All that afternoon they took turns skinningthe eight other deer they had killed. It was important to do it as quickly aspossible, for when the underlying layer of fat and muscle dried up, the workwould become slower and harder. The gunslinger kept the fire burning high andhot, every now and then leaving her to rake ashes out onto the ground. Whenthey had cooled enough so they would not burn holes in their bowl-liner, hepushed them into the hole they’d made. Susannah’s back and arms were achingfiercely by five o’clock, but she kept at it. Roland’s face, neck, and handswere comically smeared with ash.

“You look like a fella in a minstrel show,”she said at one point. “Rastus Coon.”

“Who’s that?”

“Nobody but the white folks’ fool,” shesaid. “Do you suppose Mordred’s out there, watching us work?” All day she’dkept an eye peeled for him.

“No,” he said, pausing to rest. He brushedhis hair back from his forehead, leaving a fresh smear and now making her thinkof penitents on Ash Wednesday. “I think he’s gone off to make his own kill.”

“Mordred’s a-hungry,” she said. And then:“You can touch him a little, can’t you? At least enough to know if he’s here orif he’s gone.”

Roland considered this, then said simply:“I’m his father.”

Eight

By dark, they had a large heap of deerskinsand a pile of skinned, headless carcasses that surely would have been blackwith flies in warmer weather. They ate another huge meal of sizzling venisonsteaks, utterly delicious, and Susannah spared another thought for Mordred,somewhere out in the dark, probably eating his own supper raw. He might havematches, but he wasn’t stupid; if they saw another fire in all this darkness,they would rush down upon it. And him. Then, bang-bang-bang, goodbyeSpider-Boy. She felt a surprising amount of sympathy for him and told herselfto beware of it. Certainly he would have felt none for either her or Roland,had the shoe been on the other foot.

When they were done eating, Roland wipedhis greasy fingers on his shirt and said, “That tasted fine.”

“You got that right.”

“Now let’s get the brains out. Then we’llsleep.”

“One at a time?” Susannah asked.

“Yes—so far as I know, brains onlycome one to a customer.”

For a moment she was too surprised athearing Eddie’s phrase

(one to a customer)

coming from Roland’s mouth to realize he’dmade a joke. Lame, yes, but a bona fide joke. Then she managed a tokenlaugh. “Very funny, Roland. You know what I meant.”

Roland nodded. “We’ll sleep one at a timeand stand a watch, yes. I think that would be best.”

Time and repetition had done its work;she’d now seen too many tumbling guts to feel squeamish about a few brains.They cracked heads, used Roland’s knife (its edge now dull) to pry open skulls,and removed the brains of their kill. These they put carefully aside, like aclutch of large gray eggs. By the time the last deer was debrained, Susannah’sfingers were so sore and swollen she could hardly bend them.

“Lie over,” Roland said. “Sleep. I’ll takethe first watch.”

She didn’t argue. Given her full belly andthe heat of the fire, she knew sleep would come quickly. She also knew thatwhen she woke up tomorrow, she was going to be so stiff that even sitting upwould be difficult and painful. Now, though, she didn’t care. A feeling of vastcontentment filled her. Some of it was having eaten hot food, but by no meansall. The greater part of her well-being stemmed from a day of hard work, nomore or less than that. The sense that they were not just floating along but doingfor themselves.

Jesus, she thought, I think I’mbecoming a Republican in my old age.

Something else occurred to her then: howquiet it was. No sounds but the sough of the wind, the whispering sleet (nowstarting to abate), and the crackle of the blessed fire.

“Roland?”

He looked at her from his place by thefire, eyebrows raised.

“You’ve stopped coughing.”

He smiled and nodded. She took his smiledown into sleep, but it was Eddie she dreamed of.

Nine

They stayed three days in the camp by thestream, and during that time Susannah learned more about making hide garmentsthan she would ever have believed (and much more than she really wanted toknow).

By casting a mile or so in either directionalong the stream they found a couple of logs, one for each of them. While theylooked, they used their makeshift pot to soak their hides in a dark soup of ashand water. They set their logs at an angle against the trunks of two willowtrees (close, so they could work side by side) and used chert scrapers todehair the hides. This took one day. When it was done, they bailed out the“pot,” turned the hide liner over and filled it up again, this time with amixture of water and mashed brains. This “cold-weather hiding” was new to her.They put the hides in this slurry to soak overnight and, while Susannah beganto make thread from strings of gristle and sinew, Roland re-sharpened hisknife, then used it to whittle half a dozen bone needles. When he was done, allof his fingers were bleeding from dozens of shallow cuts. He coated them withwood-ash soak and slept with them that way, his hands looking as if they werecovered with large and clumsy gray-black gloves. When he washed them off in astream the following day, Susannah was amazed to see the cuts already well ontheir way to healing. She tried dabbing some of the wood-ash stuff on thepersistent sore beside her mouth, but it stung horribly and she washed it awayin a hurry.

“I want you to whop this goddam thing off,”she said.

Roland shook his head. “We’ll give it alittle longer to heal on its own.”

“Why?”

“Cutting on a sore’s a bad idea unless youabsolutely have to do it. Especially out here, in what Jake would have called‘the boondogs.’”

She agreed (without bothering to correcthis pronunciation), but unpleasant images crept into her head when she laydown: visions of the pimple beginning to spread, erasing her face inch by inch,turning her entire head into a black, crusted, bleeding tumor. In the dark,such visions had a horrible persuasiveness, but luckily she was too tired forthem to keep her awake long.

On their second day in what Susannah wascoming to think of as the Hide Camp, Roland built a large and rickety frameover a new fire, one that was low and slow. They smoked the hides two by twoand then laid them aside. The smell of the finished product was surprisinglypleasant. It smells like leather, she thought, holding one to her face, andthen had to laugh. That was, after all, exactly what it was.

The third day they spent “making,” and hereSusannah finally outdid the gunslinger. Roland sewed a wide and barelyserviceable stitch. She thought that the vests and leggings he made would holdtogether for a month, two at the most, then begin to pull apart. She was farmore adept. Sewing was a skill she’d learned from her mother and bothgrandmothers. At first she found Roland’s bone needles maddeningly clumsy, andshe paused long enough to cover both the thumb and forefinger of her right handwith little deerskin caps which she tied in place. After that it went faster,and by mid-afternoon of making-day she was taking garments from Roland’s pileand oversewing his stitches with her own, which were finer and closer. Shethought he might object to this—men were proud—but he didn’t, whichwas probably wise. It quite likely would have been Detta who replied to anywhines and queasies.

By the time their third night in Hide Camphad come, they each had a vest, a pair of leggings, and a coat. They also had apair of mittens each. These were large and laughable, but would keep theirhands warm. And, speaking of hands, Susannah was once more barely able to bendhers. She looked doubtfully at the remaining hides and asked Roland if theywould spend another making-day here.