8

Roland and Cuthbert headed back to the Bar K along the Drop-there would be no counting done today. At first, in spite of the rain and the gray skies, Cuthbert’s good humor was almost entirely restored.

“Did you see them?” he asked with a laugh. “Did you see them, Roland… Will, I mean? They bought it, didn’t they? Swallowed that honey whole, they did!”

“Yes.”

“What do we do next? What’s our next move?”

Roland looked at him blankly for a moment, as if startled out of a doze. “The next move is theirs. We count. And we wait.”

Cuthbert’s good cheer collapsed in a puff, and he once more found himself having to restrain a flood of recrimination, all whirling around two basic ideas: that Roland was shirking his duty so he could continue to wallow in the undeniable charms of a certain young lady, and-more important-that Roland had lost his wits when all of Mid-World needed them the most.

Except what duty was Roland shirking? And what made him so sure Roland was wrong? Logic? Intuition? Or just shitty old catbox jealousy? Cuthbert found himself thinking of the effortless way Jonas had ripped up Deputy Dave’s army when Deputy Dave had moved too soon. But life was not like Castles… was it? He didn’t know. But he thought he had at least one valid intuition: Roland was heading for disaster. And so they all were.

Wake up, Cuthbert thought. Please, Roland, wake up before it’s too late.

Chapter III

PLAYING CASTLES

1

There followed a week of the sort of weather that makes folk apt to crawl back into bed after lunch, take long naps, and wake feeling stupid and disoriented. It was far from flood-weather, but it made the final phase of the apple-picking dangerous (there were several broken legs, and in Seven-Mile Orchard a young woman fell from the top of her ladder, breaking her back), and the potato-fields became difficult to work; almost as much time was spent freeing wagons stuck in the gluey rows as was spent actually picking. In Green Heart, what decorations had been done for the Reaping Fair grew sodden and had to be pulled down. The work volunteers waited with increasing nervousness for the weather to break so they could begin again.

It was bad weather for young men whose job it was to take inventory, although they were at least able to begin visiting barns and counting stock. It was good weather for a young man and young woman who had discovered the joys of physical love, you would have said, but Roland and Susan met only twice during the run of gray weather. The danger of what they were doing was now almost palpable.

The first time was in an abandoned boathouse on the Seacoast Road. The second was in the far end of the crumbling building below and to the east of Citgo-they made love with furious intensity on one of Roland’s saddle-blankets, which was spread on the floor of what had once been the oil refinery’s cafeteria. As Susan climaxed, she shrieked his name over and over. Startled pigeons filled the old, shadowy rooms and crumbling hallways with their soft thunder.

2

Just as it seemed that the drizzle would never end and the grinding sound of the thinny in the still air would drive everyone in Hambry insane, a strong wind-almost a gale-blew in off the ocean and puffed the clouds away. The town awoke one day to a sky as bright as blue steel and a sun that turned the bay to gold in the morning and white fire in the afternoon. That sense of lethargy was gone. In the potato fields the carts rolled with new vigor. In Green Heart an army of women began once more to bedeck with flowers the podium where Jamie McCann and Susan Delgado would he acclaimed this year’s Reaping Lad and Girl.

Out on the part of the Drop closest to Mayor’s House, Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain rode with renewed purpose, counting the horses which ran with the Barony brand on their flanks. The bright skies and brisk winds filled them with energy and good cheer, and for a course of days-three, or perhaps four-they galloped together in a whooping, shouting, laughing line, their old good fellowship restored.

On one of these brisk and sunny days, Eldred Jonas stepped out of the Sheriff’s office and walked up Hill Street toward Green Heart. He was free of both Depape and Reynolds this morning-they had ridden out to Hanging Rock together, looking for Latigo’s outriders, who must come soon, now-and Jonas’s plan was simple: to have a glass of beer in the pavilion, and watch the preparations that were going on there: the digging of the roasting-pits, the laying of faggots for the bonfire, the arguments over how to set the mortars that would shoot off the fireworks, the ladies flowering the stage where this year’s Lad and Girl would be offered for the town’s adulation. Perhaps, Jonas thought, he might take a likely-looking flower-girl off for an hour or two of recreation. The maintenance of the saloon whores he left strictly to Roy and Clay, but a fresh young flower-girl of seventeen or so was a different matter.

The pain in his hip had faded with the damp weather; the painful, lurching stride with which he had moved for the last week or so had become a mere limp again. Perhaps just a beer or two in the open air would be enough, but the thought of a girl wouldn’t quite leave his head. Young, clear-skinned, high-breasted. Fresh, sweet breath. Fresh, sweet lips-

“Mr. Jonas? Eldred?”

He turned, smiling, to the owner of the voice. No dewy-complexioned flower-girl with wide eyes and moist, parted lips stood there, but a skinny woman edging into late middle age-flat chest, flat bum, tight pale lips, hair scrooped so tight against her skull that it fair screamed. Only the wide eyes corresponded with his daydream. I believe I’ve made a conquest, Jonas thought sardonically.

“Why, Cordelia!” he said, reaching out and taking one of her hands in both of his. “How lovely you look this morning!”

Thin color came up in her cheeks and she laughed a little. For a moment she looked forty-five instead of sixty. And she’s not sixty, Jonas thought. The lines around her mouth and the shadows under her eyes… those are new.

“You’re very kind,” she said, “but I know better. I haven’t been sleeping, and when women my age don’t sleep, they grow old rapidly.”

“I’m sorry to hear you’re sleeping badly,” he said. “But now that the weather’s changed, perhaps-”

“It’s not the weather. Might I speak to you, Eldred? I’ve thought and thought, and you’re the only one I dare turn to for advice.”

His smile widened. He placed her hand through his arm, then covered it with his own. Now her blush was like fire. With all that blood in her head, she might talk for hours. And Jonas had an idea that every word would be interesting.