long as he had. But of course when he came here, he hadn't
considered Roland's guns.
'Smasher was wrong to give them shooters to you,' he said at last.
'Give em and not tell me. Did u'se give him whik-sky? Give him
'backky?'
'That's none o' yours,' Sister Mary replied. 'You have that
goldpiece off the boy's neck right now, or I'll put one of yonder
man's bullets in what's left of yer brain.'
'All right,' Ralph said. 'Just as you wish, sai.'
Once more he reached down and took the gold medallion in his
melted fist. That he did slow; what happened after, happened fast.
He snatched it away, breaking the chain and flinging the gold
heedlessly into the dark. With his other hand he reached down,
sank his long and ragged nails into John Norman's neck, and tore it
open.
Blood flew from the hapless boy's throat in a jetting, heart-driven
gush more black than red in the candlelight, and he made a single
bubbly cry. The women screamed - but not in horror. They
screamed as women do in a frenzy of excitement. The green man
was forgotten; Roland was forgotten; all was forgotten save the
life's blood pouring out of John Norman's throat.
They dropped their candles. Mary dropped Roland's revolver in the
same hapless, careless fashion. The last the gunslinger saw as
Ralph darted away into the shadows (whisky and tobacco another
time, wily Ralph must have thought; tonight he had best
concentrate on saving his own life) was the sisters bending forward
to catch as much of the flow as they could before it dried up.
Roland lay in the dark, muscles shivering, heart pounding,
listening to the harpies as they fed on the boy lying in the bed next
to his own. It seemed to go on for ever, but at last they had done
with him. The Sisters re-lit their candles and left, murmuring.
When the drug in the soup once more got the better of the drug in
the reeds, Roland was grateful ... yet for the first time since coming
here, his sleep was haunted.
In his dream he stood looking down at the bloated body in the
town trough, thinking of a line in the book marked REGISTRY OF
MISDEEDS & REDRESS. Green folk sent hence, it had read, and
perhaps the green folk had been sent hence, but then a worse tribe
had come. The Little Sisters of Eluria, they called themselves. And
a year hence, they might be the Little Sisters of Tejuas, or of
Kambero, or some other far-western village. They came with their
bells and their bugs ... from where? Who knew? Did it matter?
A shadow fell beside his on the scummy water of the trough.
Roland tried to turn and face it. He couldn't; he was frozen in
place. Then a green hand grasped his shoulder and whirled him
about. It was Ralph. His bowler hat was cocked back on his head;
John Norman's medallion, now red with blood, hung around his
neck.
'Booh!' cried Ralph, his lips stretching in a toothless grin. He raised
a big revolver with worn sandalwood grips. He thumbed the
