She knelt a moment longer, then got up and shuffled back toward her hut, holding Ermot to her bosom.

Chapter V

WIZARD’S RAINBOW

1

On an afternoon three days after Roland’s and Cuthbert’s visit to the Cöos, Roy Depape and Clay Reynolds walked along the upstairs hallway of the Travellers’ Rest to the spacious bedroom Coral Thorin kept there. Clay knocked. Jonas called for them to come in, it was open.

The first thing Depape saw upon entering was sai Thorin herself, in a rocker by the window. She wore a foamy nightdress of white silk and a red bufanda on her head. She had a lapful of knitting. Depape looked at her in surprise. She offered him and Reynolds an enigmatic smile, said “Hello, gents,” and returned to her needlework. Outside there was a rattle of firecrackers (young folks could never wait until the big day; if they had crackers in their hands, they had to set match to them), the nervous whinny of a horse, and the raucous laughter of boys.

Depape turned to Reynolds, who shrugged and then crossed his arms to hold the sides of his cloak. In this way he expressed doubt or disapproval or both.

“Problem?”

Jonas was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, wiping shaving soap from his face with the end of the towel laid over his shoulder. He was bare to the waist. Depape had seen him that way plenty of times, but the old white crisscrossings of scars always made him feel a little sick to his stomach.

“Well... I knew we was using the lady’s room, I just didn’t know the lady came with it.”

“She does.” Jonas tossed the towel into the bathroom, crossed to the bed, and took his shirt from where it hung on one of the footposts. Beyond him, Coral glanced up, gave his naked back a single greedy look, then went back to her work once more. Jonas slipped into his shirt. “How are things at Citgo, Clay?”

“Quiet. But it’ll get noisy if certain young vagabundos poke their nosy noses in.”

“How many are out there, and how do they set?”

“Ten in the days. A dozen at night. Roy or I are out once every shift, but like I say, it’s been quiet.”

Jonas nodded, but he wasn’t happy. He’d hoped to draw the boys out to Citgo before now, just as he’d hoped to draw them into a confrontation by vandalizing their place and killing their pigeons. Yet so far they still hid behind their damned Hillock. He felt like a man in a field with three young bulls. He’s got a red rag, this would-be torero, and he’s flapping it for all he’s worth, and still the toros refuse to charge. Why?

“The moving operation? How goes that?”