the one he’d been holding against Jonas’s back when Avery came puffing up to the saloon.
There was no gun or knife drawn, however. Jonas turned toward Roland and held out his hand.
“He’s right, lad,” Jonas said in his reedy, quavering voice.
“Yes.”
“Will you shake with an old man, and vow to start over?”
“Yes.” Roland held out his hand.
Jonas took it. “I cry your pardon.”
“I cry your own, Mr. Jonas.” Roland tapped left-hand at his throat, as was proper when addressing an e
lder in such fashion.
As the two of them sat down, Alain and Reynolds rose, as neatly as men in a prerehearsed ceremony. Last of all, Cuthbert and Depape rose. Roland was all but positive that Cuthbert’s foolishness would pop out like Jack from his box—the idiot would simply not be able to help himself, although he must surely realize that Depape was no man to make sport of tonight.
“Cry your pardon,” Bert said, with an admirable lack of laughter in his voice.
“Cryerown,” Depape mumbled, and held out his blood-streaked hand. Roland had a nightmare vision of Bert squeezing down on it as hard as he could, making the redhead yowl like an owl on a hot stove, but Bert’s grip was as restrained as his voice.
Avery sat on the edge of the stage with his pudgy legs hanging down, watching it all with avuncular good cheer. Even Deputy Dave was smiling.
“Now I propose to shake hands with yer all myself, ’n then send yer on yer ways, for the hour’s late, so it is, and such as me needs my beauty rest.” He chuckled, and again looked uncomfortable when no one joined in. But he slipped off the stage and began to shake hands, doing so with the enthusiasm of a minister who has finally succeeded in marrying a headstrong couple after a long and stormy courtship.
9
When they stepped outside, the moon was down and the first lightening in the sky had begun to show at the far edge of the Clean Sea.
“Mayhap we’ll meet again, sai,” Jonas said.
“Mayhap we will,” Roland said, and swung up into his saddle.
10
The Big Coffin Hunters were staying in the watchman’s house about a mile south of Seafront—five miles out of town, this was.
Halfway there, Jonas stopped at a turnout beside the road. From here the land made a steep, rocky descent to the brightening sea.
“Get down, mister,” he said. It was Depape he was looking at.
“Jonas . . . Jonas, I . . .”
“Get down.”
Biting his lip nervously, Depape got down.
“Take off your spectacles.”
“Jonas, what’s this about? I don’t—”
“Or if you want em broke, leave em on. It’s all the same to me.”
Biting his lip harder now, Depape took off his gold-rimmed spectacles. They were barely in his hand before Jonas had fetched him a terrific clip on the side of the head. Depape cried out and reeled toward the drop. Jonas drove forward, moving as fast as he had struck, and seized him by the shirt just before he went tumbling over the edge. Jonas twisted his hand into the shirt material and yanked Depape toward him. He breathed deep, inhaling the scent of pine-tar and Depape’s sweat.
“I ought to toss you right over the edge,” he breathed. “Do you know how much harm you’ve done?”
“I . . . Jonas, I never meant . . . just a little fun is all I . . . how was we supposed to know they . . .”
Slowly, Jonas’s hand relaxed. That last bit of babble had gone home. How was they supposed to know, that was ungrammatical but right. And if not for tonight, they might not have known. If you looked at it that way, Depape had actually done them a favor. The devil you knew was always preferable to the devil you didn’t. Still, word would get around, and people would laugh. Maybe even that was all right, though. The laughter would stop in due time.
“Jonas, I cry your pardon.”
“Shut up,” Jonas said. In the east, the sun would shortly heave itself over the horizon, casting its first gleams on a new day in this world of toil and sorrow. “I ain’t going to toss you over, because then I’d have to toss Clay over and follow along myself. They got the drop on us the same as you, right?”
Depape wanted to agree, but thought it might be dangerous to do so. He was prudently silent.
“Get down here, Clay.”
Clay slid off his mount.
“Now hunker.”
The three of them hunkered on their bootsoles, heels up. Jonas plucked a shoot of grass and put it between his lips. “Affiliation brats is what we were told, and we had no reason not to believe it,” he said. “The bad boys are sent all the way to Mejis, a sleepy Barony on the Clean Sea, on a make-work detail that’s two parts penance and three parts punishment. Ain’t that what we were told?”
They nodded.
“Either of you believe it after tonight?”
Depape shook his head. So did Clay.
“They may be rich boys, but that’s not all they are,” Depape said. “The way they were tonight . . . they were like . . .” He trailed off, not quite willing to finish the thought. It was too absurd.
Jonas was willing. “They acted like gunslingers.”
Neither Jonas nor Reynolds replied at first. Then Clay Reynolds said, “They’re too young, Eldred. Too young by years.”
“Not too young to be ’prentices, mayhap. In any case, we’re going to find out.” He turned to Depape. “You’ve got some riding to do, cully.”
“Aww, Jonas—!”
“None of us exactly covered ourselves with glory, but you were the fool that started the pot boiling.” He looked at Depape, but Depape only looked down at the ground between them. “You’re going to ride their backtrail, Roy, and you’re going to ask questions until you’ve got the answers you think will satisfy my curiosity. Clay and I are mostly going to wait. And watch. Play Castles with em, if you like. When I feel like enough time’s gone by for us to be able to do a little snooping without being trigged, mayhap we’ll do it.”
He bit on the piece of grass in his mouth. The larger piece tumbled out and lay between his boots.
“Do you know why I shook his hand? That boy Dearborn’s damned hand? Because we can’t rock the boat, boys. Not just when it’s edging in toward harbor. Latigo and the folks we’ve been waiting for will be moving toward us very soon, now. Until they get into these parts, it’s in our interest to keep the peace. But I tell you this: no one puts a knife to Eldred Jonas’s back and lives. Now listen, Roy. Don’t make me tell you any of this twice.”
Jonas began to speak, leaning forward over his knees toward Depape as he did. After awhile, Depape began to nod. He might like a little trip, actually. After the recent comedy in the Travellers’ Rest, a change of air might be just the ticket.
11
The boys were almost back to the Bar K and the sun was coming over the horizon before Cuthbert broke the silence. “Well! That was an amusing and instructive evening, was it not?” Neither Roland nor Alain replied, so Cuthbert leaned over to the rook’s skull, which he had returned to its former place on the horn of his saddle. “What say you, old friend? Did we enjoy our evening? Dinner, a circle-dance, and almost killed to top things off. Did you enjoy?”
The lookout only stared ahead of Cuthbert’s horse with its great dark eyes.
“He says he’s too tired for talk,” Cuthbert said, then yawned. “So’m I, actually.” He looked at Roland. “I got a good look into Mr. Jonas’s eyes after he shook hands with you, Will. He means to kill you.”
Roland nodded.
“They mean to kill all of us,” Alain said.
Roland nodded again. “We’ll make it hard for them, but they know more about us now than they did at dinner. We’ll not get behind them that way again.”
He stopped, just as Jonas had stopped not three miles from where they now were. Only instead of looking directly out over the Clean Sea, Roland and his friends were looking down the long slope of the Drop. A herd of horses was moving from west to east, barely more than shadows in this light.
“What do you see, Roland?” Alain asked, almost timidly.
“Trouble,” Roland said, “and in our road.” Then he gigged his horse and rode on. Before they got back to the Bar K bunkhouse, he was thinking about Susan again. Five minutes after he dropped his head on his flat burlap pillow, he was dreaming of her.
CHAPTER VII
ON THE DROP
1
Three weeks had passed since the welcoming dinner at Mayor’s House and the incident at the Travellers’ R
est. There had been no more trouble between Roland’s ka-tet and Jonas’s. In the night sky, Kissing Moon had waned and Peddler’s Moon had made its first thin appearance. The days were bright and warm; even the oldtimers admitted it was one of the most beautiful summers in memory.
On a mid-morning as beautiful as any that summer, Susan Delgado galloped a two-year-old rosillo named Pylon north along the Drop. The wind dried the tears on her cheeks and yanked her unbound hair out behind her as she went. She urged Pylon to go faster yet, lightly thumping his sides with her spurless boots. Pylon turned it up a notch at once, ears flattening, tail flagging. Susan, dressed in jeans and the faded, oversized khaki shirt (one of her da’s) that had caused all the trouble, leaned over the light practice saddle, holding to the horn with one hand and rubbing the other down the side of the horse’s strong, silky neck.
“More!” she whispered. “More and faster! Go on, boy!”
Pylon let it out yet another notch. That he had at least one more in him she knew; that he had even one more beyond that she suspected.
They sped along the Drop’s highest ridge, and she barely saw the magnificent slope of land below her, all green and gold, or the way it faded into the blue haze of the Clean Sea. On any other day the view and the cool, salt-smelling breeze would have uplifted her. Today she only wanted to hear the steady low thunder of Pylon’s hoofs and feel the flex of his muscles beneath her; today she wanted to outrun her own thoughts.
And all because she had come downstairs this morning dressed for riding in one of her father’s old shirts.
2
Aunt Cord had been at the stove, wrapped in her dressing gown and with her hair still netted. She dished herself up a bowl of oatmeal and brought it to the table. Susan had known things weren’t good as soon as her aunt turned toward her, bowl in hand; she could see the discontented twitch of Aunt Cord’s lips, and the disapproving glance she shot at the orange Susan was peeling. Her aunt was still rankled by the silver and gold she had expected to have in hand by now, coins which would be withheld yet awhile due to the witch’s prankish decree that Susan should remain a virgin until autumn.
