The Waste Lands (Page 87)

“Wow!” Eddie said, staring around. “Busch Gardens!” Si said, “This is the one place we keep the way it was in the old days, before the world moved on. And we keep it hidden from those who ride through—Pubes, Grays, harriers. They’d bum it if they knew . . . and kill us for keeping such a place. They hate anything nice—all of em. It’s the one thing all those bastards have in common.”

The blind woman tugged his arm to shush him. “No riders these days,” the old man with the wooden leg said. “Not for a long time now. They keep closer in to the city. Guess they find all they need to keep em well right there.”

The albino twins struggled out with the table. One of the old women followed them, urging them to hurry up and get the hell out of her way. She held a stoneware pitcher in each hand.

“Sit ye down, gunslinger!” Aunt Talitha cried, sweeping her hand at the grass. “Sit ye down, all!”

Susannah could smell a hundred conflicting perfumes. They made her feel dazed and unreal, as if this was a dream she was having. She could hardly believe this strange little pocket of Eden, carefully hidden behind the crumbling facade of the dead town.

Another woman came out with a tray of glasses. They were mismatched but spotless, twinkling in the sun like fine crystal. She held the tray out first to Roland, then to Aunt Talitha, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake at the last. As each took a glass, the first woman poured a dark golden liquid into it. Roland leaned over to Jake, who was sitting tailor-fashion near an oval bed of bright green flowers with Oy at his side. He murmured: “Drink only enough to be polite, Jake, or we’ll be carrying you out of town—this is graf—strong apple-beer.”

Jake nodded.

Talitha held up her glass, and when Roland followed suit, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake did the same.

“What about the others?” Eddie whispered to Roland. “They’ll be served after the voluntary. Now be quiet.” “Will ye set us on with a word, gunslinger?” Aunt Talitha asked. The gunslinger got to his feet, his glass upraised in his hand. He lowered his head, as if in thought. The few remaining residents of River Crossing watched him respectfully and, Jake thought, a little fearfully. At last he raised his head again. “Will you drink to the earth, and to the days which have passed upon it?” he asked. His voice was hoarse,’ trembling with emotion. “Will you drink to the fullness which was, and to friends who have passed on? Will you drink to good company, well met? Will these things set us on, Old Mother?” She was weeping, Jake saw, but her face broke into a smile of radiant happiness all the same . . . and for a moment she was almost young. Jake looked at her with wonder and sudden, dawning happiness. For the first time since Eddie had hauled him through the door, he felt the shadow of the doorkeeper truly leave his heart.

“Ay, gunslinger!” she said. “Fair spoken! They’ll set us on by the league, so they shall!” She tilted her glass up and drank it at a draught. When the glass was empty, Roland emptied his own. Eddie and Susannah also drank, although less deeply.

Jake tasted his own drink, and was surprised to find he liked it— the brew was not bitter, as he had expected, but both sweet and tart, like cider. He could feel the effects almost at once, however, and he put the glass carefully aside. Oy sniffed at it, then drew back, and dropped his muzzle on Jake’s ankle. Around them, the little company of old people—the last residents of River Crossing—were applauding. Most, like Aunt Talitha, were weeping openly. And now other glasses—not so fine but wholly serviceable—were passed around. The party began, and a fine party it was on that long summer’s afternoon beneath the wide prairie sky.

EDDIE THOUGHT THE MEAL, he ate that day was the best he had had since the mythic birthday feasts of his childhood, when his mother had made it her business to serve everything he liked—meatloaf and roasted potatoes and corn on the cob and devil’s food cake with vanilla ice cream on the side. The sheer variety of the edibles put before them—especially after the months they had spent eating nothing but lobster meat, deer meat, and the few bitter greens which Roland pronounced safe—undoubtedly had something to do with the pleasure he took in the food, but Eddie didn’t think that was the sole answer; he noticed that the kid was packing it away by the plateful (and feeding a chunk of something to the bumbler crouched at his feet every couple of minutes), and Jake hadn’t been here a week yet.

There were bowls of stew (chunks of buffalo meat floating in a rich brown gravy loaded with vegetables), platters of fresh biscuits, crocks of sweet white butter, and bowls of leaves that looked like spinach but weren’t . . . exactly. Eddie had never been crazy about greens, but at the first taste of these, some deprived part of him awoke and cried for them. He ate well of everything, but his need for the green stuff approached greed, and he saw Susannah was also helping herself to them again and again. Among the four of them, the travellers emptied three bowls of the leaves.

The dinner dishes were swept away by the old women and the albino twins. They returned with chunks of cake piled high on two thick white plates and a bowl of whipped cream. The cake gave off a sweetly fragrant smell that made Eddie feel as if he had died and gone to heaven.

“Only buffaler cream,” Aunt Talitha said dismissively. “No more cows—last one croaked thirty year ago. Buffaler cream ain’t no prize-winner, but better’n nothin, by Daisy!”

The cake turned out to be loaded with blueberries. Eddie thought it beat by a country mile any cake he’d ever had. He finished three pieces, leaned back, and belched ringingly before he could clap a hand over his mouth. He looked around guiltily.