Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,267

last was something he didn’t feel he had to say.

“Alain, are you listening?”

Alain, who knew perfectly well that Roland wasn’t speaking of his ears or his attention-span, nodded.

“Do you hear anything?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep at it.”

“I will . . . but I can’t promise anything. The touch is flukey. You know that as well as I do.”

“Just keep trying.”

Sheemie had carefully spread two blankets in the corner next to his proclaimed best friend. “He’s Roland . . . and he’s Alain . . . who are you, good old Arthur Heath? Who are you really?”

“Cuthbert’s my name.” He stuck out his hand. “Cuthbert Allgood. How do y’do, and how do y’do, and how do y’do again?”

Sheemie shook the offered hand, then began giggling. It was a cheerful, unexpected sound, and made them all smile. Smiling hurt Roland a little, and he guessed that if he could see his own face, he’d observe a pretty good burn from being so close to the exploding derricks.

“Key-youth-bert,” Sheemie said, giggling. “Oh my! Key-youth-bert, that’s a funny name, no wonder you’re such a funny fellow. Key-youth-bert, oh-aha-ha-ha, that’s a pip, a real pip!”

Cuthbert smiled and nodded. “Can I kill him now, Roland, if we don’t need him any longer?”

“Save him a bit, why don’t you?” Roland said, then turned to Susan, his own smile fading. “Will thee walk out with me a bit, Sue? I’d talk to thee.”

She looked up at him, trying to read his face. “All right.” She held out her hand. Roland took it, they walked into the moonlight together, and beneath its light, Susan felt dread take hold of her heart.

5

They walked out in silence, through sweet-smelling grass that tasted good to cows and horses even as it was expanding in their bellies, first bloating and then killing them. It was high—at least a foot taller than Roland’s head—and still green as summer. Children sometimes got lost in the Bad Grass and died there, but Susan had never feared to be here with Roland, even when there were no sky-markers to steer by; his sense of direction was uncannily perfect.

“Sue, thee disobeyed me in the matter of the guns,” he said at last.

She looked at him, smiling, half-amused and half-angry. “Does thee wish to be back in thy cell, then? Thee and thy friends?”

“No, of course not. Such bravery!” He held her close and kissed her. When he drew back, they were both breathing hard. He took her by the arms and looked into her eyes. “But thee mustn’t disobey me this time.”

She looked at him steadily, saying nothing.

“Thee knows,” he said. “Thee knows what I’d tell thee.”

“Aye, perhaps.”

“Say. Better you than me, maybe.”

“I’m to stay at the hut while you and the others go. Sheemie and I are to stay.”

He nodded. “Will you? Will thee?”

She thought of how unfamiliar and wretched Roland’s gun had felt in her hand as she held it beneath the serape; of the wide, unbelieving look in Dave’s eyes as the bullet she’d fired into his chest flung him backward; of how the first time she’d tried to shoot Sheriff Avery, the bullet had only succeeded in setting her own clothing afire, although he had been right there in front of her. They didn’t have a gun for her (unless she took one of Roland’s), she couldn’t use one very well in any case . . . and, more important, she didn’t want to use one. Under those circumstances, and with Sheemie to think about, too, it was best she just stay out of the way.

Roland was waiting patiently. She nodded. “Sheemie and I’ll wait for thee. It’s my promise.”

He smiled, relieved.

“Now pay me back with honesty, Roland.”

“If I can.”

She looked up at the moon, shuddered at the ill-omened face she saw, and looked back at Roland. “What chance thee’ll come back to me?”

He thought about this very carefully, still holding to her arms. “Far better than Jonas thinks,” he said at last. “We’ll wait at the edge of the Bad Grass and should be able to mark his coming well enough.”

“Aye, the herd o’ horses I saw—”

“He may come without the horses,” Roland said, not knowing how well he had matched Jonas’s thinking, “but his folk will make noise even if they come without the herd. If there’s enough of them, we’ll see them, as well—they’ll cut a line through the grass like a part in hair.”

Susan nodded. She had seen this many times from the Drop—the mysterious parting of the Bad Grass as groups of