Part 2 (2/2)

”Dollars?”

She nodded, so she was probably saying bucks. bucks. That was his guess, anyway. That was his guess, anyway.

”That with the beer?” he asked, smiling a little. ”Or is the beer extra?”

She didn't return the smile. ”I'll throw in the suds. Once I see the color of your money, that is.”

The gunslinger put a gold piece on the bar, and every eye followed it.

There was a smoldering charcoal cooker behind the bar and to the left of the mirror. The woman disappeared into a small room behind it and returned with meat on a paper. She scrimped out three patties and put them on the grill. The smell that arose was maddening. The gunslinger stood with stolid indifference, only peripherally aware of the faltering piano, the slowing of the card game, the sidelong glances of the barflies.

The man was halfway up behind him when the gunslinger saw him in the mirror. The man was almost completely bald, and his hand was wrapped around the haft of a gigantic hunting knife that was looped onto his belt like a holster.

”Go sit down,” the gunslinger said. ”Do yourself a favor, cully.”

The man stopped. His upper lip lifted unconsciously, like a dog's, and there was a moment of silence. Then he went back to his table, and the atmosphere s.h.i.+fted back again.

Beer came in a cracked gla.s.s schooner. ”I ain't got change for gold,” the woman said truculently.

”Don't expect any.”

She nodded angrily, as if this show of wealth, even at her benefit, incensed her. But she took his gold, and a moment later the hamburgers came on a cloudy plate, still red around the edges.

”Do you have salt?”

She gave it to him in a little crock she took from underneath the bar, white lumps he'd have to crumble with his fingers. ”Bread?”

”No bread.” He knew she was lying, but he also knew why and didn't push it. The bald man was staring at him with cya-nosed eyes, his hands clenching and unclenching on the splintered and gouged surface of his table. His nostrils flared with pulsating regularity, scooping up the smell of the meat. That, at least, was free.

The gunslinger began to eat steadily, not seeming to taste, merely chopping the meat apart and forking it into his mouth, trying not to think of what the cow this had come from must have looked like. Threaded stock, she had said. Yes, quite likely! And pigs would dance the commala in the light of the Peddler's Moon.

He was almost through, ready to call for another beer and roll a smoke, when the hand fell on his shoulder.

He suddenly became aware that the room had once more gone silent, and he tasted tension in the air. He turned around and stared into the face of the man who had been asleep by the door when he entered. It was a terrible face. The odor of the devil-gra.s.s was a rank miasma. The eyes were d.a.m.ned, the staring, glaring eyes of one who sees but does not see, eyes ever turned inward to the sterile h.e.l.l of dreams beyond control, dreams unleashed, risen out of the stinking swamps of the unconscious.

The woman behind the bar made a small moaning sound.

The cracked lips writhed, lifted, revealing the green, mossy teeth, and the gunslinger thought: He's not even smoking it anymore. He's chewing it. He's really He's not even smoking it anymore. He's chewing it. He's really chewing chewing it. it.

And on the heels of that: He's a dead man. He should have been dead a year ago. He's a dead man. He should have been dead a year ago.

And on the heels of that: The man in black did this. The man in black did this.

They stared at each other, the gunslinger and the man who had gone around the rim of madness.

He spoke, and the gunslinger, dumbfounded, heard himself addressed in the High Speech of Gilead.

”The gold for a favor, gunslinger-sai. Just one? For a pretty.”

The High Speech. For a moment his mind refused to track it. It had been years-G.o.d!-centuries, millenniums; there was no more High Speech; he was the last, the last gunslinger. The others were all...

Numbed, he reached into his breast pocket and produced a gold piece. The split, scabbed, gangrenous hand reached for it, fondled it, held it up to reflect the greasy glare of the kerosene lamps. It threw off its proud civilized glow; golden, reddish, b.l.o.o.d.y.

”Ahhhhhh...” An inarticulate sound of pleasure. The old man did a weaving turn and began moving back to his table, holding the coin at eye level, turning it, flas.h.i.+ng it. An inarticulate sound of pleasure. The old man did a weaving turn and began moving back to his table, holding the coin at eye level, turning it, flas.h.i.+ng it.

The room was emptying rapidly, the batwings shuttling madly back and forth. The piano player closed the lid of his instrument with a bang and exited after the others in long, comic-opera strides.

”Sheb!” the woman screamed after him, her voice an odd mixture of fear and shrewishness, ”Sheb, you come back here! G.o.ddammit!” Was that a name the gunslinger had heard before? He thought yes, but there was no time to reflect upon it now, or to cast his mind back.

The old man, meanwhile, had gone back to his table. He spun the gold piece on the gouged wood, and the dead-alive eyes followed it with empty fascination. He spun it a second time, a third, and his eyelids drooped. The fourth time, and his head settled to the wood before the coin stopped.

”There,” she said softly, furiously. ”You've driven out my trade. Are you satisfied?”

”They'll be back,” the gunslinger said.

”Not tonight they won't.”

”Who is he?” He gestured at the weed-eater.

”Go f.u.c.k yourself. Sai. Sai.”

”I have to know,” the gunslinger said patiently. ”He-”

”He talked to you funny,” she said. ”Nort never talked like that in his life.”

”I'm looking for a man. You would know him.”

She stared at him, the anger dying. It was replaced with speculation, then with a high, wet gleam he had seen before. The rickety building ticked thoughtfully to itself. A dog barked brayingly, far away. The gunslinger waited. She saw his knowledge and the gleam was replaced by hopelessness, by a dumb need that had no mouth.

”I guess maybe you know my price,” she said. ”I got an itch I used to be able to take care of, but now I can't.”

He looked at her steadily. The scar would not show in the dark. Her body was lean enough so the desert and grit and grind hadn't been able to sag everything. And she'd once been pretty, maybe even beautiful. Not that it mattered. It would not have mattered if the grave-beetles had nested in the arid blackness of her womb. It had all been written. Somewhere some hand had put it all down in ka's book.

Her hands came up to her face and there was still some juice left in her-enough to weep.

”Don't look! look! You don't have to look at me so mean!” You don't have to look at me so mean!”

”I'm sorry,” the gunslinger said. ”I didn't mean to be mean.”

”None of you mean it!” she cried at him.

”Close the place up and put out the lights.”

She wept, hands at her face. He was glad she had her hands at her face. Not because of the scar but because it gave her back her maidenhood, if not her maidenhead. The pin that held the strap of her dress glittered in the greasy light.

”Will he steal anything? I'll put him out if he will.”

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