Roland turned to the right, so he was facing directly downriver, and grasped the handrail.
Then he began to edge out across the hole, shuffling his boots along the rusty cable.
12
JAKE WAITED UNTIL ROLAND and Susannah were part of the way across the gap and
then started himself. The wind gusted and the bridge swayed back and forth, but he felt no
alarm at all. He was, in fact, totally buzzed. Unlike Eddie, he’d never had any fear of
heights; he liked being up here where he could see the river spread out like a steel ribbon
under a sky which was beginning to cloud over.
Halfway across the hole in the bridge (Roland and Susannah had reached the place where
the uneven walkway resumed and were watching the others), Jake looked back and his
heart sank. They had forgotten one member of the party when they were discussing how to
cross. Oy was crouched, frozen and clearly terrified, on the far side of the hole in the
walkway. He was sniffing at the place where the concrete ended and the rusty, curved
support took over.
“Come on, Oy!” Jake called.
“Oy!” the bumbler called back, and the tremble in his hoarse voice was almost human. He stretched his long neck forward toward Jake but didn’t move. His gold-ringed eyes were
huge and dismayed.
Another gust of wind struck the bridge, making it sway and squall. Something twanged
beside Jake’s head—the sound of a guitar string which has been tightened until it snaps. A
steel thread had popped out of the nearest vertical hanger, almost scratching his cheek. Ten
feet away, Oy crouched miserably with his eyes fixed on Jake.
“Come on!” Roland shouted. “Wind’s freshening! Come on, Jake!”
“Not without Oy!”
Jake began to shuffle back the way he had come. Before he had gone more than two steps,
Oy stepped gingerly onto the support rod. The claws at the ends of his stiffly braced legs
scratched at the rounded metal surface. Eddie stood behind the bumbler now, feeling
helpless and scared to death.
“That’s it, Oy!” Jake encouraged. “Come to me!”
“Oy-Oy! Ake-Ake!” the bumbler cried, and trotted rapidly along the rod. He had almost
reached Jake when the traitorous wind gusted again. The bridge swung. Oy’s claws
scratched madly at the support rod for purchase, but there was none. His hindquarters slued
off the edge and into space. He tried to cling with his forepaws, but there was nothing to
cling to. His rear legs ran wildly in midair.
Jake let go of the rail and dived for him, aware of nothing but Oy’s gold-ringed eyes.
“No, Jake!” Roland and Eddie bellowed together, each from his own side of the gap, each too far away to do anything but watch.
Jake hit the cable on his chest and belly. His pack bounced against his shoulderblades and
he heard his teeth click together in his head with the sound of a cueball breaking a tight rack.
The wind gusted again. He went with it, looping his right hand around the support rod and
reaching for Oy with his left as he swayed out into space. The bumbler began to fall, and
clamped his jaws on Jake’s reaching hand as he did. The pain was immediate and
excruciating. Jake screamed but held on, head down, right arm clasping the rod, knees
pressing hard against its wretchedly smooth surface. Oy dangled from his left hand like a
circus acrobat, staring up with his gold-ringed eyes, and Jake could now see his own blood
flowing along the sides of the bumbler’s head in thin streams.
Then the wind gusted again and Jake began to slip outward.
13
EDDIE’S FEAR LEFT HIM in its place came that strange yet welcome coldness. He
dropped Susannah’s wheelchair to the cracked cement with a clatter and raced nimbly out
along the support cable, not even both- ering with the handrail. Jake hung head-down over
the gap with Oy swinging at the end of his left hand like a furry pendulum. And the boy’s
right hand was slipping.
Eddie opened his legs and seat-dropped to a sitting position. His undefended balls
smashed painfully up into his crotch, but for the moment even this exquisite pain was news
from a distant country. He seized Jake by the hair with one hand and one strap of his pack
with the other. He felt himself beginning to tilt outward, and for a nightmarish moment he
thought all three of them were going to go over in a daisy-chain.
He let go of Jake’s hair and tightened his grip on the packstrap, praying the lad hadn’t
bought the pack at one of the cheap discount outlets. He flailed above his head for the
handrail with his free hand. After an interminable moment in which their combined
outward slide continued, he found it and seized it.
“ROLAND!” he bawled. “I COULD USE A LITTLE HELP HERE!”
But Roland was already there, with Susannah still perched on his back. When he bent, she
locked her arms around his neck so she wouldn’t drop headfirst from the sling. The
gunslinger wrapped an arm around Jake’s chest and pulled him up. When his feet were on
the support rod again, Jake put his right arm around Oy’s trembling body. His left hand was
an agony of fire and ice.
“Let go, Oy,” he gasped. “You can let go now we’re—safe.”
For a terrible moment he didn’t think the billy-bumbler would. Then, slowly, Oy’s jaws
relaxed and Jake was able to pull his hand free. It was covered with blood and dotted with a
ring of dark holes.
“Oy,” the bumbler said feebly, and Eddie saw with wonder that the animal’s strange eyes were full of tears. He stretched his neck and licked Jake’s face with his bloody tongue.
“That’s okay,” Jake said, pressing his face into the warm fur. He was crying himself, his face a mask of shock and pain. “Don’t worry, that’s okay. You couldn’t help it and I don’t
mind.”
Eddie was getting slowly to his feet. His face was dirty gray, and he felt as if someone had
driven a bowling ball into his guts. His left hand stole slowly to his crotch and investigated
the damage there.
“Cheap fucking vasectomy,” he said hoarsely.
“Are you going to faint, Eddie?” Roland asked. A fresh gust of wind flipped his hat from his head and into Susannah’s face. She grabbed it and jammed it down all the way to his
ears, giving Roland the look of a half-crazed hillbilly.
“No,” Eddie said. “I almost wish I could, but—”
“Take a look at Jake,” Susannah said. “He’s really bleeding.”
“I’m fine,” Jake said, and tried to hide his hand. Roland took it gently in his own hands before he could. Jake had sustained at least a dozen puncture-wounds in the back of his
hand, his palm, and his fingers.
Most of them were deep. It would be impossible to tell if bones had been broken or
tendons severed until Jake tried to flex the hand, and this wasn’t the time or place for such
experiments.
Roland looked at Oy. The billy-bumbler looked back, his expressive eyes sad and
frightened. He had made no effort to lick Jake’s blood from his chops, although it would
have been the most natural thing in the world for him to have done so.
“Leave him alone,” Jake said, and wrapped the encircling arm more tightly about Oy’s
body. “It wasn’t his fault. It was my fault for forgetting him. The wind blew him off.”
“I’m not going to hurt him,” Roland said. He was positive the billy-bumbler wasn’t rabid, but he still did not intend for Oy to taste any more of Jake’s blood than he already had. As
for any other diseases Oy might be carrying in his blood . . . well, ka would decide, as, in
the end, it always did. Roland pulled his neckerchief free and wiped Oy’s lips and muzzle.
“There,” he said. “Good fellow. Good boy.”
“Oy,” the billy-bumbler said feebly, and Susannah, who was watch- ing over Roland’s
shoulder, could have sworn she heard gratitude in that voice.
Another gust of wind struck them. The weather was turning dirty, and fast. “Eddie, we
have to get off the bridge. Can you walk?”
“No, massa; I’sa gwinter shuffle.” The pain in his groin and the pit of his stomach was still bad, but not quite so bad as it had been a minute ago.
“All right. Let’s move. Fast as we can.”
Roland turned, began to take a step, and stopped. A man was now standing on the far side
of the gap, watching them expressionlessly.
The newcomer had approached while their attention was focused on Jake and Oy. A
crossbow was slung across his back. He wore a bright yellow scarf around his head; the
ends streamed out like banners in the freshening wind. Gold hoops with crosses in their