The gunslinger - Stephen King [53]
“Nnnnnnnnnn—”
Jake.
The gunslinger was up and on the run. A bitter circle of moon had risen and he could follow the boy’s track in the dew. He ducked under the first of the willows, splashed through the spring, and legged up the far bank, skidding in the dampness (even now his body could relish it). Willow withes slapped at his face. The trees were thicker here, and the moon was blotted out. Tree-trunks rose in lurching shadows. The grass, now knee-high, caressed him, as if pleading with him to slow down, to enjoy the cool. To enjoy the life. Half-rotted dead branches reached for his shins, his cojones. He paused for a moment, lifting his head and scenting at the air. A ghost of a breeze helped him. The boy did not smell good, of course; neither of them did. The gunslinger’s nostrils flared like those of an ape. The younger, lighter odor of the boy’s sweat was faint, oily, unmistakable. He crashed over a deadfall of grass and bramble and downed branches, sprinted through a tunnel of overhanging willow and sumac. Moss struck his shoulders like flabby corpse-hands. Some clung in sighing gray tendrils.
He clawed through a last barricade of willows and came to a clearing that looked up at the stars and the highest peak of the range, gleaming skull-white at an impossible altitude.
There was a ring of black standing stones which looked like some sort of surreal animal-trap in the moonlight. In the center was a table of stone . . . an altar. Very old, rising out of the ground on a thick arm of basalt.
The boy stood before it, trembling back and forth. His hands shook at his sides as if infused with static electricity. The gunslinger called his name sharply, and Jake responded with that inarticulate sound of negation. The faint smear of face, almost hidden by the boy’s left shoulder, looked both terrified and exalted. And there was something else.
The gunslinger stepped inside the ring and Jake screamed, recoiling and throwing up his arms. Now his face could be seen clearly. The gunslinger read fear and terror at war with some excruciating pleasure.
The gunslinger felt it touch him—the spirit of the oracle, the succubus. His loins were suddenly filled with light, a light that was soft yet hard. He felt his head twisting, his tongue thickening and becoming sensitive to even the spittle that coated it.
He didn’t think about what he was doing when he pulled the half-rotted jawbone from the pocket where he had carried it since he found it in the lair of the speaking-demon at the way station. He didn’t think, but it had never frightened him to operate on pure instinct. That had ever been the best and truest place for him. He held the jawbone’s frozen, prehistoric grin up before his eyes, holding his other arm out stiffly, first and last fingers poked out in the ancient forked sign, the ward against the evil eye.
The current of sensuality was whipped away from him like a drape.
Jake screamed again.
The gunslinger walked to him and held the jawbone in front of Jake’s warring eyes.
“See this, Jake—see it very well.”
What came in response was a wet sound of agony. The boy tried to pull his gaze away, could not. For a moment it seemed that he might be pulled apart—mentally if not physically. Then, suddenly, both eyes rolled up to the whites. Jake collapsed. His body struck the earth limply, one hand almost touching the squat basalt arm that supported the altar. The gunslinger dropped to one knee and picked him up. He was amazingly light, as dehydrated as a November leaf from their long walk through the desert.
Around him Roland could feel the presence that dwelt in the circle of stones whirring with a jealous anger—its prize was being taken from it. Once the gunslinger passed out of the circle, the sense of frustrated jealousy faded quickly. He carried Jake back to their camp. By the time they got there, the boy’s twitching unconsciousness had become deep sleep.
The gunslinger paused for a moment above the gray ruin of the fire. The moonlight on Jake’s face