Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,258

hard fists. Just men drinking, not three hundred yards from where her love and his friends were locked up. The men who were here wouldn’t do anything tonight but drink, though. And if she was lucky . . . brave and lucky . . .

As she drew Pylon up in front of the saloon with a murmured word, a shape rose out of the shadows. She tensed, and then the first orangey light of the rising moon caught Sheemie’s face. She relaxed again—even laughed a little, mostly at herself. He was a part of their ka-tet; she knew he was. Was it surprising that he should know, as well?

“Susan,” he murmured, taking off his sombrera and holding it against his chest. “I been waiting for’ee.”

“Why?” she asked.

“ ’Cause I knew ye’d come.” He looked back over his shoulder at the Rest, a black bulk spraying crazy light toward every point of the compass. “We’re going to let Arthur and them free, ain’t we?”

“I hope so,” she said.

“We have to. The folks in there, they don’t talk, but they don’t have to talk. I knows, Susan, daughter of Pat. I knows.”

She supposed he did. “Is Coral inside?”

Sheemie shook his head. “Gone up to Mayor’s House. She told Stanley she was going to help lay out the bodies for the funeral day after tomorrow, but I don’t think she’ll be here for the funeral. I think the Big Coffin Hunters is going and she’ll go with ’em.” He raised a hand and swiped at his leaking eyes.

“Your mule, Sheemie—”

“All saddled, and I got the long halter.”

She looked at him, open-mouthed. “How did ye know—”

“Same way I knew ye’d be coming, Susan-sai. I just knew.” He shrugged, then pointed vaguely. “Capi’s around the back. I tied him to the cook’s pump.”

“That’s good.” She fumbled in the saddlebag where she had put the smaller firecrackers. “Here. Take some of these. Do’ee have a sulfur or two?”

“Aye.” He asked no questions, simply stuffed the firecrackers into his front pocket. She, however, who had never been through the batwing doors of the Travellers’ Rest in her whole life, had another question for him.

“What do they do with their coats and hats and serapes when they come in, Sheemie? They must take em off; drinking’s warm work.”

“Oh, aye. They puts em on a long table just inside the door. Some fights about whose is whose when they’re ready to go home.”

She nodded, thinking hard and fast. He stood before her, still holding his sombrera against his chest, letting her do what he could not . . . at least not in the conventionally understood way. At last she raised her head again.

“Sheemie, if you help me, you’re done in Hambry . . . done in Mejis . . . done in the Outer Arc. You go with us if we get away. You have to understand that. Do you?”

She saw he did; his face fairly shone with the idea. “Aye, Susan! Go with you and Will Dearborn and Richard Stockworth and my best friend, Mr. Arthur Heath! Go to In-World! We’ll see buildings and statues and women in gowns like fairy princesses and—”

“If we’re caught, we’ll be killed.”

He stopped smiling, but his eyes didn’t waver. “Aye, killed we’ll be if ta’en, most like.”

“Will you still help me?”

“Capi’s all saddled,” he repeated. Susan reckoned that was answer enough. She took hold of the hand pressing the sombrera to Sheemie’s chest (the hat’s crown was pretty well crushed, and not for the first time). She bent, holding Sheemie’s fingers with one hand and the horn of her saddle with the other, and kissed his cheek. He smiled up at her.

“We’ll do our best, won’t we?” she asked him.

“Aye, Susan daughter of Pat. We’ll do our best for our friends. Our very best.”

“Yes. Now listen, Sheemie. Very carefully.”

She began to talk, and Sheemie listened.

10

Twenty minutes later, as the bloated orange moon struggled above the buildings of the town like a pregnant woman climbing a steep hill, a lone vaquero led a mule along Hill Street in the direction of the Sheriff’s office. This end of Hill Street was a pit of shadows. There was a little light around Green Heart, but even the park (which would have been thronged, noisy, and brilliantly lit in any other year) was mostly empty. Nearly all the booths were closed, and of those few that remained open, only the fortune-teller was doing any business. Tonight all fortunes were bad, but still they came—don’t they