“Sai, how long was Maerlyn caged as a tyger?”
“I don’t know, but a very long time, surely.”
“What did he eat?”
Cuthbert would have made something up on the spot, but I was stumped.
“If he was shitting in the hole, he must have eaten,” Bill said, and reasonably enough. “If you don’t eat, you can’t shit.”
“I don’t know what he ate, Bill.”
“P’raps he had enough magic left-even as a tyger-to make his own dinner. Out of thin air, like.”
“Yes, that’s probably it.”
“Did Tim ever reach the Tower? For there are stories about that, too, aren’t there?”
Before I could answer, Strother-the fat deputy with the rattlesnake hatband-came into the jail. When he saw me sitting with my arm around the boy, he gave a smirk. I considered wiping it off his face-it wouldn’t have taken long-but forgot the idea when I heard what he had to say.
“Riders comin. Must be a moit, and wagons, because we can hear em even over the damn beastly wind. People is steppin out into the grit to see.”
I got up and let myself out of the cell.
“Can I come?” Bill asked.
“Better that you bide here yet awhile,” I said, and locked him in. “I won’t be long.”
“I hate it here, sai!”
“I know,” I told him. “It’ll be over soon enough.”
I hoped I was right about that.
When I stepped out of the sheriff’s office, the wind made me stagger and alkali grit stung my cheeks. In spite of the rising gale, both boardwalks of the high street were lined with spectators. The men had pulled their bandannas over their mouths and noses; the women were using their kerchiefs. I saw one lady-sai wearing her bonnet backwards, which looked strange but was probably quite useful against the dust.
To my left, horses began to emerge from the whitish clouds of alkali. Sheriff Peavy and Canfield of the Jefferson were in the van, with their hats yanked low and their neckcloths pulled high, so only their eyes showed. Behind them came three long flatbed wagons, open to the wind. They were painted blue, but their sides and decks were rimed white with salt. On the side of each the words DEBARIA SALT COMBYNE had been daubed in yellow paint. On each deck sat six or eight fellows in overalls and the straw workingmen’s hats known as clobbers (or clumpets, I disremember which). On one side of this caravan rode Jamie DeCurry, Kellin Frye, and Kellin’s son, Vikka. On the other were Snip and Arn from the Jefferson spread and a big fellow with a sand-colored handlebar mustache and a yellow duster to match. This turned out to be the man who served as constable in Little Debaria… at least when he wasn’t otherwise occupied at the faro or Watch Me tables.
None of the new arrivals looked happy, but the salties looked least happy of all. It was easy to regard them with suspicion and dislike; I had to remind myself that only one was a monster (assuming, that was, the skin-man hadn’t slipped our net entirely). Most of the others had probably come of their own free will when told they could help put an end to the scourge by doing so.
I stepped into the street and raised my hands over my head. Sheriff Peavy reined up in front of me, but I ignored him for the time being, looking instead at the huddled miners in the flatbed wagons. A swift count made their number twenty-one. That was twenty more suspects than I wanted, but far fewer than I had feared.
I shouted to make myself heard over the wind. “You men have come to help us, and on behalf of Gilead, I say thankya!”
They were easier to hear, because the wind was blowing toward me. “Balls to your Gilead,” said one. “Snot-nosed brat,” said another. “Lick my johnny on behalf of Gilead,” said a third.
“I can smarten em up anytime you’d like,” said the man with the handlebar mustache. “Say the word, young’un, for I’m constable of the shithole they come from, and that makes em my fill. Will Wegg.” He put a perfunctory fist to his brow.
“Never in life,” I said, and raised my voice again. “How many of you men want a drink?”
That stopped their grumbling in its tracks, and they raised a cheer instead.
“Then climb down and line up!” I shouted. “By twos, if you will!” I grinned at them. “And if you won’t, go to hell and go there thirsty!”
That made most of them laugh.
“Sai Deschain,” Wegg said, “puttin drink in these fellers ain’t a good idea.”
But I thought it was. I motioned Kellin Frye to me and dropped two gold knucks into his hand. His eyes widened.
“You’re the trail-boss of this herd,” I told him. “What you’ve got there should buy them two whiskeys apiece, if they’re short shots, and that’s all I want them to have. Take Canfield with you, and that one there.” I pointed to one of the pokies. “Is it Arn?”
“Snip,” the fellow said. “T’other one’s Arn.”
“Aye, good. Snip, you at one end of the bar, Canfield at the other. Frye, you stand behind them at the door and watch their backs.”
“I won’t be taking my son into the Busted Luck,” Kellin Frye said. “It’s a whore-hole, so it is.”
“You won’t need to. Soh Vikka goes around back with the other pokie.” I cocked my thumb at Arn. “All you two fellows need to do is watch for any saltie trying to sneak out the back door. If you do, let loose a yell and then scat, because he’ll probably be our man. Understand?”
“Yep,” Arn said. “Come on, kid, off we go. Maybe if I get out of this wind, I can get a smoke to stay lit.”
“Not just yet,” I said, and beckoned to the boy.
“Hey, gunbunny!” one of the miners yelled. “You gonna let us out of this wind before nightfall? I’m fuckin thirsty!”
The others agreed.
“Hold your gabber,” I said. “Do that, and you get to wet your throat. Run your gums at me while I’m doing my job and you’ll sit out here in the back of a wagon and lick salt.”
That quieted them, and I bent to Vikka Frye. “You were to tell someone something while you were up there at the Salt Rocks. Did you do it?”
“Yar, I-” His father elbowed him almost hard enough to knock him over. The boy remembered his manners and started again, this time with a fist to his brow. “Yes, sai, do it please you.”
“Who did you speak to?”
“Puck DeLong. He’s a boy I know from Reap Fairday. He’s just a miner’s kid, but we palled around some, and did the three-leg race together. His da’s foreman of the nightwork crew. That’s what Puck says, anyways.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That it was Billy Streeter who seen the skin-man in his human shape. I said how Billy hid under a pile of old tack, and that was what saved him. Puck knew who I was talking about, because Billy was at Reap Fairday, too. It was Billy who won the Goose Dash. Do you know the Goose Dash, sai gunslinger?”
“Yes,” I said. I had run it myself on more than one Reap Fairday, and not that long ago, either.
Vikka Frye swallowed hard, and his eyes filled with tears. “Billy’s da’ cheered like to bust his throat when Billy come in first,” he whispered.
“I’m sure he did. Did this Puck DeLong put the story on its way, do you think?”
“Dunno, do I? But I would’ve, if it’d been me.”
I thought that was good enough, and clapped Vikka on the shoulder. “Go on, now. And if anyone tries to take it on the sneak, raise a shout. A good loud one, so to be heard over the wind.”
He and Arn struck off for the alley that would take them behind the Busted Luck. The salties paid them no mind; they only had eyes for the batwing doors and thoughts for the rotgut waiting behind them.
“Men!” I shouted. And when they turned to me: “Wet thy whistles!”
That brought another cheer, and they set off for the saloon. But walking, not running, and still two by two. They had been well trained. I guessed that their lives as miners were little more than slavery, and I was thankful ka had pointed me along a different path… although, when I look back on it, I wonder how much difference there might be between the slavery of the mine and the slavery of the gun. Perhaps one: I’ve always had the sky to look at, and for that I tell Gan, the Man Jesus, and all the other gods that may be, thankya.
I motioned Jamie, Sheriff Peavy, and the new one-Wegg-to the far side of the street. We stood beneath the overhang that shielded the sheriff’s office. Strother and Pickens, the not-so-good deputies, were crowded into the doorway, fair goggling.