The room was filled with what were in that place and time called “bareback benches”-oaken pews with no cushions for either butt or back. There were sixty in all, thirty on each side of a wide center aisle. Jonas, Depape, and Reynolds sat on the front bench to the left of the aisle. Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain sat across from them on the right. Reynolds and Depape looked sullen and embarrassed; Jonas looked remote and composed. Will Dearborn’s little crew was quiet. Roland had given Cuthbert a look which he hoped the boy could read: One smart remark and I’ll rip the tongue right out of your head. He thought the message had been received. Bert had stowed his idiotic “lookout” somewhere, which was a good sign.
“A nice mess,” Avery repeated, and blew liquor-scented wind at them in a deep sigh. He was sitting on the edge of the stage with his short legs hanging down, looking at them with a kind of disgusted wonder.
The side door opened and in came Deputy Dave, his white service jacket laid aside, his monocle tucked into the pocket of his more usual khaki shirt. In one hand he carried a mug; in the other a folded scrap of what looked to Roland like birch-bark.
“Did ye boil the first half, David?” Avery asked. He now wore a put-upon expression.
“Aye.”
“Boiled it twice?”
“Aye, twice.”
“For that was the directions.”
“Aye,” Dave repeated in a resigned voice. He handed Avery the cup and dumped the remaining contents of the birch-bark scrap in when the Sheriff held the cup out for them.
Avery swirled the liquid, peered in with a doubtful, resigned expression, then drank. He grimaced. “Oh, foul!” he cried. “What’s so nasty as this?”
“What is it?” Jonas asked.
“Headache powder. Hangover powder, ye might say. From the old witch. The one who lives up the Coos. Know where I mean?” Avery gave Jonas a knowing look. The old gunny pretended not to see it, but Roland thought he had. And what did it mean? Another mystery.
Depape looked up at the word Coos, then went back to sucking his wounded finger. Beyond Depape, Reynolds sat with his cloak drawn about him, looking grimly down at his lap.
“Does it work?” Roland asked.
“Aye, boy, but ye pay a price for witch’s medicine. Remember that: ye always pay. This 'un takes away the headache if ye drink too much of Mayor Thorin’s damned punch, but it gripes the bowels somethin fierce, so it does. And the farts-!” He waved a hand in front of his face to demonstrate, took another sip from the cup, then set it aside. He returned to his former gravity, but the mood in the room had lightened just a little; they all felt it. “Now what are we to do about this business?”
Herk Avery swept them slowly with his eyes, from Reynolds on his far right to Alain-“Richard Stockworth”-on his far left. “Eh, boys? We’ve got the Mayor’s men on one side and the Affiliation’s… men… on the other, six fellows at the point of murder, and over what? A halfwit and a spilled bucket of slops.” He pointed first at the Big Coffin Hunters, then to the Affiliation’s counters. “Two powderkegs and one fat sheriff in the middle. So what’s yer thoughts on’t? Speak up, don’t be shy, you wasn’t shy in Coral’s whoreden down the road, don’t be shy in here!”
No one said anything. Avery sipped some more of his foul drink, then set it down and looked at them decisively. What he said next didn’t surprise Roland much; it was exactly what he would have expected of a man like Avery, right down to the tone which implied that he considered himself a man who could make the hard decisions when he had to, by the gods.
“I’ll tell yer what we’re going to do: We’re going to forget it.”
He now assumed the air of one who expects an uproar and is prepared to handle it. When no one spoke or even shuffled a foot, he looked discomfited. Yet he had a job to do, and the night was growing old. He squared his shoulders and pushed on.
“I’ll not spend the next three or four months waiting to see who among you’s killed who. Nay! Nor will I be put in a position where I might have to take the punishment for your stupid quarrel over that halfwit Sheemie.
“I appeal to your practical natures, boys, when I point out that I may he either your friend or your enemy during your time here… but I’d be wrong if 1 didn’t also appeal to your more noble natures, which I am sure are both large and sensitive.”
The Sheriff now tried on an exalted expression, which was not, in Roland’s estimation, notably successful. Avery turned his attention to Jonas.
“Sai, I can’t believe ye’ll want to be causin trouble for three young men from the Affiliation-the Affiliation that’s been like mother’s milk and father’s shelterin hand since aye or oh fifty generations back; ye’d not be so disrespectful as all that, would ye?”
Jonas shook his head, smiling his thin smile.
Avery nodded again. Things were going along well, that nod said. “Ye’ve all yer own cakes to bake and oats to roll, and none of ye wants something like this to get in the way of doin yer jobs, do yer?”
They all shook their heads this time.
“So what I want you to do is to stand up, face each other, shake hands, and cry each other’s pardon. If ye don’t do that, ye can all ride west out of town by sunrise, far as I’m concerned.”
He picked up the mug and took a bigger drink this time. Roland saw that the man’s hand was trembling the tiniest bit, and wasn’t surprised. It was all bluff and blow, of course. The Sheriff would have understood that Jonas, Reynolds, and Depape were beyond his authority as soon as he saw the small blue coffins on their hands; after tonight, he must feel the same way about Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath. He could only hope that all would see where their self-interest lay. Roland did. So, apparently, did Jonas, for even as Roland got up, Jonas did the same.
Avery recoiled a little bit, as if expecting Jonas to go for his gun and Dearborn for the knife in his belt, the one he’d been holding against Jonas’s back when Avery came puffing up to the saloon.
There was no gun or knife drawn, however. Jonas turned toward Roland and held out his hand.
“He’s right, lad,” Jonas said in his reedy, quavering voice.
“Yes.”
“Will you shake with an old man, and vow to start over?”
“Yes.” Roland held out his hand.
Jonas took it. “I cry your pardon.”
“I cry your own, Mr. Jonas.” Roland tapped left-hand at his throat, as was proper when addressing an elder in such fashion.
As the two of them sat down, Alain and Reynolds rose, as neatly as men in a prerehearsed ceremony. Last of all, Cuthbert and Depape rose. Roland was all but positive that Cuthbert’s foolishness would pop out like Jack from his box-the idiot would simply not be able to help himself, although he must surely realize that Depape was no man to make sport of tonight.
“Cry your pardon,” Bert said, with an admirable lack of laughter in his voice.
“Cryerown,” Depape mumbled, and held out his bloodstreaked hand. Roland had a nightmare vision of Bert squeezing down on it as hard as he could, making the redhead yowl like an owl on a hot stove, but Bert’s grip was as restrained as his voice.
Avery sat on the edge of the stage with his pudgy legs hanging down, watching it all with avuncular good cheer. Even Deputy Dave was smiling.
“Now I propose to shake hands with yer all myself, ’ then send yer on yer ways, for the hour’s late, so it is, and such as me needs my beauty rest.” He chuckled, and again looked uncomfortable when no one joined in. But he slipped off the stage and began to shake hands, doing so with the enthusiasm of a minister who has finally succeeded in marrying a headstrong couple after a long and stormy courtship.