ELURIA
So now he knew the name of the town, at least - Eluria. Pretty, yet
somehow ominous, as well. But any name would have seemed
ominous, Roland supposed, given these circumstances. He turned
to leave, and saw a closed door secured by a wooden bolt.
He went to it, stood before it for a moment, then drew one of the
big revolvers he carried low on his hips. He stood a moment
longer, head down, thinking (Cuthbert, his old friend, liked to say
that the wheels inside Roland's head ground slow but exceedingly
fine), and then retracted the bolt. He opened the door and
immediately stood back, levelling his gun, expecting a body
(Eluria's Sheriff, mayhap) to come tumbling into the room with his
throat cut and his eyes gouged out, victim of a MISDEED in need
of REDRESS
Nothing.
Well, half a dozen stained jumpers which longer-term prisoners
probably required to wear, two bows, a quiver of arrows, an old,
dusty motor, a rifle that had probably last been fired a hundred
years agog and a mop ... but in the gunslinger's mind, all that came
down to nothing. Just a storage closet.
He went back to the desk, opened the register, and leafed through
it. Even the pages were warm, as if the book had been baked. In a
way, he supposed it had been. If the High Street layout had been
different, he might have expected a large number of religious
offences to be recorded, but he wasn't surprised to find none here -
if the Jesus-man church had coexisted with a couple of saloons, the
churchfolk must have been fairly reasonable.
What Roland found were the usual petty offences, and a few not so
petty - a murder, a horse-thieving, the Distressal of a Lady (which
probably meant rape). The murderer had been removed to a place
called Lexingworth to be hanged. Roland had never heard of it.
One note towards the end read Green folk sent hence. It meant
nothing to Roland. The most recent entry was this: 12/Fe/99. Chas.
Freeborn, cattle-theef to be tryed.
Roland wasn't familiar with the notation 12/Fe/99, but as this was
a long stretch from February, he supposed Fe might stand for Full
Earth. In any case, the ink looked about as fresh as the blood on the
bunk in the cell, and the gunslinger had a good idea that Chas.
Freeborn, cattle-theef, had reached the clearing at the end of his
path.
He went out into the heat and the lacy sound of bells. Topsy looked
at Roland dully, then lowered his head again, as if there were
something in the dust of the High Street which could be cropped.
As if he would ever want to crop again, for that matter.
The gunslinger gathered up the reins, slapped the dust off them
against the faded no-colour of his jeans, and continued on up the
street. The wooden knocking sound grew steadily louder as he
walked (he had not holstered his gun when leaving LAW, nor
cared to holster it now), and as he neared the town square, which
must have housed the Eluria market in more normal times, Roland
