They stayed three days in the camp by the stream, and during that time Susannah learned more about making hide garments than she would ever have believed (and much more than she really wanted to know).
By casting a mile or so in either direction along the stream they found a couple of logs, one for each of them. While they looked, they used their makeshift pot to soak their hides in a dark soup of ash and water. They set their logs at an angle against the trunks of two willow trees (close, so they could work side by side) and used chert scrapers to dehair the hides.
This took one day. When it was done, they bailed out the "pot,"
turned the hide liner over and filled it up again, this time with a mixture of water and mashed brains. This "cold-weather hiding"
was new to her. They put the hides in this slurry to soak overnight and, while Susannah began to make thread from strings of gristle and sinew, Roland re-sharpened his knife, then used it to whittle half a dozen bone needles. When he was done, all of his fingers were bleeding from dozens of shallow cuts. He coated them with wood-ash soak and slept with them that way, his hands looking as if they were covered with large and clumsy gray-black gloves. When he washed them off in a stream the following day, Susannah was amazed to see the cuts already well on their way to healing. She tried dabbing some of the wood-ash stuff on the persistent sore beside her mouth, but it stung horribly and she washed it away in a hurry.
"I want you to whop this goddam thing off," she said.
Roland shook his head. "We'll give it a little longer to heal on its own."
"Why?"
"Cutting on a sore's a bad idea unless you absolutely have to do it. Especially out here, in what Jake would have called 'the boondogs.'"
She agreed (without bothering to correct his pronunciation), but unpleasant images crept into her head when she lay down: visions of the pimple beginning to spread, erasing her face inch by inch, turning her entire head into a black, crusted, bleeding tumor. In the dark, such visions had a horrible persuasiveness, but luckily she was too tired for them to keep her awake long.
On dieir second day in what Susannah was coming to think of as the Hide Camp, Roland built a large and rickety frame over a new fire, one that was low and slow. They smoked the hides two by two and then laid them aside. The smell of the finished product was surprisingly pleasant. It smells like leather, she thought, holding one to her face, and then had to laugh. That was, after all, exactly what it was.
The third day they spent "making," and here Susannah finally outdid the gunslinger. Roland sewed a wide and barely serviceable stitch. She thought that the vests and leggings he made would hold together for a month, two at the most, then begin to pull apart. She was far more adept. Sewing was a skill she'd learned from her mother and both grandmothers. At first she found Roland's bone needles maddeningly clumsy, and she paused long enough to cover both the thumb and forefinger of her right hand with litde deerskin caps which she tied in place.
After that it went faster, and by mid-afternoon of making-day she was taking garments from Roland's pile and oversewing his stitches with her own, which were finer and closer. She thought he might object to this-men were proud-but he didn't, which was probably wise. It quite likely would have been Detta who replied to any whines and queasies.
By the time their third night in Hide Camp had come, they each had a vest, a pair of leggings, and a coat. They also had a pair of mittens each. These were large and laughable, but would keep their hands warm. And, speaking of hands, Susannah was once more barely able to bend hers. She looked doubtfully at the remaining hides and asked Roland if they would spend another making-day here.
He considered the idea, then shook his head. "We'll load the ones that are left into the Ho Fat Tack-see, I think, along with some of the meat and chunks of ice from the stream to keep it cool and good."
"The Taxi won't be any good when we come to the snow, will it?"
"No," he admitted, "but by then the rest of the hides will be clothing and the meat will be eaten."
"You just can't stay here any longer, that's what it comes down to, isn't it? You hear it calling. The Tower."
Roland looked into the snapping fire and said nothing.
Nor had to.
"What'll we do about hauling our gunna when we come to the white lands?"
"Make a travois. And there'll be plenty of game."
She nodded and started to lie down. He took her shoulders and turned her toward the fire, instead. His face came close to hers, and for a moment Susannah thought he meant to kiss her goodnight. He looked long and hard at die crusted sore beside her mouth, instead.
"Well?" she finally asked. She could have said more, but he would have heard die tremor in her voice.
"I think it's a little smaller. Once we leave the Badlands behind, it may heal on its own."
"Do you really say so?"
The gunslinger shook his head at once. "I say may. Now lie over, Susannah. Take your rest."
"All right, but don't you let me sleep late this time. I want to watch my share."