and pork, joints of beef, great pink rounds of ham. Susannah felt her stomach expand at the sight, as if making ready to swallow all of it, and it was only with a great effort that she stopped the sensual
"moan rising in her throat. Her mouth flooded with saliva and she raised a hand to wipe it away. They would know what she was doing, she supposed there was no help for that, but she could at least keep them from the satisfaction of seeing the physical evidence of her hunger gleaming on her lips and chin. Oy barked, but kept his seat by the gunslinger's left heel.
Inside the other basket were big cable-knit sweaters, one green and one red: Christmas colors.
"There's also long underwear, coats, fleece-lined shor'-boots, and gloves," said Feemalo. "For Empathica's deadly cold at this time of year, and you'll have months of walking ahead."
"On the outskirts of town we've left you a light aluminum sledge," Fimalo said. 'You can throw it in the back of your little cart and then use it to carry the lady and your gunna, once you reach the snowlands."
"You no doubt wonder why we do all this, since we disapprove of your journey," said Feemalo. "The fact is, we're grateful for our survival-"
"We really did think we were done for," Fumalo broke in.
"'The quarterback is toast,' Eddie might have said."
And this, too, hurt her... but not as much as looking at all that food. Not as much as imagining how it would feel to slip one of those bulky sweaters over her head and let the hem fall all the way to the middle of her thighs.
"My decision was to try and talk you out of going if I could,"
said Fimalo-the only one who spoke of himself in the firstperson singular, Susannah had noticed. "And if I couldn't, I'd give you the supplies you'd need to go on with."
"You can't kill him!" Fumalo burst out. "Don't you see that, you wooden-headed killing machine, don't you see? All you can do is get overeager and play into his dead hands! How can you be so stu-"
"Hush," Fimalo said mildly, and Fumalo hushed at once.
"He's taken his decision."
"What will you do?" Roland asked. "Once we've pushed on, that is?"
The three of them shrugged in perfect mirror unison, but it was Fimalo-the so-called uffi's superego-who answered.
"Wait here," he said. "See if the matrix of creation lives or dies.
In the meanwhile, try to refurbish Le Casse and bring it to some of its previous glory. It was a beautiful place once. It can be beautiful again. And now I think our palaver's done. Take your gifts with our thanks and good wishes."
"Grudging good wishes," said Fumalo, and actually smiled.
Coming from him, that smile was both dazzling and unexpected.
Susannah almost started forward. Hungry as she was for fresh food (for fresh meat), it was the sweaters and the thermal underwear that she really craved. Although supplies were getting thin (and would surely run out before they were past the place die uffi called Empathica), there were still cans of beans and tuna and corned beef hash rolling around in the back of Ho Fat's Luxury Taxi, and their bellies were currendy full. It was the cold that was killing her. That was what it felt like, at least; cold working its way inward toward her heart, one painful inch at a time.
Two dungs stopped her. One was the realization that a single step forward was all it would take to destroy what little remained of her will; she'd run to the center of the bridge and fall on her knees before that deep basket of clothes and go grubbing through it like a predatory housewife at the annual Filene's white-sale. Once she took diat first step, nothing would stop her.
And losing her will wouldn't be the worst of it; she would also lose the self-respect Odetta Holmes had labored all her life to win, despite die barely suspected saboteur lurking in her mind.
Yet even that wouldn't have been enough to hold her back.
What did was a memory of die day they'd seen die crow with die green stuff in its beak, the crow that had been going Croo, crool instead of Caw, caw!Only devilgrass, true, but green stuff, all the same. Living stuff. That was die day Roland had told her to hold her tongue, had told her-what was it? Before victory comes temptation.
She never would have suspected that her life's greatest temptation would be a