He still held Oy curled in his right arm. He held his bloody left hand stiffly out in front of him.
“Jake, no!” Eddie shouted desperately.
“I’ll come for you,” Roland said in the same low voice.
“I know,” Jake repeated. The wind gusted again. The bridge swayed and groaned. The Send was now speckled with whitecaps, and water boiled whitely around the wreck of the blue mono jutting from the river on the upstream side.
“Ay, my cully!” Gasher crooned. His lips spread wide, revealing a few remaining teeth that jutted from his white gums like decayed tombstones. “Ay, my fine young squint! Just keep coming.”
“Roland, he could be bluffing!” Eddie yelled. “That thing could be a dud!”
The gunslinger made no reply.
As Jake neared the other side of the hole in the walkway, Oy bared his own teeth and began to snarl at Gasher.
“Toss that talking bag of guts overside,” Gasher said.
“Fuck you,” Jake replied in the same calm voice.
The pirate looked surprised for a moment, then nodded. “Tender of him, are you? Wery well.” He took two steps backward. “Put him down the second you reach the concrete, then. And if he runs at me, I promise to kick his brains right out his tender little asshole.”
“Asshole,” Oy said through his bared teeth.
“Shut up, Oy,” Jake muttered. He reached the concrete just as the strongest gust of wind yet struck the bridge. This time the twanging sound of parting cable-strands seemed to come from everywhere. Jake glanced back and saw Roland and Eddie clinging to the rail. Susannah was watching him from over Roland’s shoulder, her tight cap of curls rippling and shaking in the wind. Jake raised his hand to them. Roland raised his in return.
You won’t let me drop this time? he had asked. No—not ever again, Roland had replied. Jake believed him . . . but he was very much afraid of what might happen before Roland arrived. He put Oy down. Gasher rushed forward the moment he did, kicking out at the small animal. Oy skittered aside, avoiding the booted foot.
“Run!” Jake shouted. Oy did, shooting past them and loping toward the Lud end of the bridge with his head down, swerving to avoid the holes and leaping across the cracks in the pavement. He didn’t look back. A moment later Gasher had his arm around Jake’s neck. He stank of dirt and decaying flesh, the two odors combining to create a single deep stench, crusty and thick. It made Jake’s gorge rise.
He bumped his crotch into Jake’s buttocks. “Maybe I ain’t quite s’far gone’s I thought. Don’t they say youth’s the wine what makes old men drunk? We’ll have us a time, won’t we, my sweet little squint? Ay, we’ll have a time such as will make the angels sing.”
Oh Jesus, Jake thought.
Gasher raised his voice again. “We’re leaving now, my hardcase friend—we have grand things to do and grand people to see, so we do, but I keep my word. As for you, you’ll stand right where you are for a good fifteen minutes, if you’re wise. If I see you start to move, we’re all going to ride the handsome. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Roland said.
“Do you believe me when I say I have nothing to lose?”
“Yes.”
“That’s wery well, then. Move, boy! Hup!”
Gasher’s hold tightened on Jake’s throat until he could hardly breathe. At the same time he was pulled backward. They retreated that way, facing the gap where Roland stood with Susannah on his back and Eddie just behind him, still holding the Ruger which Gasher had called a toy pistol. Jake could feel Gasher’s breath puffing against his ear in hot little blurts. Worse, he could smell it.
“Don’t try a thing,” Gasher whispered, “or I’ll rip off yer sweetmeats and stuff em up your bung. And it would be sad to lose em before you ever got a chance to use em, wouldn’t it? Wery sad indeed.”
They reached the end of the bridge. Jake stiffened, believing Gasher would throw the grenade anyway, but he didn’t . . . at least not immediately. He backed Jake through a narrow alley between two small cubicles which had probably served as tollbooths, once upon a time. Beyond them, the brick warehouses loomed like prison cellblocks.
“Now, cully, I’m going to let go of your neck, or how would’je ever have wind to run with? But I’ll be holdin yer arm, and if ye don’t run like the wind, I promise I’ll rip it right off and use