EIGHT By dark, they had a large heap of deerskins and a pile of skinned, headless carcasses that surely would have been black with flies in warmer weather. They ate another huge meal of sizzling venison steaks, utterly delicious, and Susannah spared another thought for Mordred, somewhere out in the dark, probably eating his own supper raw. He might have matches, but he wasnt stupid; if they saw another fire in all this darkness, they would rush down upon it. And him. Then, bangbangbang, goodbye SpiderBoy. She felt a surprising amount of sympathy for him and told herself to beware of it. Certainly he would have felt none for either her or Roland, had the shoe been on the other foot. When they were done eating, Roland wiped his greasy fingers on his shirt and said, That tasted fine. You got that right. Now lets get the brains out. Then well sleep. One at a time? Susannah asked. Yes  so far as I know, brains only come one to a customer. For a moment she was too surprised at hearing Eddies phrase (one to a customer) coming from Rolands mouth to realize hed made a joke. Lame, yes, but a bona fide joke. Then she managed a token laugh. Very funny, Roland. You know what I meant. Roland nodded. Well sleep one at a time and stand a watch, yes. I think that would be best. Time and repetition had done its work; shed now seen too many tumbling guts to feel squeamish about a few brains. They cracked heads, used Rolands knife (its edge now dull) to pry open skulls, and removed the brains of their kill. These they put carefully aside, like a clutch of large gray eggs. By the time the last deer was debrained, Susannahs fingers were so sore and swollen she could hardly bend them. Lie over, Roland said. Sleep. Ill take the first watch. She didnt argue. Given her full belly and the heat of the fire, she knew sleep would come quickly. She also knew that when she woke up tomorrow, she was going to be so stiff that even sitting up would be difficult and painful. Now, though, she didnt care. A feeling of vast contentment filled her. Some of it was having eaten hot food, but by no means all. The greater part of her wellbeing stemmed from a day of hard work, no more or less than that. The sense that they were not just floating along but doing for themselves. Jesus, she thought, I think Im becoming a Republican in my old age. Something else occurred to her then how quiet it was. No sounds but the sough of the wind, the whispering sleet (now starting to abate), and the crackle of the blessed fire. Roland? He looked at her from his place by the fire, eyebrows raised. Youve stopped coughing. He smiled and nodded. She took his smile down into sleep, but it was Eddie she dreamed of. NINE They stayed three days in the camp by the stream, and during that time Susannah learned more about making hide garments than she would ever have believed (and much more than she really wanted to know). By casting a mile or so in either direction along the stream they found a couple of logs, one for each of them. While they looked, they used their makeshift pot to soak their hides in a dark soup of ash and water. They set their logs at an angle against the trunks of two willow trees (close, so they could work side by side) and used chert scrapers to dehair the hides. This took one day. When it was done, they bailed out the pot, turned the hide liner over and filled it up again, this time with a mixture of water and mashed brains. This coldweather hiding was new to her. They put the hides in this slurry to soak overnight and, while Susannah began to make thread from strings of gristle and sinew, Roland resharpened his knife, then used it to whittle half a dozen bone needles. When he was done, all of his fingers were bleeding from dozens of shallow cuts. He coated them with woodash soak and slept with them that way, his hands looking as if they were covered with large and clumsy grayblack gloves. When he washed them off in a stream the following day, Susannah was amazed to see the cuts already well on their way to healing. She tried dabbing some of the woodash stuff on the persistent sore beside her mouth, but it stung horribly and she washed it away in a hurry. I want you to whop this goddam thing off, she said. Roland shook his head. Well give it a little longer to heal on its own. Why? Cutting on a sores a bad idea unless you absolutely have to do it. Especially out here, in what Jake would have called the boondogs. She agreed (without bothering to correct his pronunciation), but unpleasant images crept into her head when she lay down visions of the pimple beginning to spread, erasing her face inch by inch, turning her entire head into a black, crusted, bleeding tumor. In the dark, such visions had a horrible persuasiveness, but luckily she was too tired for them to keep her awake long. On their second day in what Susannah was coming to think of as the Hide Camp, Roland built a large and rickety frame over a new fire, one that was low and slow. They smoked the hides two by two and then laid them aside. The smell of the finished product was surprisingly pleasant. It smells like leather, she thought, holding one to her face, and then had to laugh. That was, after all, exactly what it was. The third day they spent making, and here Susannah finally outdid the gunslinger. Roland sewed a wide and barely serviceable stitch. She thought that the vests and leggings he made would hold together for a month, two at the most, then begin to pull apart. She was far more adept. Sewing was a skill shed learned from her mother and both grandmothers. At first she found Rolands bone needles maddeningly clumsy, and she paused long enough to cover both the thumb and forefinger of her right hand with little deerskin caps which she tied in place. After that it went faster, and by midafternoon of makingday she was taking garments from Rolands pile and oversewing his stitches with her own, which were finer and closer. She thought he might object to thismen were proudbut he didnt, which was probably wise. It quite likely would have been Detta who replied to any whines and queasies. By the time their third night in Hide Camp had come, they each had a vest, a pair of leggings, and a coat. They also had a pair of mittens each. These were large and laughable, but would keep their hands warm. And, speaking of hands, Susannah was once more barely able to bend hers. She looked doubtfully at the remaining hides and asked Roland if they would spend another makingday here. He considered the idea, then shook his head. Well load the ones that are left into the Ho Fat Tacksee, I think, along with some of the meat and chunks of ice from the stream to keep it cool and good. The Taxi wont be any good when we come to the snow, will it? No, he admitted, but by then the rest of the hides will be clothing and the meat will be eaten. You just cant stay here any longer, thats what it comes down to, isnt it? You hear it calling. The Tower. Roland looked into the snapping fire and said nothing. Nor had to. Whatll we do about hauling our gunna when we come to the white lands? Make a travois. And therell be plenty of game. She nodded and started to lie down. He took her shoulders and turned her toward the fire, instead. His face came close to hers, and for a moment Susannah thought he meant to kiss her goodnight. He looked long and hard at the crusted sore beside her mouth, instead. Well? she finally asked. She could have said more, but he would have heard the tremor in her voice. I think its a little smaller. Once we leave the Badlands behind, it may heal on its own. Do you really say so? The gunslinger shook his head at once. I say may. Now lie over, Susannah. Take your rest. All right, but dont you let me sleep late this time. I want to watch my share. Yes. Now lie over. She did as he said, and was asleep even before her eyes closed. TEN Shes in Central Park and its cold enough to see her breath. The sky overhead is white from side to side, a snowsky, but shes not cold. No, not in her new deerskin coat, leggings, vest, and funny deerskin mittens. Theres something on her head, too, pulled down over her ears and keeping them as toasty as the rest of her. She takes the cap off, curious, and sees its not deerskin like the rest of her new clothing, but a redandgreen stocking cap. Written across the front is MERRY CHRISTMAS. She looks at it, startled. Can you have dj vu in a dream? Apparently so. She looks around and there are Eddie and Jake, grinning at her. Their heads are bare and she realizes she has in her hands a combination of the caps they were wearing in some other dream. She feels a great, soaring burst of joy, as if she has just solved some supposedly insoluble problem squaring the circle, let us say, or finding the Ultimate Prime Number (take that,Blaine, may it bust ya brain, ya crazy choochoo train). Eddie is wearing a sweatshirt that says I DRINK NOZZALA! Jake is wearing one that says I DRIVE THE TAKURO SPIRIT! Both have cups of hot chocolate, the perfect kind mit schlag on top and little sprinkles of nutmeg dotting the cream. What world is this? she asks them, and realizes that somewhere nearby carolers are singing What Child Is This. You must let him go his course alone, says Eddie. Yar, and you must beware of Dandelo, says Jake. I dont understand, Susannah says, and holds out her stocking cap to them. Wasnt this yours? Didnt you share it? It could be your hat, if you want it, says Eddie, and then holds out his cup. Here, I brought you hot chocolate. No more twins, says Jake. Theres only one hat, do ya not see. Before she can reply, a voice speaks out of the air and the dream begins to unravel.NINETEEN, says the voice.This is NINETEEN, this is CHASSIT. With each word the world becomes more unreal. She can see through Eddie and Jake. The good smell of hot chocolate is fading, being replaced by the smell of ash (wednesday) and leather. She sees Eddies lips moving and she thinks hes saying a name, and then ELEVEN Time to get up, Susannah, Roland said. Its your watch. She sat up, looking around. The campfire had burned low. I heard him moving out there, Roland said, but that was some time ago. Susannah, are you all right? Were you dreaming? Yes, she said. There was only one hat in this dream, and I was wearing it. I dont understand you. Nor did she understand herself. The dream was already fading, as dreams do. All she knew for sure was that the name on Eddies lips just before he faded away for good had been that of Patrick Danville. CHAPTER V JOE COLLINS OF ODDS LANE ONE Three weeks after the dream of one hat, three figures (two large, one small) emerged from a tract of upland forest and began to move slowly across a great open field toward more woods below. One of the large figures was pulling the other on a contraption that was more sled than travois. Oy raced back and forth between Roland and Susannah, as if keeping a constant watch. His fur was thick and sleek from cold weather and a constant diet of deermeat. The land the three of them were currently covering might have been a meadow in the warmer seasons, but now the ground was buried under five feet of snow. The pulling was easier, because their way was finally leading downward. Roland actually dared hope the worst was over. And crossing the White Lands had not been too badat least, not yet. There was plenty of game, there was plenty of wood for their nightly fire, and on the four occasions when the weather turned nasty and blizzards blew, they had simply laid up and waited for the storms to wear themselves out on the wooded ridges that marched southeast. Eventually they did, although the angriest of these blizzards lasted two full days, and when they once more took to the Path of the Beam, they found another three feet of new snow on the ground. In the open places where the shrieking noreast wind had been able to rage fully, there were drifts like ocean waves. Some of these had buried tall pines almost to their tops. After their first day in the White Lands, with Roland struggling to pull her (and then the snow had been less than a foot deep), Susannah saw that they were apt to spend months crossing those high, forested ridges unless Roland had a pair of snowshoes, so that first night shed set out to make him a pair. It was a trialanderror process (By guess and by gosh was how Susannah put it), but the gunslinger pronounced her third effort a success. The frames were made of limber birch branches, the centers of woven, overlapping deerskin strips. To Roland they looked like teardrops. How did you know to do this? he asked her after his first day of wearing them. The increase in distance covered was nothing short of amazing, especially once he had learned to walk with a kind of rolling, shipboard stride that kept the snow from accumulating on the latticed surfaces. Television, Susannah said. There used to be this program I watched when I was a kid, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Sergeant Preston didnt have a billybumbler to keep him company, but he did have his faithful dog, King. Anyway, I closed my eyes and tried to remember what the guys snowshoes looked like. She pointed to the ones Roland was wearing. Thats the best I could do. You did fine, he said, and the sincerity she heard in his simple compliment made her tingle all over. This was not necessarily the way she wanted Roland (or any other man, for that matter) to make her feel, but she seemed stuck with it. She wondered if that was nature or nurture, and wasnt sure she wanted to know. Theyll be all right as long as they dont fall apart, she allowed. Her first effort had done just that. I dont feel the strips loosening, he told her. Stretching a little, maybe, but thats all. Now, as they crossed the great open space, that third pair of snowshoes was still holding together, and because she felt as though shed made some sort of contribution, Susannah was able to let Roland pull her along without too much guilt. She did wonder about Mordred from time to time, and one night about ten days after they had crossed the snowboundary, she came out and asked Roland to tell her what he knew. What prompted her was his declaration that there was no need to set a watch, at least for awhile; they could both get a full ten hours worth of sleep, if thats what their bodies could use. Oy would wake them if they needed waking. Roland had sighed and looked into the fire for nearly a full minute, his arms around his knees and his hands clasped loosely between them. She had just about decided he wasnt going to answer at all when he said, Still following, but falling further and further behind. Struggling to eat, struggling to catch up, struggling most of all to stay warm. To stay warm? To Susannah this seemed hard to believe. There were trees all around them. He has no matches and none of the Sterno stuff, either. I believe that one nightearly on, this would have beenhe came upon one of our fires with live coals still under the ash, and he was able to carry some with him for a few days after that and so have a fire at night. Its how the ancient rockdwellers used to carry fire on their journeys, or so I was told. Susannah nodded. She had been taught roughly the same thing in a high school science class, although the teacher had admitted a lot of what they knew about how Stone Age people got along wasnt true knowledge at all, but only informed guesswork. She wondered how much of what Roland had just told her was also guesswork, and so she asked him. Its not guessing, but I cant explain it. If its the touch, Susannah, its not such as Jake had. Not seeing and hearing, or even dreaming. Although  do you believe we have dreams sometimes we dont remember after we awaken? Yes. She thought of telling him about rapid eye movement, and the REM sleep experiments shed read about in Look magazine, then decided it would be too complex. She contented herself with saying that she was sure folks had dreams every single night that they didnt remember. Mayhap I see him and hear him in those, Roland said. All I know is that hes struggling to keep up. He knows so little about the world that its really a wonder hes still alive at all. Do you feel sorry for him? No. I cant afford pity, and neither can you. But his eyes had left hers when he said that, and she thought he was lying. Maybe he didnt want to feel sorry for Mordred, but she was sure he did, at least a little. Maybe he wanted to hope that Mordred would die on their trailcertainly there were plenty of chances it would happen, with hypothermia being the most likely causebut Susannah didnt think he was quite able to do it. They might have outrun ka, but she reckoned that blood was still thicker than water. There was something else, however, more powerful than even the blood of relation. She knew, because she could now feel it beating in her own head, both sleeping and waking. It was the Dark Tower. She thought that they were very close to it now. She had no idea what they were going to do about its mad guardian when and if they got there, but she found she no longer cared. For the present, all she wanted was to see it. The idea of entering it was still more than her imagination could deal with, but seeing it? Yes, she could imagine that. And she thought that seeing it would be enough. TWO They made their way slowly down the wide white downslope with Oy first hurrying at Rolands heel, then dropping behind to check on Susannah, then bounding back to Roland again. Bright blue holes sometimes opened above them. Roland knew that was the Beam at work, constantly pulling the cloudcover southeast. Otherwise, the sky was white from horizon to horizon, and had a low full look both of them now recognized. More snow was on the come, and the gunslinger had an idea this storm might be the worst theyd seen. The wind was getting up, and the moisture in it was enough to numb all his exposed skin (after three weeks of diligent needlework, that amounted to not much more than his forehead and the tip of his nose). The gusts lifted long diaphanous scarves of white. These raced past them and then on down the slope like fantastical, shapechanging balletdancers. Theyre beautiful, arent they? Susannah asked from behind him, almost wistfully. Roland of Gilead, no judge of beauty (except once, in the outland of Mejis), grunted. He knew what would be beautiful to him decent cover when the storm overtook them, something more than just a thick grove of trees. So he almost doubted what he saw when the latest gust of wind blew itself out and the snow settled. He dropped the towband, stepped out of it, went back to Susannah (their gunna, now on the increase again, was strapped to the sledge behind her), and dropped on one knee next to her. Dressed in hides from top to toe, he looked more like a mangy bigfoot than a man. What do you make of that? he asked her. The wind kicked up again, harder than ever, at first obscuring what he had seen. When it dropped, a hole opened above them and the sun shone briefly through, lighting the snowfield with billions of diamondchip sparkles. Susannah shaded her eyes with one hand and looked long downhill. What she saw was an inverted T carved in the snow. The cross arm, closest to them (but still at least two miles away) was relatively short, perhaps two hundred feet on either side. The long arm, however, was very long, going all the way to the horizon and then disappearing over it. Those are roads! she said. Someones plowed a couple of roads down there, Roland! He nodded. I thought so, but I wanted to hear you say it. I see something else, as well. What? Your eyes are sharper than mine, and by a lot. When we get a little closer, youll see for yourself. He tried to rise and she tugged impatiently at his arm. Dont you play that game with me. What is it? Roofs, he said, giving in to her. I think there are cottages down there. Mayhap even a town. People? Are you saying people? Well, it looks like theres smoke coming from one of the houses. Although its hard to tell for sure with the sky so white. She didnt know if she wanted to see people or not. Certainly such would complicate things. Roland, well have to be careful. Yes, he said, and went back to the towband again. Before he picked it up, he paused to readjust his gunbelt, dropping the holster a bit so it lay more comfortably near his left hand. An hour later they came to the intersection of the lane and the road. It was marked by a snowbank easily eleven feet high, one that had been built by some sort of plow. Susannah could see treadmarks, like those made by a bulldozer, pressed into the packed snow. Rising out of this hardpack was a pole. The street sign on top was no different from those shed seen in all sorts of towns; at intersections in New York City, for that matter. The one indicating the short road said ODDS LANE. It was the other that thrilled her heart, however. TOWER ROAD, it read. THREE All but one of the cottages clustered around the intersection were deserted, and many lay in halfburied heaps, broken beneath the weight of accumulating snow. One, howeverit was about threequarters of the way down the lefthand arm of Odds Lanewas clearly different from the others. The roof had been mostly cleared of its potentially crushing weight of snow, and a path had been shoveled from the lane to the front door. It was from the chimney of this quaint, treesurrounded cottage that the smoke was issuing, featherwhite. One window was lit a wholesome butteryellow, too, but it was the smoke that captured Susannahs eye. As far as she was concerned, it was the final touch. The only question in her mind was who would answer the door when they knocked. Would it be Hansel or his sister Gretel? (And were those two twins? Had anyone ever researched the matter?) Perhaps it would be Little Red Riding Hood, or Goldilocks, wearing a guilty goatee of porridge. Maybe we should just pass it by, she said, aware that she had dropped her voice to a nearwhisper, even though they were still on the high snowbank created by the plow. Give it a miss and say thank ya. She gestured to the sign reading TOWER ROAD. Weve got a clear way, Rolandmaybe we ought to take it. And if we should, do you think that Mordred will? Roland asked. Do you think hell simply pass by and leave whoever lives there in peace? Here was a question that hadnt even occurred to her, and of course the answer was no. If Mordred decided he could kill whoever was in the cottage, hed do it. For food if the inhabitants were edible, but food would only be a secondary consideration. The woods behind them had been teeming with game, and even if Mordred hadnt been able to catch his own supper (and in his spider form, Susannah was sure he would have been perfectly capable of doing that), they had left the remains of their own meals at a good many camps. No, he would come out of the snowy uplands fed  but not happy. Not happy at all. And so woe to whoever happened to be in his path. On the other hand, she thought  only there was no other hand, and all at once it was too late, anyway. The front door of the cottage opened, and an old man came out onto the stoop. He was wearing boots, jeans, and a heavy parka with a furlined hood. To Susannah this latter garment looked like something that might have been purchased at the ArmyNavy Surplus Store in Greenwich Village. The old man was rosycheeked, the picture of wintry good health, but he limped heavily, depending on the stout stick in his left hand. From behind his quaint little cottage with its fairytale plume of smoke came the piercing whinny of a horse. Sure, Lippy, I see em! the old man cried, turning in that direction. I got aleast one good eye left, aint I? Then he turned back to where Roland stood on the snowbank with Susannah and Oy flanking him. He raised his stick in a salute that seemed both merry and unafraid. Roland raised his own hand in return. Looks like were in for some palaver whether we want it or not, said Roland. I know, she replied. Then, to the bumbler Oy, mind your manners now, you hear? Oy looked at her and then back at the old man without making a sound. On the subject of minding his manners hed keep his own counsel awhile, it seemed. The old mans bad leg was clearly very badNext door to nuthin, Daddy Mose Carver would have saidbut he got on well enough with his stick, moving in a sideways hopping gait that Susannah found both amusing and admirable. Spry as a cricket was another of Daddy Moses many sayings, and perhaps this one fit yonder old man better. Certainly she saw no harm or danger in a whitehaired fellow (the hair was long and babyfine, hanging to the shoulders of his anorak) who had to hop along on a stick. And, as he drew closer, she saw that one of his eyes was filmed white with a cataract. The pupil, which was faintly visible, seemed to look dully off to their left. The other, however, regarded the newcomers with lively interest as the inhabitant of the cottage hopped down Odds Lane toward them. The horse whinnied again and the old man waved his stick wildly against the white, lowlying sky. Shut up ya haybox, ya turdfactory, yold clapcunt gammergurt, aint you ever seen cumpny before? Was ya born in a barn, heehee? (For if ywasnt, Im a blueeyed baboon, which there aint no such thing!) Roland snorted with genuine laughter, and the last of Susannahs watchful apprehension departed. The horse whinnied again from the outbuilding behind the cottage  it was nowhere near grand enough to be called a barnand the old man waved his stick at it once more, almost falling to the snowpack in the process. His awkward but nonetheless rapid gait had now brought him halfway to their location. He saved himself from what would have been a nasty tumble, took a large sidlehop using the stick for a prop, then waved it cheerily in their direction. Hile, gunslingers! the old man shouted. His lungs, at least, were admirable. Gunslingers on pilgrimage to the Dark Tower, so yare, so ya must be, for dont I see the big irons with the yaller grips? And the Beam be back, fair and strong, for I feel it and Lippy do, too! Spry as a colt shes been ever since Christmas, or what I call Christmas, not having a calendar nor seen Sainty Claus, which I wouldnt expect, for have I been a good boy? Never! Never! Good boys go to heaven, and all my friends be in tother place, toastin marshmallows and drinkin Nozzy spiked with whiskey in the devils den! Arrr, nemine, my tongues caught in the middle and runs on both ends! Hile to one, hile to tother, and hile to the little furry gobbins in between! Billybumbler as I live and breathe! Yow, aint it good to see ya! Joe Collins is my name, Joe Collins of Odds Lane, plenty odd mself, oneeyed and lame I am, but otherwise at your service! He had now reached the snowbank marking the spot where Tower Road ended  or where it began, depending on your point of view and the direction you were traveling, Susannah supposed. He looked up at them, one eye bright as a birds, the other looking off into the white wastes with dull fascination. Long days and pleasant nights, yar, so say I, and anyone whod say different, they aint here anyway, so who gives a good goddam what they say? From his pocket he took what could only be a gumdrop and tossed it up. Oy grabbed it out of the air easily Snap! and gone. At this both Roland and Susannah laughed. It felt strange to laugh, but it was a good feeling, like finding something of value long after you were sure it was lost forever. Even Oy appeared to be grinning, and if the horse bothered him (it trumpeted again as they looked down on sai Collins from their snowbank perch), it didnt show. I got a million questions for yer, Collins said, but Ill start with just one how in the hell are yers gonna get down offa that snowbank? FOUR As it turned out, Susannah slid down, using their travois as a sled. She chose the place where the northwestern end of Odds Lane disappeared beneath the snow, because the embankment was a little shallower there. Her trip was short but not smooth. She hit a large and crusted snowboulder three quarters of the way down, fell off the travois, and made the rest of her descent in a pair of gaudy somersaults, laughing wildly as she fell. The travois turned overturned turtle, may it do yaand spilled their gunna every whichway and hell to breakfast. Roland and Oy came leaping down behind. Roland bent over her at once, clearly concerned, and Oy sniffed anxiously at her face, but Susannah was still laughing. So was the codger. Daddy Mose would have called his laughter gay as old Dads hatband. Im fine, Rolandtook worse tumbles off my Flexible Flyer when I was a kid, tell ya true. Alls well that ends well, Joe Collins agreed. He gave her a look with his good eye to make sure she was indeed all right, then began to pick up some of the scattered goods, leaning laboriously over on his stick, his fine white hair blowing around his rosy face. Nah, nah, Roland said, reaching out to grasp his arm. Ill do that, theell fall on thy thiddles. At this the old man roared with laughter, and Roland joined him willingly enough. From behind the cottage, the horse gave another loud whinny, as if protesting all this good humor. Fall on thy thiddles! Man, thats a good one! I dont have the veriest clue under heaven what my thiddles are, yet its a good one! Aint it just! He brushed the snow off Susannahs hide coat while Roland quickly picked up the spilled goods and stacked them back on their makeshift sled. Oy helped, bringing several wrapped packages of meat in his jaws and dropping them on the back of the travois. Thats a smart little beastie! Joe Collins said admiringly. Hes been a good trailmate, Susannah agreed. She was now very glad they had stopped; would not have deprived herself of this goodnatured old mans acquaintance for worlds. She offered him her clumsily clad right hand. Im Susannah DeanSusannah of New York. Daughter of Dan. He took her hand and shook it. His own hand was ungloved, and although the fingers were gnarled with arthritis, his grip was strong. New York, is it! Why, I once hailed from there, myself. Also Akron, Omaha, and San Francisco. Son of Henry and Flora, if it matters to you. Youre from Americaside? Susannah asked. Oh God yes, but long ago and long, he said. Whatchee might call delah. His good eye sparkled; his bad eye went on regarding the snowy wastes with that same dead lack of interest. He turned to Roland. And who might you be, my friend? For Ill call you my friend same as I would anyone, unless they prove different, in which case Id belt em with Bessie, which is what I call my stick. Roland was grinning. Was helpless not to, Susannah thought. Roland Deschain, of Gilead. Son of Steven. Gilead! Gilead! Collinss good eye went round with amazement. Theres a name out of the past, aint it? One for the books! Holy Pete, you must be oldern God! Some would say so, Roland agreed, now only smiling  but warmly. And the little fella? he asked, bending forward. From his pocket, Collins produced two more gumdrops, one red and one green. Christmas colors, and Susannah felt a faint touch of dj vu. It brushed her mind like a wing and then was gone. Whats your name, little fella? What do they holler when they want you to come home? He doesnt talk anymore, although he did once was how Susannah meant to finish, but before she could, the bumbler said Oy! And he said it as brightly and firmly as ever in his time with Jake. Good fella! Collins said, and tumbled the gumdrops into Oys mouth. Then he reached out with that same gnarled hand, and Oy raised his paw to meet it. They shook, wellmet near the intersection of Odds Lane and Tower Road. Ill be damned, Roland said mildly. So wont we all in the end, I reckon, Beam or no Beam, Joe Collins remarked, letting go of Oys paw. But not today.


Now what I say is that we ort to get in where its warm and we can palaver over a cup of coffeefor I have some, so I door a pot of ale. I even have sumpin I call eggnog, if it does ya. It does me pretty fine, especially with a teensy piss o rum in it, but who knows? I aint really tasted nuffink in five years or more. Air outta the Discordias done for my tastebuds and for my nose, too. Anyro, what do you say? He regarded them brightly. Id say that sounds pretty damned fine, Susannah told him. Rarely had she said anything she meant more. He slapped her companionably on the shoulder. A good woman is a pearl beyond price! Dont know if thats Shakespeare, the Bible, or a combination of the t Arrr, Lippy, goddam what used to be yer eyes, where do you think youre going? Did yer want to meet these folks, was that it? His voice had fallen into the outrageous croon that seems the exclusive property of people who live alone except for a pet or two. His horse had blundered its way to them and Collins grabbed her around the neck, petting her with rough affection, but Susannah thought the beast was the ugliest quadruped shed seen in her whole life. Some of her good cheer melted away at the sight of the thing. Lippy was blindnot in one eye but in bothand scrawny as a scarecrow. As she walked, the rack of her bones shifted back and forth so clearly beneath her mangy coat that Susannah almost expected some of them to poke through. For a moment she remembered the black corridor under Castle Discordia with a kind of nightmarish total recall the slithering sound of the thing that had followed them, and the bones. All those bones. Collins might have seen some of this on her face, for when he spoke again he sounded almost defensive. Her an ugly old thing, I know, but when you get as old as she is, I dont reckon youll be winnin many beauty contests yourself! He patted the horses chafed and sorelooking neck, then seized her scant mane as if to pull the hair out by the roots (although Lippy showed no pain) and turned her in the road so she was facing the cottage again. As he did this, the first flakes of the coming storm skirled down. Come on, Lippy, yold kibox and gammergurt, ye swayback nag and lost fourlegged leper! Cant ye smell the snow in the air? Because I can, and my nose went south years ago! He turned back to Roland and Susannah and said, I hope yprove partial to my cookin, so I do, because I think this is gonna be a threeday blow. Aye, three at least before Demon Moon shows er face again! But were wellmet, so we are, and I set my watch and warrant on it! Ye just dont want to judge my hospitality by my horsepitality! Hee! I should hope not, Susannah thought, and gave a little shiver. The old man had turned away, but Roland gave her a curious look. She smiled and shook her head as if to say Its nothing which, of course, it was. She wasnt about to tell the gunslinger that a spavined nag with cataracts on her eyes and her ribs showing had given her a case of the whimwhams. Roland had never called her a silly goose, and by God she didnt mean to give him cause to do so n As if hearing her thoughts, the old nag looked back and bared her few remaining teeth at Susannah. The eyes in Lippys bony wedge of a head were pusrimmed plugs of blindness above her somehow gruesome grin. She whinnied at Susannah as if to say Think what you will, blackbird; Ill be here long after thees gone thy course and died thy death. At the same time the wind gusted, swirling snow in their faces, soughing in the snowladen firs, and hooting beneath the eaves of Collinss little house. It began to die away and then strengthened again for a moment, making a brief, grieving cry that sounded almost human. FIVE The outbuilding consisted of a chickencoop on one side, Lippys stall on the other, and a little loft stuffed with hay. I can get up there and fork it down, Collins said, but I take my life in my hands ever time I do, thanks to this bust hip of mine. Now, I cant make you help an old man, sai Deschain, but if you would ? Roland climbed the ladder resting atilt against the edge of the loft floor and tossed down hay until Collins told him it was good, plenty enough to last Lippy through even four days worth of blow. (For she dont eat worth whatchee might call a Polish fuck, as you can see lookin at her, he said.) Then the gunslinger came back down and Collins led them along the short back walk to his cottage. The snow piled on either side was as high as Rolands head. Be it ever so humble, et cetra, Joe said, and ushered them into his kitchen. It was paneled in knotty pine which was actually plastic, Susannah saw when she got closer. And it was delightfully warm. The name on the electric stove was Rossco, a brand shed never heard of. The fridge was an Amana and had a special little door set into the front, above the handle. She leaned closer and saw the words MAGIC ICE. This thing makes ice cubes? she asked, delighted. Well, no, not exactly, Joe said. Its the freezer that makes em, beauty; that thing on the front just drops em into your drink. This struck her funny, and she laughed. She looked down, saw Oy looking up at her with his old fiendish grin, and that made her laugh harder than ever. Mod cons aside, the smell of the kitchen was wonderfully nostalgic sugar and spice and everything nice. Roland was looking up at the fluorescent lights and Collins nodded. Yar, yar, I got all the lectric, he said. Hotair furnace, too, aint it nice? And nobody ever sends me a bill! The gennys in a shed round to tother side. Its a Honda, and quiet as Sunday morning! Even when you get right up on top of its little shed, you dont hear nuffink but mmmmmm. Stuttering Bill changes the propane tank and does the maintenance when it needs maintaining, which hasnt been but twice in all the time Ive been here. Nawp, Joeys lyin, hell soon be dyin. Three times, its been. Three in all. Whos Stuttering Bill? Susannah asked, just as Roland was asking How long have you been here? Joe Collins laughed. One at a time, me foine new friends, one at a time! He had set his stick aside to struggle out of his coat, put his weight on his bad leg, made a low snarling sound, and nearly fell over. Would have fallen over, had Roland not steadied him. Thankee, thankee, thankee, Joe said. Although I tell you what, it wouldnt have been the first time I wound up with my nose on that lernoleum! But, as you saved me a tumble, its your question Ill answer first. Ive been here, Odd Joe of Odds Lane, just about sebnteen years. The only reason I cant tell you bangon is that for awhile there, time got pretty goddam funny, if you know what I mean. We do, Susannah said. Believe me, we do. Collins was now divesting himself of a sweater, and beneath it was another. Susannahs first impression had been of a stout old man who stopped just short of fat. Now she saw that a lot of what shed taken for fat was nothing but padding. He wasnt as desperately scrawny as his old horse, but he was a long shout from stout. Now Stuttering Bill, the old man continued, removing the second sweater, he be a robot. Cleans the house as well as keepin my generator runnin  and acourse hes the one that does the plowin. When I first come here, he only stuttered once in awhile; now its every second or third word. What Ill do when he finally runs down I dunno. To Susannahs ear, he sounded singularly unworried about it. Maybe hell get better, now that the Beams working right again, she said. He might last a little longer, but I doubt like hell that hell get any better, Joe said. Machines dont heal the way living things do. Hed finally reached his thermal undershirt, and here the stripdown stopped. Susannah was grateful. Looking at the somehow ghastly barrel of the horses ribs, so close beneath the short gray fur, had been enough. She had no wish to see the masters, as well. Off with yer coats and your leggings, Joe said. Ill get yez eggnog or whatever else yed like in a minute or two, but first Id show yer my livin room, for its my pride, so it is. SIX There was a rag rug on the living room floor that would have looked at home in Gramma Holmess house, and a LaZBoy recliner with a table beside it. The table was heaped with magazines, paperback books, a pair of spectacles, and a brown bottle containing God knew what sort of medicine. There was a television, although Susannah couldnt imagine what old Joe might possibly watch on it (Eddie and Jake would have recognized the VCR sitting on the shelf beneath). But what took all of Susannahs attentionand Rolands, as wellwas the photograph on one of the walls. It had been thumbtacked there slightly askew, in a casual fashion that seemed (to Susannah, at least) almost sacrilegious. It was a photograph of the Dark Tower. Her breath deserted her. She worked her way over to it, barely feeling the knots and nubbles of the rag rug beneath her palms, then raised her arms. Roland, pick me up! He did, and she saw that his face had gone dead pale except for two hard balls of color burning in his thin cheeks. His eyes were blazing. The Tower stood against the darkening sky with sunset painting the hills behind it orange, the slitted windows rising in their eternal spiral. From some of those windows there spilled a dim and eldritch glow. She could see balconies jutting out from the dark stone sides at every two or three stories, and the squat doors that opened onto them, all shut. Locked as well, she had no doubt. Before the Tower was the field of roses, CanKa No Rey, dim but still lovely in the shadows. Most of the roses were closed against the coming dark but a few still peeped out like sleepy eyes. Joe! she said. Her voice was little more than a whisper. She felt faint, and it seemed she could hear singing voices, far and wee. Oh, Joe! This picture ! Aye, mum, he said, clearly pleased by her reaction. Its a good un, aint it? Which is why I pinned it up. Ive got others, but this is the best. Right at sunset, so the shadow seems to lie forever back along the Path of the Beam. Which in a way it does, as Im sure ye both must know. Rolands breathing in her right ear was rapid and ragged, as if hed just run a race, but Susannah barely noticed. For it was not just the subject of the picture that had filled her with awe. This is a Polaroid! Well  yar, he said, sounding puzzled at the level of her excitement. I suppose Stuttering Bill could have brung me a Kodak if Id ast for one, but how would I ever have gotten the fillum developed? And by the time I thought of a video camera for the gadget under the TVd play such thingsI was too old to go back, and yonder nag uz too old to carry me. Yet I would if I could, for its lovely there, a place of warmhearted ghosts. I heard the singing voices of friends long gone; my Ma and Pa, too. I allus A paralysis had seized Roland. She felt it in the stillness of his muscles. Then it broke and he turned from the picture so fast that it made Susannah dizzy. Youve been there? he asked. Youve been to the Dark Tower? Indeed I have, said the old man. For who else do ye think took that pitcher? Ansel Fuckin Adams? When did you take it? Thats from my last trip, he said. Two year ago, in the summeralthough thats lower land, ye must know, and if the snow ever comes to it, Ive never seen it. How long from here? Joe closed his bad eye and calculated. It didnt take him long, but to Roland and Susannah it seemed long, very long indeed. Outside, the wind gusted. The old horse whinnied as if in protest at the sound. Beyond the frostrimmed window, the falling snow was beginning to twist and dance. Well, he said, yere on the downslope now, and Stuttering Bill keeps Tower Road plowed for as far as yed go; what else does the old whatchamacallit have to do with his time? O course yell want to wait here until this new noreast jeezer blows itself out How long once were on the move? Roland asked. Rarin tgo, aintcha? Aye, hot n rarin, and why not, for if youve come from InWorld ye must have been many long years gettin this far. Hate to think how many, so I do. Im gonna say itd take you six days to get out of the White Lands, maybe seven Do you call these lands Empathica? Susannah asked. He blinked, then gave her a puzzled look. Why no, maamIve never heard this part of creation called anything but the White Lands. The puzzled look was bogus. She was almost sure of it. Old Joe Collins, cheery as Father Christmas in a childrens play, had just lied to her. She wasnt sure why, and before she could pursue it, Roland asked sharply Would you let that go for now? Would you, for your fathers sake? Yes, Roland, she said meekly. Of course. Roland turned back to Joe, still holding Susannah on his hip. Might take you as long as nine days, I guess, Joe said, scratching his chin, for that road can be plenty slippery, especially after Bill packs down the snow, but you cant get him to stop. Hes got his orders to follow. His programmin, he calls it. The old man saw Roland getting ready to speak and raised his hand. Nay, nay, Im not drawrin it out to irritate cher, sir or sai or whichever you preferits just that Im not much used to cumpny. Once you get down blow the snowline it must be another ten or twelve days awalkin, but aint no need in the world to walk unless you fancy it. Theres another one of those Positronics huts down there with any number a wheelie vehicles parked inside. Like golfcarts, they are. The battries are all dead, natcherlyflat as yer hatbut theres a gennie there, too, Honda just like mine, and it was aworkin the last time I was down there, for Bill keeps things in trim as much as he can. If you could charge up one of those wheelies, why thatd cut your time down to four days at most. So heres what I think if you had to hoof it the whole way, it might take you as long as nineteen days. If you can go the last leg in one o them hummers thats what I call em, hummers, for thats the sound they make when theyre runninI should say ten days. Maybe eleven. The room fell silent. The wind gusted, throwing snow against the side of the cottage, and Susannah once more marked how it sounded almost like a human cry. A trick of the angles and eaves, no doubt. Less than three weeks, even if we had to walk, Roland said. He reached out toward the Polaroid photograph of the dusky stone tower standing against the sunset sky, but did not quite touch it. It was as if, Susannah thought, he were afraid to touch it. After all the years and all the miles. Not to mention the gallons of spilled blood, Susannah thought, but she would not have said this even if the two of them had been alone. There was no need to; he knew how much blood had been spilled as well as she did. But there was something offkey here. Offkey or downright wrong. And the gunslinger did not seem to know that. Sympathy was to respect the feelings of another. Empathy was to actually share those feelings. Why would folks call any land Empathica? And why would this pleasant old man lie about it? Tell me something, Joe Collins, Roland said. Aye, gunslinger, if I can. Have you been right up to it? Laid your hand on the stone of it? The old man looked at first to see if Roland was joshing him. When he was sure that wasnt the case, he looked shocked. No, he said, and for the first time sounded as American as Susannah herself. That pitchers as close as I dared go. The edge of the rosefield. Im gonna say two, two hundred and fifty yards away. What the robotd call five hundred arcs o the wheel. Roland nodded. And why not? Because I thought to go closer might kill me, but I wouldnt be able to stop. The voices would draw me on. So I thought then, and so I do think, even today. SEVEN After dinnersurely the finest meal Susannah had had since being hijacked into this other world, and possibly the best in her entire lifethe sore on her face burst wide open. It was Joe Collinss fault, in a way, but even later, when they had much to hold against the only inhabitant of Odds Lane, she did not blame him for that. It was the last thing he would have wanted, surely. He served chicken, roasted to a turn and especially tasty after all the venison. With it, Joe brought to table mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberry jelly sliced into thick red discs, green peas (Only canned, say sorry, he told them), and a dish of little boiled onions bathing in sweet canned milk. There was also eggnog. Roland and Susannah drank it with childish greed, although both passed on the teensy piss o rum. Oy had his own dinner; Joe fixed a plate of chicken and potatoes for him and then set it on the floor by the stove. Oy made quick work of it and then lay in the doorway between the kitchen and the combination living roomdining room, licking his chops to get every taste of giblet gravy out of his whiskers while watching the humes with his ears up. I couldnt eat dessert so dont ask me, Susannah said when shed finished cleaning her plate for the second time, sopping up the remains of the gravy with a piece of bread. Im not sure I can even get down from this chair. Well, thats all right, Joe said, looking disappointed, maybe later. Ive got a chocolate pudding and a butterscotch one. Roland raised his napkin to muffle a belch and then said, I could eat a dab of both, I think. Well, come to that, maybe I could, too, Susannah allowed. How many eons since shed tasted butterscotch? When they were done with the pudding, Susannah offered to help with the cleaningup but Joe waved her away, saying hed just put the pots and plates in the dishwasher to rinse and then run the whole happy bunch of em later. He seemed spryer to her as he and Roland went back and forth into the kitchen, less dependent on the stick. Susannah guessed that the little piss o rum (or maybe several of them, adding up to one large piss by the end of the meal) might have had something to do with it. He poured coffee and the three of them (four, counting Oy) sat down in the living room. Outside it was growing dark and the wind was screaming louder than ever. Mordreds out there someplace, hunkered down in a snowhollow or a grove of trees, she thought, and once again had to stifle pity for him. It would have been easier if she hadnt known that, murderous or not, he must still be a child. Tell us how you came to be here, Joe, Roland invited. Joe grinned. Thats a hairraising story, he said, but if you really want to hear it, I guess I dont mind tellin it. The grin mellowed to a wistful smile. Its nice, havin folks to talk to for a little bit. Lippy does all right at listenin, but she never says nuffink back. Hed started off trying to be a teacher, Joe said, but quickly discovered that life wasnt for him. He liked the kidsloved them, in factbut hated all the administrative bullshit and the way the system seemed set up to make sure no square pegs escaped the relentless rounding process. He quit teaching after only three years and went into show business. Did you sing or dance? Roland wanted to know. Neither one, Joe replied. I gave em the old standup. Standup? He means he was a comedian, Susannah said. He told jokes. Correct! Joe said brightly. Some folks actually thought they were funny, too. Course, they were the minority. He got an agent whose previous enterprise, a discount mens clothing store, had gone bankrupt. One thing led to another, he said, and one gig led to another, too. Eventually he found himself working second and thirdrate nightclubs from coast to coast, driving a battered but reliable old Ford pickup truck and going where Shantz, his agent, sent him. He almost never worked the weekends; on the weekends, even the thirdrate clubs wanted to book rockandroll bands. This was in the late sixties and early seventies, and thered been no shortage of what Joe called current events material hippies and yippies, braburners and Black Panthers, moviestars, and, as always, politicsbut he said he had been more of a traditional jokeoriented comedian. Let Mort Sahl and George Carlin do the currentevents shtick if they wanted it; hed stick to Speaking of my motherinlaw and They say our Polish friends are dumb but let me tell you about this Irish girl I met. During his recitation, an odd (andto Susannah, at least rather poignant) thing happened. Joe Collinss MidWorld accent, with its yers and yars and ifitdoesyas began to crossfade into an accent she could only identify as Wiseguy American. She kept expecting to hear bird come out of his mouth as boid, heard as hoid, but she guessed that was only because shed spent so much time with Eddie. She thought Joe Collins was one of those odd natural mimics whose voices are the auditory equivalent of Silly Putty, taking impressions that fade as quickly as they rise to the surface. Doing a club in Brooklyn, it probably was boid and hoid; in Pittsburgh it would be burrd and hurrd; the Giant Eagle supermarket would become Jaunt Iggle. Roland stopped him early on to ask if a comic was like a court jester, and the old man laughed heartily. You got it. Just think of a bunch of people sitting around in a smoky room with drinks in their hands instead of the king and his courtiers. Roland nodded, smiling. There are advantages to being a funnyman doing onenighters in the Midwest, though, he said. If you tank in Dubuque, all that happens is you end up doing twenty minutes instead of fortyfive and then its on to the next town. There are probably places in MidWorld where theyd cut off your damn head for stinking up the joint. At this the gunslinger burst out laughing, a sound that still had the power to startle Susannah (although she was laughing herself). You say true, Joe. In the summer of 1972, Joe had been playing a nightclub called Jangos in Cleveland, not far from the ghetto. Roland interrupted again, this time wanting to know what a ghetto was. In the case of Hauck, Susannah said, it means a part of the city where most of the people are black and poor, and the cops have a habit of swinging their billyclubs first and asking questions later. Bing! Joe exclaimed, and rapped his knuckles on the top of his head. Couldnt have said it better myself! Again there came that odd, babyish crying sound from the front of the house, but this time the wind was in a relative lull. Susannah glanced at Roland, but if the gunslinger heard, he gave no sign. It was the wind, Susannah told herself. What else could it be? Mordred, her mind whispered back. Mordred out there, freezing. Mordred out there dying while we sit in here with our hot coffee. But she said nothing. There had been trouble in Hauck for a couple of weeks, Joe said, but hed been drinking pretty heavily (Hitting it hard was how he put it) and hardly realized that the crowd at his second show was about a fifth the size of the one at the first. Hell, I was on a roll, he said. I dont know about anyone else, but I was knocking myself dead, rolling me in the aisles. Then someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through the clubs front window (Molotov cocktail was a term Roland understood), and before you could say Take my motherinlaw  please, the place was on fire. Joe had boogied out the back, through the stage door. Hed almost made it to the street when three men (all very black, all roughly the size of NBA centers) grabbed him. Two held; the third punched. Then someone swung a bottle. Boomboom, out go the lights. He had awakened on a grassy hillside near a deserted town called Stones Warp, according to the signs in the empty buildings along Main Street. To Joe Collins it had looked like the set of a Western movie after all the actors had gone home. It was around this time that Susannah decided she did not believe much of sai Collinss story. It was undoubtedly entertaining, and given Jakes first entry into MidWorld, after being run over in the street and killed while on his way to school, it was not totally implausible. But she still didnt believe much of it. The question was, did it matter? You couldnt call it heaven, because there were no clouds and no choirs of angels, Joe said, but I decided it was some sort of an afterlife, just the same. He had wandered about. He found food, he found a horse (Lippy), and moved on. He had met various roving bands of people, some friendly, some not, some truethreaded, some mutie. Enough so hed picked up some of the lingo and a little MidWorld history; certainly he knew about the Beams and the Tower. At one point hed tried to cross the Badlands, he said, but hed gotten scared and turned back when his skin began to break out in all sorts of sores and weird blemishes. I got a boil on my ass, and that was the final touch, he said. Six or eight years ago, this might have been. Me n Lippy said the hell with going any further. That was when I found this place, which is called Westring, and when Stuttering Bill found me. Hes got a little doctorin, and he lanced the boil on my bottom. Roland wanted to know if Joe had witnessed the passage of the Crimson King as that mad creature made his final pilgrimage to the Dark Tower. Joe said he had not, but that six months ago there had been a terrible storm (a real boilermaker) that drove him down into his cellar. While he was there the electric lights had failed, genny or no genny, and as he cowered in the dark, a sense had come to him that some terrible creature was close by, and that it might at any moment touch Joes mind and follow his thoughts to where he was hiding. You know what I felt like? he asked them. Roland and Susannah shook their heads. Oy did the same, in perfect imitation. Snackfood, Joe said. Potential snackfood. This part of his storys true, Susannah thought. He may have changed it around a little, but basically its true. And if she had any reason to think that, it was only because the idea of the Crimson King traveling in his own portable storm seemed horribly plausible. What did you do? Roland asked. Went to sleep, he said. Its a talent Ive always had, like doing impressionsalthough I dont do famous voices in my act, because they never go over out in the sticks. Not unless youre Rich Little, at least. Strange but true. I can sleep pretty much on command, so thats what I did down in the cellar. When I woke up again the lights were back on and the the whateveritwas was gone. I know about the Crimson King, of course, I see folks from time to time stillnomads like you three, for the most partand they talk about him. Usually they fork the sign of the evil eye and spit between their fingers when they do. You think that was him, huh? You think the Crimson King actually passed by Odds Lane on his way to the Tower. Then, before they had a chance to answer Well, why not? Tower Roads the main throughfare, after all. It goes all the way there. You know it was him, Susannah thought. What game are you playing, Joe? The thin cry that was most definitely not the wind came again. She no longer thought it was Mordred, though. She thought that maybe it was coming from the cellar where Joe had gone to hide from the Crimson King  or so hed said. Who was down there now? And was he hiding, as Joe had done, or was he a prisoner? It hasnt been a bad life, Joe was saying. Not the life I expected, not by any manner or means, but I got a theorythe folks who end up living the lives they expected are more often than not the ones who end up takin sleepin pills or stickin the barrel of a gun in their mouths and pullin the trigger. Roland seemed still to be a few turns back, because he said, You were a court jester and the customers in these inns were your court. Joe smiled, showing a lot of white teeth. Susannah frowned. Had she seen his teeth before? They had been doing a lot of laughing and she should have seen them, but she couldnt remember that she actually had. Certainly he didnt have the mushmouth sound of someone whose teeth are mostly gone (such people had consulted with her father on many occasions, most of them in search of artificial replacements). If shed had to guess earlier on, she would have said he had teeth but they were down to nothing but pegs and nubbins, and And whats the matter with you, girl? He might be lying about a few things, but he surely didnt grow a fresh set of teeth since you sat down to dinner! Youre letting your imagination run away with you. Was she? Well, it was possible. And maybe that thin cry was nothing but the sound of the wind in the eaves at the front of the house, after all. Id hear some of your jokes and stories, Roland said. As you told them on the road, if it does ya. Susannah looked at him closely, wondering if the gunslinger had some ulterior motive for this request, but he seemed genuinely interested. Even before seeing the Polaroid of the Dark Tower tacked to the living room wall (his eyes returned to it constantly as Joe told his story), Roland had been invested by a kind of hectic good cheer that was really not much like him at all. It was almost as if he were ill, edging in and out of delirium. Joe Collins seemed surprised by the gunslingers request, but not at all displeased. Good God, he said. I havent done any standup in what seems like a thousand years  and considering the way time stretched there for awhile, maybe it has been a thousand. Im not sure Id know how to begin. Susannah surprised herself by saying, Try. EIGHT Joe thought about it and then stood up, brushing a few errant crumbs from his shirt. He limped to the center of the room, leaving his crutch leaning against his chair. Oy looked up at him with his ears cocked and his old grin on his chops, as if anticipating the entertainment to come. For a moment Joe looked uncertain. Then he took a deep breath, let it out, and gave them a smile. Promise you wont throw no tomatoes if I stink up the joint, he said. Remember, its been a long time. Not after you took us in and fed us, Susannah said. Never in life. Roland, always literal, said, We have no tomatoes, in any case. Right, right. Although there are some canned ones in the pantry  forget I said that! Susannah smiled. So did Roland. Encouraged, Joe said Okay, lets go back to that magical place called Jangos in that magical city some folks call the mistake on the lake. Cleveland, Ohio, in other words. Second show. The one I never got to finish, and I was on a roll, take my word for it. Give me just a second  He closed his eyes. Seemed to gather himself. When he opened them again, he somehow looked ten years younger. It was astounding. And he didnt just sound American when he began to speak, he looked American. Susannah couldnt have explained that in words, but she knew it was true here was one Joe Collins, Made in U.S.A. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Jangos, Im Joe Collins and youre not. Roland chuckled and Susannah smiled, mostly to be politethat was a pretty old one. The management has asked me to remind you that this is twobeersforabuck night. Got it? Good. With them the motive is profit, with me its selfinterest. Because the more you drink, the funnier I get. Susannahs smile widened. There was a rhythm to comedy, even she knew that, although she couldnt have done even five minutes of standup in front of a noisy nightclub crowd, not if her life had depended on it. There was a rhythm, and after an uncertain beginning, Joe was finding his. His eyes were halflidded, and she guessed he was seeing the mixed colors of the gels over the stageso like the colors of the Wizards Rainbow, now that she thought of itand smelling the smoke of fifty smoldering cigarettes. One hand on the chrome pole of the mike; the other free to make any gesture it liked. Joe Collins playing Jangos on a Friday night No, not a Friday. He said all the clubs book rockandroll bands on the weekends. Nemine all that mistakeonthelake stuff, Clevelands a beautiful city, Joe said. He was picking up the pace a little now. Starting to rap, Eddie might have said. My folks are from Cleveland, but when they were seventy they moved to Florida. They didnt want to, but shitfire, its the law.


Bing! Joe rapped his knuckles against his head and crossed his eyes. Roland chuckled again even though he couldnt have the slightest idea where (or even what) Florida was. Susannahs smile was wider than ever. Floridas a helluva place, Joe said. Helluva place. Home of the newly wed and the nearly dead. My grandfather retired to Florida, God rest his soul. When I die, I want to go peacefully, in my sleep, like Grampa Fred. Not screaming, like the passengers in his car. Roland roared with laughter at that one, and Susannah did, too. Oys grin was wider than ever. My grandma, she was great, too. She said she learned how to swim when someone took her out on the Cuyahoga River and threw her off the boat. I said, Hey, Nana, they werent trying to teach you how to swim. Roland snorted, wiped his nose, then snorted again. His cheeks had bloomed with color. Laughter elevated the entire metabolism, put it almost on a fightorflight basis; Susannah had read that somewhere. Which meant her own must be rising, because she was laughing, too. It was as if all the horror and sorrow were gushing out of an open wound, gushing out like Well, like blood. She heard a faint alarmbell start to ring, far back in her mind, and ignored it. What was there to be alarmed about? They were laughing, for goodness sake! Having a good time! Can I be serious a minute? No? Well, fuck you and the nag you rode in ontomorrow when I wake up, Ill be sober, but youll still be ugly. And bald. (Roland roared.) Im gonna be serious, okay? If you dont like it, stick it where you keep your changepurse. My Nana was a great lady. Women in general are great, you know it? But they have their flaws, just like men. If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving a babys life, for instance, shell save the baby without even considering how many men are on base. Bing! He rapped his head with his knuckles and popped his eyes in a way that made them both laugh. Roland tried to put his coffee cup down and spilled it. He was holding his stomach. Hearing him laugh so hardto surrender to laughter so completely was funny in itself, and Susannah burst out in a fresh gale. Men are one thing, women are another. Put em together and youve got a whole new taste treat. Like Oreos. Like Peanut Butter Cups. Like raisin cake with snot sauce. Show me a man and a woman and Ill show you the Peculiar Institutionnot slavery, marriage. But I repeat myself. Bing! He rapped his head. Popped his eyes. This time they seemed to come kasproing halfway out of their sockets (how does he do that) and Susannah had to clutch her stomach, which was beginning to ache with the force of her laughter. And her temples were beginning to pound. It hurt, but it was a good hurt. Marriage is having a wife or a husband. Yeah! Check Websters! Bigamy is having a wife or husband too many. Of course, thats also monogamy. Bing! If Roland laughed any harder, Susannah thought, he would go sliding right out of his chair and into the puddle of spilled coffee. Then theres divorce, a Latin term meaning to rip a mans genitals out through the wallet. But I was talking about Cleveland, remember? You know how Cleveland got started? A bunch of people in New York said, Gee Im starting to enjoy the crime and the poverty, but its not quite cold enough. Lets go west. Laughter, Susannah would reflect later, is like a hurricane once it reaches a certain point, it becomes selffeeding, selfsupporting. You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny. Joe Collins took them to this point with his next sally. Hey, remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly with the smallest people in front and the tallest people at the end of the line? Whats the logic in that? Do tall people burn slower? Susannah shrieked with laughter and slapped the side of her face. This produced a sudden and unexpected burst of pain that drove all the laughter out of her in a moment. The sore beside her mouth had been growing again, but hadnt bled in two or three days. When she inadvertently struck it with her flailing hand, she knocked away the blackishred crust covering it. The sore did not just bleed; it gushed. For a moment she was unaware of what had just happened. She only knew that slapping the side of her face hurt much more than it should have done. Joe also seemed unaware (his eyes were mostly closed again), must have been unaware, because he rapped faster than ever Hey, and what about that seafood restaurant they have at Sea World? I got halfway through my fishburger and wondered if I was eating a slow learner! Bing! And speaking of fish Oy barked in alarm. Susannah felt sudden wet warmth run down the side of her neck and onto her shoulder. Stop, Joe, Roland said. He sounded out of breath. Weak. With laughter, Susannah supposed. Oh, but the side of her face hurt, and Joe opened his eyes, looking annoyed. What? Jesus Christ, you wanted it and I was giving it to ya! Susannahs hurt herself. The gunslinger was up and looking at her, laughter lost in concern. Im not hurt, Roland, I just slapped myself upside the head a little harder than I m Then she looked at her hand and was dismayed to see it was wearing a red glove. NINE Oy barked again. Roland snatched the napkin from beside his overturned cup. One end was brown and soaking with coffee, but the other was dry. He pressed it against the gushing sore and Susannah winced away from his touch at first, her eyes filling with tears. Nay, let me stop the bleeding at least, Roland murmured, and grasped her head, working his fingers gently into the tight cap of her curls. Hold steady. And for him she managed to do it. Through her watering eyes Susannah thought Joe still looked pissed that she had interrupted his comedy routine in such drastic (not to mention messy) fashion, and in a way she didnt blame him. Hed been doing a really good job; shed gone and spoiled it. Aside from the pain, which was abating a little now, she was horribly embarrassed, remembering the time she had started her period in gym class and a little trickle of blood had run down her thigh for the whole world to seethat part of it with whom she had thirdperiod PE, at any rate. Some of the girls had begun chanting Plug it UP!, as if it were the funniest thing in the world. Mixed with this memory was fear concerning the sore itself. What if it was cancer? Before, shed always been able to thrust this idea away before it was fully articulated in her mind. This time she couldnt. What if shed caught her stupid self a cancer on her trek through the Badlands? Her stomach knotted, then heaved. She kept her fine dinner in its place, but perhaps only for the time being. Suddenly she wanted to be alone, needed to be alone. If she was going to vomit, she didnt want to do it in front of Roland and this stranger. Even if she wasnt, she wanted some time to get herself back under control. A gust of wind strong enough to shake the entire cottage roared past like a hotenj in full flight; the lights flickered and her stomach knotted again at the seasick motion of the shadows on the wall. Ive got to go  the bathroom  she managed to say. For a moment the world wavered, but then it steadied down again. In the fireplace a knot of wood exploded, shooting a flurry of crimson sparks up the chimney. You sure? Joe asked. He was no longer angry (if he had been), but he was looking at her doubtfully. Let her go, Roland said. She needs to settle herself down, I think. Susannah began to give him a grateful smile, but it hurt the sore place and started it bleeding again, too. She didnt know what else might change in the immediate future thanks to the dumb, unhealing sore, but she did know she was done listening to jokes for awhile. Shed need a transfusion if she did much more laughing. Ill be back, she said. Dont you boys go and eat all the rest of that pudding on me. The very thought of food made her feel ill, but it was something to say. On the subject of pudding, I make no promise, Roland said. Then, as she began to turn away If thee feels lightheaded in there, call me. I will, she said. Thank you, Roland. TEN Although Joe Collins lived alone, his bathroom had a pleasantly feminine feel to it. Susannah had noticed that the first time shed used it. The wallpaper was pink, with green leaves and what else?wild roses. The john looked perfectly modern except for the ring, which was wood instead of plastic. Had he carved it himself? She didnt think it was out of the question, although probably the robot had brought it from some forgotten store of stuff. Stuttering Carl? Was that what Joe called the robot? No, Bill. Stuttering Bill. On one side of the john there was a stool, on the other a clawfoot tub with a shower attachment that made her think of Hitchcocks Psycho (but every shower made her think of that damned movie since shed seen it in Times Square). There was also a porcelain washstand set in a waisthigh wooden cabinetgood old plainoak rather than ironwood, she judged. There was a mirror above it. She presumed you swung it out and there were your pills and potions. All the comforts of home. She removed the napkin with a wince and a little hissing cry. It had stuck in the drying blood, and pulling it away hurt. She was dismayed by the amount of blood on her cheeks, lips, and chinnot to mention her neck and the shoulder of her shirt. She told herself not to let it make her crazy; you ripped the top off something and it was going to bleed, that was all. Especially if it was on your stupid face. In the other room she heard Joe say something, she couldnt tell what, and Rolands response a few words with a chuckle tacked on at the end. So weird to hear him do that, she thought. Almost like hes drunk. Had she ever seen Roland drunk? She realized she had not. Never fallingdown drunk, never mothernaked, never fully caught by laughter  until now. Ten yo business, woman, Detta told her. All right, she muttered. All right, all right. Thinking drunk. Thinking naked. Thinking lost in laughter. Thinking they were all so close to being the same thing. Maybe they were the same thing. Then she got up on the stool and turned on the water. It came in a gush, blotting out the sounds from the other room. She settled for cold, splashing it gently on her face, then using a faceclotheven more gentlyto clean the skin around the sore. When that was done, she patted the sore itself. Doing it didnt hurt as much as shed been afraid it might. Susannah was a little encouraged. When she was done, she rinsed out Joes facecloth before the bloodstains could set and leaned close to the mirror. What she saw made her breathe a sigh of relief. Slapping her hand incautiously to her face like that had torn the entire top off the sore, but maybe in the end that would turn out to be for the best. One thing was for sure if Joe had a bottle of hydrogen peroxide or some kind of antibiotic cream in his medicine cabinet, she intended to give the damned mess a good cleaningout while it was open. And nemine how much it might sting. Such a cleansing was due and overdue. Once it was finished, shed bandage it over and then just hope for the best. She spread the facecloth on the side of the basin to dry, then plucked a towel (it was the same shade of pink as the wallpaper) from a fluffy stack on a nearby shelf. She got it halfway to her face, then froze. There was a piece of notepaper lying on the next towel in the stack. It was headed with a flowerdecked bench being lowered by a pair of happy cartoon angels. Beneath was this printed, boldface line And, in faded fountain pen ink Frowning, Susannah plucked the sheet of notepaper from the stack of towels. Who had left it here? Joe? She doubted it like hell. She turned the paper over. Here the same hand had written In the other room, Joe continued to speak and this time Roland burst out laughing instead of just chuckling. It sounded to Susannah as if Joe had resumed his monologue. In a way she could understand thathed been doing something he loved, something he hadnt had a chance to do in a good long stretch of yearsbut part of her didnt like the idea at all. That Joe would resume while she was in the bathroom tending to herself, that Roland would let him resume. Would listen and laugh while she was shedding blood. It seemed like a rotten, boysclubby kind of thing to do. She supposed she had gotten used to better from Eddie. Why dont you forget the boys for the time being and concentrate on whats right in front of you? What does it mean? One thing seemed obvious someone had expected her to come in here and find that note. Not Roland, not Joe. Her. What a bad girl, it said. Girl. But who could have known? Who could have been sure? It wasnt as if she made a habit of slapping her face (or her chest, or her knee) when she laughed; she couldnt remember a single other instance when But she could. Once. At a Dean MartinJerry Lewis movie. Dopes at Sea, or something like that. Shed been caught up in the same fashion then, laughing simply because the laughter had reached some point of critical mass and become selffeeding. The whole audienceat the Clark in Times Square, for all she knewdoing the same, rocking and rolling, swinging and swaying, spraying popcorn from mouths that were no longer their own. Mouths that belonged, at least for a few minutes, to Martin and Lewis, those dopes at sea. But it had only happened that once. Comedy plus tragedy equals makebelieve. But theres no tragedy here, is there? She didnt expect an answer to this, but she got one. It came in the cold voice of intuition. Not yet, there isnt. For no reason whatsoever she found herself thinking of Lippy. Grinning, gruesome Lippy. Did the folken laugh in hell? Susannah was somehow sure they did. They grinned like Lippy the WonderNag when Satan began his (take my horse  please) routine, and then they laughed. Helplessly. Hopelessly. For all of eternity, may it please ya not at all. What in the hells wrong with you, woman? In the other room, Roland laughed again. Oy barked, and that also sounded like laughter. Odds Lane, Odd Lane think about it. What was there to think about? One was the name of the street, the other was the same thing, only without the Whoaback, wait a minute, she said in a low voice. Little more than a whisper, really, and who did she think would hear her? Joe was talkingpretty much nonstop, it sounded like and Roland was laughing. So who did she think might be listening? The cellardweller, if there really was one? Whoaon a minute, just wait. She closed her eyes and once more saw the two streetsigns on their pole, signs that were actually a little below the pilgrims, because the newcomers had been standing on a snowbank nine feet high. TOWER ROAD, one of the signs had read that one pointing to the plowed road that disappeared over the horizon. The other, the one indicating the short lane with the cottages on it, had said ODDS LANE, only  Only it didnt, she murmured, clenching the hand that wasnt holding the note into a fist. It didnt. She could see it clearly enough in her minds eye ODD LANE, with the apostrophe and the S added, and why would somebody do that? Was the signchanger maybe a compulsive neatnik who couldnt stand What? Couldnt stand what? Beyond the closed bathroom door, Roland roared louder than ever. Something fell over and broke. Hes not used to laughing like that, Susannah thought. You best look out, Roland, or youll do yourself damage. Laugh yourself into a hernia, or something. Think about it, her unknown correspondent had advised, and she was trying. Was there something about the words odd and lane that someone didnt want them to see? If so, that person had no need to worry, because she sure wasnt seeing it. She wished Eddie was here. Eddie was the one who was good at the funky stuff jokes and riddles and  an  Her breath stopped. An expression of wideeyed comprehension started to dawn on her face, and on the face of her twin in the mirror. She had no pencil and was terrible at the sort of mental rearrangements that she now had to Balanced on the stool, Susannah leaned over the waisthigh washstand and blew on the mirror, fogging it. She printed ODD LANE. Looked at it with growing understanding and dismay. In the other room, Roland laughed harder than ever and now she recognized what she should have seen thirty valuable seconds ago that laughter wasnt merry. It was jagged and out of control, the laughter of a man struggling for breath. Roland was laughing the way the folken laughed when comedy turned to tragedy. The way folken laughed in hell. Below ODD LANE she used the tip of her finger to print DANDELO, the anagram Eddie might have seen right away, and surely once he realized the apostropheS on the sign had been added to distract them. In the other room the laughter dropped and changed, becoming a sound that was alarming instead of amusing. Oy was barking crazily, and Roland Roland was choking. CHAPTER VI PATRICK DANVILLE  ONE She wasnt wearing her gun. Joe had insisted she take the LaZBoy recliner when theyd returned to the living room after dinner, and shed put the revolver on the magazinelittered endtable beside it, after rolling the cylinder and drawing the shells. The shells were in her pocket. Susannah tore open the bathroom door and scrambled back into the living room. Roland was lying on the floor between the couch and the television, his face a terrible purple color. He was scratching at his swollen throat and still laughing. Their host was standing over him, and the first thing she saw was that his hairthat babyfine, shoulderlength white hairwas now almost entirely black. The lines around his eyes and mouth had been erased. Instead of ten years younger, Joe Collins now looked twenty or even thirty years younger. The son of a bitch. The vampire son of a bitch. Oy leaped at him and seized Joes left leg just above the knee. Twennyfive, sissyfour, nineteen, hike! Joe cried merrily, and kicked out, now as agile as Fred Astaire. Oy flew through the air and hit the wall hard enough to knock a plaque reading GOD BLESS OUR HOME to the floor. Joe turned back to Roland. What I think, he said, is that women need a reason to have sex. Joe put one foot on Rolands chest like a biggame hunter with his trophy, Susannah thought. Men, on the other hand, only need a place! Bing! He popped his eyes. The thing about sex is that God gives men a brain and a dick, but only enough blood to operate one at a He never heard her approach or lift herself into the LaZBoy in order to gain the necessary height; he was concentrating too completely on what he was doing. Susannah laced her hands together into a single fist, raised them to the height of her right shoulder, then brought them down and sideways with all the force she could manage. The fist struck the side of Joes head hard enough to knock him away. She had connected with solid bone, however, and the pain in her hands was excruciating. Joe staggered, waving his arms for balance and looking around at her. His upper lip rose, exposing his teethperfectly ordinary teeth, and why not? He wasnt the sort of vampire who survived on blood. This was Empathica, after all. And the face around those teeth was changing darkening, contracting, turning into something that was no longer human. It was the face of a psychotic clown. You, he said, but before he could say anything else, Oy had raced forward again. There was no need for the bumbler to use his teeth this time because their host was still staggering. Oy crouched behind the things ankle and Dandelo simply fell over him, his curses ceasing abruptly when he struck his head. The blow might have put him out if not for the homey rag rug covering the hardwood. As it was he forced himself to a sitting position almost at once, looking around groggily. Susannah knelt by Roland, who was also trying to sit up but not doing as well. She seized his gun in its holster, but he closed a hand around her wrist before she could pull it out. Instinct, of course, and to be expected, but Susannah felt close to panic as Dandelos shadow fell over them. You bitch, Ill teach you to interrupt a man when hes on a Roland, let it go! she screamed, and he did. Dandelo dropped, meaning to land on her and crush the gun between them, but she was an instant too quick. She rolled aside and he landed on Roland, instead. Susannah heard the tortured Owuff! as the gunslinger lost whatever breath he had managed to regain. She raised herself on one arm, panting, and pointed the gun at the one on top, the one undergoing some horridly busy change inside his clothes. Dandelo raised his hands, which were empty. Of course they were, it wasnt his hands he used to kill with. As he did so, his features began to pull together, becoming more and more surface thingsnot features at all but markings on some animals hide or an insects carapace. Stop! he cried in a voice that was dropping in pitch and becoming something like a cicadas buzz. I want to tell you the one about the archbishop and the chorus girl! Heard it, she said, and shot him twice, one bullet following another into his brain from just above what had been his right eye. TWO Roland floundered to his feet. His hair was matted to the sides of his swollen face. When she tried to take his hand, he waved her away and staggered to the front door of the little cottage, which now looked dingy and illlit to Susannah. She saw there were foodstains on the rug, and a large waterblemish on one wall. Had those things been there before? And dear Lord in heaven, what exactly had they eaten for supper? She decided she didnt want to know, as long as it didnt make her sick. As long as it wasnt poisonous. Roland of Gilead pulled open the door. The wind ripped it from his grasp and threw it against the wall with a bang. He staggered two steps into the screaming blizzard, bent forward with his hands placed on his lower thighs, and vomited. She saw the jet of egested material, and how the wind whipped it away into the dark. When Roland came back in, his shirt and the side of his face were rimed with snow. It was fiercely hot in the cottage; that was something else Dandelos glammer had hidden from them until now. She saw that the thermostata plain old Honeywell not much different from the one in her New York apartmentwas still on the wall. She went to it and examined it. It was twisted as far as it would go, beyond the eightyfivedegree mark. She pushed it back to seventy with the tip of a finger, then turned to survey the room. The fireplace was actually twice the size it had appeared to them, and filled with enough logs to make it roar like a steelfurnace. There was nothing she could do about that for the time being, but it would eventually die down. The dead thing on the rug had mostly burst out of its clothes. To Susannah it now looked like some sort of bug with misshapen appendagesalmost arms and legssticking out of the sleeves of its shirt and the legs of its jeans. The back of the shirt had split down the middle and what she saw in the gap was a kind of shell on which rudimentary human features were printed. She would not have believed anything could be worse than Mordred in his spiderform, but this thing was. Thank God it was dead. The tidy, welllit cottagelike something out of a fairytale, and hadnt she seen that from the first?was now a dim and smoky peasants hut. There were still electric lights, but they looked old and longused, like the kind of fixtures one might find in a flophouse hotel. The rag rug was dark with dirt as well as splotched with spilled food, and unraveling in places. Roland, are you all right? Roland looked at her, and then, slowly, went to his knees before her. For a moment she thought he was fainting, and she was alarmed. When she realized, only a second later, what was really happening, she was more alarmed still. Gunslinger, I was mazed, Roland said in a husky, trembling voice. I was taken in like a child, and I cry your pardon. Roland, no! Git up! That was Detta, who always seemed to come out when Susannah was under great strain. She thought, Its a wonder I didnt say Git up, honky, and had to choke back a cry of hysterical laughter. He would not have understood. Give me pardon, first, Roland said, not looking at her. She fumbled for the formula and found it, which was a relief. She couldnt stand to see him on his knees like that. Rise, gunslinger, I give you pardon in good heart. She paused, then added If I save your life another nine times, well be somewhere close to even. He said, Your kind heart makes me ashamed of my own, and rose to his feet. The terrible color was fading from his cheeks. He looked at the thing on the rug, casting its grotesquely misshapen shadow up the wall in the firelight. Looked around at the close little hut with its ancient fixtures and flickering electric bulbs. What he fed us was all right, he said. It was as if hed read her mind and seen the worst fear that it held. Hed never poison what he meant to  eat. She was holding his gun out to him, butt first. He took it and reloaded the two empty chambers before dropping it back into the holster. The huts door was still open and snow came blowing in. It had already created a white delta in the little entryway, where their makeshift hide coats hung. The room was a little cooler now, a little less like a sauna. How did you know? he asked. She thought back to the hotel where Mia had left Black Thirteen. Later on, after theyd left, Jake and Callahan had been able to get into Room 1919 because someone had left them a note and (dadachee) a key. Jakes name and This is the truth had been written on the envelope in a hybrid of cursive script and printing. She was sure that if she had that envelope with its brief message and compared it to the message shed found in the bathroom, she would find the same hand made both. According to Jake, the deskclerk at the New York PlazaPark Hotel had told them the message had been left by a man named Stephen King. Come with me, she said. Into the bathroom. THREE Like the rest of the hut, the bathroom was smaller now, not much more than a closet. The tub was old and rusty, with a thin layer of dirt in the bottom. It looked like it had last been used  Well, the truth was that it looked to Susannah like it had never been used. The showerhead was clotted with rust. The pink wallpaper was dull and dirty, peeling in places. There were no roses. The mirror was still there, but a crack ran down the middle of it, and she thought it was sort of a wonder that she hadnt cut the pad of her finger, writing on it. The vapor of her breath had faded but the words were still there, visible in the grime ODD LANE, and, below that, DANDELO. Its an anagram, she said. Do you see? He studied the writing, then shook his head, looking a bit ashamed. Not your fault, Roland. Theyre our letters, not the ones you know. Take my word for it, its an anagram. Eddie would have seen it right away, I bet. I dont know if it was Dandelos idea of a joke, or if there are some sort of rules glammer things like him have to follow, but the thing is, we figured it out in time, with a little help from Stephen King. You figured it out, he said. I was busy laughing myself to death. We both would have done that, she said. You were just a little more vulnerable because your sense of humor  forgive me, Roland, but as a rule, its pretty lame. I know that, he said bleakly. Then he suddenly turned and left the room. A horrid idea came to Susannah, and it seemed a very long time before the gunslinger came back. Roland, is he still ? He nodded, smiling a little. Still as dead as ever was. You shot true, Susannah, but all at once I needed to be sure. Im glad, she said simply. Oys standing guard. If anything were to happen, Im sure hed let us know. He picked the note up from the floor and carefully puzzled out what was written on the back. The only term she had to help him with was medicine cabinet. Ive left you something. Do you know what? She shook her head. I didnt have time to look. Where is this medicine cabinet? She pointed at the mirror and he swung it out. It squalled on its hinges. There were indeed shelves behind it, but instead of the neat rows of pills and potions she had imagined, there were only two more brown bottles, like the one on the table beside the LaZBoy, and what looked to Susannah like the worlds oldest box of Smith Brothers Wild Cherry Cough Drops. There was also an envelope, however, and Roland handed it to her. Written on the front, in that same distinctive halfwriting, halfprinting, was this Childe? she asked. Does that mean anything to you? He nodded. Its a term that describes a knightor a gunslingeron a quest. A formal term, and ancient. We never used it among ourselves, you must ken, for it means holy, chosen by ka. We never liked to think of ourselves in such terms, and I havent thought of myself so in many years. Yet you are Childe Roland? Perhaps once I was. Were beyond such things now. Beyond ka. But still on the Path of the Beam. Aye. He traced the last line on the envelope All debts are paid. Open it, Susannah, for Id see whats inside. She did. FOUR It was a photocopy of a poem by Robert Browning. King had written the poets name in his halfscript, halfprinting above the title. Susannah had read some of Brownings dramatic monologues in college, but she wasnt familiar with this poem. She was, however, extremely familiar with its subject; the title of the poem was Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. It was narrative in structure, the rhymescheme balladic (abbaab), and thirtyfour stanzas long. Each stanza was headed with a Roman numeral. SomeoneKing, presumablyhad circled stanzas I, II, XIII, XIV, and XVI. Read the marked ones, he said hoarsely, because I can only make out a word here and there, and I would know what they say, would know it very well. Stanza the First, she said, then had to clear her throat. It was dry. Outside the wind howled and the naked overhead bulb flickered in its flyspecked fixture. My first thought was, he lied in every word, That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby. Collins, Roland said. Whoever wrote that spoke of Collins as sure as King ever spoke of our katet in his stories! He lied in every word! Aye, so he did! Not Collins, she said. Dandelo. Roland nodded. Dandelo, say true. Go on. Okay; Stanza the Second. What else should he be set for, with his staff? What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare All travellers who might find him posted there, And ask the road? I guessed what skulllike laugh Would break, what crutch gin write my epitaph For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare. Does thee remember his stick, and how he waved it? Roland asked her. Of course she did. And the thoroughfare had been snowy instead of dusty, but otherwise it was the same. Otherwise it was a description of what had just happened to them. The idea made her shiver. Was this poet of your time? Roland asked. Your when? She shook her head. Not even of my country. He died at least sixty years before my when. Yet he must have seen what just passed. A version of it, anyway. Yes. And Stephen King knew the poem. She had a sudden intuition, one that blazed too bright to be anything but the truth. She looked at Roland with wild, startled eyes. It was this poem that got King going! It was his inspiration! Do you say so, Susannah? Yes! Yet this Browning must have seen us. She didnt know. It was too confusing. Like trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg. Or being lost in a hall of mirrors. Her head was swimming. Read the next one marked, Susannah! Read exeyeeyeeye. Thats Stanza Thirteen, she said.