15
All six of Parson’s chief lieutenants had been carefully described to Roland-to all fourteen gunslingers in training-and he recognized the man running for the remuda at once: George Latigo. Roland could have shot him as he ran, but that, ironically, would have made possible a getaway that was cleaner than he wanted.
Instead, he shot the man who ran to meet him.
Latigo wheeled on the heels of his boots and stared at Roland with blazing, hate-filled eyes. Then he ran again, hiling another man, shouting for the riders who were huddled together beyond the burning zone.
Two more tankers exploded, whamming at Roland’s eardrums with dull iron fists, seeming to suck the air back from his lungs like a riptide. The plan had been for Alain to perforate the tankers and for Cuthbert to then shoot in a steady, arcing stream of big-bangers, lighting the spilling oil. The one big-banger he actually shot seemed to confirm that the plan had been feasible, but it was the last slingshot-work Cuthbert did that day.
The ease with which the gunslingers had gotten inside the enemy’s perimeter and the confusion which greeted their original charge could have been chalked up to inexperience and exhaustion, but the placing of the tankers had been Latigo’s mistake, and his alone. He had drawn them tight without even thinking about it, and now they blew tight, one after another. Once the conflagration began, there was no chance of stopping it. Even before Roland raised his left arm and circled it in the air, signalling for Alain and Cuthbert to break off, the work was done. Latigo’s encampment was an oily inferno, and John Farson’s plans for a motorized assault were so much black smoke being tattered apart by the fin de ano wind.
“Ride!” Roland screamed. “Ride, ride, ride!”
They spurred west, toward Eyebolt Canyon. As they went, Roland felt a single bullet drone past his left ear. It was, so far as he knew, the only shot fired at any of them during the assault on the tankers.
16
Latigo was in an ecstasy of fury, a perfect brain-bursting rage, and that was probably merciful-it kept him from thinking of what the Good Man would do when he learned of this fiasco. For the time being, all Latigo cared about was catching the men who had ambushed him… if an ambush in desert country was even possible.
Men? No.
The boys who had done this.
Latigo knew who they were, all right; he didn’t know how they had gotten out here, but he knew who they were, and their run would stop right here, east of the woods and rising hills.
“Hendricks!” he bawled. Hendricks had at least managed to hold his men-half a dozen of them, all mounted-near the remuda. “Hendricks, to me!”
As Hendricks rode toward him, Latigo spun the other way and saw a huddle of men standing and watching the burning tankers. Their gaping mouths and stupid young sheep faces made him feel like screaming and dancing up and down, but he refused to give in to that. He held a narrow beam of concentration, one aimed directly at the raiders, who must not under any circumstances be allowed to escape.
“You!” he shouted at the men. One of them turned; the others did not. Latigo strode to them, drawing his pistol as he went. He slapped it into the hand of the man who had turned toward the sound of his voice, and pointed at random to one of those who had not. “Shoot that fool.”
Dazed, his face that of a man who believes he is dreaming, the soldier raised the pistol and shot the man to whom Latigo had pointed. That unlucky fellow went down in a heap of knees and elbows and twitching hands. The others turned.
“Good,” Latigo said, taking his gun back.
“Sir!” Hendricks cried. “I see them, sir! I have the enemy in clear view!”
Two more tankers exploded. A few whickering shards of steel flew in their direction. Some of the men ducked; Latigo did not so much as twitch. Nor did Hendricks. A good man. Thank God for at least one such in this nightmare.
“Shall I hie after them, sir?”
“I’ll take your men and hie after them myself, Hendricks. Mount these hoss-guts before us.” He swept an arm at the standing men, whose doltish attention had been diverted from the burning tankers to their dead comrade. “Pull in as many others as you can. Do you have a bugler?”
“Yes, sir, Raines, sir!” Hendricks looked around, beckoned, and a pimply, scared-looking boy rode forward. A dented bugle on a frayed strap hung askew on the front of his shirt.
“Raines,” Latigo said, “you’re with Hendricks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get as many men as you can, Hendricks, but don’t linger over the job. They’re headed for that canyon, and I believe someone told me it’s a box. If so, we’re going to turn it into a shooting gallery.”
Hendricks’s lips spread in a twisted grin. “Yes, sir.”
Behind them, the tankers continued to explode.
17
Roland glanced back and was astonished by the size of the black, smoky column rising into the air. Ahead he could clearly see the brush blocking most of the canyon’s mouth. And although the wind was blowing the wrong way, he could now hear the maddening mosquito-whine of the thinny.
He patted the air with his outstretched hands, signalling for Cuthbert and Alain to slow down. While they were both still looking at him, he took off his bandanna, whipped it into a rope, and tied it so it would cover his ears. They copied him. It was better than nothing.
The gunslingers continued west, their shadows now running out behind them as long as gantries on the desert floor. Looking back, Roland could see two groups of riders streaming in pursuit. Latigo was at the head of the first, Roland thought, and he was deliberately holding his riders back a little, so that the two groups could merge and attack together.
Good, he thought.
The three of them rode toward Eyebolt in a tight line, continuing to hold their own horses in, allowing their pursuers to close the distance. Every now and then another thud smote the air and shivered through the ground as one of the remaining tankers blew up. Roland was amazed at how easy it had been-even after the battle with Jonas and Lengyll, which should have put the men out here on their mettle, it had been easy. It made him think of a Reaptide long ago, he and Cuthbert surely no more than seven years old, running along a line of stuffy-guys with sticks, knocking them over one after the other, bang-bang-bangety-bang.
The sound of the thinny was warbling its way into his brain in spite of the bandanna over his ears, making his eyes water. Behind him, he could hear the whoops and shouts of the pursuing men. It delighted him. Latigo’s men had counted the odds-two dozen against three, with many more of their own force riding hard to join the battle-and their peckers were up once more.
Roland faced front and pointed Rusher at the slit in the brush marking the entrance to Eyebolt Canyon.
18
Hendricks fell in beside Latigo, breathing hard, cheeks glaring with color. “Sir! Beg to report!”
“Then do it.”
“I have twenty men, and there are p'raps three times that number riding hard to join us.”
Latigo ignored all of this. His eyes were bright blue flecks of ice. Under his mustache was a small, greedy smile. “Rodney,” he said, speaking Hendricks’s first name almost with the caress of a lover.
“Sir?”
“I think they’re going in, Rodney. Yes… look. I’m sure of it. Two more minutes and it’ll be too late for them to turn back.” He raised his gun, laid the muzzle across his forearm, and threw a shot at the three riders ahead, mostly in exuberance.
“Yes, sir, very good, sir.” Hendricks turned and waved viciously for his men to close up, close up.
19
“Dismount!” Roland shouted when they reached the line of tangled brush. It had a smell that was at once dry and oily, like a fire waiting to happen. He didn’t know if their failure to ride their horses into the canyon would put Latigo’s wind up or not, and he didn’t care. These were good mounts, fine Gilead stock, and over these last months, Rusher had become his friend. He would not take him or any of the horses into the canyon, where they would be caught between the fire and the thinny.
The boys were off the horses in a flash, Alain pulling the drawstring bag free of his saddle-horn and slinging it over one shoulder. Cuthbert’s and Alain’s horses ran at once, whinnying, parallel to
