Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,262

drew them. Sheemie looked at him with an uncertain smile, holding a stirrup in one hand. Then the smile broadened, his eyes flashed with happiness, and he ran toward them.

Roland holstered his guns and made ready to embrace the boy, but Sheemie ran past him and threw himself into Cuthbert’s arms.

“Whoa, whoa,” Cuthbert said, first staggering back comically and then lifting Sheemie off his feet. “You like to knock me over, boy!”

“She got ye out!” Sheemie cried. “Knew she would, so I did! Good old Susan!” Sheemie looked around at Susan, who stood beside Roland. She was still pale, but now seemed composed. Sheemie turned back to Cuthbert and planted a kiss directly in the center of Bert’s forehead.

“Whoa!” Bert said again. “What’s that for?”

“ ’Cause I love you, good old Arthur Heath! You saved my life!”

“Well, maybe I did,” Cuthbert said, laughing in an embarrassed way (his borrowed sombrero, too large to begin with, now sat comically askew on his head), “but if we don’t get a move on, I won’t have saved it for long.”

“Horses are all saddled,” Sheemie said. “Susan told me to do it and I did. I did it just right. I just have to put this stirrup on Mr. Richard Stockworth’s horse, because the one on there’s ’bout worn through.”

“That’s a job for later,” Alain said, taking the stirrup. He put it aside, then turned to Roland. “Where do we go?”

Roland’s first thought was that they should return to the Thorin mausoleum.

Sheemie reacted with instant horror. “The boneyard? And with Demon Moon at the full?” He shook his head so violently that his sombrera came off and his hair flew from side to side. “They’re dead in there, sai Dearborn, but if ye tease em during the time of the Demon, they’s apt to get up and walk!”

“It’s no good, anyway,” Susan said. “The women of the town’ll be lining the way from Seafront with flowers, and filling the mausoleum, too. Olive will be in charge, if she’s able, but my aunt and Coral are apt to be in the company. Those aren’t ladies we want to meet.”

“All right,” Roland said. “Let’s mount up and ride. Think about it, Susan. You too, Sheemie. We want a place where we can hide up until dawn, at least, and it should be a place we can get to in less than an hour. Off the Great Road, and in any direction from Hambry but northwest.”

“Why not northwest?” Alain asked.

“Because that’s where we’re going now. We’ve got a job to do . . . and we’re going to let them know we’re doing it. Eldred Jonas most of all.” He offered a thin blade of smile. “I want him to know the game is over. No more Castles. The real gunslingers are here. Let’s see if he can deal with them.”

2

An hour later, with the moon well above the trees, Roland’s ka-tet arrived at the Citgo oilpatch. They rode out parallel to the Great Road for safety’s sake, but, as it happened, the caution was wasted: they saw not one rider on the road, going in either direction. It’s as if Reaping’s been cancelled this year, Susan thought . . . then she thought of the red-handed stuffies, and shivered. They would have painted Roland’s hands red tomorrow night, and still would, if they were caught. Not just him, either. All of us. Sheemie, too.

They left the horses (and Caprichoso, who had trotted ill-temperedly but nimbly behind them on a tether) tied to some long-dead pumping equipment in the southeastern corner of the patch, and then walked slowly toward the working derricks, which were clustered in the same area. They spoke in whispers when they spoke at all. Roland doubted if that was necessary, but whispers here seemed natural enough. To Roland, Citgo was far spookier than the graveyard, and while he doubted that the dead in that latter place awoke even when Old Demon was full, there were some very unquiet corpses here, squalling zombies that stood rusty-weird in the moonlight with their pistons going up and down like marching feet.

Roland led them into the active part of the patch, nevertheless, past a sign which read HOW’S YOUR HARDHAT? and another reading WE PRODUCE OIL, WE REFINE SAFETY. They stopped at the foot of a derrick grinding so loudly that Roland had to shout in order to be heard.

“Sheemie! Give me a couple of those big-bangers!”

Sheemie had taken a pocketful from Susan’s saddlebag and now handed