hips-and to carry his father’s great revolvers when Steven Deschain decided to pass them on-and already he was tired of them. Susan’s kisses had softened his heart and quickened him, somehow; had made another life possible. A better one, perhaps. One with a house, and kiddies, and-
“They’re coming,” Alain said, snapping Roland out of his reverie.
The gunslinger stood up, Rusher’s reins in one fist. Cuthbert stood tensely nearby. “Large party or small? Does thee… do you know?”
Alain stood facing southeast, hands held out with the palms up. Beyond his shoulder, Roland saw Old Star just about to slip below the horizon. Only an hour until dawn, then.
“I can’t tell yet,” Alain said.
“Can you at least tell if the ball-”
“No. Shut up, Roland, let me listen!”
Roland and Cuthbert stood and watched Alain anxiously, at the same time straining their ears to hear the hooves of horses, the creak of wheels, or the murmur of men on the passing wind. Time spun out. The wind, rather than dropping as Old Star disappeared and dawn approached, blew more fiercely than ever. Roland looked at Cuthbert, who had taken out his slingshot and was playing nervously with the pull. Bert raised one shoulder in a shrug.
“It’s a small party,” Alain said suddenly. “Can either of you touch them?”
They shook their heads.
“No more than ten, maybe only six.”
“Gods!” Roland murmured, and pumped a fist at the sky. He couldn’t help it. “And the ball?”
“I can’t touch it,” Alain said. He sounded almost as though he were sleeping himself. “But it’s with them, don’t you think?”
Roland did. A small party of six or eight, probably travelling with the ball. It was perfect.
“Be ready, boys,” he said. “We’re going to take them.”
9
Jonas’s party made good time down the Drop and into the Bad Grass. The guide-stars were brilliant in the autumn sky, and Renfrew knew them all. He had a click-line to measure between the two he called The Twins, and he stopped the group briefly every twenty minutes or so to use it. Jonas hadn’t the slightest doubt the old cowboy would bring them out of the tall grass pointed straight at Hanging Rock.
Then, about an hour after they’d entered the Bad Grass, Quint rode up beside him. “That old lady, she want to see you, sai. She say it’s important.”
“Do she, now?” Jonas asked.
“Aye.” Quint lowered his voice. “That ball she got on her lap all glowy.”
“Is that so? I tell you what. Quint-keep my old trail-buddies company while I see what’s what.” He dropped back until he was pacing beside the black cart. Rhea raised her face to him, and for a moment, washed as it was in the pink light, he thought it the face of a young girl.
“So,” she said. “Here y’are, big boy. I thought ye’d show up pretty smart.” She cackled, and as her face broke into its sour lines of laughter, Jonas again saw her as she really was-all but sucked dry by the thing in her lap. Then he looked down at it himself… and was lost. He could feel that pink glow radiating into all the deepest passages and hollows of his mind, lighting them up in a way they’d never been lit up before. Even Coral, at her dirty busiest, couldn’t light him up that way.
“Ye like it, don’t ye?” she half-laughed, half-crooned. “Aye, so ye do, so would anyone, such a pretty glam it is! But what do ye see, sai Jonas?”
Leaning over, holding to the saddle-horn with one hand, his long hair hanging down in a sheaf, Jonas looked deeply into the ball. At first he saw only that luscious, labial pink, and then it began to draw apart. Now he saw a hut surrounded by tall grass. The sort of hut only a hermit could love. The door-it was painted a peeling but still bright red-stood open. And sitting there on the stone stoop with her hands in her lap, her blankets on the ground at her feet, and her unbound hair around her shoulders was…
“I’ll be damned!” Jonas whispered. He had now leaned so far out of the saddle that he looked like a trick rider in a circus show, and his eyes seemed to have disappeared; there were only sockets of pink light where they had been.
Rhea cackled delightedly. “Aye, it’s Thorin’s gilly that never was! Dearborn’s lovergirl!” Her cackling stopped abruptly. “Lovergirl of the young proddy who killed my Ermot. And he’ll pay for it, aye, so he will. Look closer, sai Jonas! Look closer!”
He did. Everything was clear now, and he thought he should have seen it earlier.
Everything this girl’s aunt had feared had been true. Rhea had known, although why she hadn’t told anyone the girl had been screwing one of the In-World boys, Jonas didn’t know. And Susan had done more than just screw Will Dearborn; she’d helped him escape, him and his trail-mates, and she might well have killed two lawmen for him, into the bargain.
The figure in the ball swam closer. Watching that made him feel a little dizzy, but it was a pleasant dizziness. Beyond the girl was the hut, faintly lit by a lamp which had been turned down to the barest core of flame. At first Jonas thought someone was sleeping in one comer, but on second glance he decided it was only a heap of hides that looked vaguely human.
“Do’ee spy the boys?” Rhea asked, seemingly from a great distance. “Do’ee spy em, m'lord sai?”
“No,” he said, his own voice seeming to come from that same distant place. His eyes were pinned to the ball. He could feel its light baking deeper and deeper into his brain. It was a good feeling, like a hot fire on a cold night. “She’s alone. Looks as if she’s waiting.”
“Aye.” Rhea gestured above the ball-a curt dusting-off movement of the hands-and the pink light was gone. Jonas gave a low, protesting cry, but no matter; the ball was dark again. He wanted to stretch his hands out and tell her to make the light return-to beg her, if necessary-and held himself back by pure force of will. He was rewarded by a slow return of his wits. It helped to remind himself that Rhea’s gestures were as meaningless as the puppets in a Pinch and Jilly show. The ball did what it wanted, not what she wanted.
Meanwhile, the ugly old woman was looking at him with eyes that were perversely shrewd and clear. “Waiting for what, do’ee suppose?” she asked.
There was only one thing she could be waiting for. Jonas thought with rising alarm. The boys. The three beardless sons of bitches from In-World. And if they weren’t with her, they might well be up ahead, doing their own waiting.
Waiting for him. Possibly even waiting for-
“Listen to me,” he said. “I’ll only speak once, and you best answer true. Do they know about that thing? Do those three boys know about the Rainbow?”
Her eyes shifted away from his. It was answer enough in one way, but not in another. She had had things her way all too long up there on her hill; she had to know who was boss down here. He leaned over again and grabbed her shoulder. It was horrible-like grabbing a bare bone that somehow still lived-but he made himself hold on all the same. And squeeze. She moaned and wriggled, but he held on.
“Tell me, you old bitch! Run your fucking gob!”
“They might know of it,” she whined. “The girl might’ve seen something the night she came to be-am-, let go, ye’re killing me!”
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.” He took another longing glance at the ball, then sat up straight in the saddle, cupped his hands around his mouth, and called: “Clay! Hold up!” As Reynolds and Renfrew reined back, Jonas raised a hand to halt the vaqs behind him.
The wind whispered through the grass, bending it, rippling it, whipping up eddies of sweet smell. Jonas stared ahead into the dark, even though he knew it was fruitless to look for them. They could be anywhere, and Jonas didn’t like the odds in an ambush. Not one bit.
He rode to where Clay and Renfrew were waiting. Renfrew looked impatient. “What’s the problem? Dawn’ll be breaking soon. We ought to get a move-on.”
“Do you know the huts in the Bad Grass?”
“Aye, most. Why-”
“Do you know one with a red door?”
Renfrew nodded and pointed northish. “Old Soony’s place. He had some sort of religious conversion-a dream or a vision or something. That’s when he painted the door of his hut red. He’s gone to the Manni-folk these last five years.” He no longer asked why, at least; he had seen something on Jonas’s face that had shut up his questions.
Jonas raised his hand, looked at the blue coffin tattooed there for a second, then turned and called for Quint. “You’re in charge,” Jonas told him.
Quint’s shaggy eyebrows shot up. “Me?”
“Yar. But you’re not going on-there’s been a change of plan.”
“What-”
“Listen and don’t open your mouth again unless there’s something you don’t understand. Get that damned black cart turned around. Put your men around it and hie on back the way we came. Join up with Lengyll and his men. Tell them Jonas says wait where you find em until he and Reynolds and Renfrew come. Clear?”
Quint nodded. He looked bewildered but said nothing.
“Good. Get about it. And tell the witch to put her toy back in its bag.” Jonas passed a hand over his brow. Fingers which had rarely shaken before had now picked up a minute tremble. “It’s distracting.”
Quint started away, then looked back when Jonas called his name.
“I think those In-World boys are out here, Quint. Probably ahead of where we are now, but if they’re back the way you’re going, they’ll probably set on you.”
Quint looked nervously around at the grass, which rose higher than his head. Then his lips tightened and he returned his attention to Jonas.
“If they attack, they’ll try to take the ball,” Jonas continued. “And sai, mark me well: any man who doesn’t die protecting it will wish he had.” He lifted his chin at the vaqs, who sat astride their horses in a line behind the black cart. “Tell them that.”
“Aye, boss,” Quint said.
“When you reach Lengyll’s party, you’ll be safe.”
“How long should we wait for yer if ye don’t come?”
“Til hell freezes over. Now go.” As Quint left, Jonas turned to Reynolds and Renfrew. “We’re going to make a little side-trip, boys,” he said.
10
“Roland.” Alain’s voice was low and urgent. “They’ve turned around.”
