The Dark Tower (Page 74)

"Eddie? Sugar?"

Pimli was struggling to c**k the Peacemaker again, his upper lip curled back from his teeth in a doglike snarl of effort.

Roland shot him in the throat and Algul Siento’s Master snaprolled to his left, the still-uncocked pistol flying out of his hand and clattering to a stop beside the body of his friend the Weasel.

It finished almost at Eddie’s feet.

"Eddie!" Susannah screamed, and began a loping crawl toward him, thrusting herself on her hands. He’s not hurt bad, she told herself, not hurt bad, dear God don’t let my man be hurt bad-

Then she saw the blood running from beneath his pressing hand, pattering down into the street, and knew it was bad.

"Suze?" he asked. His voice was perfectly clear. "Suzie, where are you? I can’t see."

He took one step, a second, a third… and then fell facedown in the street, just as Gran-pere Jaffords had known he would, aye, from the first moment he’d laid eyes on him. For the boy was a gunslinger, say true, and it was the only end that one such as he could expect.

Chapter XII:THE TET BREAKS

ONE

That night found Jake Chambers sitting disconsolately outside the Clover Tavern at the east end of Main Street in Pleasantville.

The bodies of the guards had been carted away by a robot maintenance crew, and that was at least something of a relief. Oy had been in the boy’s lap for an hour or more. Ordinarily he would never have stayed so close for so long, but he seemed to understand that Jake needed him. On several occasions,

Jake wept into the bumbler’s fur.

For most of that endless day Jake found himself thinking in two different voices. This had happened to him before, but not for years; not since the time when, as a very young child, he suspected he might have suffered some sort of weird, below-theparental-

radar breakdown.

Eddie’s dying, said the first voice (the one that used to assure him there were monsters in his closet, and soon they would emerge to eat him alive). He’s in a room in Corbett Hall and Susannah’s with him and he won’t shut up, but he’s dying.

No, denied the second voice (the one that used to assure him-feebly-that there were no such things as monsters).

No, that can’t be. Eddie’s… Eddie! And besides, he’s ka-tet. He might die when we reach the Dark Tower, we might all die when we get there, but not now, not here, that’s crazy.

Eddie’s dying, replied the first voice. It was implacable. He’s got a hole in his head almost big enough to stick your fist in, and he’s dying.

To this the second voice could offer only more denials, each weaker than the last.

Not even the knowledge that they had likely saved the Beam

(Sheemie certainly seemed to think they had; he’d crisscrossed the weirdly silent campus of the Devar-Toi, shouting the news-

BEAM SAYS ALL MAYBE WELL! BEAM SAYS THANKYA!-at the top of his lungs) could make Jake feel better. The loss of Eddie was too great a price to pay even for such an outcome.

And the breaking of the tet was an even greater price. Every time Jake thought of it, he felt sick to his stomach and sent up inarticulate prayers to God, to Gan, to the Man Jesus, to any or all of them to do a miracle and save Eddie’s life.

He even prayed to the writer.

Save my friend’s life and zve’ll save yours, he prayed to Stephen King, a man he had never seen. Save Eddie and we won’t let that van hit you. I swear it.

Then again he’d think of Susannah screaming Eddie’s name, of trying to turn him over, and Roland wrapping his arms around her and saying You mustn’t do that, Susannah, you mustn’t disturb him, and how she’d fought him, her face crazy, her face changing as different personalities seemed to inhabit it for a moment or two and then flee. I have to help him!’she’d sob in the Susannah-voice Jake knew, and then in another, harsher voice she’d shout Let me go, mahfah! Let me do mah voodoo on him, make mah houngun, he goan git up an walk, you see! Sho! And Roland holding her through all of it, holding her and rocking her while Eddie lay in the street, but not dead, it would have been better, almost, if he’d been dead (even if being dead meant the end of talking about miracles, the end of hope), but Jake could see his dusty fingers twitching and could hear him muttering incoherently, like a man who talks in his sleep.

Then Ted had come, and Dinkyjust behind him, and two or three of the other Breakers trailing along hesitantly behind them. Ted had gotten on his knees beside the struggling, screaming woman and motioned for Dinky to get kneebound on the other side of her. Ted had taken one of her hands, then nodded for Dink to take the other. And something had flowed out of them-something deep and soothing. It wasn’t meant for Jake, no, not at all, but he caught some of it, anyway, and felt his wildly galloping heart slow. He looked into Ted Brautigan’s face and saw that Ted’s eyes were doing their trick, the pupils swelling and shrinking, swelling and shrinking.

Susannah’s cries faltered, subsiding to little hurt groans. She looked down at Eddie, and when she bent her head her eyes had spilled tears onto the back of Eddie’s shirt, making dark places, like raindrops. That was when Sheemie appeared from one of the alleys, shouting glad hosannahs to all who would hear him "BEAM SAYS NOT TOO LATE! BEAM SAYS JUST IN TIME, BEAM SAYS THANKYA AND WE MUST LET HIM HEAL!-and limping badly on one foot (none of them thought anything of it then or even noticed it). Dinky murmured to the growing crowd of Breakers looking at the mortally wounded gunslinger, and several went to Sheemie and got him to quiet down. From the main part of the Devar-Toi the alarms continued, but the follow-up fire engines were actually getting the three worst fires (those in Damli House, Warden’s House, and Feveral Hall) under control.

What Jake remembered next was Ted’s fingers-unbelievably gentle fingers-spreading the hair on the back of Eddie’s head and exposing a large hole filled with a dark jelly of blood.

There were little white flecks in it. Jake had wanted to believe those flecks were bits of bone. Better than thinking they might be flecks of Eddie’s brain.

At the sight of this terrible head-wound Susannah leaped to her feet and began to scream again. Began to struggle. Ted and Dinky (who was paler than paste) exchanged a glance, tightened their grip on her hands, and once more sent the

(peace ease quiet wait calm slow peace)

soothing message that was as much colors-cool blue shading to quiet ashes of gray-as it was words. Roland, meanwhile, held her shoulders.

"Can anything be done for him?" Roland asked Ted. "Anything at all?"

"He can be made comfortable," Ted said. "We can do that much, at least." Then he pointed toward the Devar. "Don’t you still have work there to finish, Roland?"

For a moment Roland didn’t quite seem to understand that. Then he looked at the bodies of the downed guards, and did. ‘Yes," he said. "I suppose I do. Jake, can you help me? If the ones left were to find a new leader and regroup… that wouldn’t do at all."

"What about Susannah?" Jake had asked.

"Susannah’s going to help us see her man to a place where he can be at his ease, and die as peacefully as possible," said Ted Brautigan. "Aren’t you, dear heart?"

She’d looked at him with an expression that was not quite vacant; the understanding (and the pleading) in that gaze went into Jake’s heart like the tip of an icicle. "Must he die?" she had asked him.

Ted had lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Yes," he said. "He must die and you must bear it."

"Then you have to do something for me," she said, and touched Ted’s cheek with her fingers. To Jake those fingers looked cold. Cold.

"What, love? Anything I can." He took hold of her fingers and wrapped them

(peace ease quiet wait calm slow peace)

in his own.

"Stop what you’re doing, unless I tell you different," said she.

He looked at her, surprised. Then he glanced at Dinky, who only shrugged. Then he looked back at Susannah.

"You mustn’t use your good-mind to steal my grief," Susannah told him, "for I’d open my mouth and drink it to the dregs. Every drop."

For a moment Ted only stood with his head lowered and a frown creasing his brow. Then he looked up and gave her the sweetest smile Jake had ever seen.

"Aye, lady," Ted replied. "We’ll do as you ask. But if you need us… whenyon need us…"

"I’ll call," Susannah said, and once more slipped to her knees beside the muttering man who lay in the street.

TWO

As Roland and Jake approached the alley which would take them back to the center of the Devar-Toi, where they would put off mourning their fallen friend by taking care of any who might still stand against them, Sheemie reached out and plucked the sleeve of Roland’s shirt.

"Beam says thankya, Will Dearborn that was." He had blown out his voice with shouting and spoke in a hoarse croak. "Beam says all may yet be well. Good as new. Better."

"That’s fine," Roland said, and Jake supposed it was. There had been no real joy then, however, as there was no real joy now. Jake kept thinking of the hole Ted Brautigan’s gende fingers had exposed. That hole filled with red jelly.

Roland put an arm around Sheemie’s shoulders, squeezed him, gave him a kiss. Sheemie smiled, delighted. "I’ll come with you, Roland. Will’ee have me, dear?"

"Not this time," Roland said.

"Why are you crying?" Sheemie asked. Jake had seen the happiness draining from Sheemie’s face, being replaced with worry. Meanwhile, more Breakers were returning to Main Street, milling around in little groups. Jake had seen consternation in the expressions they directed toward the gunslinger