Chapter VI Jenna Sister Coquina Tamra, Michela (2/2)
He should have shot it-it was no good to itself, and a dog that had acquired a taste for huood to anyone else-but he so in this town (other than the singing bugs, that was) seemed like an invitation to bad luck
He fired into the dust near the dog's good forepaw, the sound crashing into the hot day and te could run, it see trot that hurt Roland's eyes and his heart, a little, too It stopped at the far side of the square, by an overturned flatbed wagon (there looked to be lanced back It uttered a forlorn howl that raised the hairs on the nape of Roland's neck even further
Then it turned, skirted the wrecked wagon, and limped down a lane which opened between two of the stalls This way towards Eluria's back gate, Roland guessed
Still leading his dying horse, the gunslinger crossed the square to the ironwood trough and looked in
The owner of the chewed boot wasn't a rowth-and that would have been quite a large growth indeed, Roland judged, even setting aside the bloating effects which had resulted froth of ti under a summer sun
The boy's eyes, now just er like the eyes of a statue His hair appeared to be the white of old age, although that was the effect of the water; he had likely been a towhead His clothes were those of a cowboy, although he couldn't have beenblearily in water that was slowly turning into a skin stew under the suold medallion
Roland reached into the water, not liking to but feeling a certain obligation He wrapped his fingers around the medallion and pulled The chain parted, and he lifted the thing, dripping, into the air
He rather expected a Jesus-il-as called the crucifix or the rood -but a s froraved into it was this legend:
James
Loved of Family, Loved of GOD
Roland, who had been aler lad he'd done it He ht never run into any of those who had loved this boy, but he knew enough of ka to think it iving the kid a decent burial assuh without having it break apart inside the clothes
Roland was considering this, trying to balance whatdesire to get out of this tohen Topsy finally fell dead
The roan went over with a creak of gear and a last whuffling groan as it hit the ground Roland turned and saw eight people in the street, walking towards him in a line, like beaters who hope to flush out birds or drive s such skin would likely glow in the dark like ghosts It was hard to tell their sex, and what could itwith the hunched deliberation of corpses reaniic
The dust hadbanished, theydistance if Topsy hadn't done Roland the favour of dying at such an opportune uns that Roland could see; they were ars, for the most part, but Roland saw one that looked made rather than seized-it had a bristle of rusty nails sticking out of it, and he suspected it had once-been the property of a saloon bouncer, possibly
the one who kept school in The Bustling Pig
Roland raised his pistol, ai at the fellow in the centre of the line Now he could hear the shuffle of their feet, and the wet snuffle of their breathing As if they all had bad chest-colds
Caht There are radium mines somewhere about That would account for the skin I wonder that the sun doesn't kill them
Then, as he watched, the one on the end-a creature with a face like melted candle-wax-did die or collapsed, at any rate He (Roland was quite sure it was afor the hand of the thing walking next to hi on its neck This creature took no notice of its fallen co in rough step with its re companions
"Stop where you are!" Roland said "Ware me, if you'd live to see day's end! "Ware me very well!"
He spoke mostly to the one in the centre, ore ancient red suspenders over rags of shirt, and a filthy bowler hat This gent had only one good eye, and it peered at the gunslinger with a greed as horrible as it was unmistakable The one beside Bowler Hat (Roland believed this one es of breasts beneath the vest it wore) threw the chair-leg it held The arc was true, but the missile fell ten yards short
Roland thuain This ti kicked up on the tattered re's paw
The green folk didn't run as the dog had, but they stopped, staring at hi folk of Eluria finished up in these creatures" stoh he knew perfectly well that such as these held no scruple against cannibalism (And perhaps it wasn't cannibaliss as these be considered huht once have been?) They were too slow, too stupid If they had dared come back into town after the Sheriff had run them out, they would have been burned or stoned to death
Without thinking about what he was doing, wanting only to free his other hand to draw his second gun if the apparitions didn't see reason, Roland stuffed the medallion which he had taken fro the broken fine-link chain in after
They stood staring at hiely twisted shadows drawn out behind theo back where they'd come from? Roland didn't know if they'd do it, and in any case had decided he liked them best where he could see the to bury the boy named James; that conundrum had been solved
"Stand steady," he said in the low speech, beginning to retreat "First fellow that moves-"
Before he could finish, one of them-a thick-chested troll with a pouty toad's ills on the sides of his wattled neck-lunged forward, gibbering in a high-pitched and peculiarly flabby voice
Itwhat looked like a piano-leg
Roland fired Mr Toad's chest caved in like a bad piece of roofing He ran backwards several steps, trying to catch his balance and clawing at his chest with the hand not holding the piano-leg His feet, clad in dirty red velvet slippers with curled-up toes, tangled in each other and he fell over, o of his club, rolled over on one side, tried to rise, and then fell back into the dust The brutal sun glared into his open eyes, and as Roland watched, white tendrils of steareen undertint There was also a hissing sound, like a gob of spit on top of a hot stove
Saves explaining, at least, Roland thought, and swept his eyes over the others "All right; he was the first one to move Who wants to be the second?"
None did, it see at hiht (as he had about the crucifix-dog) that he should kill theun and mow them down It would be the work of seconds only, and child's play to his gifted hands, even if some ran But he couldn't
Not just cold, like that He wasn't that kind of killer at least, not yet
Very slowly, he began to step backwards, first bending his course around the watering trough, then putting it between him and theive the others in the line a chance to copy hih Street an inch in advance of Bowler Hat's foot
"That's your last warning," he said, still using the low speech He had no idea if they understood it, didn't really care He guessed they caught this tune's h "Next bullet I fire eats up soet this one chance Follow ames and I've lost my-"
"Booh!" cried a rough, liquidy voice frolee in it Roland saw a shado froon, which he had now almost reached, and had just tireen folk had been hiding beneath it
As he began to turn, a club crashed down on Roland's shoulder, nuht arun and fired once, but the bullet went into one of the wagon-wheels, s the wheel on its hub with a high screeching sound Behind hi hoarse, yapping cries as they charged forward
The thing which had been hiding beneath the overturned wagon was aout of his neck, one with the vestigial, slack face of a corpse The other, although just as green, was rin as he raised his club to strike again
Roland dreith his left hand-the one that wasn't nuh the bushwhacker's grin, flinging hi out of his relaxing fingers Then the others were on hi
The gunslinger was able to slip the first couple of blows, and there was one ht be able to spin around to the rear of the overturned wagon, spin and turn and go to ith his guns Surely he would be able to do that Surely his quest for the Dark Toasn't supposed to end on the sun-blasted street of a little far-western town called Eluria, at the hands of half a dozen green-skinned slow mutants Surely ka could not be so cruel
But Bowler Hat caught him with a vicious sidehand blow, and Roland crashed into the wagon's slowly spinning rear wheel instead of skirting around it As he went to his hands and knees, still scra to evade the blohich rained down on hi up the street towards the town square were at least thirty green men and women This wasn't a clan but a daht! Slow mutants were, in his experience, creatures that loved the dark, almost like toadstools with brains, and he had never seen any such as these before They -
The one in the red vest was fe beneath the dirty red vest were the last things he saw clearly as they gathered around and above hi aith their clubs The one with the nails studded in it cas in deep He tried again to raise one of the big guns (his vision was fading, now, but that wouldn't help the; he had always been the most hellishly talented of them; Jamie DeCurry had once proclaimed that Roland could shoot blindfolded, because he had eyes in his fingers), and it was kicked out of his hand and into the dust Although he could still feel the sht it was nevertheless already gone
He could s meat Or was that only his hands, as he raised them in a feeble and useless effort to protect his head? His hands, which had been in the polluted water where flecks and strips of the dead boy's skin floated?
The clubs slareen folk wanted not just to beat him to death but to tenderize him as they did so And as he went down into the darkness of what he s singing, the dog he had spared barking, and the bells hung on the church door ringing These sounds one, too; the darkness ate it all