Wizard and glass - Stephen King [252]
Lengyll held him back, looking tired. “Don’t be a fool. I don’t want to bring him back laying over a saddle unless he’s dead.”
Avery lowered his gun. Lengyll turned to Roland.
“Ye’re not going to live long enough to profit from advice, Dearborn,” he said, “but I’ll give’ee some, anyway: stick with the winners in this world. And know how the wind blows, so ye can tell when it changes direction.”
“You’ve forgotten the face of your father, you scurrying little maggot,” Cuthbert said clearly.
This got to Lengyll in a way Roland’s remark about his mother had not—it showed in the sudden bloom of color in his weathered cheeks.
“Get em mounted!” he said. “I want em locked up tight within the hour!”
5
Roland was boosted into Rusher’s saddle so hard he almost flew off on the other side—would have, if Dave Hollis had not been there to steady him and then to wedge Roland’s boot into the stirrup. Dave offered the gunslinger a nervous, half-embarrassed smile.
“I’m sorry to see you here,” Roland said gravely.
“It’s sorry I am to be here,” the deputy said. “If murder was your business, I wish you’d gotten to it sooner. And your friend shouldn’t have been so arrogant as to leave his calling-card.” He nodded toward Cuthbert.
Roland hadn’t the slightest idea what Deputy Dave was referring to, but it didn’t matter. It was just part of the frame, and none of these men believed much of it, Dave likely included. Although, Roland supposed, they would come to believe it in later years and tell it to their children and grandchildren as gospel. The glorious day they’d ridden with the posse and taken down the traitors.
The gunslinger used his knees to turn Rusher . . . and there, standing by the gate between the Bar K’s dooryard and the lane leading to the Great Road, was Jonas himself. He sat astride a deep-chested bay, wearing a green felt drover’s hat and an old gray duster. There was a rifle in the scabbard beside his right knee. The left side of the duster was pulled back to expose the butt of his revolver. Jonas’s white hair, untied today, lay over his shoulders.
He doffed his hat and held it out to Roland in courtly greeting. “A good game,” he said. “You played very well for someone who was taking his milk out of a tit not so long ago.”
“Old man,” Roland said, “you’ve lived too long.”
Jonas smiled. “You’d remedy that if you could, wouldn’t you? Yar, I reckon.” He flicked his eyes at Lengyll. “Get their toys, Fran. Look specially sharp for knives. They’ve got guns, but not with em. Yet I know a bit more about those shooting irons than they might think. And funny boy’s slingshot. Don’t forget that, for gods’ sake. He like to take Roy’s head off with it not so long ago.”
“Are you talking about the carrot-top?” Cuthbert asked. His horse was dancing under him; Bert swayed back and forth and from side to side like a circus rider to keep from tumbling off. “He never would have missed his head. His balls, maybe, but not his head.”
“Probably true,” Jonas agreed, watching as the spears and Roland’s shortbow were taken into custody. The slingshot was on the back of Cuthbert’s belt, tucked into a holster he had made for it himself. It was very well for Roy Depape that he hadn’t tried Bert, Roland knew—Bert could take a bird on the wing at sixty yards. A pouch holding steel shot hung at the boy’s left side. Bridger took it, as well.
While this was going on, Jonas fixed Roland with an amiable smile. “What’s your real name, brat? Fess up—no harm in telling now; you’re going to ride the handsome, and we both know it.”
Roland said nothing. Lengyll looked at Jonas, eyebrows raised. Jonas shrugged, then jerked his head in the direction of town. Lengyll nodded and poked Roland with one hard, chapped finger. “Come on, boy. Let’s ride.”
Roland squeezed Rusher’s sides; the horse trotted toward Jonas. And suddenly Roland knew something. As with all his best and truest intuitions,