Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,289

courtyard’s ocean side.

What to do now? The riders who came and went beneath the arch (mostly white-headed vaqs who’d been considered too old to form a part of Lengyll’s party) paid no attention to the inn-boy and his mule, but Miguel might be a different story. The old mozo had never liked him, acted as if he thought Sheemie would turn thief, given half a chance, and if he saw Coral’s slop-and-carry-boy skulking in the courtyard, Miguel would very likely drive him away.

No, he won’t, he thought grimly. Not today, today I can’t let him boss me. I won’t go even if he hollers.

But if the old man did holler and raised an alarm, what then? The bad Coffin Hunter might come and kill him. Sheemie had reached a point where he was willing to die for his friends, but not unless it served a purpose.

So he stood in the cold sunlight, shifting from foot to foot, irresolute, wishing he was smarter than he was, that he could think of a plan. An hour passed this way, then two. It was slow time, each passing moment an exercise in frustration. He sensed any opportunity to help Susan-sai slipping away, but didn’t know what to do about it. Once he heard what sounded like thunder from the west . . . although a bright fall day like this didn’t seem right for thunder.

He had about decided to chance the courtyard anyway—it was temporarily deserted, and he might be able to make it across to the main house—when the man he had feared came staggering out of the stables.

Miguel Torres was festooned with reap-charms and was very drunk. He approached the center of the courtyard in rolling side-to-side loops, the tugstring of his sombrero twisted against his scrawny throat, his long white hair flying. The front of his chibosa was wet, as if he had tried to take a leak without remembering that you had to unlimber your dingus first. He had a small ceramic jug in one hand. His eyes were fierce and bewildered.

“Who done this?” Miguel cried. He looked up at the afternoon sky and the Demon Moon which floated there. Little as Sheemie liked the old man, his heart cringed. It was bad luck to look directly at old Demon, so it was. “Who done this thing? I ask that you tell me, señor! Por favor!” A pause, then a scream so powerful that Miguel reeled on his feet and almost fell. He raised his fists, as if he would box an answer out of the winking face in the moon, then dropped them wearily. Corn liquor slopped from the neck of the jug and wet him further. “Maricon,” he muttered. He staggered to the wall (almost tripping over the rear legs of the bad Coffin Hunter’s horse as he went), then sat down with his back against the adobe wall. He drank deeply from the jug, then pulled his sombrero up and settled it over his eyes. His arm twitched the jug, then settled it back, as if in the end it had proved too heavy. Sheemie waited until the old man’s thumb came unhooked from the jughandle and the hand flopped onto the cobbles. He started forward, then decided to wait even a little longer. Miguel was old and Miguel was mean, but Sheemie guessed Miguel might also be tricky. Lots of folks were, especially the mean ones.

He waited until he heard Miguel’s dusty snores, then led Capi into the courtyard, wincing at every clop of the mule’s hooves. Miguel never stirred, however. Sheemie tied Capi to the end of the hitching rail (wincing again as Caprichoso brayed a tuneless greeting to the horses tied there), then walked quickly across to the main door, through which he had never in his life expected to pass. He put his hand on the great iron latch, looked back once more at the old man sleeping against the wall, then opened the door and tiptoed in.

He stood for a moment in the oblong of sun the open door admitted, his shoulders hunched all the way up to his ears, expecting a hand to settle on the scruff of his neck (which bad-natured folk always seemed able to find, no matter how high you hunched your shoulders) at any moment; an angry voice would follow, asking what he thought he was doing here.

The foyer stood empty and silent. On the far wall was a tapestry depicting vaqueros herding horses along the