The wind through the keyhole adt-8 Read online

  “Nine of you will get long shots,” I said, and that wiped the gloom from their faces. “The tenth will get something else.”

  “A yank of rope,” Canfield of the Jefferson said in a low voice. “And after what I seen out t’ranch, I hope he dances at the end of it a long time.”

  We left Snip and Canfield to watch the eleven salties drinking at the bar, and marched the other ten across the street. The graybeard led the way and walked briskly on his tree-stump feet. That day’s light had drained to a weird yellow I had never seen before, and it would be dark all too soon. The wind blew and the dust flew. I was watching for one of them to make a break-hoping for it, if only to spare the child waiting in the jail-but none did.

  Jamie fell in beside me. “If he’s here, he’s hoping the kiddo didn’t see any higher than his ankles. He means to face it out, Roland.”

  “I know,” I said. “And since that’s all the kiddo did see, he’ll probably ride the bluff.”

  “What then?”

  “Lock em all up, I suppose, and wait for one of em to change his skin.”

  “What if it’s not just something that comes over him? What if he can keep it from happening?”

  “Then I don’t know,” I said.

  Wegg had started a penny-in, three-to-stay Watch Me game with Pickens and Strother. I thumped the table with one hand, scattering the matchsticks they were using as counters. “Wegg, you’ll accompany these men into the jail with the sheriff. It’ll be a few minutes yet. There’s a few more things to attend to.”

  “What’s in the jail?” Wegg asked, looking at the scattered matchsticks with some regret. I guessed he’d been winning. “The boy, I suppose?”

  “The boy and the end of this sorry business,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

  I took the graybeard by the elbow-gently-and pulled him aside. “What’s your name, sai?”

  “Steg Luka. What’s it to you? You think I’m the one?”

  “No,” I said, and I didn’t. No reason; just a feeling. “But if you know which one it is-if you even think you know-you ought to tell me. There’s a frightened boy in there, locked in a cell for his own good. He saw something that looked like a giant bear kill his father, and I’d spare him any more pain if I could. He’s a good boy.”

  He considered, then it was him who took my elbow… and with a hand that felt like iron. He drew me into the corner. “I can’t say, gunslinger, for we’ve all been down there, deep in the new plug, and we all saw it.”

  “Saw what?”

  “A crack in the salt with a green light shining through. Bright, then dim. Bright, then dim. Like a heartbeat. And… it speaks to your face.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “I don’t understand myself. The only thing I know is we’ve all seen it, and we’ve all felt it. It speaks to your face and tells you to come in. It’s bitter.”

  “The light, or the voice?”

  “Both. It’s of the Old People, I’ve no doubt of that. We told Banderly-him that’s the bull foreman-and he went down himself. Saw it for himself. Felt it for himself. But was he going to close the plug for that? Balls he was. He’s got his own bosses to answer to, and they know there’s a moit of salt left down there. So he ordered a crew to close it up with rocks, which they did. I know, because I was one of em. But rocks that are put in can be pulled out. And they have been, I’d swear to it. They were one way then, now they’re another. Someone went in there, gunslinger, and whatever’s on the other side… it changed him.”

  “But you don’t know who.”

  Luka shook his head. “All I can say is it must’ve been between twelve o’ the clock and six in the morning, for then all’s quiet.”

  “Go on back to your mates, and say thankee. You’ll be drinking soon enough, and welcome.” But sai Luka’s drinking days were over. We never know, do we?

  He went back and I surveyed them. Luka was the oldest by far. Most of the others were middle-aged, and a couple were still young. They looked interested and excited rather than afraid, and I could understand that; they’d had a couple of drinks to perk them up, and this made a change in the drudgery of their ordinary days. None of them looked shifty or guilty. None looked like anything more or less than what they were: salties in a dying mining town where the rails ended.

  “Jamie,” I said. “A word with you.”

  I walked him to the door, and spoke directly into his ear. I gave him an errand, and told him to do it as fast as ever he could. He nodded and slipped out into the stormy afternoon. Or perhaps by then it was early evening.

  “Where’s he off to?” Wegg asked.

  “That’s nonnies to you,” I said, and turned to the men with the blue tattoos on their ankles. “Line up, if you please. Oldest to youngest.”

  “I dunno how old I am, do I?” said a balding man wearing a wrist-clock with a rusty string-mended band. Some of the others laughed and nodded.

  “Just do the best you can,” I said.

  I had no interest in their ages, but the discussion and argument took up some time, which was the main object. If the blacksmith had fulfilled his commission, all would be well. If not, I would improvise. A gunslinger who can’t do that dies early.

  The miners shuffled around like kids playing When the Music Stops, swapping spots until they were in some rough approximation of age. The line started at the door to the jail and ended at the door to the street. Luka was first; Wrist-Clock was in the middle; the one who looked about my age-the one who’d said they were always afraid-was last.

  “Sheriff, will you get their names?” I asked. “I want to speak to the Streeter boy.”

  Billy was standing at the bars of the drunk-and-disorderly cell. He’d heard our palaver, and looked frightened. “Is it here?” he asked. “The skin-man?”

  “I think so,” I said, “but there’s no way to be sure.”

  “Sai, I’m ascairt.”

  “I don’t blame you. But the cell’s locked and the bars are good steel. He can’t get at you, Billy.”

  “You ain’t seen him when he’s a bear,” Billy whispered. His eyes were huge and shiny, fixed in place. I’ve seen men with eyes like that after they’ve been punched hard on the jaw. It’s the look that comes over them just before their knees go soft. Outside, the wind gave a thin shriek along the underside of the jail roof.

  “Tim Stoutheart was afraid, too,” I said. “But he went on. I expect you to do the same.”

  “Will you be here?”

  “Aye. My mate, Jamie, too.”

  As if I had summoned him, the door to the office opened and Jamie hurried in, slapping alkali dust from his shirt. The sight of him gladdened me. The smell of dirty feet that accompanied him was less welcome.

  “Did you get it?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’s a pretty enough thing. And here’s the list of names.”

  He handed both over.

  “Are you ready, son?” Jamie asked Billy.

  “I guess so,” Billy said. “I’m going to pretend I’m Tim Stoutheart.”

  Jamie nodded gravely. “That’s a fine idea. May you do well.”

  A particularly strong gust of wind blew past. Bitter dust puffed in through the barred window of the drunk-and-disorderly cell. Again came that eerie shriek along the eaves. The light was fading, fading. It crossed my mind that it might be better-safer-to jail the waiting salties and leave this part for tomorrow, but nine of them had done nothing. Neither had the boy. Best to have it done. If it could be done, that was.

  “Hear me, Billy,” I said. “I’m going to walk them through nice and slow. Maybe nothing will happen.”

  “A-All right.” His voice was faint.

  “Do you need a drink of water first? Or to have a piss?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, but of course he didn’t look fine; he looked terrified. “Sai? How many of them have blue rings on their ankles?”

  “All,” I said.

  “Then how-”

  �
��They don’t know how much you saw. Just look at each one as he passes. And stand back a little, doya.” Out of reaching-distance was what I meant, but I didn’t want to say it out loud.

  “What should I say?”

  “Nothing. Unless you see something that sets off a recollection, that is.” I had little hope of that. “Bring them in, Jamie. Sheriff Peavy at the head of the line and Wegg at the end.”

  He nodded and left. Billy reached through the bars. For a second I didn’t know what he wanted, then I did. I gave his hand a brief squeeze. “Stand back now, Billy. And remember the face of your father. He watches you from the clearing.”

  He obeyed. I glanced at the list, running over names (probably misspelled) that meant nothing to me, with my hand on the butt of my righthand gun. That one now contained a very special load. According to Vannay, there was only one sure way to kill a skin-man: with a piercing object of the holy metal. I had paid the blacksmith in gold, but the bullet he’d made me-the one that would roll under the hammer at first cock-was pure silver. Perhaps it would work.

  If not, I would follow with lead.

  The door opened. In came Sheriff Peavy. He had a two-foot ironwood headknocker in his right hand, the rawhide drop cord looped around his wrist. He was patting the business end gently against his left palm as he stepped through the door. His eyes found the white-faced lad in the cell, and he smiled.

  “Hey-up, Billy, son of Bill,” he said. “We’re with ye, and all’s fine. Fear nothing.”

  Billy tried to smile, but looked like he feared much.

  Steg Luka came next, rocking from side to side on those tree-stump feet of his. After him came a man nearly as old, with a mangy white mustache, dirty gray hair falling to his shoulders, and a sinister, squinted look in his eyes. Or perhaps he was only nearsighted. The list named him as Bobby Frane.

  “Come slow,” I said, “and give this boy a good look at you.”

  They came. As each one passed, Bill Streeter looked anxiously into his face.

  “G’d eve’n to’ee, boy,” Luka said as he went by. Bobby Frane tipped an invisible cap. One of the younger ones-Jake Marsh, according to the list-stuck out a tongue yellow from bingo-weed tobacco. The others just shuffled past. A couple kept their heads lowered until Wegg barked at them to raise up and look the kiddo in the eye.

  There was no dawning recognition on Bill Streeter’s face, only a mixture of fright and perplexity. I kept my own face blank, but I was losing hope. Why, after all, would the skin-man break? He had nothing to lose by playing out his string, and he must know it.

  Now there were only four left… then two… then only the kid who in the Busted Luck had spoken of being afraid. I saw change on Billy’s face as that one went by, and for a moment I thought we had something, then realized it was nothing more than the recognition of one young person for another.

  Last came Wegg, who had put away his headknocker and donned brass knuckledusters on each hand. He gave Billy Streeter a not very pleasant smile. “Don’t see no merchandise you want to buy, younker? Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t say I’m surpri-”

  “Gunslinger!” Billy said to me. “Sai Deschain!”

  “Yes, Billy.” I shouldered Wegg aside and stood in front of the cell.

  Billy touched his tongue to his upper lip. “Walk them by again, if it please you. Only this time have them hold up their pants. I can’t see the rings.”

  “Billy, the rings are all the same.”

  “No,” he said. “They ain’t.”

  The wind was in a lull, and Sheriff Peavy heard him. “Turn around, my cullies, and back you march. Only this time hike up your trousers.”

  “Ain’t enough enough?” the man with the old wrist-clock grumbled. The list called him Ollie Ang. “We was promised shots. Long ones.”

  “What’s it to you, honey?” Wegg asked. “Ain’t you got to go back that way anyro’? Did yer marmar drop’ee on your head?”

  They grumbled about it, but started back down the corridor toward the office, this time from youngest to oldest, and holding up their pants. All the tattoos looked about the same to me. I at first thought they must to the boy, as well. Then I saw his eyes widen, and he took another step away from the bars. Yet he said nothing.

  “Sheriff, hold them right there for a moment, if you will,” I said.

  Peavy moved in front of the door to the office. I stepped to the cell and spoke low. “Billy? See something?”

  “The mark,” he said. “I seen the mark. It’s the man with the broken ring.”

  I didn’t understand… then I did. I thought of all the times Cort had called me a slowkins from the eyebrows up. He called the others those things and worse-of course he did, it was his job-but standing in the corridor of that Debaria jail with the simoom blowing outside, I thought he had been right about me. I was a slowkins. Only minutes ago I’d thought that if there had been more than the memory of the tattoo, I’d have gotten it from Billy when he was hypnotized. Now, I realized, I had gotten it.

  Is there anything else? I’d asked him, already sure that there wasn’t, only wanting to raise him from the trance that was so obviously upsetting him. And when he’d said the white mark — but dubiously, as if asking himself-foolish Roland had let it pass.

  The salties were getting restless. Ollie Ang, the one with the rusty wrist-clock, was saying they’d done as asked and he wanted to go back to the Busted to get his drink and his damn boots.

  “Which one?” I asked Billy.

  He leaned forward and whispered.

  I nodded, then turned to the knot of men at the end of the corridor. Jamie was watching them closely, hands resting on the butts of his revolvers. The men must have seen something in my face, because they ceased their grumbling and just stared. The only sound was the wind and the constant gritty slosh of dust against the building.

  As to what happened next, I’ve thought it over many times since, and I don’t think we could have prevented it. We didn’t know how fast the change happened, you see; I don’t think Vannay did, either, or he would have warned us. Even my father said as much when I finished making my report and stood, with all those books frowning down upon me, waiting for him to pass judgment on my actions in Debaria-not as my father, but as my dinh.

  For one thing I was and am grateful. I almost told Peavy to bring forward the man Billy had named, but then I changed my mind. Not because Peavy had helped my father once upon a bye, but because Little Debaria and the salt-houses were not his fill.

  “Wegg,” I said. “Ollie Ang to me, do it please ya.”

  “Which?”

  “The one with the clock on his wrist.”

  “Here, now!” Ollie Ang squawked as Constable Wegg laid hold of him. He was slight for a miner, almost bookish, but his arms were slabbed with muscle and I could see more muscle lifting the shoulders of his chambray workshirt. “Here, now, I ain’t done nothing! It ain’t fair to single me out just because this here kid wants to show off!”

  “Shut your hole,” Wegg said, and pulled him through the little clot of miners.

  “Huck up your pants again,” I told him.

  “Fuck you, brat! And the horse you rode in on!”

  “Huck up or I’ll do it for you.”

  He raised his hands and balled them into fists. “Try! Just you t-”

  Jamie strolled up behind him, drew one of his guns, tossed it lightly into the air, caught it by the barrel, and brought the butt down on Ang’s head. A smartly calculated blow: it didn’t knock the man out, but he dropped his fists, and Wegg caught him under the armpit when his knees loosened. I pulled up the right leg of his overalls, and there it was: a blue Beelie Stockade tattoo that had been cut- broken, to use Billy Streeter’s word-by a thick white scar that ran all the way to his knee.

  “That’s what I saw,” Billy breathed. “That’s what I saw when I was a-layin under that pile of tack.”

  “He’s making it up,” Ang said. He looked dazed and his words were muzzy. A thin ri
ll of blood ran down the side of his face from where Jamie’s blow had opened his scalp a little.

  I knew better. Billy had mentioned the white mark long before he’d set eyes on Ollie Ang in the jail. I opened my mouth, meaning to tell Wegg to throw him in a cell, but that was when the Old Man of the crew burst forward. In his eyes was a look of belated realization. Nor was that all. He was furious.

  Before I or Jamie or Wegg could stop him, Steg Luka grabbed Ang by the shoulders and bore him back against the bars across the aisle from the drunk-and-disorderly cell. “I should have known!” he shouted. “I should have known weeks ago, ye great growit shifty asshole! Ye murderin trullock!” He seized the arm bearing the old watch. “Where’d ye get this, if not in the crack the green light comes from? Where else? Oh, ye murderin skin-changin bastard!”

  Luka spit into Ang’s dazed face, then turned to Jamie and me, still holding up the miner’s arm. “Said he found it in a hole outside one of the old foothill plugs! Said it was probably leftover outlaw booty from the Crow Gang, and like fools we believed him! Even went diggin around for more on our days off, didn’t we!”

  He turned back to the dazed Ollie Ang. Dazed was how he looked to us, anyway, but who knows what was going on behind those eyes?

  “And you laughin up your fuckin sleeve at us while we did it, I’ve no doubt. You found it in a hole, all right, but it wasn’t in one of the old plugs. You went into the crack! Into the green light! It was you! It was you! It was-”

  Ang twisted from the chin up. I don’t mean he grimaced; his entire head twisted. It was like watching a cloth being wrung by invisible hands. His eyes rose up until one was almost above the other, and they turned from blue to jet-black. His skin paled first to white, then to green. It rose as if pushed by fists from beneath, and cracked into scales. His clothes dropped from his body, because his body was no longer that of a man. Nor was it a bear, or a wolf, or a lion. Those things we might have been prepared for. We might even have been prepared for an ally-gator, such as the thing that had assaulted the unfortunate Fortuna at Serenity. Although it was closer to an ally-gator than anything else.