Wizard and glass - By Stephen King Page 0,297

some other layer of the same present time.

Roland, be thee well, Susan thought. I’ll see thee soon, dear . . . as soon as I can.

“Why are we going north?” she asked after half an hour’s silent riding.

“Because Seacoast Road’s best.”

“But—”

“Hush! They’ll find you gone and search the house first . . . if t’asn’t burned flat, that is. Not finding you there, they’ll send west, along the Great Road.” She cast an eye on Susan that was not much like the dithery, slightly confabulated Olive Thorin that folks in Hambry knew . . . or thought they knew. “If I know that’s the direction you’d choose, so will others we’d do well to avoid.”

Susan was silent. She was too confused to speak, but Olive seemed to know what she was about, and Susan was grateful for that.

“By the time they get around to sniffing west, it’ll be dark. Tonight we’ll stay in one of the sea-cliff caves five miles or so from here. I grew up a fisherman’s daughter, and I know all those caves, none better.” The thought of the caves she’d played in as a girl seemed to cheer her. “Tomorrow we’ll cut west, as you like. I’m afraid you’re going to have a plump old widow as a chaperone for a bit. Better get used to the idea.”

“Thee’s too good,” Susan said. “Ye should send Sheemie and I on alone, sai.”

“And go back to what? Why, I can’t even get two old trailhands on kitchen-duty to follow my orders. Fran Lengyll’s boss of the shooting-match now, and I’ve no urge to wait and see how he does at it. Nor if he decides he’d be better off with me adjudged mad and put up safe in a haci with bars on the windows. Or shall I stay to see how Hash Renfrew does as Mayor, with his boots up on my tables?” Olive actually laughed.

“Sai, I’m sorry.”

“We shall all be sorry later on,” Olive said, sounding remarkably cheery about it. “For now, the most important thing is to reach those caves unobserved. It must seem that we vanished into thin air. Hold up.”

Olive checked her horse, stood in the stirrups, looked around to make sure of her position, nodded, then twisted in the saddle so she could speak to Sheemie.

“Young man, it’s time for ye to mount yer trusty mule and go back to Seafront. If there are riders coming after us, ye must turn em aside with a few well-chosen words. Will’ee do that?”

Sheemie looked stricken. “I don’t have any well-chosen words, sai Thorin, so I don’t. I hardly have any words at all.”

“Nonsense,” Olive said, and kissed Sheemie’s forehead. “Go back at a goodish trot. If’ee spy no one coming after us by the time the sun touches the hills, then turn north again and follow. We shall wait for ye by the signpost. Do ye know where I mean?”

Sheemie thought he did, although it marked the outmost northern boundary of his little patch of geography. “The red ’un? With the sombrero on it, and the arrow pointing back for town?”

“The very one. Ye won’t get that far until after dark, but there’ll be plenty of moonlight tonight. If ye don’t come right away, we’ll wait. But ye must go back, and shift any men that might be chasing us off our track. Do ye understand?”

Sheemie did. He slid off Olive’s horse, clucked Caprichoso forward, and climbed on board, wincing as the place the mule had bitten came down. “So it’ll be, Olive-sai.”

“Good, Sheemie. Good. Off’ee go, then.”

“Sheemie?” Susan said. “Come to me a moment, please.”

He did, holding his hat in front of him and looking up at her worshipfully. Susan bent and kissed him not on the forehead but firmly on the mouth. Sheemie came close to fainting.

“Thankee-sai,” Susan said. “For everything.”

Sheemie nodded. When he spoke, he could manage nothing above a whisper. “ ’Twas only ka,” he said. “I know that . . . but I love you, Susan-sai. Go well. I’ll see you soon.”

“I look forward to it.”

But there was no soon, and no later for them, either. Sheemie took one look back as he rode his mule south, and waved. Susan lifted her own hand in return. It was the last Sheemie ever saw of her, and in many ways, that was a blessing.

12

Latigo had set pickets a mile out from Hanging Rock, but the blond boy Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain encountered as they closed in on the tankers looked