Wizard and Glass

'Putting together a good bunch,' Renfrew said, 'don't you fear Fran Lengyll. Thirty men.'

'Thirty! God Harry's body, I told you I wanted forty! Forty at least!'

Renfrew measured him with a pale-eyed glance, then winced at a particularly vicious gust of the freshening wind. He pulled his neckerchief up over his mouth and nose. The vaqs riding behind had already done so. 'How afraid of these three boys are you, Jonas?'

'Afraid for both of us, I guess, since you're too stupid to know who they are or what they're capable of.' He raised his own neckerchief, then forced his voice into a more reasonable timbre. It was best he do so; he needed these bumpkins yet awhile longer. Once the ball was turned over to Latigo, that might change. 'Though mayhap we'll never see them.'

'It's likely they're already thirty miles from here and riding west as fast as their horses'll take em,' Renfrew agreed. 'I'd give a crown to know how they got loose.'

What does it matter, you idiot? Jonas thought, but said nothing.

'As for Lengyll's men, they'll be the hardest boys he can lay hands on—if it comes to a fight, those thirty will fight like sixty.'

Jonas's eyes briefly met Clay's. I'll believe it when I see it, Clay's brief glance said, and Jonas knew again why he had always liked this one better than Roy Depape.

'How many armed?'

'With guns? Maybe half. They'll be no more than an hour behind us.'

'Good.' At least their back door was covered. It would have to do. And he couldn't wait to be rid of that thrice-cursed ball.

Oh? whispered a sly, half-mad voice from a place much deeper than his heart. Oh, can't you?

Jonas ignored the voice until it stilled. Half an hour later, they turned off the road and onto the Drop. Several miles ahead, moving in the wind like a silver sea, was the Bad Grass.

7

Around the time that Jonas and his party were riding down the Drop, Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain were swinging up into their saddles. Susan and Sheemie stood by the doorway to the hut, holding hands and watching them solemnly.

'Thee'll hear the explosions when the tankers go, and smell the smoke,' Roland said. 'Even with the wind the wrong way, I think thee'll smell it. Then, no more than an hour later, more smoke. There.' He pointed. 'That'll be the brush piled in front of the canyon's mouth.'

'And if we don't see those things?'

'Into the west. But thee will, Sue. I swear thee will.'

She stepped forward, put her hands on his thigh, and looked up at him in the latening moonlight. He bent; put his hand lightly against the back of her head; put his mouth on her mouth.

'Go thy course in safety,' Susan said as she drew back from him.

'Aye,' Sheemie added suddenly. 'Stand and be true, all three.' He came forward himself and shyly touched Cuthbert's boot.

Cuthbert reached down, took Sheemie's hand, and shook it. 'Take care of her, old boy.'

Sheemie nodded seriously. 'I will.'

'Come on,' Roland said. He felt that if he looked at her solemn, upturned face again, he would cry. 'Let's go.'

They rode slowly away from the hut. Before the grass closed behind them, hiding it from view, he looked back a final time.

'Sue, I love thee.'

She smiled. It was a beautiful smile. 'Bird and bear and hare and fish,' she said.

The next time Roland saw her, she was caught inside the Wizard's glass.

8

What Roland and his friends saw west of the Bad Grass had a harsh, lonely beauty. The wind was lifting great sheets of sand across the stony desert floor; the moonlight turned these into foot racing phantoms. At moments Hanging Rock was visible some two wheels distant, and the mouth of Eyebolt Canyon two wheels farther on. Sometimes both were gone, hidden by the dust. Behind them, the tall grass made a soughing, singing sound.

'How do you boys feel?' Roland asked. 'All's well?'

They nodded.

'There's going to be a lot of shooting, I think.'

'We'll remember the faces of our fathers,' Cuthbert said.

'Yes,' Roland agreed, almost absently. 'We'll remember them very well.' He stretched in the saddle. 'The wind's in our favor, not theirs— that's one good thing. We'll hear them coming. We must judge the size of the group. All right?'

They both nodded.

'If Jonas has still got his confidence, he'll come soon, in a small party—whatever gunnies he can put together on short notice—and he'll have the ball. In that case, we'll ambush them, kill them all, and take the Wizard's Rainbow.'

Alain and Cuthbert sat quiet, listening intently. The wind gusted, and Roland clapped a hand to his hat to keep it from flying off. 'If he fears more trouble from us, I think he's apt to come later on, and with a bigger party of riders. If that happens, we'll let them pass . . . then, if the wind is our friend and keeps up, we'll fall in behind them.'

Cuthbert began to grin. 'Oh Roland,' he said. 'Your father would be proud. Only fourteen, but cozy as the devil!'

'Fifteen come next moonrise,' Roland said seriously. 'If we do it this way, we may have to kill their drogue riders. Watch my signals, all right?'

'We're going to cross to Hanging Rock as part of their party?' Alain asked. He had always been a step or two behind Cuthbert, but Roland didn't mind; sometimes reliability was better than quickness. 'Is that it?'

'If the cards fall that way, yes.'

'If they've got the pink ball with em, you'd better hope it doesn't give us away,' Alain said.

Cuthbert looked surprised. Roland bit his lip, thinking that sometimes Alain was plenty quick. Certainly he had come up with this unpleasant little idea ahead of Bert . . . ahead of Roland, too.

'We've got a lot to hope for this morning, but we'll play our cards as they come off the top of the pack.'

They dismounted and sat by their horses there on the edge of the grass, saying little. Roland watched the silver clouds of dust racing each other across the desert floor and thought of Susan. He imagined them married, living in a freehold somewhere south of Gilead. By then Farson would have been defeated, the world's strange decline reversed (the childish part of him simply assumed that making an end to John Farson would somehow see to that), and his gunslinging days would be over. Less than a year it had been since he had won the right to carry the six-shooters he wore on his hips—and to carry his father's great revolvers when Steven Deschain decided to pass them on—and already he was tired of them. Susan's kisses had softened his heart and quickened him, somehow; had made another life possible. A better one, perhaps. One with a house, and kiddies, and—

'They're coming,' Alain said, snapping Roland out of his reverie.

The gunslinger stood up, Rusher's reins in one fist. Cuthbert stood tensely nearby. 'Large party or small? Does thee … do you know?'

Alain stood facing southeast, hands held out with the palms up. Beyond his shoulder, Roland saw Old Star just about to slip below the horizon. Only an hour until dawn, then.

'I can't tell yet,' Alain said.