Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,221

waiting,” Cuthbert said. “Not that that part matters to us; we’ve got all we can handle right here in Mejis.”

“I’ve been waiting in order to get it all,” Roland said. “Every bit of their damned plunder.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, our friend is just a wee nubbin ambitious,” Cuthbert said, and winked.

Roland paid no attention. He was looking in the direction of Eyebolt Canyon. There was no noise from there this night; the wind had shifted onto its autumn course and away from town. “If we can fire the oil, the rest will go up with it . . . and the oil is the most important thing, anyway. I want to destroy it, then I want to get the hell out of here. The four of us.”

“They mean to move on Reaping Day, don’t they?” Susan asked.

“Oh yes, it seems so,” Cuthbert said, then laughed. It was a rich, infectious sound—the laughter of a child—and as he did it, he rocked back and forth and held his stomach as a child would.

Susan looked puzzled. “What? What is it?”

“I can’t tell,” he said, chortling. “It’s too rich for me. I’ll laugh all the way through it, and Roland will be annoyed. You do it, Al. Tell Susan about our visit from Deputy Dave.”

“He came out to see us at the Bar K,” Alain said, smiling himself. “Talked to us like an uncle. Told us Hambry-folk don’t care for outsiders at their Fairs, and we’d best keep right to our place on the day of the full moon.”

“That’s insane!” Susan spoke indignantly, as one is apt to when one hears one’s hometown unjustly maligned. “We welcome strangers to our fairs, so we do, and always have! We’re not a bunch of . . . of savages!”

“Soft, soft,” Cuthbert said, giggling. “We know that, but Deputy Dave don’t know we know, do he? He knows his wife makes the best white tea for miles around, and after that Dave’s pretty much at sea. Sheriff Herk knows a leetle more, I sh’d judge, but not much.”

“The pains they’ve taken to warn us off means two things,” Roland said. “The first is that they intend to move on Reaping Fair-Day, just as you said, Susan. The second is that they think they can steal Farson’s goods right out from under our noses.”

“And then perhaps blame us for it afterward,” Alain said.

She looked curiously from one to the other, then said: “What have you planned, then?”

“To destroy what they’ve left at Citgo as bait of our own and then to strike them where they gather,” Roland said quietly. “That’s Hanging Rock. At least half the tankers they mean to take west are there already. They’ll have a force of men. As many as two hundred, perhaps, although I think it will turn out to be less. I intend that all these men should die.”

“If they don’t, we will,” Alain said.

“How can the four of us kill two hundred soldiers?”

“We can’t. But if we can start one or two of the clustered tankers burning, we think there’ll be an explosion—mayhap a fearful one. The surviving soldiers will be terrified, and the surviving leaders infuriated. They’ll see us, because we’ll let ourselves be seen . . .”

Alain and Cuthbert were watching him breathlessly. The rest they had either been told or had guessed, but this part was the counsel Roland had, until now, kept to himself.

“What then?” she asked, frightened. “What then?”

“I think we can lead them into Eyebolt Canyon,” Roland said. “I think we can lead them into the thinny.”

5

Thunderstruck silence greeted this. Then, not without respect, Susan said: “You’re mad.”

“No,” Cuthbert said thoughtfully. “He’s not. You’re thinking about that little cut in the canyon wall, aren’t you, Roland? The one just before the jog in the canyon floor.”

Roland nodded. “Four could scramble up that way without too much trouble. At the top, we’ll pile a fair amount of rock. Enough to start a landslide down on any that should try following us.”

“That’s horrible,” Susan said.

“It’s survival,” Alain replied. “If they’re allowed to have the oil and put it to use, they’ll slaughter every Affiliation man that gets in range of their weapons. The Good Man takes no prisoners.”

“I didn’t say wrong, only horrible.”

They were silent for a moment, four children contemplating the murders of two hundred men. Except they wouldn’t all be men; many (perhaps even most) would be boys roughly their own ages.

At last she said, “Those not caught in your rockslide will only