by Stephen King
“Susan, look out!” Cuthbert shouted, and then: “No, Dave!”
At the end of his life, it was duty and not fear of the Big Coffin Hunters which propelled Dave Hollis, who had hoped to be Sheriff of Mejis himself when Avery retired (and, he sometimes told his wife, Judy, a better one than Fatso had ever dreamed of being). He forgot that he had serious questions about the way the boys had been taken as well as about what they might or might not have done. All he thought of then was that they were prisoners o’ the Barony, and such would not be taken if he could help it.
He lunged for the cowboy in the too-big clothes, meaning to tear the gun out of his hands. And shoot him with it, if necessary.
12
Susan was staring at the yellow blaze of fresh wood on the corner of the Sheriff’s desk, forgetting everything in her amazement—so much damage inflicted by the single twitch of a finger!—when Cuthbert’s desperate shout awakened her to her position.
She shrank back against the wall, avoiding Dave’s first swipe at the oversized serape, and, without thinking, pulled the trigger again. There was another loud explosion, and Dave Hollis—a young man only two years older than she herself—was flung backward with a smoking hole in his shirt between two points of the star he wore. His eyes were wide and unbelieving. His monocle lay by one outstretched hand on its length of black silk ribbon. One of his feet struck his guitar and knocked it to the floor with a thrum nearly as musical as the chords he had been trying to make.
“Dave,” she whispered. “Oh Dave, I’m sorry, what did I do?”
Dave tried once to get up, then collapsed forward on his face. The hole going into the front of him was small, but the one she was looking at now, the one coming out the back, was huge and hideous, all black and red and charred edges of cloth . . . as if she had run him through with a blazing hot poker instead of shooting him with a gun, which was supposed to be merciful and civilized and was clearly neither one.
“Dave,” she whispered. “Dave, I . . .”
“Susan look out!” Roland shouted.
It was Avery. He scuttled forward on his hands and knees, seized her around the calves, and yanked her feet out from under her. She came down on her bottom with a tooth-rattling crash and was face to face with him—his frog-eyed, large-pored face, his garlic-smelling hole of a mouth.
“Gods, ye’re a girl,” he whispered, and reached for her. She pulled the trigger of Roland’s gun again, setting the front of her serape on fire and blowing a hole in the ceiling. Plaster dust drifted down. Avery’s ham-sized hands settled around her throat, cutting off her wind. Somewhere far away, Roland shrieked her name.
She had one more chance.
Maybe.
One’s enough, Sue, her father spoke inside of her head. One’s all ye need, my dear.
She cocked Roland’s pistol with the side of her thumb, socked the muzzle deep into the flab hanging from the underside of Sheriff Herk Avery’s head, and pulled the trigger.
The mess was considerable.
13
Avery’s head dropped into her lap, as heavy and wet as a raw roast. Above it, she could feel growing heat. At the bottom edge of her vision was the yellow flicker of fire.
“On the desk!” Roland shouted, yanking the door of his cell so hard it rattled in its frame. “Susan, the water-pitcher! For your father’s sake!”
She rolled Avery’s head out of her lap, got to her feet, and staggered to the desk with the front of the serape burning. She could smell its charred stench and was grateful in some far corner of her mind that she’d had time, while waiting for dusk, to tie her hair behind her.
The pitcher was almost full, but not with water; she could smell the sweet-sour tang of graf. She doused herself with it, and there was a brisk hissing as the liquid hit the flames. She stripped the serape off (the oversized sombrero came with it) and threw it on the floor. She looked at Dave again, a boy she had grown up with, one she might even have kissed behind the door of Hookey’s, once upon an antique time.
“Susan!” It was Roland’s voice, harsh and urgent. “The keys! Hurry!”
Susan grabbed the keyring from the nail on the wall. She went to Roland’s cell first and thrust the ring blindly through the bars. The air was thick with smells of gunsmoke, burned wool, blood. Her stomach clenched helplessly at every breath.
Roland picked the right key, reached back through the bars with it, and plunged it into the lockbox. A moment later he was out, and hugging her roughly as her tears broke. A moment after that, Cuthbert and Alain were out, as well.
“You’re an angel!” Alain said, hugging her himself.
“Not I,” she said, and began to cry harder. She thrust the gun at Roland. It felt filthy in her hand; she never wanted to touch one again. “Him and me played together when we were berries. He was one of the good ones—never a braid-puller or a bully—and he grew up a good one. Now I’ve ended him, and who’ll tell his wife?”
Roland took her back into his arms and held her there for a moment. “You did what you had to. If not him, then us. Does thee not know it?”
She nodded against his chest. “Avery, him I don’t mind so much, but Dave . . .”
“Come on,” Roland said. “Someone might recognize the gunshots for what they were. Was it Sheemie throwing firecrackers?”
She nodded. “I’ve got clothes for you. Hats and serapes.”
Susan hurried back to the door, opened it, peeked out in either direction, then slipped into the growing dark.
Cuthbert took the charred serape and put it over Deputy Dave’s face. “Tough luck, partner,” he said. “You got caught in between, didn’t you? I reckon you wasn’t so bad.”
Susan came back in, burdened with the stolen gear which had been tied to Capi’s saddle. Sheemie was already off on his next errand without having to be told. If the inn-boy was a halfwit, she’d known a lot of folks in her time who were running on quarters and eighths.
“Where’d you get this stuff?” Alain asked.
“The Travellers’ Rest. And I didn’t. Sheemie did.” She held the hats out. “Come on, hurry.”
Cuthbert took the headgear and passed it out. Roland and Alain had already slipped into the serapes; with the hats added and pulled well down over their faces, they could have been any Drop-vaqs in Barony.
“Where are we going?” Alain asked as they stepped out onto the porch. The street was still dark and deserted at this end; the gunshots had attracted no attention.
“Hookey’s, to start with,” Susan said. “That’s where your horses are.”
They went down the street together in a little group of four. Capi was gone; Sheemie had taken the mule along. Susan’s heart was thudding rapidly and she could feel sweat standing out on her brow, but she still felt cold. Whether or no what she had done was murder, she had ended two lives this evening, and crossed a line that could never be recrossed in the other direction. She had done it for Roland, for her love, and simply knowing she could have done no different now offered some consolation.
Be happy together, ye faithless, ye cozeners, ye murderers. I curse thee with the ashes.
Susan seized Roland’s hand, and when he squeezed, she squeezed back. And as she looked up at Demon Moon, its wicked face now draining from choleric red-orange to silver, she thought that when she had pulled the trigger on poor, earnest Dave Hollis, she had paid for her love with the dearest currency of all—had paid with her soul. If he left her now, her aunt’s curse would be fulfilled, for only ashes would remain.
CHAPTER IX
REAPING
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 holstered his guns and made ready to embrace the boy, but Sheemie ran past him and threw hi
mself 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 Stockworth’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 sombrera 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 corner 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 burn 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 ev
en two or three steps—and then he was lifted off his feet and hurled at the 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 inter-connected 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.
