Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [322]
Roland and Eddie came over to him; Susannah, too, but she hung back a bit, as if deciding that, at least for the time being, the boys should be with the boys. Roland was smoking, and Jake nodded at it.
“Roll me one of those, would you?”
Roland turned in Susannah’s direction, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, then nodded. Roland rolled Jake a cigarette, gave it to him, then scratched a match on the seat of his pants and lit it. Jake sat on the waggon wheel, taking the smoke in occasional puffs, holding it in his mouth, then letting it out. His mouth filled up with spit. He didn’t mind. Unlike some things, spit could be got rid of. He made no attempt to inhale.
Roland looked down the hill, where the first of the two running men was just entering the corn. “That’s Slightman,” he said. “Good.”
“Why good, Roland?” Eddie asked.
“Because sai Slightman will have accusations to make,” Roland said. “In his grief, he isn’t going to care who hears them, or what his extraordinary knowledge might say about his part in this morning’s work.”
“Dance,” Jake said.
They turned to look at him. He sat pale and thoughtful on the waggon-wheel, holding his cigarette. “This morning’s dance,” he said.
Roland appeared to consider this, then nodded. “His part in this morning’s dance. If he gets here soon enough, we may be able to quiet him. If not, his son’s death is only going to be the start of Ben Slightman’s commala.”
Nineteen
Slightman was almost fifteen years younger than the rancher, and arrived at the site of the battle well before the other. For a moment he only stood on the far edge of the hide, considering the shattered body lying in the road. There was not so much blood, now—the oggan had drunk it greedily—but the severed arm still lay where it had been, and the severed arm told all. Roland would no more have moved it before Slightman got here than he would have opened his flies and pissed on the boy’s corpse. Slightman the Younger had reached the clearing at the end of his path. His father, as next of kin, had a right to see where and how it had happened.
The man stood quiet for perhaps five seconds, then pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a shriek. It chilled Eddie’s blood. He looked around for Susannah and saw she was no longer there. He didn’t blame her for ducking out. This was a bad scene. The worst.
Slightman looked left, looked right, then looked straight ahead and saw Roland, standing beside the overturned waggon with his arms crossed. Beside him, Jake still sat on the wheel, smoking his first cigarette.
“YOU!” Slightman screamed. He was carrying his bah; now he unslung it. “YOU DID THIS! YOU!”
Eddie plucked the weapon deftly from Slightman’s hands. “No, you don’t, partner,” he murmured. “You don’t need this right now, why don’t you let me keep it for you.”
Slightman seemed not to notice. Incredibly, his right hand still made circular motions in the air, as if winding the bah for a shot.
“YOU KILLED MY SON! TO PAY ME BACK! YOU BASTARD! MURDERING BAS—”
Moving with the eerie, spooky speed that Eddie could still not completely believe, Roland seized Slightman around the neck in the crook of one arm, then yanked him forward. The move simultaneously cut off the flow of the man’s accusations and drew him close.
“Listen to me,” Roland said, “and listen well. I care nothing for your life or honor, one’s been misspent and the other’s long gone, but your son is dead and about his honor I care very much. If you don’t shut up this second, you worm of creation, I’ll shut you up myself. So what would you? It’s nothing to me, either way. I’ll tell em you ran mad at the sight of him, stole my gun out of its holster, and put a bullet in your own head to join him. What would you have? Decide.”
Eisenhart was badly