. . . the rain in Spain . . .
He moved forward, drawing one gun.
. . . falls on the plain.
He came the last quarter mile at a jolting, flat-footed run, not trying to hide himself; there was nothing to hide behind. His short shadow raced him. He was not aware that his face had become a gray and dusty deathmask of exhaustion; he was aware of nothing but the figure in the shadow. It did not occur to him until later that the figure might even have been dead.
He kicked through one of the leaning fence rails (it broke in two without a sound, almost apologetically) and lunged across the dazzled and silent stable yard, bringing the gun up.
"You're covered! You're covered! Hands up, you whoreson, you're--"
The figure moved restlessly and stood up. The gunslinger thought: My God, he is worn away to nothing, what's happened to him? Because the man in black had shrunk two full feet and his hair had gone white.
He paused, struck dumb, his head buzzing tunelessly. His heart was racing at a lunatic rate and he thought, I'm dying right here--
He sucked the white-hot air into his lungs and hung his head for a moment. When he raised it again, he saw it wasn't the man in black but a boy with sun-bleached hair, regarding him with eyes that did not even seem interested. The gunslinger stared at him blankly and then shook his head in negation. But the boy survived his refusal to believe; he was a strong delusion. One wearing blue jeans with a patch on one knee and a plain brown shirt of rough weave.
The gunslinger shook his head again and started for the stable with his head lowered, gun still in hand. He couldn't think yet. His head was filled with motes and there was a huge, thrumming ache building in it.
The inside of the stable was silent and dark and exploding with heat. The gunslinger stared around himself with huge, floating walleyes. He made a drunken about-face and saw the boy standing in the ruined doorway, staring at him. A blade of pain slipped smoothly into his head, cutting from temple to temple, dividing his brain like an orange. He reholstered his gun, swayed, put out his hands as if to ward off phantoms, and fell over on his face.
II
When he woke up he was on his back, and there was a pile of light, odorless hay beneath his head. The boy had not been able to move him, but he had made him reasonably comfortable. And he was cool. He looked down at himself and saw that his shirt was dark and wet. He licked at his face and tasted water. He blinked at it. His tongue seemed to swell in his mouth.
The boy was hunkered down beside him. When he saw the gunslinger's eyes were open, he reached behind him and gave the gunslinger a dented tin can filled with water. He grasped it with trembling hands and allowed himself to drink a little--just a little. When that was down and sitting in his belly, he drank a little more. Then he spilled the rest over his face and made shocked blowing noises. The boy's pretty lips curved in a solemn little smile.
"Would you want something to eat, sir?"
"Not yet," the gunslinger said. There was still a sick ache in his head from the sunstroke, and the water sat uneasily in his stomach, as if it did not know where to go. "Who are you?"
"My name is John Chambers. You can call me Jake. I have a friend--well, sort of a friend, she works for us--who calls me 'Bama sometimes, but you can call me Jake."
The gunslinger sat up, and the sick ache became hard and immediate. He leaned forward and lost a brief struggle with his stomach.
"There's more," Jake said. He took the can and walked toward the rear of the stable. He paused and smiled back at the gunslinger uncertainly. The gunslinger nodded at him and then put his head down and propped it with his hands. The boy was well-made, handsome, perhaps ten or eleven. There had been a shadow of fear on his face, but that was all right; the gunslinger would have trusted him far less if the boy hadn't shown fear.
A strange, thumping hum began at the rear of the stable. The gunslinger raised his head alertly, hands going to the butts of his guns. The sound lasted for perhaps fifteen seconds and then quit. The boy came back with the can--filled now.
The gunslinger drank sparingly again, and this time it was a little better. The ache in his head was fading.
"I didn't know what to do with you when you fell down," Jake said. "For a couple of seconds there, I thought you were going to shoot me."
"Maybe I was. I thought you were somebody else."
"The priest?"
The gunslinger looked up sharply.
The boy studied him, frowning. "He camped in the yard. I was in the house over there. Or maybe it was a depot. I didn't like him, so I didn't come out. He came in the night and went on the next day. I would have hidden from you, but I was sleeping when you came." He looked darkly over the gunslinger's head. "I don't like people. They fuck me up."
"What did he look like?"
The boy shrugged. "Like a priest. He was wearing black things."
"A hood and a cassock?"
"What's a cassock?"
"A robe. Like a dress."
The boy nodded. "That's about right."
The gunslinger leaned forward, and something in his face made the boy recoil a little. "How long ago? Tell me, for your father's sake."
"I. . .I. . ."
Patiently, the gunslinger said, "I'm not going to hurt you."
"I don't know. I can't remember time. Every day is the same."
For the first time the gunslinger wondered consciously how the boy had come to this place, with dry and man-killing leagues of desert all around it. But he would not make it his concern, not yet, at least. "Make your best guess. Long ago?"
"No. Not long. I haven't been here long."
The fire lit in him again. He snatched up the can and drank from it with hands that trembled the smallest bit. A fragment of the cradle song recurred, but this time, instead of his mother's face, he saw the scarred face of Alice, who had been his jilly in the now-defunct town of Tull. "A week? Two? Three?"
The boy looked at him distractedly. "Yes."
"Which?"
"A week. Or two." He looked aside, blushing a little. "Three poops ago, that's the only way I can measure things now. He didn't even drink. I thought he might be the ghost of a priest, like in this movie I saw once, only Zorro figured out he wasn't a priest at all, or a ghost, either. He was just a banker who wanted some land because there was gold on it. Mrs. Shaw took me to see that movie. It was in Times Square."
None of this made any sense to the gunslinger, so he did not comment on it.
"I was scared," the boy said. "I've been scared almost all the time." His face quivered like crystal on the edge of the ultimate, destructive high note. "He didn't even build a fire. He just sat there. I don't even know if he went to sleep."
Close! Closer than he had ever been, by the gods! In spite of his extreme dehydration, his hands felt faintly moist; greasy. r />
"There's some dried meat," the boy said.
"All right." The gunslinger nodded. "Good."
The boy got up to fetch it, his knees popping slightly. He made a fine straight figure. The desert had not yet sapped him. His arms were thin, but the skin, although tanned, had not dried and cracked. He's got juice, the gunslinger thought. Mayhap some sand in his craw, as well, or he would have taken one of my guns and shot me right where I lay.
Or perhaps the boy simply hadn't thought of it.
The gunslinger drank from the can again. Sand in his craw or not, he didn't come from this place.
Jake came back with a pile of dried jerky on what looked like a sun-scoured breadboard. The meat was tough, stringy, and salty enough to make the cankered lining of the gunslinger's mouth sing. He ate and drank until he felt logy, and then settled back. The boy ate only a little, picking at the dark strands with an odd delicacy.
The gunslinger regarded him, and the boy looked back at him candidly enough. "Where did you come from, Jake?" he asked finally.
"I don't know." The boy frowned. "I did know. I knew when I came here, but it's all fuzzy now, like a bad dream when you wake up. I have lots of bad dreams. Mrs. Shaw used to say it was because I watched too many horror movies on Channel Eleven."
"What's a channel?" A wild idea occurred to him. "Is it like a beam?"
"No--it's TV."
"What's teevee?"
"I--" The boy touched his forehead. "Pictures."
"Did somebody tote you here? This Mrs. Shaw?"
"No," the boy said. "I just was here."
"Who is Mrs. Shaw?"
"I don't know."
"Why did she call you 'Bama?"
"I don't remember."
"You're not making any sense," the gunslinger said flatly.
Quite suddenly the boy was on the verge of tears. "I can't help it. I was just here. If you asked me about TV and channels yesterday, I bet I still could have remembered! Tomorrow I probably won't even remember I'm Jake--not unless you tell me, and you won't be here, will you? You're going to go away and I'll starve because you ate up almost all my food. I didn't ask to be here. I don't like it. It's spooky."