Darktower 1 - The Gunslinger By King, Stephen (Beginning Chapter)

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what might have been parsecs in all directions.

White; blinding; waterless; without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death.

An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway and coaches had followed it.

At the seventh or eighth, he would not have been thirsty; he could have watched own body dehydrate with clinical, detached attention, watering its crevices and dark inner hollows only when his logic told him it must be done.

At the seventh or eighth, he would not have been thirsty; he could have watched own body dehydrate with clinical, detached attention, watering its crevices and dark inner hollows only when his logic told him it must be done.

At the seventh or eighth, he would not have been thirsty; he could have watched own body dehydrate with clinical, detached attention, watering its crevices and dark inner hollows only when his logic told him it must be done.

At the seventh or eighth, he would not have been thirsty; he could have watched own body dehydrate with clinical, detached attention, watering its crevices and dark inner hollows only when his logic told him it must be done.

So he was thirsty, although he had no particular urge to drink.

The holsters were oiled too deeply for even this Philistine sun to crack.

The holsters were oiled too deeply for even this Philistine sun to crack.

The leather made subtle creaking noises.

His pants were seam-stretched dungarees.

His pants were seam-stretched dungarees.

He breasted a gently rising dune (although there was no sand here; the desert was hardpan, and even the harsh winds that blew when dark came raised only an aggravating harsh dust like scouring powder) and saw the kicked remains of a tiny campfire on the lee side, the side which the sun would quit earliest.

He breasted a gently rising dune (although there was no sand here; the desert was hardpan, and even the harsh winds that blew when dark came raised only an aggravating harsh dust like scouring powder) and saw the kicked remains of a tiny campfire on the lee side, the side which the sun would quit earliest.

He breasted a gently rising dune (although there was no sand here; the desert was hardpan, and even the harsh winds that blew when dark came raised only an aggravating harsh dust like scouring powder) and saw the kicked remains of a tiny campfire on the lee side, the side which the sun would quit earliest.

He breasted a gently rising dune (although there was no sand here; the desert was hardpan, and even the harsh winds that blew when dark came raised only an aggravating harsh dust like scouring powder) and saw the kicked remains of a tiny campfire on the lee side, the side which the sun would quit earliest.

Small signs like this, once more affirming the man in black’s essential humanity, never failed to please him.

He squatted.

Border dwellers had told him that devils lived even in the flames.

They said the devils hypnotized, beckoned, would eventually draw the one who looked into the fires.

The burned grass was crisscrossed in the now-familiar ideographic pattern, and crumbled to gray senselessness before the gunslinger’s prodding hand.

The gunslinger had followed the man in black across the desert for two months now, across the endless, screamingly monotonous purgatorial wastes, and had yet to find spoor other than the hygienic sterile ideographs of the man in black’s campfires.

No other trace; the wind, razor-sharp, had of course filed away even what scant tracks the hardpan held.

Only these cold campfires along the ancient highway and the relentless range-finder in his own head.

He found the irony, like the romance of his thirst, bitterly appealing.

He did not use the flint and steel until the remains of the day were only the fugitive heat in the ground beneath him and a sardonic orange line on the monochrome western horizon.

He did not use the flint and steel until the remains of the day were only the fugitive heat in the ground beneath him and a sardonic orange line on the monochrome western horizon.

Not close enough to see smoke at dusk.

Dizzying constellations, cold fire in every primary hue.

Dizzying constellations, cold fire in every primary hue.

A meteor etched a brief, spectacular arc and winked out.

The fire threw strange shadows as the devil-grass burned its slow way down into new patterns –not ideograms but a straightforward crisscross vaguely frightening in its own no-nonsense surety.

The fire burned its steady, slow flame, and phantoms danced in its incandescent core.

The fire burned its steady, slow flame, and phantoms danced in its incandescent core.

The fire burned its steady, slow flame, and phantoms danced in its incandescent core.

The fire burned its steady, slow flame, and phantoms danced in its incandescent core.

Every now and then a perverse downdraft would make the smoke whirl and eddy toward him, and sporadic whiffs of the smoke touched him.

Every now and then a perverse downdraft would make the smoke whirl and eddy toward him, and sporadic whiffs of the smoke touched him.

Every now and then a perverse downdraft would make the smoke whirl and eddy toward him, and sporadic whiffs of the smoke touched him.

Every now and then a perverse downdraft would make the smoke whirl and eddy toward him, and sporadic whiffs of the smoke touched him.

Every now and then a perverse downdraft would make the smoke whirl and eddy toward him, and sporadic whiffs of the smoke touched him.

They built dreams in the same way that a small irritant may build a pearl.

He had passed the last town three weeks before, and since then there had only been the deserted coach track and an occasional huddle of border dwellers’ sod dwellings.

He had passed the last town three weeks before, and since then there had only been the deserted coach track and an occasional huddle of border dwellers’ sod dwellings.

The huddles had degenerated into single dwellings, most inhabited by lepers or madmen.

Five days had passed since the last hut, and he had begun to suspect there would be no more when he topped the last eroded hill and saw the familiar low-backed sod roof.

The dweller, a surprisingly young man with a wild shock of strawberry hair that reached almost to his waist, was weeding a scrawny stand of corn with zealous abandon.

The dweller, a surprisingly young man with a wild shock of strawberry hair that reached almost to his waist, was weeding a scrawny stand of corn with zealous abandon.

The dweller, a surprisingly young man with a wild shock of strawberry hair that reached almost to his waist, was weeding a scrawny stand of corn with zealous abandon.

The mule let out a wheezing grunt and the dweller looked up, glaring blue eyes coming target-center on the gunslinger in a moment He raised both hands in curt salute and then bent to the corn again, humping up the row next to his hut with back bent, tossing devil-grass and an occasional stunted corn plant over his shoulder.

The mule let out a wheezing grunt and the dweller looked up, glaring blue eyes coming target-center on the gunslinger in a moment He raised both hands in curt salute and then bent to the corn again, humping up the row next to his hut with back bent, tossing devil-grass and an occasional stunted corn plant over his shoulder.

The mule let out a wheezing grunt and the dweller looked up, glaring blue eyes coming target-center on the gunslinger in a moment He raised both hands in curt salute and then bent to the corn again, humping up the row next to his hut with back bent, tossing devil-grass and an occasional stunted corn plant over his shoulder.

He paused by the edge of the lifeless-looking cornpatch, drew a drink from one of his skins to start the saliva, and spatinto the arid soil.

He paused by the edge of the lifeless-looking cornpatch, drew a drink from one of his skins to start the saliva, and spatinto the arid soil.

He surveyed the gunslinger without fear.

The dweller gestured at it briefly:

It landed on the dweller’s head and roosted, talons firmly twined in the wild thatch of hair.

The gunslinger nodded amiably.

“Beans, beans, the musical fruit,” the raven recited, inspired.

The inevitable question formed in his mouth: “How long since he passed by?”

That’s probably wrong.”

He paused. and the only sound was the stark wind.

They looked at each other, a sudden depth of feeling between them, the dweller upon his dust-puff-dry ground, the gunslinger on the hardpan that shelved down to the desert.

The gunslinger stepped gingerly over the rows of corn and went around back.

As he descended the rickety ladder, the gunslinger reflected that the stones must represent two years’ work easily — hauling, dragging, laying.

As he descended the rickety ladder, the gunslinger reflected that the stones must represent two years’ work easily — hauling, dragging, laying.

The water was clear but slow-moving, and filling the skins was a long chore.

While he was topping the second, Zoltan perched on the lip of the well.

The shaft was about fifteen feet deep: easy enough for Brown to drop a rock on him, break his head, and steal everything on him.

When he came through the hut’s door and walked down the steps (the hovel proper was set below ground level, designed to catch and hold the coolness of the nights), Brown was poking ears of corn into the embers of a tiny fire with a hardwood spatula.

When he came through the hut’s door and walked down the steps (the hovel proper was set below ground level, designed to catch and hold the coolness of the nights), Brown was poking ears of corn into the embers of a tiny fire with a hardwood spatula.

When he came through the hut’s door and walked down the steps (the hovel proper was set below ground level, designed to catch and hold the coolness of the nights), Brown was poking ears of corn into the embers of a tiny fire with a hardwood spatula.

And he had been afoot for the last twelve days; the mule was at the end of its endurance.

I’ll spread them and fly on the thermals.

The only light was the dull cherry glare of the banked embers.

Outside, the prevailing wind snuffled and whined around the ground-level eaves.

Outside, the prevailing wind snuffled and whined around the ground-level eaves.

The bird flew across the room and hunched moodily in the corner.

The bird flew across the room and hunched moodily in the corner.

“Lead us not into temptation,” Zoltan said suddenly, apocalyptically.

“Lead us not into temptation,” Zoltan said suddenly, apocalyptically.

He was suddenly sure that it was an illusion, all of it (not a dream, no; an enchantment), that the man in black had spun a spell and was trying to tell him something in a maddeningly obtuse, symbolic way.

He was suddenly sure that it was an illusion, all of it (not a dream, no; an enchantment), that the man in black had spun a spell and was trying to tell him something in a maddeningly obtuse, symbolic way.

It seemed to be sighing and groaning its way out of the earth.”

His smoke was a smoldering roach, but when the gunslinger tapped his poke, Brown shook his head.

The wind pulsed steadily.

His urine arched out over the powdery cornfield in a wavering stream.

His urine arched out over the powdery cornfield in a wavering stream.

The only contingency he had not learned how to bear was the possibility of his own madness.

Brown asked, amused.

The gunslinger opened his eyes warily.

He began to speak in flat bursts that slowly spread into an even, slightly toneless narrative.

He began to speak in flat bursts that slowly spread into an even, slightly toneless narrative.

Brown did not interrupt at all.

He had bought the mule in Pricetown, and when he reached Tull, it was still fresh.

The road widened as it took on tributaries.

The forests had been gone long now, replaced by the monotonous flat country: endless, desolate fields gone to timothy and low shrubs, shacks, eerie, deserted estates guarded by brooding, shadowed mansions where demons undeniably walked; leering, empty shanties where the people had either moved on or had been moved along, an occasional dweller’s hovel, given away by a single flickering point of light in the dark, or by sullen, inbred clans toiling silently in the fields by day.

The forests had been gone long now, replaced by the monotonous flat country: endless, desolate fields gone to timothy and low shrubs, shacks, eerie, deserted estates guarded by brooding, shadowed mansions where demons undeniably walked; leering, empty shanties where the people had either moved on or had been moved along, an occasional dweller’s hovel, given away by a single flickering point of light in the dark, or by sullen, inbred clans toiling silently in the fields by day.

The forests had been gone long now, replaced by the monotonous flat country: endless, desolate fields gone to timothy and low shrubs, shacks, eerie, deserted estates guarded by brooding, shadowed mansions where demons undeniably walked; leering, empty shanties where the people had either moved on or had been moved along, an occasional dweller’s hovel, given away by a single flickering point of light in the dark, or by sullen, inbred clans toiling silently in the fields by day.

The forests had been gone long now, replaced by the monotonous flat country: endless, desolate fields gone to timothy and low shrubs, shacks, eerie, deserted estates guarded by brooding, shadowed mansions where demons undeniably walked; leering, empty shanties where the people had either moved on or had been moved along, an occasional dweller’s hovel, given away by a single flickering point of light in the dark, or by sullen, inbred clans toiling silently in the fields by day.

The forests had been gone long now, replaced by the monotonous flat country: endless, desolate fields gone to timothy and low shrubs, shacks, eerie, deserted estates guarded by brooding, shadowed mansions where demons undeniably walked; leering, empty shanties where the people had either moved on or had been moved along, an occasional dweller’s hovel, given away by a single flickering point of light in the dark, or by sullen, inbred clans toiling silently in the fields by day.

An occasional scrawny cow stared at him lumpishly from between peeled alder poles.

It had showered twice since he had left Pricetown, grudgingly both times.

Even the timothy looked yellow and dispirited.

It was at the floor of a circular, bowl-shaped hollow, a shoddy jewel in a cheap setting.

There were a number of lights, most of them clustered around the area of the music.

More houses sporadically lined the road now, most of them still deserted.

A fool’s chorus of half-stoned voices was rising in the final protracted lyric of Hey Jude — “Naa-naa-naa naa-na-na-na… hey, Jude…” — as he entered the town proper.

Only the prosaic thump and pound of the honky-tonk piano saved him from seriously wondering if the man in black might not have raised ghosts to inhabit a deserted town.

Three ladies wearing black slacks and identical middy blouses passed by on the opposite boardwalk, not looking at him with pointed curiosity.

Three ladies wearing black slacks and identical middy blouses passed by on the opposite boardwalk, not looking at him with pointed curiosity.

Three ladies wearing black slacks and identical middy blouses passed by on the opposite boardwalk, not looking at him with pointed curiosity.

Their faces seemed to swim above their all-but-invisible bodies like huge, pallid baseballs with eyes.

A solemn old man with a straw hat perched firmly on top of his head watched him from the steps of a boarded-up grocery store.

A young boy, perhaps thirteen, and his girl crossed the street a block up, pausing imperceptibly.

A few of the street side lamps worked, but their glass sides were cloudy with congealed oil.

Most had been crashed out.

The fork faltered and the hostler looked around waspishly.

The gunslinger flicked a heavy, unevenly milled gold piece into the semi dark.

It rang on the old, chaff- drifted boards and glittered.

They had watched the entire exchange with contemptuous interest

One of the boys removed a crazily tilted twist of corn-shuck from his mouth, grasped a green cat’s-eye marble, and squirted it into the dirt circle.

One of the boys removed a crazily tilted twist of corn-shuck from his mouth, grasped a green cat’s-eye marble, and squirted it into the dirt circle.

One of them looked up, the youngest There was a huge cold-sore at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were still ingenuous.

The eyes of his playmates had turned ugly and hostile.

“I’m grateful.

The chorus of Hey Jude had petered out, and the piano was plinking some other old ballad.

Voices murmured like broken threads.

And an old man with wild gray hair collapsed at a table by the doors.

Heads swiveled to look at him and his guns.

There was a moment of near silence, except for the oblivious piano player, who continued to tinkle.

She looked him in the eye, and she might have been pretty when she started out, but now her face was lumpy and there was a livid scar corkscrewed across her forehead.

She looked him in the eye, and she might have been pretty when she started out, but now her face was lumpy and there was a livid scar corkscrewed across her forehead.

She had powdered it heavily, but it called attention rather than camouflaging.

There was a sullenly smoldering charcoal brazier behind the bar and to the left of the mirror.

The gunslinger stood with stolid indifference, only peripherally aware of the faltering piano, the slowing of the card game, the sidelong glances of the barflies.

The gunslinger stood with stolid indifference, only peripherally aware of the faltering piano, the slowing of the card game, the sidelong glances of the barflies.

The man was almost completely bald, and his hand was wrapped around the haft of a gigantic hunting knife that was looped onto his belt like a holster.

Then he went back to his table, and the atmosphere shifted back again.

She nodded angrily, as if this show of wealth, even at her benefit, incensed her.

The bald man was staring at him with cyanosed eyes, his hands clenching and unclenching on the splintered and gouged surface of his table.

His nostrils flared with pulsating regularity.

The odor of the devil-grass was a rank miasma.

The eyes were damned, the staring, glaring eyes of those who see but do not see, eyes ever turned inward to the sterile hell of dreams beyond control, dreams unleashed, risen out of the stinking swamps of the unconscious.

The eyes were damned, the staring, glaring eyes of those who see but do not see, eyes ever turned inward to the sterile hell of dreams beyond control, dreams unleashed, risen out of the stinking swamps of the unconscious.

The cracked lips writhed, lifted, revealing the green, mossy teeth, and the gunslinger thought: — He’s not even smoking it anymore.

The cracked lips writhed, lifted, revealing the green, mossy teeth, and the gunslinger thought: — He’s not even smoking it anymore.

It had been years — God! — centuries, millenniums; there was no more High Speech, he was the last, the last gunslinger.

The others were – Numbed, he reached into his breast pocket and produced a gold piece.

It threw off its proud civilized glow; golden, reddish, bloody.

“Ahhhhhh… “An inarticulate sound of pleasure.

The piano player closed the lid of his instrument with a bang and exited after the others in long, comic-opera strides.

The piano player closed the lid of his instrument with a bang and exited after the others in long, comic-opera strides.

The piano player closed the lid of his instrument with a bang and exited after the others in long, comic-opera strides.

He spun the gold piece on the gouged wood, and the dead-alive eyes followed it with empty fascination.

It was replaced with speculation, then with a high, wet gleam that he had seen before.

It would not have mattered if the grave-beetles had nested in the arid blackness of her womb.

“No,” she whispered.

She would not remove her hands until she was behind him and she doused the lamps one by one, turning down the wicks and then breathing the flames into extinction.

The room held her scent, fresh lilac, pathetic.

The room held her scent, fresh lilac, pathetic.

“He came clumping down the boardwalk — his boots wouldn’t wear out, they were engineer boots — with the children and dogs behind him.

It went right through that grin like sewer water through a grate.

The gunslinger thought in the back of his mind that it was probably the only place in town prosperous enough to support mice.

But the man in black went by without hawing the bay that pulled his rig, and the spinning wheels spumed up dust that the wind clutched eagerly.

He might have been a priest or a monk; he wore a black cassock that had been floured with dust, and a loose hood covered his head and obscured his features.

It rippled and flapped.

It rippled and flapped.

He pulled up in front of Sheb’s and tethered the horse, which lowered its head and grunted at the ground.

Sheb was playing Methodist hymns ragtime, and the grizzled layabouts who had come in early to avoid the storm and to attend Nort’s wake had sung themselves hoarse.

Sheb, drunk nearly to the point of senselessness, intoxicated and horny with his own continued existence, played with hectic, shuttlecock speed, fingers flying like looms.

Sheb, drunk nearly to the point of senselessness, intoxicated and horny with his own continued existence, played with hectic, shuttlecock speed, fingers flying like looms.

Sheb, drunk nearly to the point of senselessness, intoxicated and horny with his own continued existence, played with hectic, shuttlecock speed, fingers flying like looms.

A fervid glow seemed to be on all of them.

The dull stormglow that filtered through the batwings seemed to mock them, however.

He smelled like poison.

Alice watched him, feeling trepidation mixed with the familiar want that hid within her.

There was no religious symbol on him, although that meant nothing by itself.

His voice was soft and pleasant.

His eyes were large, luminous.

Her need intensified.

Sheb, the worthless gelding, was playing about the Christian Soldiers and somebody had persuaded Aunt Mill to sing.

Her voice, warped and distorted, cut through the babble like a dull ax through a calf’s brain.

Her voice, warped and distorted, cut through the babble like a dull ax through a calf’s brain.

Her voice, warped and distorted, cut through the babble like a dull ax through a calf’s brain.

She went to serve, resentful of the stranger’s silence, resentful of his no-color eyes and her own restless groin.

She went to serve, resentful of the stranger’s silence, resentful of his no-color eyes and her own restless groin.

They were capricious and beyond her control.

They might be the signal of the change, which would in turn signal the beginning of her old age –a condition which in Tull was usually as short and bitter as a winter sunset.

She drew beer until the keg was empty, then broached another.

It’s… “She trailed off, not able to express what it was, or how it was obscene.

This must revolt you.”

He knocked the whiskey back neatly and did not grimace.

She recoiled, hurt and amazed, her first thought being that he had lied about his holiness to test her.

She felt a trembling loathing spring up in her, but the warmth still radiated from her belly.

He whirled and faced them, suddenly made the center of attention by some unknown alchemy.

Sheb struck a discord and halted.

Sheb struck a discord and halted.

Then the laugh burst forth again, strong, rich, beyond denial.

But they only watched him, like obedient children taken to see a magician in whom they have grown too old to believe.

Aunt Mill cackled again, suddenly broke into sobs, and fled blindly through the doors.

The wind howled and shrieked and thrummed.

One of the men at the bar tore himself free and exited in looping, grotesque strides.

The spittle gleamed on his forehead, pearled down the shaven beak of his nose.

Others gathered in a loose ring around Nort.

His face and the dewlapped rooster-wrinkles of his neck and upper chest gleamed with liquid — liquid so precious in this dry country.

One of the watchers forgot himself, began to applaud, and suddenly backed away, eyes cloudy with terror.

His chest moved in a quick, shallow rhythm as he sucked air.

The only sound in the room was the tearing rasp of his respiration and the rising pulse of the storm.

The smell of rot and excrement and decay billowed up in choking waves.

The smell of rot and excrement and decay billowed up in choking waves.

Alice felt her feet propelling her backward.

She struck the mirror, making it shiver, and blind panic took over.

She bolted like a steer.

Even that isn’t irreversible.

She began to giggle then, rocking back and forth on her haunches by the door.

The sound rose to a keening wail that mixed with the wind.

Downstairs, Nort wandered absently out into the storm to pull some weed.

The man in black, now the only patron of the bar, watched him go, still grinning.

He looked up at her and smiled tentatively.

Her exasperation startled her into looking at him as a man again, rather than an infernal miracle.

Her exasperation startled her into looking at him as a man again, rather than an infernal miracle.

She walked to the table and hesitated there, uncertain.

Nort took his poke from where it dangled inside his shirt and brought out a handful of grass.

The day after that, the catcalls resumed.

The uprooted corn was gathered together by the children, and a week after Nort’s resurrection, they burned it in the middle of the street.

They looked primitive.

Their faces seemed to float between the flames and the ice-chip brilliance of the sky.

Allie watched them and felt a pang of fleeting despair for the sad times of the world.

Allie watched them and felt a pang of fleeting despair for the sad times of the world.

She ceased her narrative, and when he made no immediate comment, she thought at first that the story had put him to sleep.

“Don’t go getting your tobacco dandruff in my bed,” she told him, more sharply than she had intended.

She heard the shrill fear in her voice and hated it.

Kennerly was toothless, unpleasant, and plagued with daughters.

A full-grown one, blonde, dirty, sensual, watched with a speculative curiosity as she drew water from the groaning pump beside the building.

A full-grown one, blonde, dirty, sensual, watched with a speculative curiosity as she drew water from the groaning pump beside the building.

His manner vacillated between hostility and a craven sort of fawning — like a stud mongrel that has been kicked too often.

His manner vacillated between hostility and a craven sort of fawning — like a stud mongrel that has been kicked too often.

His manner vacillated between hostility and a craven sort of fawning — like a stud mongrel that has been kicked too often.

His manner vacillated between hostility and a craven sort of fawning — like a stud mongrel that has been kicked too often.

Soobie began to drag her bucket sullenly toward the shack appended to the barn.

Kennerly cringed a little.’

Children won’t obey their parents, and a plague’ll be visited on the multitudes.”

Kennerly grinned again, showing gums and a few sociable yellow teeth.

Kennerly endeavored to look serious.

Kennerly looked affronted.

Sudden terror dawned in Kennerly’s eyes, like twin moons coming over the horizon.

He felt a growing (but strangely absent-minded) affection for her and thought this might be the trap the man in black had left behind.

He read dry and tattered back issues of magazines with faded pictures.

He sounded like a man being drowned in a bucket of mud.

Sheb made a high screeching noise, like a rusty screen door.

His hands fluttered in marionette movements, both wrists broken.

She put on a wrapper, and the gunslinger felt a moment of empathy for a man who must be seeing himself coming out on the far end of what he once had.

I — ah,oh God, dear God — “The words dissolved into a paroxysm of unintelligibilities, finally to tears.

He wept weakly and without volition, and left without looking back.

“The woman who preaches has poison religion.

He stood in the vestibule, hidden in a shadow, looking in.

The pews were gone and the congregation stood (he saw Kennerly and his brood; Castner, owner of the town’s scrawny dry-goods emporium and his slat- sided wife; a few barflies; a few “town” women he had never seen before; and, surprisingly, Sheb).

He looked curiously at the mountainous woman at the pulpit.

A huge pillar of a neck overtopped by a pasty white moon of a face, in which blinked eyes so large and so dark that they seemed to be bottomless tarns.

Her hair was a beautiful rich brown and it was piled atop her head in a haphazard, lunatic sprawl, held by a hairpin big enough to be a meat skewer.

Her hair was a beautiful rich brown and it was piled atop her head in a haphazard, lunatic sprawl, held by a hairpin big enough to be a meat skewer.

Her hair was a beautiful rich brown and it was piled atop her head in a haphazard, lunatic sprawl, held by a hairpin big enough to be a meat skewer.

He felt a sudden red lust for her that made him feel shaky, and he turned his head and looked away.

When they were settled, she spread her hands over them, as if in benediction.

It was an evocative gesture.

It was a haunting line.

For a moment the gunslinger felt mixed feelings of nostalgia and fear, stitched in with an eerie feeling of deja vu — he thought: I dreamed this.

For a moment the gunslinger felt mixed feelings of nostalgia and fear, stitched in with an eerie feeling of deja vu — he thought: I dreamed this.

“The subject of our meditation tonight is The Interloper.”

“A little rustle ran through the audience.

I have walked arm in arm in the lion’s den with

I have been in the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

I slew two thousand with Samson and was blinded with St. Paul on the road to Damascus.

The Interloper who walked among the Children of Israel while Moses was up on the Mount, who whispered to them to make a golden idol, a golden calf, and to worship it with foulness and fornication.”

He stood on the balcony with Jezebel and watched as King Ahaz fell screaming to his death, and he and she grinned as the dogs gathered and lapped up his life’s blood.

Who could understand the awful darkness that swirls there, the pride like pylons, the titanic blasphemy, the unholy glee?

Who could understand the awful darkness that swirls there, the pride like pylons, the titanic blasphemy, the unholy glee?

“O Jesus Savior — “

“It’s him that will come as the Antichrist, to lead men into the flaming bowels of perdition, to the bloody end of wickedness, as Star Wormwood hangs blazing in the sky, as gall gnaws at the vitals of the children, as women’s wombs give forth monstrosities, as the works of men’s hands turn to blood — ” “Ahhh — “

“It’s him that will come as the Antichrist, to lead men into the flaming bowels of perdition, to the bloody end of wickedness, as Star Wormwood hangs blazing in the sky, as gall gnaws at the vitals of the children, as women’s wombs give forth monstrosities, as the works of men’s hands turn to blood — ” “Ahhh — “

“It’s him that will come as the Antichrist, to lead men into the flaming bowels of perdition, to the bloody end of wickedness, as Star Wormwood hangs blazing in the sky, as gall gnaws at the vitals of the children, as women’s wombs give forth monstrosities, as the works of men’s hands turn to blood — ” “Ahhh — “

“When you riot in the flesh of another’s body, when you pollute yourself, who are you selling your soul to?”

She screamed (but calm within, he could sense the calmness, the mastery, the control, the domination.

I – ” But his voice rose skyward in a dreadful, hysterical wail that drowned articulation.

I – ” But his voice rose skyward in a dreadful, hysterical wail that drowned articulation.

I – ” But his voice rose skyward in a dreadful, hysterical wail that drowned articulation.

The audience stilled as if a cue had been given, frozen in their half-erotic poses of ecstasy.

The audience stilled as if a cue had been given, frozen in their half-erotic poses of ecstasy.

Raw, oozing whisper.

“Will you renounce?”

She rocked his head; he stared at her with the blank, shiny eyes of the zealot.

“Do you believe in the eternal love of Jesus?”

“Praise God,” Jonson said, still weeping.

” The congregation drained, spoke it solemnly.

” The congregation drained, spoke it solemnly.

“Just as I know this Interloper, this Satan, this Lord of Flies and Serpents will be cast down and crushed. . . will you crush him if you see him, Jonson?”

“Yess… ” Sated.

Her voice dropped a notch.

“She has a house over the knoll in back of the church.

The sky was an ugly, bruised purple, weirdly lit from above with the first fingers of dawn.

Allie moved about like a wraith, lighting lamps, tending the corn fritters that spluttered in the skillet.

But she was pale this morning, on the brink of menopause again.

She asked ironically, and turned to watch him get his hat.

By the time he reached Sylvia Pittston’s shack, the wind had died utterly and the whole world seemed to wait.

He had been in desert country long enough to know that the longer the lull, the harder the wind would blow when it finally decided to start up.

The door banged against a haphazardly planked wall and scared rats into skittering flight Sylvia Pittston sat in the hall, sat in a mammoth darkwood rocker, and looked at him calmly with those great and dark eyes.

The door banged against a haphazardly planked wall and scared rats into skittering flight Sylvia Pittston sat in the hall, sat in a mammoth darkwood rocker, and looked at him calmly with those great and dark eyes.

She did not flinch.

She drew her lip back from her teeth in an unconsciously feral gesture.

If you invade me — ” She let the lazy smile complete her thought At the same time she gestured with her huge, mountainous thighs.

I can remove it” The effect was instantaneous.

She recoiled against the chair, and a weasel look flashed on her face.

Her face had become a caricature of crazed terror, and she stabbed the sign of the Eye at him with pronged fingers.

Her legs locked like a vise.

He pried the legs apart and upholstered one of his guns.

Her breath came in short, savage grunts.

Prayers and garbled bits of jargon flew from her lips.

Prayers and garbled bits of jargon flew from her lips.

” The whole huge mountain of flesh suddenly strained forward and upward, yet he was careful not to let her secret flesh touch him.

By the time he arrived at Kennerly’s, a queer obscurity had come over the northern horizon and he knew it was dust.

Kennerly was waiting for him on the chaff–strewn stage that was the floor of his barn.

But Kennerly did not turn away, merely stood as if searching for something further to say, grinning his groveling, hate–filled grin, and his eyes flicked up and over the gunslinger’s shoulder.

The gunslinger sidestepped and turned at the same time, and the heavy stick of stovewood that the girl Soobie held swished through the air, grazing his elbow only.

The girl looked at him bovinely.

Her breasts thrust with overripe grandeur at the wash–faded shirt she wore.

Her breasts thrust with overripe grandeur at the wash–faded shirt she wore.

“Sure, sure, sure,” Kennerly whispered, the grin now touched with incredulity.

The gunslinger left them there, staring at each other across the dusty, droppings–strewn floor, he with his sick grin, she with dumb, inanimate defiance.

The gunslinger left them there, staring at each other across the dusty, droppings–strewn floor, he with his sick grin, she with dumb, inanimate defiance.

She had not begun her cleaning and the place was as fetid as a wet dog.

He walked past the shuttered, waiting buildings, feeling the eyes that peered through cracks and chinks.

Was it only a sense of the cosmic comic, or a matter of desperation?

There was a shrill, harried scream from behind him, and doors suddenly threw themselves open.

His reaction was automatic, instantaneous, inbred.

She was his shield and sacrifice.

He led them a feverish parade across the street and toward the rickety general store/barber shop that faced Sheb’s.

They never hesitated or faltered, although every shot he fired found a vital spot and although they had probably never seen a gun except for pictures in old magazines.

They shuttled busily between gunbelts and cylinders.

Their faces were zealously blank, their eyes filled with bland fire.

They fell in the window, hung on the jutting shards of glass, choking the opening.

The door crashed and shuddered with their weight and he could hear her voice: “THE KILLER!

The door ripped off its hinges and fell straight in, making a flat handclap.

He retreated, shoving over a flour barrel, rolling it at them, into the barbershop, throwing a pan of boiling water that contained two nicked straight–razors.

They came on, screaming with frantic incoherency.

From somewhere, Sylvia Pittston exhorted them, her voice rising and falling on blind inflections.

He pushed shells into hot chambers, smelling the smells of shave and tonsure, smelling his own flesh as the calluses at the tips of his fingers singed.

Three men hustled around the corner, with large betrayer grins on their faces.

The back door of the barber shop flew open and they boiled out He caught a glimpse of Sylvia Pittston.

They halted for a moment, startled, the mob face shivering into individual, bewildered faces.

The man whom he had first seen sitting gravely on the steps of the mercantile store made a sudden and amazing load in his pants.

She seemed to accordian into herself and waver like a shimmer of heat.

They all stared at her for a moment in tableau, while the gunslinger’s fingers did their reloading trick.

There were less of them, now; he had run through them like a mower’s scythe.

His hands began doing their infallible trick.

They were scattering and he let them have it again.

The ones left began to retreat toward the sand–colored, pitted buildings, and still the hands did their trick, like overeager dogs that want to do their rolling–over trick for you not once or twice but all night, and the hands were cutting them down as they ran.

Silence came back in, filling jagged spaces.

The gunslinger was bleeding from perhaps twenty different wounds, all of them shallow except for the cut across his calf.

He bound it with a strip of shirt and then straightened and examined his kill.

He bound it with a strip of shirt and then straightened and examined his kill.

They trailed in a twisted, zigzagging path from the back door of the barber shop to where he stood.

His mule was standing in a clump of weed about forty yards out along the remnant of the coach road.

He felt the grudging admittance in him: he liked Brown.

The crow was perched on the low roof of his dwelling like a gargoyle.

He blinked at the dead fire with its own shape superimposed over the other, more geometrical one.