Not six days’ ride nor’west of us,
and bound southeast along the Path of the Beam, come three gunslingers and one
‘prentice.“ He smiled at their amazement. Then he turned to Slightman. ”The
‘prentice isn’t much older than your boy Ben, but he’s already as quick as a
snake and as deadly as a scorpion. The others are quicker and deadlier by far. I
have it from Andy, who’s seen them. You want hard calibers? They’re at hand. I
set my watch and warrant on it.”
This time Overholser made it all the way to his feet. His face burned as if with
a fever. His great pod of a belly trembled. “What children’s goodnight story is
this?“ he asked. ”If there ever were such men, they passed out of existence with
Gilead. And Gilead has been dust in the wind for a thousand years.”
There were no mutterings of support or dispute. No mutterings of any kind. The
crowd was still frozen, caught in the reverberation of that one mythic word:
gunslingers...