Wizard and glass - Stephen King [214]
At the sound of “Arthur Heath’s” kind voice and the sight of his concerned face, Sheemie began to weep. Rhea’s strict command that he should tell no one flew out of his head. Still sobbing, he recounted everything that had happened since that morning. Twice Cuthbert had to ask him to slow down, and when Bert led the boy to a tree in whose shade the two of them sat together, Sheemie was finally able to do so. Cuthbert listened with growing unease. At the end of his tale, Sheemie produced an envelope from inside his shirt.
Cuthbert broke the seal and read what was inside, his eyes growing large.
12
Roy Depape was waiting for him at the Travellers’ Rest when Jonas returned in good spirits from his trip to the Bar K. An outrider had finally shown up, Depape announced, and Jonas’s spirits rose another notch. Only Roy didn’t look as happy about it as Jonas would have expected. Not happy at all.
“Fellow’s gone on to Seafront, where I guess he’s expected,” Depape said. “He wants you right away. I wouldn’t linger here to eat, not even a popkin, if I were you. I wouldn’t take a drink, either. You’ll want a clear head to deal with this one.”
“Free with your advice today, ain’t you, Roy?” Jonas said. He spoke in a heavily sarcastic tone, but when Pettie brought him a tot of whiskey, he sent it back and asked for water instead. Roy had a bit of a look to him, Jonas decided. Too pale by half, was good old Roy. And when Sheb sat down at his piano-bench and struck a chord, Depape jerked in that direction, one hand dropping to the butt of his gun. Interesting. And a little disquieting.
“Spill it, son—what’s got your back hair up?”
Roy shook his head sullenly. “Don’t rightly know.”
“What’s this fellow’s name?”
“I didn’t ask, he didn’t say. He showed me Farson’s sigul, though. You know.” Depape lowered his voice a little. “The eye.”
Jonas knew, all right. He hated that wide-open staring eye, couldn’t imagine what had possessed Farson to pick it in the first place. Why not a mailed fist? Crossed swords? Or a bird? A falcon, for instance—a falcon would have made a fine sigul. But that eye—
“All right,” he said, finishing the glass of water. It went down better than whiskey would have done, anyway—dry as a bone, he’d been. “I’ll find out the rest for myself, shall I?”
As he reached the batwing doors and pushed them open, Depape called his name. Jonas turned back.
“He looks like other people,” Depape said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t hardly know.” Depape looked embarrassed and bewildered . . . but dogged, too. Sticking to his guns. “We only talked five minutes in all, but once I looked at him and thought it was the old bastard from Ritzy—the one I shot. Little bit later I th’ow him a glance and think, ‘Hellfire, it’s my old pa standin there.’ Then that went by, too, and he looked like himself again.”
“And how’s that?”
“You’ll see for yourself, I reckon. I don’t know if you’ll like it much, though.”
Jonas stood with one batwing pushed open, thinking. “Roy, ’twasn’t Farson himself, was it? The Good Man in some sort of disguise?”
Depape hesitated, frowning, and then shook his head. “No.”
“Are you sure? We only saw him the once, remember, and not close-to.” Latigo had pointed him out. Sixteen months ago that had been, give or take.
“I’m sure. You remember how big he was?”
Jonas nodded. Farson was no Lord Perth, but he was six feet or more, and broad across at both brace and basket.
“This man’s Clay’s height, or less. And he stays the same height no matter who he looks like.” Depape hesitated a moment and said: “He laughs like a dead person. I could barely stand to hear him do it.”
“What do you mean, like a dead person?”
Roy Depape shook his head. “Can’t rightly say.”
13
Twenty minutes later, Eldred Jonas was riding beneath COME IN PEACE and into the courtyard of Seafront, uneasy because he had expected Latigo . . . and unless Roy was very much mistaken, it wasn’t Latigo he was