 Still reading Dark Tower IV by Stephen King. Having a little trouble finishing it but I take full responsibility of this mismanagement of my time. The book is still fantastic! Since I talk about it soo much I thought I would deliver to the faithful visitors of Pajaro's Pub, an exerpt from this novel. The following is a pretty tense scene of Roland and his two companions, Cuthbert and Alain, in their younger days, getting into a bit of a fix in Hambry at the Traveler's Rest:
'They talked about it in Hambry for years to come; three decades after the fall of Gilead and the end of the Affiliation, they were still talking. By that time there were better than five hundred old gaffers (and a few old gammers) claiming that they were drinking a beer in the Rest that night, and saw it all.
Depape was young, and had the speed of a snake. Nevertheless, he never came close to getting a shot off at Cuthbert Allgood. There was a thip-TWANG! As the elastic was released, a steel gleam that drew itself across the saloon's smoky air like a line on a slateboard, and then Depape screamed. His revolver tumbled to the floor, and a foot spun it away from him across the sawdust (no one would claim that foot while the Big Coffin Hunters were still in Hambry; hundreds claimed it after they were gone). Still screaming — he could not bear pain — Depape raised his bleeding hand and looked at it with agonized, unbelieving eyes. Actually, he had been lucky. Cuthbert's ball had smashed the tip of the second finger and torn off the nail. Lower, and Depape would have been able to blow smoke-rings through his own palm.
Cuthbert, meanwhile, had already reloaded the cup of his slingshot and drawn the elastic back again. "Now," he said, "if I have your attention, good sir--"
"I can't speak for his," Reynolds said from behind him, "but you got mine, partner. I don't know if you're good with that thing or just shitass lucky, but either way, you're done with it now. Relax the draw on it and put it down. That table in front of you's the place I want to see it."
"I've been blindsided," Cuthbert said sadly. "Betrayed once more by my own callow youth."
"I don't know nothing about your callow youth, brother, but you've been blindsided, all right," Reynolds agreed. He stood behind and slightly to the left of Cuthbert, and now he moved his gun forward until the boy could feel the muzzle against the back of his head. Reynolds thumbed the hammer. In the pool of silence which the Travellers' Rest had become, the sound was very loud. "Now put that twanger down."
"I think, good sir, that I must offer my regrets and decline."
"What?"
"You see, I've got my trusty sling aimed at your pleasant friend's head--" Cuthbert began, and when Depape shifted uneasily against the bar, Cuthbert's voice rose in a whipcrack that did not sound callow in the least. "Stand still! Move again and you're a dead man!"
Depape subsided, holding his bloody hand against his pine-tacky shirt. For the first time he looked frightened, and for the first time that night — for the first time since hooking up with Jonas, in fact — Reynolds felt mastery of the situation on the verge of slipping away...except how could it be? How could it be when he'd been able to circle around this smart-talking squint and get the drop on him? This should be over.
Lowering his voice to his former conversational — not to say playful — pitch, Cuthbert said: "If you shoot me, the ball flies and your friend dies, too."
"I don't believe that," Reynolds said, but he didn't like what he heard in his own voice. It sounded like doubt. "No man could make a shot like that."
"Why don't we let your friend decide?" Cuthbert raised his voice in a good-humored hail. "Hi-ho, there, Mr. Spectacles! Would you like your pal to shoot me?"
"No!" Depape's cry was shrill, verging on panic. "No, Clay! Don't shoot!"
"So it's a standoff," Reynolds said, bemused. And then bemusement changed to horror as he felt the blade of a very large knife slip against his throat. It pressed the tender skin just over his adam's apple.
"No it's not," Alain said softly. "Put the gun down, my friend, or I'll cut your throat." '
I hope you enjoyed this evenings readings at the Pub and perhaps even sparked your interest to enter into the journey of Roland of Gilead. Join us next time as we travel through time and space to a reality unlike any you've ever experienced...and it could lead us right back to your very door.
later
| 
. 
).
around my life! First off, my wife and I found out she is expecting so that is exciting. It will be our first child and we are very happy and scared at the same time. It really makes you think about your place in the world and what your goals and priorities are. To think that I am blessed with the responsibility of bringing a brand new life to this world is amazing in itself. It has definitely brought my wife and I closer emotionally and spiritually. Needless-to-say it is a cool time.