The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass (48 page)

“But not right away,” the old woman whispered. “First she should be rolled in the dirt, then pissed on until the dirt’s mud and her fine blonde hair’s full of it. Humiliated . . . hurt . . . spat on . . .”

She slammed her fist against the door’s side again, and this time blood flew from the knuckles. It wasn’t just the girl’s failure to obey the hypnotic command. There was another matter, related but much more serious: Rhea herself was now too upset to use the glass, except for brief and unpredictable periods of time. The hand-passes she made over it and the incantations she muttered to it were, she knew, useless; the words and gestures were just the way she focused her will. That was what the glass responded to—will and concentrated thought. Now, thanks to the trollop of a girl and her boy lover, Rhea was too angry to summon the smooth concentration
needed to part the pink fog which swirled inside the ball. She was, in fact, too angry to see.

“How can I make it like it was?” Rhea asked the half-glimpsed woman in the moon. “Tell me!
Tell me!
” But the Huntress told her nothing, and at last Rhea went back inside, sucking at her bleeding knuckles.

Musty saw her coming and squeezed into the cobwebby space between the woodpile and the chimney.

Now the Huntress “filled her belly,” as the old-timers said—even at noon she could be glimpsed in the sky, a pallid vampire woman caught in bright autumn sunlight. In front of businesses such as the Travellers’ Rest and on the porches of such large ranch houses as Lengyll’s Rocking B and Renfrew’s Lazy Susan, stuffy-guys with heads full of straw above their old overalls began to appear. Each wore his
sombrero
; each held a basket of produce cradled in his arms; each looked out at the emptying world with stitched white-cross eyes.

Wagons filled with squashes clogged the roads; bright orange drifts of pumpkins and bright magenta drifts of sharproot lay against the sides of barns. In the fields, the potato-carts rolled and the pickers followed behind. In front of the Hambry Mercantile, reap-charms appeared like magic, hanging from the carved Guardians like wind-chimes.

All over Mejis, girls sewed their Reaping Night costumes (and sometimes wept over them, if the work went badly) as they dreamed of the boys they would dance with in the Green Heart pavillion. Their little brothers began to have trouble sleeping as they thought of the rides and the games and the prizes they might win at the carnival. Even their elders sometimes lay awake in spite of their sore hands and aching backs, thinking about the pleasures of the Reap.

Summer had slipped away with a final flirt of her greengown; harvest-time had arrived.

Rhea cared not a fig for Reaping dances or carnival games, but she could no more sleep than those who did. Most nights she lay on her stinking pallet until dawn, her skull thudding with rage. On a night not long after Jonas’s conversation with Chancellor Rimer, she determined to drink herself into oblivion. Her mood was not improved when she found that her
graf
barrel was almost empty; she blistered the air with her curses.

She was drawing in breath for a fresh string of them when an idea struck her. A wonderful idea. A
brilliant
idea. She had wanted Susan Delgado to cut off her hair. That hadn’t worked, and she didn’t know why . . . but she did know
something
about the girl, didn’t she? Something interesting, aye, so it was, wery interesting, indeed.

Rhea had no desire to go to Thorin with what she knew; she had a fond (and foolish, likely) hope that the Mayor had forgotten about his wonderful glass ball. But the girl’s aunt, now . . . suppose Cordelia Delgado were to discover that not only was her niece’s virginity lost, the girl was well on her way to becoming a practiced trollop? Rhea didn’t think Cordelia would go to the Mayor, either—the woman was a prig but not a fool—yet it would set the cat among the pigeons just the same, wouldn’t it?

“Waow!”

Thinking of cats, there was Musty, standing on the stoop in the moonlight, looking at her with a mixture of hope and mistrust. Rhea, grinning hideously, opened her arms. “Come to me, my precious! Come, my sweet one!”

Musty, understanding all was forgiven, rushed into his mistress’s arms and began to purr loudly as Rhea licked along his sides with her old and yellowing tongue. That night the Cöos slept soundly for the first time in a week, and when she took the glass ball into her arms the following morning, its mists cleared for her at once. She spent the day in thrall to it, spying on people she detested, drinking little and eating nothing. Around sunset, she came out of her trance enough to realize she had as yet done nothing about the saucy little jade. But that was all right; she saw how it
could
be done . . . and she could watch all the results in the glass! All the protests, all the shouting and recriminations! She would see Susan’s tears. That would be the best, to see her tears.

“A little harvest of my own,” she said to Ermot, who now came slithering up her leg toward the place where she liked him best. There weren’t many men who could do you like Ermot could do you, no indeed. Sitting there with a lapful of snake, Rhea began to laugh.

“Remember your promise,” Alain said nervously as they heard the approaching beat of Rusher’s hoofs. “Keep your temper.”

“I will,” Cuthbert said, but he had his doubts. As Roland rode around the long wing of the bunkhouse and into the yard, his shadow trailing out in the sunset light, Cuthbert clenched his hands nervously. He willed them to open, and they did. Then, as he watched Roland dismount, they rolled themselves closed again, the nails digging into his palms.

Another go-round,
Cuthbert thought.
Gods, but I’m sick of them. Sick to death.

Last night’s had been about the pigeons—again. Cuthbert wanted to use one to send a message back west about the oil tankers; Roland still did not. So they had argued. Except (here was another thing which infuriated him, that rubbed against his nerves like the sound of the thinny) Roland did not argue. These days Roland did not
deign
to argue. His eyes always kept that distant look, as if only his body was here. The rest of him—mind, soul, spirit,
ka
—was with Susan Delgado.

“No,” he had said simply. “It’s too late for such.”

“You can’t know that,” Cuthbert had argued. “And even if it’s too late for
help
to come from Gilead, it’s not too late for
advice
to come from Gilead. Are you so blind you can’t see that?”

“What advice can they send us?” Roland hadn’t seemed to hear the rawness in Cuthbert’s voice. His own voice was calm. Reasonable. And utterly disconnected, Cuthbert thought, from the urgency of the situation.

“If we knew that,” he had replied, “we wouldn’t have to ask, Roland, would we?”

“We can only wait and stop them when they make their move. It’s comfort you’re looking for, Cuthbert, not advice.”

You mean wait while you fuck her in as many ways and in as many places as you can imagine,
Cuthbert thought.
Inside, outside, rightside up and upside down.

“You’re not thinking clearly about this,” Cuthbert had said coldly. He’d heard Alain’s gasp. Neither of them had ever said such a thing to Roland in their lives, and once it was out, he’d waited uneasily for whatever explosion might follow.

None did. “Yes,” Roland replied, “I am.” And he had gone into the bunkhouse without another word.

Now, watching Roland uncinch Rusher’s girths and pull the saddle from his back, Cuthbert thought:
You’re not, you know. But you better think clearly about this. By all the gods, you’d better.

“Hile,” he said as Roland carried the saddle over to the porch and set it on the step. “Busy afternoon?” He felt Alain kick his ankle and ignored it.

“I’ve been with Susan,” Roland said. No defense, no demur, no excuse. And for a moment Cuthbert had a vision of shocking clarity: he saw the two of them in a hut somewhere, the late afternoon sun shining through holes in the roof and dappling their bodies. She was on top, riding him. Cuthbert saw her knees on the old, spongy boards, and the tension in her long thighs. He saw how tanned her arms were, how white her belly. He saw how Roland’s hands cupped the globes of her breasts, squeezing them as she rocked back and forth above him, and he saw how the sun lit her hair, turning it into a fine-spun net.

Why do you always have to be first?
he cried at Roland in his mind.
Why does it always have to be you? Gods damn you, Roland! Gods damn you!

“We were on the docks,” Cuthbert said, his tone a thin imitation of his usual brightness. “Counting boots and marine tools and what are called clam-drags. What an amusing time of it we’ve had, eh, Al?”

“Did you need me to help you do that?” Roland asked. He went back to Rusher, and took off the saddle-blanket. “Is that why you sound angry?”

“If I sound angry, it’s because most of the fishermen are laughing at us behind our backs. We keep coming back and coming back. Roland, they think we’re fools.”

Roland nodded. “All to the good,” he said.

“Perhaps,” Alain said quietly, “but Rimer doesn’t think we’re fools—it’s in the way he looks at us when we pass. Nor does Jonas. And if they don’t think we’re fools, Roland, what
do
they think?”

Roland stood on the second step, the saddle-blanket hanging forgotten over his arm. For once they actually seemed to have his attention, Cuthbert thought. Glory be and will wonders never cease.

“They think we’re avoiding the Drop because we already know what’s there,” Roland said. “And if they don’t think it, they soon will.”

“Cuthbert has a plan.”

Roland’s gaze—mild, interested, already starting to be not there again—shifted to Cuthbert. Cuthbert the joker. Cuthbert the ’prentice, who had in no way earned the gun he’d carried east to the Outer Crescent. Cuthbert the virgin and eternal second.
Gods, I don’t want to hate him. I don’t, but now it’s so easy.

“We two should go and see Sheriff Avery tomorrow,” Cuthbert said. “We will present it as a courtesy visit. We have already established ourselves as three courteous, if slightly stupid, young fellows, have we not?”

“To a fault,” Roland agreed, smiling.

“We’ll say that we’ve finally finished with the seacoast side of Hambry, and we hope to be every bit as meticulous on the farm and cowboy side. But we certainly don’t want to cause trouble or be in anyone’s way. It is, after all, the busiest time of year—for ranchers as well as farmers—and even citified fools such as ourselves will be aware of that. So we’ll give the good Sheriff a list—”

Roland’s eyes lit up. He tossed the blanket over the porch rail, grabbed Cuthbert around the shoulders, and gave him a rough hug. Cuthbert could smell a lilac scent around Roland’s collar and felt an insane but powerful urge to clamp his hands around Roland’s throat and try to strangle him. Instead, he gave him a perfunctory clap on the back in return.

Roland drew away, grinning widely. “A list of the ranches we’ll be visiting,” he said. “Aye! And with forewarning, they can move any stock they’d like us not to see on to the next ranch, or the last one. The same for tack, feed, equipment . . . it’s masterful, Cuthbert! You’re a genius!”

“Far from that,” Cuthbert said. “I’ve just spared a little time to think about a problem that concerns us all. That concerns the entire Affiliation, mayhap. We
need
to think. Wouldn’t you say?”

Alain winced, but Roland didn’t seem to notice. He was
still grinning. Even at fourteen, such an expression on his face was troubling. The truth was that when Roland grinned, he looked slightly mad. “Do you know, they may even move in a fair number of muties for us to look at, just so we’ll continue to believe the lies they’ve already told about the impurity of their stocklines.” He paused, seeming to think, and then said: “Why don’t you and Alain go and see the Sheriff, Bert? That would do very well, I think.”

At this point Cuthbert nearly threw himself at Roland, wanting to scream
Yes, why not? Then you could spend tomorrow morning pronging her as well as tomorrow afternoon! You idiot! You thoughtless lovestruck idiot!

It was Al who saved him—saved them all, perhaps.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said sharply, and Roland wheeled toward him, looking surprised. He wasn’t used to sharpness from that quarter. “You’re our leader, Roland—seen that way by Thorin, by Avery, by the townsfolk. Seen that way by us as well.”

“No one appointed me—”

“No one needed to!” Cuthbert shouted. “You won your guns! These folk would hardly believe it—I hardly believe it myself just lately—but
you are a gunslinger
. You have to go! Plain as the nose on your face! It doesn’t matter which of us accompanies you, but you have to go!” He could say more, much more, but if he did, where would it end? With their fellowship broken beyond repair, likely. So he clamped his mouth shut—no need for Alain to kick him this time—and once again waited for the explosion. Once again, none came.

“All right,” Roland said in his new way—that mild it-doesn’t-much-matter way that made Cuthbert feel like biting him to wake him up. “Tomorrow morning. You and I, Bert. Will eight suit you?”

“Down to the ground,” Cuthbert said. Now that the discussion was over and the decision made, Bert’s heart was beating wildly and the muscles in his upper thighs felt like rubber. It was the way he’d felt after their confrontation with the Big Coffin Hunters.

“We’ll be at our prettiest,” Roland said. “Nice boys from the Inners with good intentions but not many brains. Fine.” And he went inside, no longer grinning (which was a relief) but smiling gently.

Cuthbert and Alain looked at each other and let out their
breath in a mutual rush. Cuthbert cocked his head toward the yard, and went down the steps. Alain followed, and the two boys stood in the center of the dirt rectangle with the bunkhouse at their backs. To the east, the rising full moon was hidden behind a scrim of clouds.

“She’s tranced him,” Cuthbert said. “Whether she means to or not, she’ll kill us all in the end. Wait and see if she don’t.”

“You shouldn’t say such, even in jest.”

“All right, she’ll crown us with the jewels of Eld and we’ll live forever.”

“You have to stop being angry at him, Bert. You
have
to.”

Cuthbert looked at him bleakly. “I can’t.”

The great storms of autumn were still a month or more distant, but the following morning dawned drizzly and gray. Roland and Cuthbert wrapped themselves in
serapes
and headed for town, leaving Alain to the few home place chores. Tucked in Roland’s belt was the schedule of farms and ranches—beginning with the three small spreads owned by the Barony—the three of them had worked out the previous evening. The pace this schedule suggested was almost ludicrously slow—it would keep them on the Drop and in the orchards almost until Year’s End Fair—but it conformed to the pace they had already set on the docks.

Now the two of them rode silently toward town, both lost in their own thoughts. Their way took them past the Delgado house. Roland looked up and saw Susan sitting in her window, a bright vision in the gray light of that fall morning. His heart leaped up and although he didn’t know it then, it was how he would remember her most clearly forever after—lovely Susan, the girl at the window. So do we pass the ghosts that haunt us later in our lives; they sit undramatically by the roadside like poor beggars, and we see them only from the corners of our eyes, if we see them at all. The idea that they have been waiting there for us rarely if ever crosses our minds. Yet they do wait, and when we have passed, they gather up their bundles of memory and fall in behind, treading in our footsteps and catching up, little by little.