Wizard and glass - Stephen King [287]
“Fuh-fuh-five,” Depape said, laughing so hard he was hiccupping. “Sih-sih-six!”
Rhea climbed back up, flopped onto the cantboard again with all the grace of a dying fish, and peered around at them, wall-eyed and sneering.
“I curse ye all!” she screamed. It cut through them, stilling their laughter even as the cart bounced toward the edge of the trampled clearing. “Every last one of ye! Ye . . . and ye . . . and ye!” Her crooked finger pointed last at Jonas. “Thief! Miserable thief!”
As though it was yours, Jonas marveled (although “Mine!” was the first word to occur to him, once he had taken possession of it). As though such a wonder could ever belong to a back-country reader of rooster-guts such as you.
The cart bounced its way into the Bad Grass, the pony pulling hard with its ears laid back; the old woman’s screams served to drive it better than any whip could have done. The black slipped into the green. They saw the cart flicker like a conjurer’s trick, and then it was gone. For a long time yet, however, they heard her shrieking her curses, calling death down upon them beneath the Demon Moon.
15
“Go on,” Jonas told Clay Reynolds. “Take our Sunbeam back. And if you want to stop on the way and make some use of her, why, be my guest.” He glanced at Susan as he said this, to see what effect it might be having, but he was disappointed—she looked dazed, as if the last blow Renfrew had dealt her had scrambled her brains, at least temporarily. “Just make sure she gets to Coral at the end of all the fun.”
“I will. Any message for sai Thorin?”
“Tell her to keep the wench someplace safe until she hears from me. And . . . why don’t you stay with her, Clay? Coral, I mean—come tomorrow, I don’t think we’ll have to worry about this ’un anymore, but Coral . . . ride with her to Ritzy when she goes. Be her escort, like.”
Reynolds nodded. Better and better. Seafront it would be, and that was fine. He might like a little taste of the girl once he got her there, but not on the way. Not under the ghostly-full daytime Demon Moon.
“Go on, then. Get started.”
Reynolds led her across the clearing, aiming for a point well away from the bent swath of grass where Rhea had made her exit. Susan rode silently, downcast eyes fixed on her bound wrists.
Jonas turned to face his men. “The three young fellows from In-World have broken their way out of jail, with that haughty young bitch’s help,” he said, pointing at Susan’s departing back.
There was a low, growling murmur from the men. That “Will Dearborn” and his friends were free they had known; that sai Delgado had helped them escape they had not . . . and it was perhaps just as well for her that Reynolds was at that moment leading her into the Bad Grass and out of sight.
“Never mind!” Jonas shouted, pulling their attention back to him. He reached out a stealthy hand and caressed the curve at the bottom of the drawstring bag. Just touching the ball made him feel as if he could do anything, and with one hand tied behind his back, at that.
“Never mind her, and never mind them!” His eyes moved from Lengyll to Wertner to Croydon to Brian Hookey to Roy Depape. “We’re close to forty men, going to join another hundred and fifty. They’re three, and not one a day over sixteen. Are you afraid of three little boys?”
“No!” they cried.
“If we run on em, my cullies, what will we do?”
“KILL THEM!” The shout so loud that it sent rooks rising up into the morning sun, cawing their displeasure as they commenced the hunt for more peaceful surroundings.
Jonas was satisfied. His hand was still on the sweet curve of the ball, and he could feel it pouring strength into him. Pink strength, he thought, and grinned.
“Come on, boys. I want those tankers in the woods west of Eyebolt before the home folks light their Reap-Night Bonfire.”
16
Sheemie, crouched down in the grass and peering into the clearing, was nearly run over by