Characters in The Wind Through the Keyhole

He had no more than stabled Misty next to Bitsy before Ada Cosington was on the porch, telling him he was needed to drive the Widow Smack home. “You can use my pony-trap. Go gentle where there’s ruts, for the poor woman’s fair done up.”

You’re safe—that’s the world we grew up in, young men, the one that’s almost gone now. “Then the Deschain says, ‘Wake up, Allan Crow, unless you’d go into the clearing at the end of the path with your eyes shut. Wake up, all.’ “They did.

She twitched up the skirt of her gray robe, and—to my deep discomfort—fell on her knees before us. “Sister Fortuna, Annie Clay that was, says thank you. So do we all, but this comes from my own heart.” I took her gently by the shoulders. “Rise, bondswoman.

Black horse, black heart, Tim thought. “We’ll pray for Ardelia Smack,” Nell said, “and all of Tree will come to her burying.

“Aye, there I went next. You can see what’s inside for yourself. The womenfolk too, for they’re still where I found em. I won’t take ye. Snip and Arn might—” “Not me,” said Snip. “Me, neither,” said Arn. “I’ll see ’un all in my dreams, and that’ll do me fine.”

As for me, since this is the Beam of the Lion, ’twas his little joke to put me in the shape of a great cat. Although not in the shape of Aslan, for that’s magic not even he can do . . . although he’d like to, aye.

Go at once, or they’ll be off to the woods.” He might have missed Peter Cosington and Ernie Marchly anyway, if Baldy Anderson, one of Tree’s big farmers, hadn’t stopped by the pair’s storing shed to chat as they hitched their mules and prepared for the day.

“Your da’ showed up in town only a day after they stole a rancher’s wife—Belinda Doolin. Her husband called on the jing-jang as soon as they left and he was able to get himself untied. The Crows didn’t know about the jing-jang, and that was their undoing.

But I have a key, Tim thought, and his fingers stole down to his pants to feel the shape of it. “Where has he gone?” Nell asked, and Tim knew it wasn’t Bern Kells she was speaking of. A wheel or two down the Ironwood. Where he’ll wait for me.

And is your father Old Bill?” He sat up, took Jamie’s bandanna, dipped it in the trough, and squeezed it out so the water ran down his thin chest. “No, Old Bill’s my granther, went into the clearing two years ago. My da’, he’s just plain Bill.”

We dismounted and Sheriff Peavy shook with the men, who looked mightily glad to see us. “Aye, Bill Canfield, see you very well, pokie-fella.” The tallest of them took off his hat and held it against his shirt. “I ain’t no pokie nummore. Or maybe I am, I dunno.

If we could put paid to the skin-man, a certain large lady named Everlynne would owe us a good turn, and I doubt if Bill Streeter would be the first stray she’d taken in. I returned to the subject of the simoom. “How much will it strengthen?”

Here it is!” The Covenant Man turned toward Tim, who was now untying Bitsy and preparing to mount up. He approached the boy, holding something beneath his cloak. “He did it on impulse, sure, and afterward he must have been in a panic.

And you could always draw on me and force me to take you across.” “Never,” Susannah said, looking shocked. “I know that,” Bix said, waving a hand at her. “Harriers might—and then burn my ferry for good measure once they got t’other side—but true men of the gun, never.

The dragon—’twas a bitch, for he could see the pink maiden’s-comb on her head—had risen from the water, standing on her back legs. Not the size of a house, but bigger than Blackie, the Covenant Man’s stallion.

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.

“You said you saw something else,” I said. She considered me with her bright black eyes, then turned to the women. “Clemmie, Brianna, serve out. Fortuna, you will say grace, and be sure to ask God forgiveness for your blasphemy and thank Him that your heart still beats.”

“You said you saw something else,” I said. She considered me with her bright black eyes, then turned to the women. “Clemmie, Brianna, serve out. Fortuna, you will say grace, and be sure to ask God forgiveness for your blasphemy and thank Him that your heart still beats.”

“Hello, traveler!” the woman’s voice said. Tim began to hello her back, but she went on without acknowledging him. “Welcome to DARIA, a guidance service of North Central Positronics. You are on the Beam of the Cat, sometimes known as the Beam of the Lion or of the Tyger.

He still sees a little from one eye. The other . . .” I didn’t need to finish. The other was gone. My hawk, David, had taken it from him in my test of manhood. Cort, in turn, had taken David’s life, but that was to be his last kill.

After a little experimentation—he’d never used a dropper before, although he’d seen a larger, cruder version that Destry called a bull-squirter—Tim got some of the fluid into the little tube. It sucked up almost all the liquid in the bottle, for there was only a bit.

“Long and curved like a scimitar, twitching and full of the black stuff that serves it for blood . . . serves it for blood in that shape, any-ro’. It meant to kill her as it had Dolores, aye, right enough, but it meant to fuck her, too.

Dustin Stokes—inevitably known as Hot Stokes—stood outside the door, wearing white cotton pants instead of his usual leathers. Over them billowed a vast white shirt, falling all the way …

But I knew why. Elrod’d got a bottle somewhere—again—and he was in drink.” “That’d be Elrod Nutter?” Sheriff Peavy asked. “Aye, him. Foreman of the boys, he is.” “I know him well,” Peavy said to us. “Ain’t I had him locked up half a dozen times and more?

Tim knew these men. Peter Cosington (who had suffered his own ill luck that year) and Ernest Marchly were cutters who had come to supper at the Ross cottage on many occasions, and the Ross family had many times eaten at one or the other of theirs.

“May you have twice the number,” Jamie said, and I saw from the woeful glance she gave him with her one visible eye that she hoped this was not true. “Tell them what happened,” Everlynne said. “What you remember, any-ro’. I know ’t isn’t much.” “Must I, Mother?”

Discovered it when I made my rounds, along with news of Frankie Simons’s broken leg, the Wyland baby’s milk-sick, the Riverlys’ dead cows—about which they’re lying through their few remaining teeth, if I know my business, and I do—and all sorts of …

Roscoe’s teaching me the bow. Freddy Two-Step says he’ll show me how to brand, come fall.” “Do well,” I said, and tapped my throat. That made him smile. “They’re good fellas, mostly.” The smile went away as fast as it had come, like the sun going behind a cloud.

He loved nothing better than talking about the men from Gilead who carried the big irons and went forth on quests. Oh, Harry, I only hope it was ka that put me in earshot on that particular noonrest. “Hile, bondsmen!” he cried to the mudmen on the bank.

For sea travel ironwood was wanted, and ironwood brought a high price from Hodiak, the barony buyer who came twice a year to the Tree sawmill.

“Gone up Tavares way, I hear, either looking for poachers or visiting the woman he keeps up there. Makes no difference. Howard Tasley en’t never been worth a fart in a high wind. We’ll do the job ourselves, and have Kells jugged by the time he comes back.”

“It’ll be different after sundown,” I said. “That’s when such creatures as this skin-man do their marauding. Or so Vannay says.” We went into the office. Hugh Peavy was a big-bellied man with long white hair and a droopy mustache. His face was deeply lined and careworn.

So he stood where he was. “Come, thee. Here is Tim, son of Big Jack Ross.” Instead of tearing out Tim’s throat, the tyger sat down and raised its head to expose its collar and the keys that hung from it. Tim did not hesitate.

“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.

“The Jefferson Ranch, ye great grotting idiot! You need to get the sheriff out here, and jin-jin. Everyone’s dead. Jefferson, his fambly, the cookie, all the proddies. Blood from one end t’other.” “How many?” I asked. “Maybe fifteen. Maybe twenty. Who can tell?” Canfield of the Jefferson began to sob.

“Pullets?” Tim asked, frowning. “Nay, nay, bullets. Look you.” She handed him the bag to free both of her gnarled hands, then turned to one side in the doorway. “Joshua said a gun must never be pointed at a person unless you want to hurt or kill him.

* * * It was a ten-wheel ride, straight north toward the Salt Hills. We went with Sheriff Peavy, Kellin Frye—the good deputy—and Frye’s son, Vikka. The enjie, whose name turned out to be Travis, also came along, for he’d spent the night at the Fryes’ place.

Big Kells gasped. “Nine? That’s—” “It’s what?” the Covenant Man said in his rough, crooning voice. “Be careful how you answer, Bern Kells, son of Mathias, grandson of Limping Peter. Be ever so careful, because, although your neck is thick, I believe it would stretch thin. Aye, so I do.”

Big Kells gasped. “Nine? That’s—” “It’s what?” the Covenant Man said in his rough, crooning voice. “Be careful how you answer, Bern Kells, son of Mathias, grandson of Limping Peter. Be ever so careful, because, although your neck is thick, I believe it would stretch thin. Aye, so I do.”

Her crying ceased. “It was a slip, is all—a mistake. I went in with Mellon just to have a ginger-beer and hear about his new stake, and someone put a glass of jackaroe in front of me.

Big Ross was on the verge of severing their partnership when the miracle happened. It was a small miracle, hardly more than five feet from toes to crown, and her name was Millicent Redhouse. What Bern Kells would not do for Big Ross, he did for Milly.

I gave him time, then asked if he’d like me to saddle a horse for him. “If it’s all right to ride Millie, I can saddle her myself. I feed her, and she’s my special friend. People say mules ain’t smart, but Millie is.”

I think we should go to town, and see if the constable’s back from Taveres. On the way, you can tell me everything. Can thee help me hitch Misty and Bitsy to the wagon?” “Yes, Mama. But I have to get something, first. Something she gave me.” “All right.

“Maybe fifteen. Maybe twenty. Who can tell?” Canfield of the Jefferson began to sob. “They’re all in pieces. Whatever it was did for em left the two dogs, Rosie and Mozie. They was in there. We had to shoot em. They was lapping up the blood and eating the brains.”

In the barn, he asked Bitsy if she would like to go for another evening ride. The Widow Smack was exhausted by her unaccustomed labors on Nell Ross’s behalf, but she was also old, and sick, and more disturbed by the queerly unseasonable weather than her conscious mind would admit.

“The proddies call me Young Bill.” “Aye, do they? And is your father Old Bill?” He sat up, took Jamie’s bandanna, dipped it in the trough, and squeezed it out so the water ran down his thin chest. “No, Old Bill’s my granther, went into the clearing two years ago.

At least he no longer smelled graf on his stepfather’s breath, and there were no more stories—from Straw Willem or anyone else—of Big Kells reeling out of the redeye when Old Gitty shut and locked the doors. He promised and he’s keeping his promise, Tim thought.

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’?

That’s where the tracks went, but Deschain wanted to go around and come in from the east. From the High Pure. The sheriff, Pea Anderson it was back then, didn’t want none o’ that. Eager as a bird with its eye on a worm he was, mad to press on.

Go at once, or they’ll be off to the woods.” He might have missed Peter Cosington and Ernie Marchly anyway, if Baldy Anderson, one of Tree’s big farmers, hadn’t stopped by the pair’s storing shed to chat as they hitched their mules and prepared for the day.

No forehead-knocking for this fellow. After we’d shaken with him and introduced ourselves, he said: “I don’t mean to belittle you, young fellows, but I was hoping to see Steven Deschain himself. And perhaps Peter McVries.” “McVries died three years ago,” I said. Peavy looked shocked. “Do you say so?

“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.

“Yes, sai, do it please you.” “Who did you speak to?” “Puck DeLong. He’s a boy I know from Reap Fairday. He’s just a miner’s kid, but we palled around some, and did the three-leg race together. His da’s foreman of the nightwork crew. That’s what Puck says, anyways.”

“Do you say so? I guess the fella my big brother seed rollin out of yonder redeye last night must’ve been some other orphing-boy’s steppa, because Randy said he was as sloshed as a shindybug and heavin up over the hitchin-rail.”

Blood pattered down on the right sleeve of his flannel woodsman’s shirt, which was still speckled with hay from his fugitive nights in Deaf Rincon’s barn. Above his right ear, his head had grown an ax-handle. Nell Ross stood behind him, the front of her nightgown spattered with blood.

Tiny Braddock taught me how to make a lasso, and I throw it pretty. Roscoe’s teaching me the bow. Freddy Two-Step says he’ll show me how to brand, come fall.” “Do well,” I said, and tapped my throat. That made him smile. “They’re good fellas, mostly.”

She lifted her skirts to her knee, and we saw a butcher’s knife in a rawhide scabbard strapped to the outside of her calf. “So let it come for Everlynne, daughter of Roseanna.” “You said you saw something else,” I said.

“Maybe fifteen. Maybe twenty. Who can tell?” Canfield of the Jefferson began to sob. “They’re all in pieces. Whatever it was did for em left the two dogs, Rosie and Mozie. They was in there. We had to shoot em. They was lapping up the blood and eating the brains.”

The foreman, a decent sai named Rupert Venn, told them they might get more time if that season’s snowfall was light and the winter haul was good—meaning the ironwood rounds that cutters such as Kells brought back from the …

And so we ended up spending our first night in Debaria in the large drunk-and-disorderly cell, beneath Peavy’s chalked map. Salty Sam had been set free, and we had the jail to ourselves. Outside, a strong wind had begun to blow off the alkali flats to the west of town.

“I think he has,” Jamie said. “Listen, Roland.” “There’s one rich fella up in Little Debaria, name of Sam Shunt,” Wegg said. “The miners call him Shunt the Cunt, which ain’t surprising, since he’s got most of em where the hair grows short.

Nothing quite seemed to fit the situation, however, until he recalled a fragment of an old story he’d heard from Splinter Harry, one of the codgers who worked part-time at the sawmill.

… his brother, Hunter (known as Spot Hunter for his freckles), riding to meet the posse, which had gone out Tree Road. “They mean to search every stake and stub on the Ironwood,” Spot Hunter said excitedly. “We’ll find him.” The posse hadn’t found Kells in town after all, it seemed.

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’s made of lies from boots to crown, and his gospels bring nothing but tears.” On his way back down the high street, he encountered Straw Willem and his brother, Hunter (known as Spot Hunter for his freckles), riding to meet the posse, which had gone out Tree Road.

“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.

I think she’s dead.” “Sorry for your loss, son.” “She was my friend,” Tim said simply. Maerlyn nodded. “It’s a sad world, Tim Ross. As for me, since this is the Beam of the Lion, ’twas his little joke to put me in the shape of a great cat.

He turned to Jamie and me. “I make the bunks, coil the rope, cinch the bedrolls, polish the saddles, set the gates at the end of the day after the horses is turned in. Tiny Braddock taught me how to make a lasso, and I throw it pretty.

The enjie, whose name turned out to be Travis, also came along, for he’d spent the night at the Fryes’ place. We pushed our mounts hard, but it was still full daylight by the time we got to the Jefferson spread.

“Yes,” I said. I had run it myself on more than one Reap Fairday, and not that long ago, either. Vikka Frye swallowed hard, and his eyes filled with tears. “Billy’s da’ cheered like to bust his throat when Billy come in first,” he whispered. “I’m sure he did.

“And if you won’t, go to hell and go there thirsty!” That made most of them laugh. “Sai Deschain,” Wegg said, “puttin drink in these fellers ain’t a good idea.” But I thought it was. I motioned Kellin Frye to me and dropped two gold knucks into his hand.

North of the women’s retreat, up toward the jags at the top of his map, he put another X. “This is where Yon Curry, the sheepherder, was killed.” To the left of this X, but pretty much on the same level—which is to say, below the jags—he put another.

Never think it.” I only looked at her. Standing, she was almost tall enough to look into my eyes, although I sat on Young Joe, a fine big horse. “An it,” she said. “A monster from the Deep Cracks, as sure as you two serve the Eld and the White.