of celibacy). There were flowers in these grassy strips, and while
they looked parched, most were still alive. So whatever had
happened here to empty the place out had not happened long ago.
A week, perhaps. Two at the outside, given the heat.
Topsy sneezed again - K'chow! - and lowered his head wearily.
The gunslinger saw the source of the tinkling. Above the cross on
the church doors, a cord had been strung in a long, shallow arc.
Hung from it were perhaps two dozen tiny silver bells. There was
hardly any breeze today, but enough so these small bells were
never quite still ... and if a real wind should rise, Roland thought,
the sound made by the tintinnabulation of the bells would probably
be a good deal less pleasant; more like the strident parley of
gossips' tongues.
'Hello!' Roland called, looking across the street at what a large
falsefronted sign proclaimed to be the Good Beds Hotel. 'Hello, the
town!'
No answer but the bells, the tunesome insects, and that odd
wooden clunking. No answer, no movement ... but there were folk
here. Folk or something. He was being watched. The tiny hairs on
the nape of his neck had stiffened.
Roland stepped onward, leading Topsy towards the centre of town,
puffing up the unlaid High Street dust with each step. Forty paces
further along, he stopped in front of a low building marked with a
single curt word: LAW. The Sheriffs office (if they had such this
far from the Inners) looked remarkably similar to the church -
wooden boards stained a rather forbidding shade of dark brown
above a stone foundation.
The bells behind him rustled and whispered.
He left the roan standing in the middle of the street and mounted
the steps to the LAW office. He was very aware of the bells, the
sun beating against his neck, and of the sweat trickling down his
sides. The door was shut but unlocked. He opened it, then winced
back, half-raising a hand as the heat trapped inside rushed out in a
soundless gasp. If all the closed buildings were this hot inside, he
mused, the livery barns would soon not be the only burned-out
hulks. And with no rain to stop the flames (and certainly no
volunteer fire department, not any more), the town would not be
long for the face of the earth.
He stepped inside, trying to sip at the stifling air rather than taking
deep breaths. He immediately heard the low drone of flies.
There was a single cell, commodious and empty, its barred door
standing open. Filthy skin-shoes, one of the pair coming unsewn,
lay beneath a bunk sodden with the same dried maroon stuff which
had marked The Bustling Pig. Here was where the flies were,
crawling over the stain, feeding from it.
On the desk was a ledger. Roland turned it towards him and read
what was embossed upon its red cover:
REGISTRY OF MISDEEDS & REDRESS
IN THE YEARS OF OUR LORD
