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Detta laid up in a deeply shadowed cleft forether like oldsoe up and down the rubble-strewn slopes of the hills, yelling hi a beard, and you rowed man except for the three or four tih for her to have snaked a hand out and grabbed his ankle) When he got close you saasn&039;t nothing but a kid still, and one as dog tired to boot

Odetta would have felt pity; Detta felt only the still, coiled readiness of the natural predator

When she first crawled in here she had felt things crackling under her hands like old autumn leaves in a woods holler As her eyes adjusted she saw they weren&039;t leaves but the tiny bones of sone if these ancient yellow bones told the truth, had once denned here, soone out at night, following its nose further up into The Drawers to where the trees and undergroere thicker - following its nose to prey It had killed, eaten, and brought the re day as it laid up, waiting for night to bring the tier predator here, and at first Detta thought she&039;d do pretty much what the previous tenant had done: wait until Eddie fell asleep, as he was al his body up here Then, with both guns in her possession, she could drag herself back down by the doorway and wait for the Really Bad Man to coht had been to kill the Really Bad Man&039;s body as soon as she had taken care of Eddie, but that was no good, was it? If the Really Bad Man had no body to coet out of here and back to her oorld

Could she make that Really Bad Man take her back?

Maybe not

But maybe so

If he knew Eddie was still alive, maybe so

And that led to a much better idea

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She was deeply sly She would have laughed harshly at anyone daring to suggest it, but she was also deeply insecure Because of the latter, she attributed the former to anyone she met whose intellect seeunslinger She had heard a shot, and when she looked she&039;d seen sun He had reloaded and tossed this gun to Eddie just before going through the door

She knehat it was supposed to mean to Eddie: all the shells weren&039;t wet after all; the gun would protect him She also knehat it was supposed to mean to her (for of course the Really Bad Man had known she atching; even if she had been sleeping when the two of the, the shot would have awakened her): Stay away fro iron

But devils could be subtle

If that little show had been put on for her benefit, ht not that Really Bad Man have had another purpose in mind as well, one neither she nor Eddie was supposed to see? Might that Really Bad Man not have been thinking if she sees this one fires good shells, why, she&039;ll think the one she took frouessed that Eddie would doze off? Wouldn&039;t he know she would be waiting for just that, waiting to filch the gun and creep sloay up the slopes to safety? Yes, that Really Bad Man ht have foreseen all that He was sh, anyway, to see that Detta was bound to get the best of that little white boy

So just un with bad shells He had fooled her once; why not again? This time she had been careful to check that the chas, and yes, they appeared to be real bullets, but that didn&039;t mean they were He didn&039;t even have to take the chance that one of theh to fire, now did he? He could have fixed theuns were the Really Bad Man&039;s business Why would he do that? Why, to trick her into showing herself, of course! Then Eddie could cover her with the gun that really did work, and he would not make the same mistake twice, tired or not He would, in fact, be especially careful not to make the same mistake twice because he was tired

Nice try, honky, Detta thought in her shadowy den, this tight but so dark place whose floor was carpeted with the softened and decaying bones of soin fo dat shit

She didn&039;t need to shoot Eddie, after all; she only needed to wait

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Her one fear was that the gunslinger would return before Eddie fell asleep, but he was still gone The limp body at the base of the door did not stir Maybe he was having so the medicine he needed - some other kind of trouble, for all she knew Men like him seemed to find trouble easy as a bitch in heat finds a randy hound

Two hours passed while Eddie hunted for the woman he called "Odetta" (oh how she hated the sound of that na until he had no voice left to yell with

At last Eddie did what she had been waiting for: he went back down to the little angle of beach and sat by the wheel-chair, looking around disconsolately He touched one of the chair&039;s wheels, and the touch was almost a caress Then his hand dropped away and he fetched hiht a steely ache to Detta&039;s throat; pain bolted across her head fro and she see

No you don&039;t, she thought, having no idea who she was thinking about or speaking to No you don&039;t, not this tiain That bolt of pain ripped through her head again and she curled her hands into fists Her faceitself into a sneer of concentration - an expression reliness and almost beatific deterain Neither did the voice which soh such pains

She waited

Eddie propped his chin on his fists, propping his head up Soon it began to droop anyway, the fists sliding up his cheeks Detta waited, black eyes glealed to his feet, walked down to the water, and splashed his face with it

Dat&039;s right, white boy Crine shame there ain&039;t any No-Doz in this worl or you be takin dat too, ain&039;t dat right?

Eddie sat down in the wheelchair this time, but evidently found that just a little too coh the open door (what you seeive a twenty-dollar bill to knowdat ), he plopped his ass down on the sand again

Propped his head with his hands again

Soon his head began to slip down again

This ti it His chin lay on his chest, and even over the surf she could hear hi Pretty soon he fell over on his side and curled up

She was surprised, disgusted, and frightened to feel a sudden stab of pity for the white boy down there He looked like nothing so ht on New Years&039; Eve and lost the race Then she reet her to eat poison food and teased her with their own, always snatching away at the last secondat least until they got scared she ht die, why&039;d they try to get you to eat poison in the first place?

The question scared her the way thatof pity had scared her She wasn&039;t used to questioning herself, and further voice in her mind didn&039;t seem like her voice at all

Wadn&039;t meanin to kill me wid dat poison food Jes wanted to h while I puked an moaned, I speck

She waited twentyherself with her hands and strong ar Eddie She would have preferred to have waited another hour, even another half; it would be better to have the littlewas a luxury she siht come back anytime

As she drew near the place where Eddie lay (he was still snoring, sounded like a buzzsaw in a sawo tits up), she picked up a chunk of rock that was satisfyingly sed on the other

She closed her palm over the smooth side and continued her snake-crawl to where he lay, the flat sheen of murder in her eyes

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What Detta planned to do was brutally sied side of the rock until he was as dead as the rock itself Then she&039;d take the gun and wait for Roland to coive him a choice: take her back to her world or refuse and be killed You goan be quits wid me either way, toots, she would say, and wit yo boyfrien dead, ain&039;t nothin more you can do like you said you wanted to

If the gun the Really Bad Man had given Eddie didn&039;t work - it was possible; she had never met a man she hated and feared as much as Roland, and she put no depth of slyness past him - she would do him just the same She would do him with the rock or with her bare hands He was sick and shy two fingers to boot She could take hi thought caain it seemed to be another voice that asked it

What if he knows? What if he knohat you did the second you kill Eddie?

He ain&039;t goan know nuthin He be too busy gittin his medicine Gittin hisself laid, too, for all I know

The alien voice did not respond, but the seed of doubt had been planted She had heard theht she was asleep The Really Bad Man needed to do so to do with a toas all Detta knew Could be the Really Bad Man thought this toas full of gold or jewels or so like that He said he needed her and Eddie and souessed maybe he did Why else would these doors be here?

If it was ht know If she killed his way to the tower, she thought shefor And if he knew he had nothing to live for, ive a bug-turd for nothin no ht happen if the Really Bad Man came back like that made Detta shiver

But if she couldn&039;t kill Eddie, as she going to do? She could take the gun while Eddie was asleep, but when the Really Bad Man came back, could she handle both of them?

She just didn&039;t know

Her eyes touched on the wheelchair, started to ain, fast There was a deep pocket in the leather backrest Poking out of this was a curl of the rope they had used to tie her into the chair

Looking at it, she understood how she could do everything

Detta changed course and began to craard the gunslinger&039;s inert body She meant to take what she needed froet the rope, fast as she couldbut for a moment she was held frozen by the door

Like Eddie, she interpreted what she was seeing in terms of the moviesonly this looked -store She was seeing a druggist who looked scared silly, and Detta didn&039;t blaist&039;s face The druggist was saying so, but his voice was distant, distorted, as if heard through sound-baffles She couldn&039;t tell what it was She couldn&039;t see as holding the gun, either, but then, she didn&039;t really need to see the stick-up man, did she? She kneho it was, sho

It was the Really Bad Man

Might not look like hiht look like soht even look like a brother, but inside it be hiun, did it? I bet it never does You get movin, Detta Walker

She opened Roland&039;s purse, and the faint, nostalgic aroone drifted out In one way it was very much like a lady&039;s purse, filled hat looked like so lancebut a closer look showed you the travelling gear of a ency