The gunslinger - Stephen King [20]
Below her, Nort wandered absently out into the storm to pull some weed. The man in black, now the only patron in the bar, perhaps watched him go, perhaps still grinning.
When she forced herself to go back down that evening, carrying a lamp in one hand and a heavy stick of stovewood in the other, the man in black was gone, rig and all. But Nort was there, sitting at the table by the door as if he had never been away. The smell of the weed was on him, but not as heavily as she might have expected.
He looked up at her and smiled tentatively. “Hello, Allie.”
“Hello, Nort.” She put the stovewood down and began lighting the lamps, not turning her back to him.
“I been touched by God,” he said presently. “I ain’t going to die no more. He said so. It was a promise.”
“How nice for you, Nort.” The spill she was holding dropped through her trembling fingers and she picked it up.
“I’d like to stop chewing the grass,” he said. “I don’t enjoy it no more. It don’t seem right for a man touched by God to be chewing the weed.”
“Then why don’t you stop?”
Her exasperation had startled her into looking at him as a man again, rather than an infernal miracle. What she saw was a rather sad-looking specimen only half-stoned, looking hangdog and ashamed. She could not be frightened by him anymore.
“I shake,” he said. “And I want it. I can’t stop. Allie, you was always good to me . . .” He began to weep. “I can’t even stop peeing myself. What am I? What am I?”
She walked to the table and hesitated there, uncertain.
“He could have made me not want it,” he said through the tears. “He could have done that if he could have made me be alive. I ain’t complaining . . . I don’t want to complain . . .” He stared around hauntedly and whispered, “He might strike me dead if I did.”
“Maybe it’s a joke. He seemed to have quite a sense of humor.”
Nort took his poke from where it dangled inside his shirt and brought out a handful of grass. Unthinkingly she knocked it away and then drew her hand back, horrified.
“I can’t help it, Allie, I can’t,” and he made a crippled dive for the poke. She could have stopped him, but she made no effort. She went back to lighting the lamps, tired although the evening had barely begun. But nobody came in that night except old man Kennerly, who had missed everything. He did not seem particularly surprised to see Nort. Perhaps someone had told him what had happened. He ordered beer, asked where Sheb was, and pawed her.
Later, Nort came to her and held out a folded piece of paper in one shaky no-right-to-be-alive hand. “He left you this,” he said. “I near forgot. If I’d forgot, he woulda come back and killed me, sure.”
Paper was valuable, a commodity much to be treasured, but she didn’t like to handle this. It felt heavy, nasty. Written on it was a single word:
Allie
“How’d he know my name?” she asked Nort, and Nort only shook his head.
She opened it and read this:
You want to know about Death. I left him a word. That word is NINETEEN. If you say it to him his mind will be opened. He will tell you what lies beyond. He will tell you what he saw.
The word is NINETEEN.
Knowing will drive you mad.
But sooner or later you will ask.
You won’t be able to help yourself.
Have a nice day!
Walter o’ Dim
P.S. The word is NINETEEN.
You will try to forget but sooner or later it will come out of your mouth like vomit.
NINETEEN.
And oh dear God, she knew that she would. Already it trembled on her lips. Nineteen, she would say—Nort, listen: Nineteen. And the secrets of Death and the land beyond would be opened to her.
Sooner or later you will ask.
The next day things were almost normal, although none of the children followed Nort. The day after that, the catcalls resumed. Life had gotten back on its own sweet keel. The uprooted corn was gathered together by the children, and a week after Nort’s resurrection, they burned it in the middle of the street. The fire was momentarily bright and most of the barflies stepped or staggered out to watch. They looked primitive. Their faces seemed to float between