The Waste Lands (Page 81)

The fever had been caused by the spider-bite on the back of his neck. When Roland examined it on the second day and found it worse instead of better, he had conferred briefly with Eddie and had then given Jake a pink pill. “You’ll want to take four of these every day for at least a week,” he said. Jake had gazed at it doubtfully. “What is it?” “Cheflet,” Roland said, then looked disgustedly at Eddie. “You tell him. I still can’t say it.”

“Keflex. You can trust it, Jake; it came from a government-approved pharmacy in good old New York. Roland swallowed a bunch of it, and he’s as healthy as a horse. Looks a little like one, too, as you can see.” Jake was astonished. “How did you get medicine in New York?” “That’s a long story,” the gunslinger said. “You’ll hear all of it in time, but for now just take the pill.”

Jake did. The response was both quick and satisfying. The angry red swelling around the bite began to fade in twenty-four hours, and now the fever was gone as well.

The warm thing nuzzled again and Jake sat up with a jerk, his eyes flying open. The creature which had been licking his cheek took two hasty steps backward. It was a billy-bumbler, but Jake didn’t know that; he had never seen one before now. It was skinnier than the ones Roland’s party had seen earlier, and its black- and gray-striped fur was matted and mangy. There was a clot of old dried blood on one flank. Its gold-ringed black eyes looked at Jake anxiously; its hindquarters switched hopefully back and forth. Jake relaxed. He supposed there were exceptions to the rule, but he had an idea that something wagging its tail—or trying to—was probably not too dangerous. It was just past first light, probably around five-thirty in the morning. Jake could peg it no closer than that because his digital Seiko no longer worked … or rather, was working in an extremely eccentric way. When he had first glanced at it after coming through, the Seiko claimed it was 98:71:65, a time which did not, so far as Jake knew, exist. A longer look showed him that the watch was now running backward. If it had been doing this at a steady rate, he supposed it might still have been of some use, but it wasn’t. It would unwind its numbers at what seemed like the right speed for awhile (Jake verified this by saying the word “Mississippi” between each number), and then the readout would either stop entirely for ten or twenty seconds—making him think the watch had finally given up the ghost—or a bunch of numbers would blur by all at once. He had mentioned this odd behavior to Roland and had shown him the watch, thinking it would amaze him, but Roland examined it closely for only a moment or two before nodding in a dismissive way and telling Jake it was an interesting clock, but as a rule no timepiece did very good work these days. So the Seiko was useless, but Jake still found himself loath to throw it away . . . because, he supposed, it was a piece of his old life, and there were only a few of those left.

Right now the Seiko claimed it was sixty-two minutes past forty on a Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday in both December and March. The morning was extremely foggy; beyond a radius of fifty or sixty feet, the world simply disappeared. If this day was like the previous three, the sun would show up as a faint white circle in another two hours or so, and by nine-thirty the day would be clear and hot. Jake looked around and saw his travelling companions (he didn’t quite dare call them friends, at least not yet) asleep beneath their hide blankets—Roland close by, Eddie and Susannah a larger hump on the far side of the dead campfire.

He once more turned his attention to the animal which had awak-ened him. It looked like a combination raccoon and woodchuck, with a dash of dachshund thrown in for good measure.

“How you doin, boy?” he asked softly.

“Oy!” the billy-bumbler replied at once, still looking at him anx-iously. Its voice was low and deep, almost a bark; the voice of an English footballer with a bad cold in his throat.

Jake recoiled, surprised. The billy-bumbler, startled by the quick movement, took several further steps backward, seemed about to flee, and then held its ground. Its hindquarters wagged back and forth more strenuously than ever, and its gold-black eyes continued to regard Jake nervously. The whiskers on its snout trembled.

“This one remembers men,” a voice remarked at Jake’s shoulder. He looked around and saw Roland squatting just behind him with his forearms resting on his thighs and his long hands dangling between his knees. He was looking at the animal with a great deal more interest than he had shown in Jake’s watch. “What is it?” Jake asked softly. He did not want to startle it away; he was enchanted. “Its eyes are beautiful!”

“Billy-bumbler,” Roland said.

“Umber!” the creature ejaculated, and retreated another step. “It talks!”

“Not really. Bumblers just repeat what they hear—or used to. I haven’t heard one do it in years. This fellow looks almost starved. Proba-bly came to forage.” “He was licking my face. Can I feed it?” “We’ll never get rid of it if you do,” Roland said, then smiled a little and snapped his fingers. “Hey! Billy!”

The creature mimicked the sound of the snapping fingers somehow; it sounded as if it were clucking its tongue against the roof of its mouth. “Ay!” it called in its hoarse voice. “Ay, Illy!” Now its ragged hindquarters were positively gagging back and forth.

“Go ahead and give it a bite. I knew an old groom once who said a good bumbler is good luck. This looks like a good one.” “Yes,” Jake agreed. “It does.”