15
Jake felt the temperature of the air around him plummet. A branch broke off with a dry snap and he ducked as it whistled over his head. Oy never stirred until Jake snatched him up. Then the bumbler looked around wildly, baring his teeth.
"Bite if you have to," Jake said, "but I won't put you down."
Oy didn't bite and Jake might not have felt it if he had. His face was numb. He turned back toward the meetinghouse and the wind became a huge cold hand planted in the middle of his back. He began running again, aware that now he w
as doing so in absurd leaps, like an astronaut running on the surface of the moon in a science fiction movie. One leap . . . two . . . three . . .
But on the third one he didn't come down. He was blown straight forward with Oy cradled in his arms. There was a gutteral, garumphing explosion as one of the old houses gave in to the wind and went flying southeast in a hail of shrapnel. He saw a flight of stairs, the crude plank banister still attached, spinning up toward the racing clouds. We'll be next, he thought, and then a hand, minus two fingers but still strong, gripped him above the elbow.
Roland turned him toward the door. For a moment the issue was in doubt as the wind bullied them away from safety. Then Roland lunged forward into the doorway with his remaining fingers sinking deep into Jake's flesh. The pressure of the wind abruptly left them, and they both landed on their backs.
"Thank God!" Susannah cried.
"Thank him later!" Roland was shouting to be heard over the pervasive bellow of the gale. "Push! All of you push on this damned door! Susannah, you at the bottom! All your strength! You bar it, Jake! Do you understand me? Drop the bar into the clamps! Don't hesitate!"
"Don't worry about me," Jake snapped. Something had gashed him at one temple and a thin ribbon of blood ran down the side of his face, but his eyes were clear and sure.
"Now! Push! Push for your lives!"
The door swung slowly shut. They could not have held it for long--mere seconds--but they didn't have to. Jake dropped the thick wooden bar, and when they moved cautiously back, the rusty clamps held. They looked at each other, gasping for breath, then down at Oy. Who gave a single cheerful yap, and went to toast himself by the fire. The spell that the oncoming storm had cast on him seemed to be broken.
Away from the hearth, the big room was already growing cold.
"You should have let me grab the kid, Roland," Eddie said. "He could have been killed out there."
"Oy was Jake's responsibility. He should have gotten him inside sooner. Tied him to something, if he had to. Or don't you think so, Jake?"
"Yeah, I do." Jake sat down beside Oy, stroking the bumbler's thick fur with one hand and rubbing blood from his face with the other.
"Roland," Susannah said, "he's just a boy."
"No more," Roland said. "Cry your pardon, but . . . no more."
16
For the first two hours of the starkblast, they were in some doubt if even the stone meetinghouse would hold. The wind screamed and trees snapped. One slammed down on the roof and smashed it. Cold air jetted through the boards above them. Susannah and Eddie put their arms around each other. Jake shielded Oy--now lying placidly on his back with his stubby legs splayed to all points of the compass--and looked up at the swirling cloud of birdshit that had sifted through the cracks in the ceiling. Roland went on calmly laying out their little supper.
"What do you think, Roland?" Eddie asked.
"I think that if this building stands one more hour, we'll be fine. The cold will intensify, but the wind will drop a little when dark comes. It will drop still more come tomorrowlight, and by the day after tomorrow, the air will be still and much warmer. Not like it was before the coming of the storm, but that warmth was unnatural and we all knew it."
He regarded them with a half-smile. It looked strange on his face, which was usually so still and grave.
"In the meantime, we have a good fire--not enough to heat the whole room, but fine enough if we stay close to it. And a little time to rest. We've been through much, have we not?"
"Yeah," Jake said. "Too much."
"And more ahead, I have no doubt. Danger, hard work, sorrow. Death, mayhap. So now we sit by the fire, as in the old days, and take what comfort we can." He surveyed them, still with that little smile. The firelight cast him in strange profile, making him young on one side of his face and ancient on the other. "We are ka-tet. We are one from many. Be grateful for warmth, shelter, and companionship against the storm. Others may not be so lucky."
"We'll hope they are," Susannah said. She was thinking of Bix.
"Come," Roland said. "Eat."
They came, and settled themselves around their dinh, and ate what he had set out for them.
17
Susannah slept for an hour or two early that night, but her dreams--of nasty, maggoty foods she was somehow compelled to eat--woke her. Outside, the wind continued to howl, although its sound was not quite so steady now. Sometimes it seemed to drop away entirely, then rose again, uttering long, icy shrieks as it ran under the eaves in cold currents and made the stone building tremble in its old bones. The door thudded rhythmically against the bar holding it shut, but like the ceiling above them, both the bar and the rusty clamps seemed to be holding. She wondered what would have become of them if the wooden bar had been as punky and rotted as the handle of the bucket they'd found near the gook.
Roland was awake and sitting by the fire. Jake was with him. Between them, Oy was asleep with one paw over his snout. Susannah joined them. The fire had burned down a little, but this close it threw a comforting heat on her face and arms. She took a board, thought about snapping it in two, decided it might wake Eddie, and tossed it onto the fire as it was. Sparks gushed up the chimney, swirling as the draft caught them.