Part 5 (1/2)

She came back to the bed. ”What was that about?”

”Never mind,” he said.

”All right-then where were we?”

”Nowhere.” He rolled on his side, away from her.

She said patiently, ”You knew about him and me. He did what he could, which wasn't much, and I took what I could, because I had to. There's nothing to be done. What else is there?” She touched his shoulder. ”Except I'm glad that you are so strong.”

”Not now,” he said.

”Who was she?” And then, answering her own question: ”A girl you loved.”

”Leave it, Allie.”

”I can make you strong-”

”No,” he said. ”You can't do that.”

XII.

The next night the bar was closed. It was whatever pa.s.sed for the Sabbath in Tull. The gunslinger went to the tiny, leaning church by the graveyard while Allie washed tables with strong disinfectant and rinsed kerosene lamp chimneys in soapy water.

An odd purple dusk had fallen, and the church, lit from the inside, looked almost like a blast furnace from the road.

”I don't go,” Allie had said shortly. ”The woman who preaches has poison religion. Let the respectable ones go.”

He stood in the vestibule, hidden in a shadow, looking in. The pews were gone and the congregation stood (he saw Kennerly and his brood; Castner, owner of the town's scrawny dry-goods emporium and his slat-sided wife; a few barflies; a few ”town” women he had never seen before; and, surprisingly, Sheb). They were singing a hymn raggedly, a cappella. a cappella. He looked curiously at the mountainous woman at the pulpit. Allie had said: ”She lives alone, hardly ever sees anybody. Only comes out on Sunday to serve up the h.e.l.lfire. Her name is Sylvia Pittston. She's crazy, but she's got the hoodoo on them. They like it that way. It suits them.” He looked curiously at the mountainous woman at the pulpit. Allie had said: ”She lives alone, hardly ever sees anybody. Only comes out on Sunday to serve up the h.e.l.lfire. Her name is Sylvia Pittston. She's crazy, but she's got the hoodoo on them. They like it that way. It suits them.”

No description could take the measure of the woman. b.r.e.a.s.t.s like earthworks. A huge pillar of a neck overtopped by a pasty white moon of a face, in which blinked eyes so large and so dark that they seemed to be bottomless tarns. Her hair was a beautiful rich brown and it was piled atop her head in a haphazard sprawl, held by a hairpin almost big enough to be a meat skewer. She wore a dress that seemed to be made of burlap. The arms that held the hymnal were slabs. Her skin was creamy, unmarked, lovely. He thought that she must top three hundred pounds. He felt a sudden red l.u.s.t for her that made him feel shaky, and he turned his head and looked away.

”Shall we gather at the river,The beautiful, the beautiful,The riiiiver,Shall we gather at the river,That flows by the kingdom of G.o.d.”

The last note of the last chorus faded off, and there was a moment of shuffling and coughing.

She waited. When they were settled, she spread her hands over them, as if in benediction. It was an evocative gesture.

”My dear little brothers and sisters in Christ.”

It was a haunting line. For a moment the gunslinger felt mixed feelings of nostalgia and fear, st.i.tched in with an eerie feeling of deja vu, deja vu, and he thought: and he thought: I dreamed this. Or I was here before. If so, when? Not Mejis. I dreamed this. Or I was here before. If so, when? Not Mejis. No, not there. He shook the feeling off. The audience-perhaps twenty-five all told-had become dead silent. Every eye touched the preacher-woman. No, not there. He shook the feeling off. The audience-perhaps twenty-five all told-had become dead silent. Every eye touched the preacher-woman.

”The subject of our meditation tonight is The Interloper.” Her voice was sweet, melodious, the speaking voice of a well-trained contralto.

A little rustle ran through the audience.

”I feel,” Sylvia Pittston said reflectively, ”that I know almost everyone in the Good Book personally. In the last five years I have worn out three of 'em, precious though any book be in this ill world, and uncountable numbers before that. I love the story, and I love the players in that story. I have walked arm in arm in the lion's den with Daniel. I stood with David when he was tempted by Bathsheba as she bathed at the pool. I have been in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. I slew two thousand with Samson when he swung the jawbone, and was blinded with St. Paul on the road to Damascus. I wept with Mary at Golgotha.”

A soft, shurring sigh in the audience.

”I have known and loved them. There is only one one”-she held up a finger-”only one player in the greatest of all dramas that I do not know.

”Only one one who stands outside with his face in the shadow. who stands outside with his face in the shadow.

”Only one one who makes my body tremble and my spirit quail. who makes my body tremble and my spirit quail.