Gilead, the last gunslinger in an exhausted world that has 'moved
on', pursuing a magician in a black robe. Roland has been chasing
Walter for a very long time. In the first book of the cycle, he finally
catches up. This story, however, takes place while Roland is still
casting about for Walter's trail. A knowledge of the books is
therefore not necessary for you to understand - and hopefully enjoy
-the story which follows. S.K.]
I. Full Earth. The Empty Town. The Bells. The Dead Boy.
The Overturned Wagon. The Green Folk.
On a day in Full Earth so hot that it seemed to suck the breath from
his chest before his body could use it, Roland of Gilead came to
the gates of a village in the Desatoya Mountains. He was travelling
alone by then, and would soon be travelling afoot, as well. This
whole last week he had been hoping for a horse-doctor, but
guessed such a fellow would do him no good now, even if this
town had one. His mount, a two-year-old roan, was pretty well
done for.
The town gates, still decorated with flowers from some festival or
other, stood open and welcoming, but the silence beyond them was
all wrong. The gunslinger heard no clip-clop of horses, no rumble
of wagon-wheels, no merchants' huckstering cries from the
marketplace. The only sounds were the low hum of crickets (some
sort of bug, at any rate; they were a bit more tuneful than crickets,
at that), a queer wooden knocking sound, and the faint, dreamy
tinkle of small bells.
Also, the flowers twined through the wrought-iron staves of the
ornamental gate were long dead.
Between his knees, Topsy gave two great, hollow sneezes -
K'chow! K'chow! - and staggered sideways. Roland dismounted,
partly out of respect for the horse, partly out of respect for himself
- he didn't want to break a leg under Topsy if Topsy chose this
moment to give up and canter into the clearing at the end of his
path.
The gunslinger stood in his dusty boots and faded jeans under the
beating sun, stroking the roan's matted neck, pausing every now
and then to yank his fingers through the tangles of Topsy's mane,
and stopping once to shoo off the tiny flies clustering at the corners
of Topsy's eyes. Let them lay their eggs and hatch their maggots
there after Topsy was dead, but not before.
Roland thus honoured his horse as best he could, listening to those
distant, dreamy bells and the strange wooden tocking sound as he
did. After a while he ceased his absent grooming and looked
thoughtfully at the open gate.
The cross above its centre was a bit unusual, but otherwise the gate
was a typical example of its type, a western commonplace which
was not useful but traditional - all the little towns he had come to
in the last tenmonth seemed to have one such where you came in
(grand) and one more such where you went out (not so grand).
None had been built to exclude visitors, certainly not this one. It
