But she swung the cylinder back in, began to cock the hammer . . . and then paused again. Paused for the wind to mask the single low click.
He thought: Here is another. God, she’s evil, this one, and she’s legless, but she’s a gunslinger as surely as Eddie is one.
He waited with her.
The wind gusted.
She pulled the hammer to full cock and placed it half an inch from Eddie’s temple. With a grin that was a ghoul’s grimace, she pulled the trigger.
Click.
He waited.
She pulled it again. And again. And again.
Click-Click-Click.
“MahFAH!” she screamed, and reversed the gun with liquid grace.
Roland coiled but did not leap. A child doesn’t understand a hammer until he’s mashed his finger at a nail.
If she kills him, she kills you.
Doesn’t matter, the voice of Cort answered inexorably.
Eddie stirred. And his reflexes were not bad; he moved fast enough to avoid being driven unconscious or killed. Instead of coming down on the vulnerable temple, the heavy gun-butt cracked the side of his jaw.
“What . . . Jesus!”
“MAHFAH! HONKY MAHFAH!” Detta screamed, and Roland saw her raise the gun a second time. And even though she was legless and Eddie was rolling away, it was as much as he dared. If Eddie hadn’t learned the lesson now, he never would. The next time the gunslinger told Eddie to be on his guard, Eddie would be, and besides—the bitch was quick. It would not be wise to depend further than this on either Eddie’s quickness or the Lady’s infirmity.
He uncoiled, flying over Eddie and knocking her backward, ending up on top of her.
“You want it, mahfah?” she screamed at him, simultaneously rolling her crotch against his groin and raising the arm which still held the gun above his head. “You want it? I goan give you what you want, sho!”
“Eddie!” he shouted again, not just yelling now but commanding. For a moment Eddie just went on squatting there, eyes wide, blood dripping from his jaw （it had already begun to swell）， staring, eyes wide. Move, can’t you move? he thought, or is it that you don’t want to? His strength was fading now, and the next time she brought that heavy gun-butt down she was going to break his arm with it . . . that was if he got his arm up in time. If he didn’t, she was going to break his head with it.
Then Eddie moved. He caught the gun on the downswing and she shrieked, turning toward him, biting at him like a vampire, cursing him in a gutter patois so darkly southern that even Eddie couldn’t understand it; to Roland it sounded as if the woman had suddenly begun to speak in a foreign language. But Eddie was able to yank the gun out of her hand and with the impending bludgeon gone, Roland was able to pin her.
She did not quit even then but continued to buck and heave and curse, sweat standing out all over her dark face.
Eddie stared, mouth opening and closing like the mouth of a fish. He touched tentatively at his jaw, winced, pulled his fingers back, examined them and the blood on them.
She was screaming that she would kill them both; they could try and rape her but she would kill them with her cunt, they would see, that was one bad son of a bitching cave with teeth around the entrance and if they wanted to try and explore it they would find out.
“What in the hell—” Eddie said stupidly.
“One of my gunbelts,” the gunslinger panted harshly at him. “Get it. I’m going to roll her over on top of me and you’re going to grab her arms and tie her hands behind her.”
“You ain’t NEVAH!” Detta shrieked, and sunfished her legless body with such sudden force that she almost bucked Roland off. He felt her trying to bring the remainder of her right thigh up again and again, wanting to drive it into his balls.