Jonas’s hands went to work, disassembling the revolvers Cuthbert and Alain had brought west. Alain’s had never even been worn, save on the practice-range. Outside, Jonas threw the pieces, scattering them every whichway. He threw as hard as he could, trying to rid himself of that cool blue gaze and the shock of hearing what he’d believed no man had known. Roy and Clay suspected, but even they hadn’t known for sure.

Before the sun went down, everyone in Mejis would know that Eldred Jonas, the white-haired regulator with the tattooed coffin on his hand, was nothing but a failed gunslinger.

You’ll live in exile and die as you lived.

“P’raps,” he said, looking at the burned-out ranch house without really seeing it. “But I’ll live longer than you, young Dearborn, and die long after your bones are rusting in the ground.”

He mounted up and swung his horse around, sawing viciously at the reins. He rode for Citgo, where Roy and Clay would be waiting, and he rode hard, but Roland’s eyes rode with him.

7

“Wake up! Wake up, sai! Wake up! Wake up!”

At first the words seemed to be coming from far away, drifting down by some magical means to the dark place where she lay. Even when the voice was joined by a rudely shaking hand and Susan knew she must wake up, it was a long, hard struggle.

It had been weeks since she’d gotten a decent night’s sleep, and she had expected more of the same last night... especially last night. She had lain awake in her luxurious bedchamber at Seafront, tossing from side to side, possibilities—none good—crowding her mind. The nightgown she wore crept up to her hips and bunched at the small of her back. When she got up to use the commode, she took the hateful thing off, hurled it into a corner, and crawled back into bed naked.

Being out of the heavy silk nightgown had done the trick. She dropped off almost at once... and in this case, dropped off was exactly right: it was less like falling asleep than falling into some thoughtless, dreamless crack in the earth.

Now this intruding voice. This intruding arm, shaking her so hard that her head rolled from side to side on the pillow. Susan tried to slide away from it, pulling her knees up to her chest and mouthing fuzzy protests, but the arm followed. The shaking recommenced; the nagging, calling voice never stopped.

“Wake up, sai! Wake up! In the name of the Turtle and the Bear, wake up!”

Maria’s voice. Susan hadn’t recognized it at first because Maria was so upset. Susan had never heard her so, or expected to. Yet it was so; the maid sounded on the verge of hysteria.

Susan sat up. For a moment so much input—all of it wrong—crashed in on her that she was incapable of moving. The duvet beneath which she had slept tumbled into her lap, exposing her breasts, and she could do no more than pluck weakly at it with the tips of her fingers.