The Waste Lands (Page 85)
Eddie looked at the west side of the marker. “It says Jimtown, forty wheels. Isn’t that the birthplace of Wayne Newton, Roland?” Roland looked at him blankly.
“Shet ma mouf,” Eddie said, and rolled his eyes. On the southwest corner of the square was the town’s only stone building—a squat, dusty cube with rusty bars on the windows. Combina-tion county jail and courthouse, Susannah thought. She had seen similar ones down south; add a few slant parking spaces in front and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Something had been daubed across the facade of the building in fading yellow paint. She could read it, and although she couldn’t understand it, it made her more anxious than ever to get out of this town. PUBES DIE, it said. “Roland!” When she had his attention, she pointed at the graffito. “What does that mean?”
He read it, then shook his head. “Don’t know.” She looked around again. The square now seemed smaller, and the buildings seemed to be leaning over them. “Can we get out of here?” “Soon.” He bent down and pried a small chunk of cobble out of the roadbed. He bounced it thoughtfully in his left hand as he looked up at the metal box which hung over the marker. He cocked his arm and Susannah realized, an instant too late, what he meant to do.
“No, Roland!” she cried, then cringed back at the sound of her own horrified voice.
He took no notice of her but fired the stone upward. His aim was as true as ever, and it struck the box dead center with a hollow, metallic bang. There was a whir of clockwork from within, and a rusty green flag unfolded from a slot in the side. When it locked in place, a bell rang briskly. Written in large black letters on the side of the flag was the word GO. “I’ll be damned,” Eddie said. “It’s a Keystone Kops traffic-light. If you hit it again, does it say STOP?”
“We have company,” Roland said quietly, and pointed toward the building Susannah thought of as the county courthouse. A man and a woman had emerged from it and were descending the stone steps. You win the kewpie doll, Roland, Susannah thought. They’re older n God, the both of em. The man was wearing bib overalls and a huge straw sombrero. The woman walked with one hand clamped on his naked sunburned shoulder. She wore homespun and a poke bonnet, and as they drew closer to the marker, Susannah saw she was blind, and that the accident which had taken her sight must have been exceedingly horrible. Where her eyes had been there were now only two shallow sockets filled with scar-tissue. She looked both terrified and confused. “Be they harriers, Si?” she cried in a cracked, quavering voice. “You’ll have us killed yet, I’ll warrant!”
“Shut up, Mercy,” he replied. Like the woman, he spoke with a thick accent Susannah could barely understand. “They ain’t harriers, not these. There’s a Pube with em, I told you that—ain’t no harrier ever been travellin’ with a Pube.”
Blind or not, she tried to pull away from him. He cursed and caught her arm. “Quit it, Mercy! Quit it, I say! You’ll fall down and do y’self evil, dammit!” “We mean you no harm,” the gunslinger called. He used the High Speech, and at the sound of it the man’s eyes lit up with incredulity. The woman turned back, swinging her blind face in their direction. “A gunslinger!” the man cried. His voice cracked and wavered with excitement. ” ‘Fore God! I knew it were! I knew!”
He began to run across the square toward them, pulling the woman after. She stumbled along helplessly, and Susannah waited for the inevita-ble moment when she must fall. But the man fell first, going heavily to his knees, and she sprawled painfully beside him on the cobbles of the Great Road.
JAKE FELT SOMETHING FURRY against his ankle and looked down. Oy was crouched beside him, looking more anxious than ever. Jake reached down and cautiously stroked his head, as much to receive comfort as to give it. Its fur was silky, incredibly soft. For a moment he thought the bumbler was going to run, but it only looked up at him, licked his hand, and then looked back at the two new people. The man was trying to help the woman to her feet and not succeeding very well. Her head craned this way and that in avid confusion. The man named Si had cut his palms on the cobblestones, but he took no notice. He gave up trying to help the woman, swept off his sombrero, and held it over his chest. To Jake the hat looked as big as a bushel basket. “We bid ye welcome, gunslinger!” he cried. “Welcome indeed! I thought all your land had perished from the earth, so I did!”
“I thank you for your welcome,” Roland said in the High Speech. He put his hands gently on the blind woman’s upper arms. She cringed for a moment, then relaxed and allowed him to help her up. “Put on your hat, old-timer. The sun is hot.” He did, then just stood there, looking at Roland with shining eyes. After a moment or two, Jake realized what that shine was. Si was crying. “A gunslinger! I told you, Mercy! I seen the shooting-iron and told you!” “No harriers?” she asked, as if unable to believe it. “Are you sure they ain’t harriers, Si?”
Roland turned to Eddie. “Make sure of the safety and then give her Jake’s gun.” Eddie pulled the Ruger from his waistband, checked the safety, and then put it gingerly in the blind woman’s hands. She gasped, almost dropped it, then ran her hands over it wonderingly. She turned the empty sockets where her eyes had been up to the man. “A gun!” she whispered. “My sainted hat!” “Ay, some kind,” the old man replied dismissively, taking it from her and giving it back to Eddie, “but the gunslinger’s got a real one, and there’s a woman got another. She’s got a brown skin, too, like my da’ said the people of Garlan had.”