'Come on!' he shouted. 'Before it decides it wants a bite of you,
too!'
The dog took no notice of them as Roland pulled Jenna past. It had
torn
Sister Mary's head mostly off. Her flesh seemed to be changing,
somehow - decomposing, very likely - but whatever was
happening, Roland did not want to see it. He didn't want Jenna to
see it, either.
They half-walked, half-ran to the top of the ridge, and when they
got there paused for breath in the moonlight, heads down, hands
linked, both of them gasping harshly.
The growling and snarling below them had faded, but was still
faintly audible when Sister Jenna raised her head and asked him,
'What was it? you know - I saw it in your face. And how could it
attack her? We all have power over animals, but she has - had - the
most.'
'Not over that one.' Roland found himself recalling the unfortunate
boy in the next bed. Norman hadn't known why the medallions
kept the Sisters at arm's length - whether it was the gold or the
God. Now Roland knew the answer. 'It was a dog. Just a town-dog.
I saw it in the square, before the green folk knocked me out and
took me to the Sisters. I suppose the other animals that could run
away did run away, but not that one. it had nothing to fear from the
Little Sisters of Eluria, and somehow it knew it didn't. It bears the
sign of the Jesus-man on its chest. Black fur on white. just an
accident of its birth, I imagine. In any case, it's done for her now. I
knew it was lurking around. I heard it barking two or three times.'
'Why?' Jenna whispered. 'Why would it come? Why would it stay?
And why would it take on her as it did?'
Roland of Gilead responded as he ever had and ever would when
such useless, mystifying questions were raised: 'Ka. Come on.
Let's get as far as we can from this place before we hide up for the
day.'
As far as they could turned out to be eight miles at most ... and
probably, Roland thought as the two of them sank down in a patch
of sweet-smelling sage beneath an overhang of rock, a good deal
less. Five, perhaps. It was him slowing them down; or rather, it
was the residue of the poison in the soup. When it was clear to him
that he could not go farther without help, he asked her for one of
the reeds. She refused, saying that the stuff in it might combine
with the unaccustomed exercise to burst his heart.
'Besides,' she said as they lay back against the embankment of the
little nook they had found, 'they'll not follow. Those that are left -
Michela, Louise, Tamra - will be packing up to move on. They
know to leave when the time comes; that's why the Sisters have
survived as long as they have. As We have. We're strong in some
ways, but weak in many more. Sister
Mary forgot that. It was her arrogance that did for her as much as
the cross-dog, I think.'
