The Talisman by Stephen King

during that period—were filled by actors from the half-dozen Warner Brothers TV series which were in constant production. Jack Kelly from the Maverick show had been in Last Train (the Suave Gambler), and Andrew Duggan from Bourbon Street Beat (the Evil Cattle-Baron). Clint Walker, who played a character called Cheyenne Bodie on TV, starred as

Rafe Ellis (the Retired Sheriff Who Must Strap on His Guns

One Last Time). Inger Stevens had been originally slated to play the part of the Dance Hall Girl with Willing Arms and a Heart of Gold, but Miss Stevens had come down with a bad

case of bronchitis and Lily Cavanaugh had stepped into the

part. It was of a sort she could have done competently in a coma. Once, when his parents thought he was asleep and

were talking in the living room downstairs, Jack overheard his

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mother say something striking as he padded barefoot to the

bathroom to get a glass of water . . . it was striking enough, at any rate, so that Jack never forgot it. “All the women I played knew how to fuck, but not one of them knew how to fart,” she told Phil.

Will Hutchins, who starred in another Warner Brothers program (this one was called Sugarfoot), had also been in the film. Last Train to Hangtown was Jack’s favorite chiefly because of the character Hutchins played. It was this charac-

ter—Andy Ellis, by name—who came to his tired, tottering,

overtaxed mind now as he watched the suits of armor march-

ing down the dark hallway toward him.

Andy Ellis had been the Cowardly Kid Brother Who Gets

Mad in the Last Reel. After skulking and cowering through

the entire movie, he had gone out to face Duggan’s evil minions after the Chief Minion (played by sinister, stubbly, wall-eyed Jack Elam, who played Chief Minions in all sorts of

Warner epics, both theatrical and televisional) had shot his brother Rafe in the back.

Hutchins had gone striding down the dusty wide-screen

street, strapping on his brother’s gunbelts with clumsy fingers, shouting, “Come on! Come on, I’m ready for ya! You made a

mistake! You shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers!”

Will Hutchins had not been one of the greatest actors of all time, but in that moment he had achieved—at least in Jack’s eyes—a moment of clear truth and real brilliance. There was a sense that the kid was going to his death, and knew it, but meant to go on, anyway. And although he was frightened, he was not striding up that street toward the showdown with the slightest reluctance; he went eagerly, sure of what he meant to do, even though he had to fumble again and again with the

buckles of the gunbelts.

The suits of armor came on, closing the distance, rocking

from side to side like toy robots. They should have keys sticking out of their backs, Jack thought.

He turned to face them, the yellowed pick held between

the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, as if to strum a tune.

They seemed to hesitate, as if sensing his fearlessness. The hotel itself seemed to suddenly hesitate, or to open its eyes to a danger that was deeper than it had at first thought; floors

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groaned their boards, somewhere a series of doors clapped

shut one after the other, and on the roofs, the brass ornaments ceased turning for a moment.

Then the suits of armor clanked forward again. They now

made a single moving wall of plate- and chain-mail, of

greaves and helmets and sparkling gorgets. One held a spiked iron ball on a wooden haft; one a martel de fer; the one in the center held the double-pointed sword.

Jack suddenly began to walk toward them. His eyes lit up;

he held the guitar-pick out before him. His face filled with that radiant Jason-glow. He

sideslipped

momentarily into the Territories and

became Jason; here the shark’s tooth which had been a pick seemed to be aflame. As he approached the three knights, one pulled off its helmet, revealing another of those old, pale faces—this one was thick with jowls, and the neck hung with waxy wattles that looked like melting candlewax. It heaved its helmet at him. Jason dodged it easily

and

slipped back

into his Jack-self as a helmet crashed off a panelled wall behind him. Standing in front of him was a headless suit of

armor.

You think that scares me? he thought contemptuously. I’ve seen that trick before. It doesn’t scare me, you don’t scare me, and I’m going to get it, that’s all.

This time he did not just feel the hotel listening; this time it seemed to recoil all around him, as the tissue of a digestive organ might recoil from a poisoned bit of flesh. Upstairs, in the five rooms where the five Guardian Knights had died, five windows blew out like gunshots. Jack bore down on the suits of armor.

The Talisman sang out from somewhere above in its clear

and sweetly triumphant voice:

JASON! TO ME!

“Come on!” Jack shouted at the suits of armor, and began to laugh. He couldn’t help himself. Never had laughter

seemed so strong to him, so potent, so good as this—it was

like water from a spring, or from some deep river. “Come on, I’m ready for ya! I don’t know what fucked-up Round Table

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you guys came from, but you shoulda stayed there! You made a mistake!”

Laughing harder than ever but as grimly determined inside

as Wotan on the Valkyries’ rock, Jack leaped at the headless, swaying figure in the center.

“You shoulda killed both of the Ellis brothers!” he shouted, and as Speedy’s guitar-pick passed into the zone of freezing air where the knight’s head should have been, the suit of armor fell apart.

3

In her bedroom at the Alhambra, Lily Cavanaugh Sawyer sud-

denly looked up from the book she had been reading. She

thought she had heard someone—no, not just someone,

Jack! —call out from far down the deserted corridor, perhaps even from the lobby. She listened, eyes wide, lips pursed,

heart hoping . . . but there was nothing. Jack-O was still gone, the cancer was still eating her up a bite at a time, and it was still an hour and a half before she could take another of the big brown horse-pills that damped down the pain a little bit.

She had begun to think more and more often of taking all

the big brown horse-pills at once. That would do more than

damp the pain for a bit; that would finish it off forever. They say we can’t cure cancer, but don’t you believe that bullshit, Mr. C—try eating about two dozen of these. What do you say?

Want to go for it?

What kept her from doing it was Jack—she wanted so

badly to see him again that now she was imagining his

voice . . . not just doing a simple albeit corny sort of thing like calling her name, either, but quoting from one of her old pictures.

“You are one crazy old bitch, Lily,” she croaked, and lit a Herbert Tarrytoon with thin, shaking fingers. She took two

puffs and then put it out. Any more than two puffs started the coughing these days, and the coughing tore her apart. “One

crazy old bitch.” She picked up her book again but couldn’t read because the tears were coursing down her face and her

guts hurt, they hurt, oh they hurt, and she wanted to take all the brown pills but she wanted to see him again first, her dear son with his clear handsome forehead and his shining eyes.

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Come home, Jack-O, she thought, please come home soon or the next time I talk to you it’ll be by Ouija board. Please, Jack, please come home.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep.

4

The knight which had held the spike-ball swayed a moment

longer, displaying its vacant middle, and then it also ex-

ploded. The one remaining raised its battle-hammer . . . and then simply fell apart in a heap. Jack stood amid the wreckage for a moment, still laughing, and then stopped as he looked at Speedy’s pick.

It was a deep and ancient yellow now; the crack-glaze had

become a snarl of fissures.

Never mind, Travellin Jack. You get on. I think there may be one more o’ those walkin Maxwell House cans around

someplace. If so, you’ll take it on, won’t you?

“If I have to, I will,” Jack muttered aloud.

Jack kicked aside a greave, a helmet, a breastplate. He

strode down the middle of the hall, the carpet squelching under his sneakers. He reached the lobby and looked around

briefly.

JACK! COME TO ME! JASON! COME TO ME! the Talis-