Stephen King - The wind through the keyhole

“At first it’s the cat screaming, then it changes into a human screaming. High to begin with, it’s like a woman, but then it starts to go down until it’s a man. It screams and screams. It makes me want to scream. I thought-”

“Think,” I said. “You think, Bill, because it’s happening now. Only I’m here to protect you. My guns are drawn.”

“I think my head will split open. Then it stops… and it comes in.”

“It walks up the middle to the other door, doesn’t it?”

He shook his head. “Not walks. Shuffles. Staggers. Like it’s hurt. It goes right past me. He. Now it’s he. He almost falls down, but grabs one of the stall doors and stays up. Then he goes on. He goes on a little better now.”

“Stronger?”

“Aye.”

“Do you see his face?” I thought I already knew the answer to that.

“No, only his feet, through the tack. The moon’s up, and I see them very well.”

Perhaps so, but we wouldn’t be identifying the skin-man from his feet, I felt quite sure. I opened my mouth, ready to start bringing him up from his trance, when he spoke again.

“There’s a ring around one of his ankles.”

I leaned forward, as if he could see me… and if he was deep enough, mayhap he could, even with his eyes closed. “What kind of ring? Was it metal, like a manacle?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Like a bridle-ring? You know, a hoss-clinkum?”

“No, no. Like on Elrod’s arm, but that’s a picture of a nekkid woman, and you can hardly make it out nummore.”

“Bill, are you talking about a tattoo?”

In his trance, the boy smiled. “Aye, that’s the word. But this one wasn’t a picture, just a blue ring around his ankle. A blue ring in his skin.”

I thought, We have you. You don’t know it yet, sai skin-man, but we have you.

“Mister, can I wake up now? I want to wake up.”

“Is there anything else?”

“The white mark?” He seemed to be asking himself.

“What white mark?”

He shook his head slowly from side to side, and I decided to let it go. He’d had enough.

“Come to the sound of my voice. As you come, you’ll leave everything that happened last night behind, because it’s over. Come, Bill. Come now.”

“I’m coming.” His eyes rolled back and forth behind his closed lids.

“You’re safe. Everything that happened at the ranch is ago. Isn’t it?”

“Yes…”

“Where are we?”

“On Debaria high road. We’re going to town. I ain’t been there but once. My da’ bought me candy.”

“I’ll buy you some, too,” I said, “for you’ve done well, Young Bill of the Jefferson. Now open your eyes.”

He did, but at first he only looked through me. Then his eyes cleared and he gave an uncertain smile. “I fell asleep.”

“You did. And now we should push for town before the wind grows too strong. Can you do that, Bill?”

“Aye,” he said, and as he got up he added, “I was dreaming of candy.”

The two not-so-good deputies were in the sheriff’s office when we got there, one of them-a fat fellow wearing a tall black hat with a gaudy rattlesnake band-taking his ease behind Peavy’s desk. He eyed the guns I was wearing and got up in a hurry.

“You’re the gunslinger, ain’tcha?” he said. “Well-met, well-met, we both say so. Where’s t’other one?”

I escorted Young Bill through the archway and into the jail without answering. The boy looked at the cells with interest but no fear. The drunk, Salty Sam, was long gone, but his aroma lingered.

From behind me, the other deputy asked, “What do you think you’re doing, young sai?”

“My business,” I said. “Go back to the office and bring me the keyring to these cells. And be quick about it, if you please.”

None of the smaller cells had mattresses on their bunks, so I took Young Bill to the drunk-and-disorderly cell where Jamie and I had slept the night before. As I put the two straw pallets together to give the boy a little more comfort-after what he’d been through, I reckoned he deserved all the comfort he could get-Bill looked at the chalked map on the wall.

“What is it, sai?”

“Nothing to concern you,” I said. “Now listen to me. I’m going to lock you in, but you’re not to be afraid, for you’ve done nothing wrong. ’Tis but for your own safety. I have an errand that needs running, and when it’s done, I’m going to come in there with you.”

“And lock us both in,” said he. “You’d better lock us both in. In case it comes back.”

“Do you remember it now?”

“A little,” said he, looking down. “It wasn’t a man… then it was. It killed my da’.” He put the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Poor Da’.”

The deputy with the black hat returned with the keys. The other was right behind him. Both were gawking at the boy as if he were a two-headed goat in a roadshow.

I took the keys. “Good. Now back to the office, both of you.”

“Seems like you might be throwing your weight around a little, youngster,” Black Hat said, and the other-a little man with an undershot jaw-nodded vigorously.

“Go now,” I said. “This boy needs rest.”

They looked me up and down, then went. Which was the correct thing. The only thing, really. My mood was not good.

The boy kept his eyes covered until their bootheels faded back through the arch, then he lowered his hands. “Will you catch him, sai?”

“Yes.”

“And will you kill him?”

“Does thee want me to kill him?”

He considered this, and nodded. “Aye. For what he did to my da’, and to sai Jefferson, and all the others. Even Elrod.”

I closed the door of the cell, found the right key, and turned it. The keyring I hung over my wrist, for it was too big for my pocket. “I’ll make you a promise, Young Bill,” I said. “One I swear to on my father’s name. I won’t kill him, but you shall be there when he swings, and with my own hand I’ll give you the bread to scatter beneath his dead feet.”

In the office, the two not-so-good deputies eyed me with caution and dislike. That was nothing to me. I hung the keyring on the peg next to the jing-jang and said, “I’ll be back in an hour, maybe a little less. In the meantime, no one goes into the jail. And that includes you two.”

“High-handed for a shaveling,” the one with the undershot jaw remarked.

“Don’t fail me in this,” I said. “It wouldn’t be wise. Do you understand?”

Black Hat nodded. “But the sheriff will hear how you done with us.”

“Then you’ll want to have a mouth still capable of speech when he gets back,” I said, and went out.

The wind had continued to strengthen, blowing clouds of gritty, salt-flavored dust between the false-fronted buildings. I had Debaria high street entirely to myself except for a few hitched horses that stood with their hindquarters turned to the wind and their heads unhappily lowered. I would not leave my own so-nor Millie, the mule the boy had ridden-and led them down to the livery stable at the far end of the street. There the hostler was glad to take them, especially when I split him off half a gold knuck from the bundle I carried in my vest.

No, he said in answer to my first question, there was no jeweler in Debaria, nor ever had been in his time. But the answer to my second question was yar, and he pointed across the street to the blacksmith’s shop. The smith himself was standing in the doorway, the hem of his tool-filled leather apron flapping in the wind. I walked across and he put his fist to his forehead. “Hile.”

I hiled him in return and told him what I wanted-what Vannay had said I might need. He listened closely, then took the shell I handed him. It was the very one I’d used to entrance Young Bill. The blackie held it up to the light. “How many grains of powder does it blow, can’ee say?”