The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2)(82)

They drew off a distance from her.

"Ain't I good nough cump'ny for white boys like you?" she cawed after them. "Or did you jes maybe want to have a pull on each other one's little bitty white candle?"

She threw her head back and screamed laughter that frightened the gulls up, crying, from the rocks where they had been met in convention a quarter of a mile away.

The gunslinger sat with his hands dangling between his knees, thinking. Finally he raised his head and told Eddie, "I can only understand about one word in every ten she says."

"I'm way ahead of you," Eddie replied. "I'm getting at least two in every three. Doesn't matter. Most of it comes back to honky mahfah."

Roland nodded. "Do many of the dark-skinned people talk that way where you come from? Her other didn't."

Eddie shook his head and laughed. "No. And I'll tell you something sort of funny - at least I think it's sort of funny, but maybe that's just because there isn't all that much to laugh at out here. It's not real. It's not real and she doesn't even know it."

Roland looked at him and said nothing.

"Remember when you washed off her forehead, how she pretended she was scared of the water?"

"Yes."

"You knew she was pretending?"

"Not at first, but quite soon."

Eddie nodded. "That was an act, and she knew it was an act. But she's a pretty good actress and she fooled both of us for a few seconds. The way she's talking is an act, too. But it's not as good. It's so stupid, so goddam hokey!"

"You believe she pretends well only when she knows she's doing it?"

"Yes. She sounds like a cross between the darkies in this book called Mandingo I read once and Butterfly McQueen in Gone with the Wind. I know you don't know those names, but what I mean is she talks like a cliche. Do you know that word?"

"It means what is always said or believed by people who think only a little or not at all."

"Yeah. I couldn't have said it half so good."

''Ain't you boys done jerkin on dem candles a yours yet? " Detta's voice was growing hoarse and cracked. "Or maybe it's just you can't fine em. Dat it?"

"Come on." The gunslinger got slowly to his feet. He swayed for a moment, saw Eddie looking at him, and smiled. "I'll be all right."

"For how long?"

"As long as I have to be," the gunslinger answered, and the serenity in his voice chilled Eddie's heart.

12

That night the gunslinger used his last sure live cartridge to make their kill. He would start systematically testing the ones he believed to be duds tomorrow night, but he believed it was pretty much as Eddie had said: They were down to beating the damned things to death.

It was like the other nights: the fire, the cooking, the shelling, the eating - eating which was now slow and unenthusiastic. We're just gassing up, Eddie thought. They offered food to Detta, who screamed and laughed and cursed and asked how long they was goan take her for a fool, and then she began throwing her body wildly from one side to the other, never minding how her bonds grew steadily tighter, only trying to upset the chair to one side or the other so they would have to pick her up again before they could eat.

Just before she could manage the trick, Eddie grabbed her and Roland braced the wheels on either sides with rocks.

"I'll loosen the ropes a bit if you'll be still," Roland told her.

"Suck shit out my ass, mahfah!"

"I don't understand if that means yes or no."

She looked at him, eyes narrowed, suspecting some buried barb of satire in that calm voice (Eddie also wondered, but couldn't tell if there was or not), and after a moment she said sulkily, "I be still. Too damn hungry to kick up much dickens. You boys goan give me some real food or you jes goan starve me to death? Dat yo plan? You too chickenshit to choke me and I ain't nev' goan eat no poison, so dat must be you plan. Starve me out. Well, we see, sho. We goan see. Sho we are."

She offered them her bone-chilling sickle of a grin again.

Not long after she fell asleep.

Eddie touched the side of Roland's face. Roland glanced at him but did not pull away from the touch.

"I'm all right."

"Yeah, you're Jim-dandy. Well, I tell you what, Jim, we didn't get along very far today."

"I know." There was also the matter of having used the last live shell, but that was knowledge Eddie could do without, at least tonight. Eddie wasn't sick, but he was exhausted. Too exhausted for more bad news.

No, he's not sick, not yet, but if he goes too long without rest, gets tired enough, he'll get sick.

In a way, Eddie already was; both of them were. Cold-sores had developed at the corners of Eddie's mouth, and there was scaly patches on his skin. The gunslinger could feel his teeth loosening up in their sockets, and the flesh between his toes had begun to crack open and bleed, as had that between his remaining fingers. They were eating, but they were eating the same thing, day in and day out. They could go on that way for a time, but in the end they would die as surely as if they had starved.

What we have is Shipmate's Disease on dry land, Roland thought. Simple as that. How funny. We need fruit. We need greens.