Susan came back in, burdened with the stolen gear which had been tied to Capi’s saddle. Sheemie was already off on his next errand without having to be told. If the inn-boy was a halfwit, she’d known a lot of folks in her time who were running on quarters and eighths.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” Alain asked.

“The Travellers’ Rest. And I didn’t. Sheemie did.” She held the hats out. “Come on, hurry.”

Cuthbert took the headgear and passed it out. Roland and Alain had already slipped into the scrapes; with the hats added and pulled well down over their faces, they could have been any Drop-vaqs in Barony.

“Where are we going?” Alain asked as they stepped out onto the porch. The street was still dark and deserted at this end; the gunshots had attracted no attention.

“Hockey’s, to start with,” Susan said. “That’s where your horses are.”

They went down the street together in a little group of four. Capi was gone; Sheemie had taken the mule along. Susan’s heart was thudding rapidly and she could feel sweat standing out on her brow, but she still felt cold. Whether or no what she had done was murder, she had ended two lives this evening, and crossed a line that could never be recrossed in the other direction. She had done it for Roland, for her love, and simply knowing she could have done no different now offered some consolation.

Be happy together, ye faithless, ye cozeners, ye murderers. I curse thee with the ashes.

Susan seized Roland’s hand, and when he squeezed, she squeezed back. And as she looked up at Demon Moon, its wicked face now draining from choleric red-orange to silver, she thought that when she had pulled the trigger on poor, earnest Dave Hollis, she had paid for her love with the dearest currency of all-had paid with her soul. If he left her now, her aunt’s curse would be fulfilled, for only ashes would remain.

Chapter IX

REAPING

1

As they stepped into the stable, which was lit by one dim gas lamp, a shadow moved out of one of the stalls. Roland, who had belted on both guns, now drew them. Sheemie looked at him with an uncertain smile, holding a stirrup in one hand. Then the smile broadened, his eyes flashed with happiness, and he ran toward them.

Roland bolstered his guns and made ready to embrace the boy, but Sheemie ran past him and threw himself into Cuthbert’s arms.

“Whoa, whoa,” Cuthbert said, first staggering back comically and then lifting Sheemie off his feet. “You like to knock me over, boy!”

“She got ye out!” Sheemie cried. “Knew she would, so I did! Good old Susan!” Sheemie looked around at Susan, who stood beside Roland. She was still pale, but now seemed composed. Sheemie turned back to Cuthbert and planted a kiss directly in the center of Bert’s forehead.

“Whoa!” Bert said again. “What’s that for?”

“Cause I love you, good old Arthur Heath! You saved my life!”

“Well, maybe I did,” Cuthbert said, laughing in an embarrassed way (his borrowed sombrero, too large to begin with, now sat comically askew on his head), “but if we don’t get a move on, I won’t have saved it for long.”

“Horses are all saddled,” Sheemie said. “Susan told me to do it and I did. I did it just right. I just have to put this stirrup on Mr. Richard Stock-worth’s horse, because the one on there’s 'bout worn through.”

“That’s a job for later,” Alain said, taking the stirrup. He put it aside, then turned to Roland. “Where do we go?”

Roland’s first thought was that they should return to the Thorin mausoleum.

Sheemie reacted with instant horror. “The boneyard? And with Demon Moon at the full?” He shook his head so violently that his sombrero came off and his hair flew from side to side. “They’re dead in there, sai Dearborn, but if ye tease em during the time of the Demon, they’s apt to get up and walk!”

“It’s no good, anyway,” Susan said. “The women of the town’ll be lining the way from Seafront with flowers, and filling the mausoleum, too. Olive will be in charge, if she’s able, but my aunt and Coral are apt to be in the company. Those aren’t ladies we want to meet.”

“All right,” Roland said. “Let’s mount up and ride. Think about it, Susan. You too, Sheemie. We want a place where we can hide up until dawn, at least, and it should be a place we can get to in less than an hour. Off the Great Road, and in any direction from Hambry but northwest.”

“Why not northwest?” Alain asked.

“Because that’s where we’re going now. We’ve got a job to do… and we’re going to let them know we’re doing it. Eldred Jonas most of all.” He offered a thin blade of smile. “I want him to know the game is over. No more Castles. The real gunslingers are here. Let’s see if he can deal with them.”

2

An hour later, with the moon well above the trees, Roland’s ka-tet arrived at the Citgo oilpatch. They rode out parallel to the Great Road for safety’s sake, but, as it happened, the caution was wasted: they saw not one rider on the road, going in either direction. It’s as if Reaping’s been cancelled this year, Susan thought… then she thought of the red-handed stuffies, and shivered. They would have painted Roland’s hands red tomorrow night, and still would, if they were caught. Not just him, either. All of us.

Sheemie, too.

They left the horses (and Caprichoso, who had trotted ill-temperedly but nimbly behind them on a tether) tied to some long-dead pumping equipment in the southeastern comer of the patch, and then walked slowly toward the working derricks, which were clustered in the same area. They spoke in whispers when they spoke at all. Roland doubted if that was necessary, but whispers here seemed natural enough. To Roland, Citgo was far spookier than the graveyard, and while he doubted that the dead in that latter place awoke even when Old Demon was full, there were some very unquiet corpses here, squalling zombies that stood rusty-weird in the moonlight with their pistons going up and down like marching feet.

Roland led them into the active part of the patch, nevertheless, past a sign which read how’s your hardhat? and another reading we produce oil, we refine safety. They stopped at the foot of a derrick grinding so loudly that Roland had to shout in order to be heard.

“Sheemie! Give me a couple of those big-bangers!”

Sheemie had taken a pocketful from Susan’s saddlebag and now handed a pair of them over. Roland took Bert by the arm and pulled him forward. There was a square of rusty fencing around the derrick, and when the boys tried to climb it, the horizontals snapped like old bones. They looked at each other in the running shadows combined of machinery and moonlight, nervous and amused.

Susan twitched Roland’s arm. “Be careful!” she shouted over the rhythmic whumpa-whumpa-whumpa of the derrick machinery. She didn’t look frightened, he saw, only excited and alert.

He grinned, pulled her forward, and kissed the lobe of her ear. “Be ready to run,” he whispered. “If we do this right, there’s going to be a new candle here at Citgo. A hellacious big one.”

He and Cuthbert ducked under the lowest strut of the rusty derrick tower and stood next to the equipment, wincing at the cacophony. Roland wondered that it hadn’t torn itself apart years ago. Most of the works were housed in rusty metal blocks, but he could see a gigantic turning shaft of some kind, gleaming with oil that must be supplied by automated jets. Up this close, there was a gassy smell that reminded him of the jet that flared rhythmically on the other side of the oilpatch.

“Giant-farts!” Cuthbert shouted.

“What?”

“I said it smells like… aw, never mind! Let’s do it if-we can… can we?”