by Stephen King
Another. Another. And yet another.
The five young people stood in their corner, 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 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 calabozo? 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.�
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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 Farson’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 Morn, 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 corner 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 burn 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.”
