The Gunslinger (novella)
He made his way to the local saloon and learned from Allie, its bartender, that the town drunk Nort had died from eating narcotic devil-grass.Sensing that Walter had laid a trap for both him and Allie, the gunslinger warned her never to say the trigger word in Nort's hearing.He next met and interrogated Sylvia Pittston, a fanatical preacher who believed that the man in black had impregnated her with the offspring of the Crimson King.She warned her congregation to beware of the gunslinger, referring to him as a malicious "Interloper," and eventually stirred the entire town to attack him.After telling Brown his story, the gunslinger fills his water skins and continues across the desert, in pursuit of his quarry.