"How much have you got in the armory?"
"Almost four dozen steel balls." Bert held up a cotton bag which had, in more settled times, held his father's tobacco. "Plus assorted fireworks in my saddlebag."
"How many big-bangers?"
"Enough, Roland." Unsmiling. With the laughter gone from them, he had the hollow eyes of just one more killer. "Enough."
Roland ran a hand down the front of the serape he wore, letting his palm reacquaint itself with the rough weave. He looked at Cuthbert's, then at Alain's, telling himself again that it could work, yes, as long as they held their nerve and didn't let themselves think of it in terms of three against forty or fifty, it could work.
"The ones out at Hanging Rock will hear the shooting once it starts, won't they?" Al asked.
Roland nodded. "With the wind blowing from us to them, there's no doubt of that."
"We'll have to move fast, then."
"We'll go as best we can." Roland thought of standing between the tangled green hedges behind the Great Hall, David the hawk on his arm and a sweat of terror trickling down his back. I think you die today, he had told the hawk, and he had told it true. Yet he himself had lived, and passed his test, and walked out of the testing corridor facing east. Today it was Cuthbert and Alain's turn to be tested - not in Gilead, in the traditional place of proving behind the Great Hall, but here in Mejis, on the edge of the Bad Grass, in the desert, and in the canyon. Eyebolt Canyon.
"Prove or die," Alain said, as if reading the run of the gunslinger's thoughts. "That's what it comes down to."
"Yes. That's what it always comes down to, in the end. How long before they get here, do you think?"
"An hour at least, I'd say. Likely two."
"They'll be running a 'watch-and-go.' "
Alain nodded. "I think so, yes."
"That's not good," Cuthbert said.
"Jonas is afraid of being ambushed in the grass," Roland said. "Maybe of us setting fire to it around him. They'll loosen up when they get into the clear."
"You hope," Cuthbert said.
Roland nodded gravely. "Yes. I hope."
18
At first Reynolds was content to lead the girl along the broken backtrail at a fast walk, but about thirty minutes after leaving Jonas, Lengyll, and the rest, he broke into a trot. Pylon matched Reynolds's horse easily, and just as easily when, ten minutes later, he upped their speed to a light but steady run.
Susan held to the horn of her saddle with her bound hands and rode easily at Reynolds's right, her hair streaming out behind her. She thought her face must be quite colorful; the skin of her cheeks felt raised at least two inches higher than usual, welted and tender. Even the passing wind stung a little.
At the place where the Bad Grass gave way to the Drop, Reynolds stopped to give the horses a blow. He dismounted himself, turned his back to her, and took a piss. As he did, Susan looked up along the rise of land and saw the great herd, now untended and unravelling at the edges. They had done that much, perhaps. It wasn't much, but it was something.
"Do you need to do the necessary?" Reynolds asked. "I'll help you down if you do, but don't say no now and whine about it later."
"Ye're afraid. Big brave regulator that ye are, ye're scared, ain't ye? Aye, coffin tattoo and all."
Reynolds tried a contemptuous grin. It didn't fit his face very well this morning. "You ort to leave the fortune-telling to those that are good at it, missy. Now do you need a necessary stop or not?"
"No. And ye are afraid. Of what?"
Reynolds, who only knew that his bad feeling hadn't left him when he left Jonas, as he'd hoped it would, bared his tobacco-stained teeth at her. "If you can't talk sensible, just shut up."
"Why don't ye let me go? Perhaps my friends will do the same for you, when they catch us up."
This time Reynolds grunted laughter which was almost genuine. He swung himself into his saddle, hawked, spat. Overhead, Demon Moon was a pale and bloated ball in the sky. "You can dream, miss'sai," he said, "dreaming's free. But you ain't never going to see those three again. They're for the worms, they are. Now let's ride."
They rode.
19
Cordelia hadn't gone to bed at all on Reaping Eve. She sat the night through in her parlor chair, and although there was sewing on her lap, she had put not a single stitch in nor picked one out. Now, as morning's light brightened toward ten o' the clock, she sat in the same chair, looking out at nothing. What was there to look at, anyway? Everything had come down with a smash - all her hopes of the fortune Thorin would settle on Susan and Susan's child, perhaps while he still lived, certainly in his dead-letter; all her hopes of ascending to her proper place in the community; all her plans for the future. Swept away by two wilful young people who couldn't keep their pants up.
She sat in her old chair with her knitting on her lap and the ashes Susan had smeared on her cheek standing out like a brand, and thought: