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.