“Not even to Pere Callahan?”
Henchick shook his head.
“Did he not speak to you when he woke up?”
“He asked if he were dead. I told him that if he were so, so were we all.”
“What about Jemmin?”
“Died two years later.” Henchick tapped the front of his black shirt. “Heart.”
“How many years since you found Callahan here?”
Henchick shook his head slowly back and forth in wide arcs, a Manni gesture so common it might have been genetic. “Gunslinger, I know not. For time is—”
“Yes, in drift,” Roland said impatiently. “How long would you say?”
“More than five years, for he has his church and superstitious fools to fill it, ye ken.”
“What did you do? How did thee save Jemmin?”
“Fell on my knees and closed the box,” Henchick said. “‘Twas all I could think to do. If I’d hesitated even a single second I do believe I would ha’ been lost, for the same black light were coming out of it. It made me feel weak and… and dim.”
“I’ll bet it did,” Roland said grimly.
“But I moved fast, and when the lid of the box clicked down, the door swung shut. Jemmin banged his fists against it and screamed and begged to be let through. Then he fell down in a faint. I dragged him out of the cave. I dragged them both out. After a little while in the fresh air, both came to.” Henchick raised his hands, then lowered them again, as if to say There you are.
Roland gave the doorknob a final try. It moved in neither direction. But with the ball—
“Let’s go back,” he said. “I’d like to be at the Pere’s house by dinnertime. That means a fast walk back down to the horses and an even faster ride once we get there.”
Henchick nodded. His bearded face was good at hiding expression, but Roland thought the old man was relieved to be going. Roland was a little relieved, himself. Who would enjoy listening to the accusing screams of one’s dead mother and father rising out of the dark? Not to mention the cries of one’s dead friends?
“What happened to the speaking device?” Roland asked as they started back down.
Henchick shrugged. “Do ye ken bayderies?”
Batteries. Roland nodded.
“While they worked, the machine played the same message over and over, the one telling us that we should go to the Cave of Voices and find a man, a door, and a wonder. There was also a song. We played it once for the Pere, and he wept. You must ask him about it, for that truly is his part of the tale.”
Roland nodded again.
“Then the bayderies died.” Henchick’s shrug showed a certain contempt for machines, the gone world, or perhaps both. “We took them out. They were Duracell. Does thee ken Duracell, gunslinger?”
Roland shook his head.
“We took them to Andy and asked if he could recharge them, mayhap. He took them into himself, but when they came out again they were as useless as before. Andy said sorry. We said thankya.” Henchick rolled his shoulders in that same contemptuous shrug. “We opened the machine—another button did that—and the tongue came out. It were this long.” Henchick held his hands four or five inches apart. “Two holes in it. Shiny brown stuff inside, like string. The Pere called it a ‘cassette tape.’ ”
Roland nodded. “I want to thank you for taking me up to the cave, Henchick, and for telling me all thee knows.”
“I did what I had to,” Henchick said. “And you’ll do as’ee promise. Wont’chee?”
Roland of Gilead nodded. “Let God pick a winner.”
“Aye, so we do say. Ye speak as if ye knew us, once upon a season.” He paused, eyeing Roland with a certain sour shrewdness. “Or is it just makin up to me that ye does? For anyone who’s ever read the Good Book can thee and thou till the crows fly home.”
“Does thee ask if I play the toady, up here where there’s no one to hear us but them?” Roland nodded toward the babbling darkness. “Thou knows better, I hope, for if thee doesn’t, thee’s a fool.” ; The old man considered, then put out his gnarled, long-fingered hand. “Do’ee well, Roland. ‘Tis a good name, and a fair.”
Roland put out his right hand. And when the old man took it and squeezed it, he felt the first deep twinge of pain where he wanted to feel it least.
No, not yet. Where I’d feel it least is in the other one. The one that’s still whole.
“Mayhap this time the Wolves’ll kill us all,” said Henchick.
“Perhaps so.”
“Yet still, perhaps we’re well-met.”
“Perhaps we are,” the gunslinger replied.
Chapter IX: The Priest’s Tale Concluded (Unfound)
ONE
“Beds’re ready,” Rosalita Munoz said when they got back.
Eddie was so tired that he believed she’d said something else entirely— Time to weed the garden, perhaps, or There’s fifty or sixty more people’d like ‘t’meet ye waitin up to the church. After all, who spoke of beds at three in the afternoon?
“Huh?” Susannah asked blearily. “What-say, hon? Didn’t quite catch it.”
“Beds’re ready,” the Pere’s woman of work repeated. “You two’ll go where ye slept night before last; young soh’s to have the Pere’s bed. And the bumbler can go in with ye, Jake, if ye’d like; Pere said for me to tell’ee so. He’d be here to tell you himself, but it’s his afternoon for sick-rounds. He takes the Communion to em.”
She said this last with unmistakable pride.
“Beds,” Eddie said. He couldn’t quite get the sense of this. He looked around, as if to confirm that it was still midafternoon, the sun still shining brightly. “Beds?”
“Pere saw’ee at the store,” Rosalita amplified, “and thought ye’d want naps after talking to all those people.”
Eddie understood at last. He supposed that at some point in his life he must have felt more grateful for a kindness, but he honestly couldn’t remember when or what that kindness might have been. At first those approaching them as they sat in the rockers on the porch of Took’s had come slowly, in hesitant little clusters.
But when no one turned to stone or took a bullet in the head—when there was, in fact, animated conversation and actual laughter—more and more came. As the trickle became a flood, Eddie at last discovered what it was to be a public person. He was astounded by how difficult it was, how draining. They wanted simple answers to a thousand difficult questions—where the gunslingers came from and where they were going were only the first two. Some of their questions could be answered honestly, but more and more Eddie heard himself giving weaselly politicians’ answers, and heard his two friends doing the same. These weren’t lies, exactly, but little propaganda capsules that sounded like answers. And everyone wanted a look straight in the face and a Do ya fine that sounded straight from the heart. Even Oy came in for his share of the work; he was petted over and over again, and made to speak until Jake got up, went into the store, and begged a bowl of water from Eben Took. That gentleman gave him a tin cup instead, and told him he could fill it at the trough out front. Jake was surrounded by townsfolk who questioned him steadily even as he did this simple chore.
Oy lapped the cup dry, then faced his own gaggle of curious questioners while Jake went back to the trough to fill the cup again.
All in all, they had been five of the longest hours Eddie had ever put in, and he thought he would never
regard celebrity in quite the same way again. On the plus side, before finally leaving the porch and heading back to the Old Fella’s residence, Eddie reckoned they must have talked to everyone who lived in town and a good number of farmers, ranchers, cowpokes, and hired hands who lived beyond it. Word traveled fast: the outworlders were sitting on the porch of the General Store, and if you wanted to talk to them, they would talk to you.
And now, by God, this woman—this angel—was speaking of beds.
“How long have we got?” he asked Rosalita.
“Pere should be back by four,” she said, “but we won’t eat until six, and that’s only if your dinh gets back in time. Why don’t I wake you at five-thirty? That’ll give ye time to wash. Does it do ya?”
“Yeah,” Jake said, and gave her a smile. “I didn’t know just talking to folks could make you so tired. And thirsty.”
She nodded. “There’s a jug of cool water in the pantry.”
“I ought to help you get the meal ready,” Susannah said, and then her mouth opened in a wide yawn.
“Sarey Adams is coming in to help,” Rosalita said, “and it’s nobbut a cold meal, in any case. Go on, now.