The Dark Tower (Page 89)

They ran down his dirty cheeks. He cried almost silently, but there was a single sob and Oy heard it. He raised his snout to the corridor of fast-moving clouds and howled a single time at them. Then he too was silent.

SIX

Roland carried Jake deeper into the woods, with Oy padding at his heel. That the bumbler was also weeping no longer surprised Roland; he had seen him cry before. And the days when he had believed Oy’s demonstrations of intelligence (and empathy)

might be no more than mimicry had long since passed. Most of what Roland thovight about on that short walk was a prayer for the dead he had heard Cuthbert speak on their last campaign together, the one that had ended at Jericho Hill. He doubted that Jake needed a prayer to send him on, but the gunslinger needed to keep his mind occupied, because it did not feel strong just now; if it went too far in the wrong direction, it would certainly break. Perhaps later he could indulge in hysteria-or even irina, the healing madness-but not now. He would not break now. He would not let the boy’s death come to nothing.

The hazy green-gold summerglow that lives only in forests

(and old forests, at that, like the one where the Bear Shardik had rampaged), deepened. It fell through the trees in dusky beams, and the place where Roland finally stopped felt more like a church than a clearing. He had gone roughly two hundred paces from the road on a westerly line. Here he set Jake down and looked about. He saw two rusty beer-cans and a few ejected shell-casings, probably the leavings of hunters. He tossed them further into the woods so the place would be clean. Then he looked at Jake, wiping away his tears so he could see as clearly as possible. The boy’s face was as clean as the clearing, Oy had seen to that, but one of Jake’s eyes was still open, giving the boy an evil winky look that must not be allowed. Roland rolled the lid closed wiui a finger, and when it sprang back up again (like a balky windowshade, he thought), he licked the ball of his thumb and rolled the lid shut again. This time it stayed closed.

There was dust and blood on Jake’s shirt. Roland took it off, then took his own off and put it on Jake, moving him like a doll in order to get it on him. The shirt came almost to Jake’s knees, but Roland made no attempt to tuck it in; this way it covered the bloodstains on Jake’s pants.

All of this Oy watched, his gold-ringed eyes bright with tears.

Roland had expected the soil to be soft beneath the thick carpet of needles, and it was. He had a good start on Jake’s grave when he heard die sound of an engine from the roadside.

Other motor-carriages had passed since he’d carried Jake into the woods, but he recognized the dissonant beat of this one.

The man in the blue vehicle had come back. Roland hadn’t been entirely sure he would.

"Stay," he murmured to the bumbler. "Guard your master."

But that was wrong. "Stay and guard your friend."

It wouldn’t have been unusual for Oy to repeat the command (S’ay!was about the best he could manage) in the same low voice, but this time he said nothing. Roland watched him lie down beside Jake’s head, however, and snap a fly out of the air when it came in for a landing on the boy’s nose. Roland nodded, satisfied, then started back the way he had come.

SEVEN

Bryan Smith was out of his motor-carriage and sitting on the rock wall by the time Roland got back in view of him, his cane drawn across his lap. (Roland had no idea if the cane was an affectation or something the man really needed, and didn’t care about this, either.) King had regained some soupy version of consciousness, and the two men were talking.

"Please tell me it’s just sprained," the writer said in a weak, worried voice.

"Nope! I’d say that leg’s broke in six, maybe seven places."

Now that he’d had time to settle down and maybe work out a story, Smith sounded not just calm but almost happy.

"Cheer me up, why don’t you," King said. The visible side of his face was very pale, but the flow of blood from the gash on his temple had slowed almost to a stop. "Have you got a cigarette?"

"Nope," Smith said in that same weirdly cheerful voice.

"Gave em up."

Although not particularly strong in the touch, Roland had enough of it to know this wasn’t so. But Smith only had three and didn’t want to share them with this man, who could probably afford enough cigarettes to fill Smith’s entire van with them. Besides, Smith thought-

"Besides, folks who been in a accident ain’t supposed to smoke," Smith said virtuously.

King nodded. "Hard to breathe, anyway," he said.

"Trolly bust a rib or two, too. My name’s Bryan Smith. I’m the one who hit you. Sorry." He held out his hand and-incredibly-King shook it.

"Nothin like this ever happened to me before," Smith said.

"I ain’t ever had so much as a parkin ticket."

King might or might not have known this for the lie it was, but chose not to comment on it; there was something else on his mind. "Mr. Smith-Bryan-was anyone else here?"

In the trees, Roland stiffened.

Smith actually appeared to consider this. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Mars bar and began to unwrap it.

Then he shook his head. "Just you n me. But I called 911 and Rescue, up to the store. They said someone was real close. Said they’d be here in no time. Don’t you worry."

"You know who I am."

"God yeah!" Bryan Smith said, and chuckled. He took a bite of the candy bar and talked through it. "Reckonized you right away. I seen all your movies. My favorite was the one about the Saint Bernard. What was that dog’s name?"

"Cujo," King said. This was a word Roland knew, one Susan Delgado had sometimes used when they were alone together.

In Mejis, cujo meant "sweet one."

"Yeah! That was great! Scary as hell! I’m glad that litde boy lived!"

"In the book he died." Then King closed his eyes and lay back, waiting.

Smith took another bite, a humongous one this time. "I

liked the show they made about the clown, too! Very cool!"

King made no reply. His eyes stayed closed, but Roland thought the rise and fall of the writer’s chest looked deep and steady. That was good.

Then a truck roared toward them and swerved to a stop in front of Smith’s van. The new motor-carriage was about the size of a funeral bucka, but orange instead of black and equipped with flashing lights. Roland was not displeased to see it roll over the tracks of the storekeeper’s truck before coming to a stop.

Roland half-expected a robot to get out of the coach, but it was a man. He reached back inside for a black sawbones’ bag.

Satisfied that everything here would be as well as it could be,

Roland returned to where he had laid Jake, moving with all his old unconscious grace: he cracked not a single twig, surprised not a single bird into flight.

EIGHT

Would it surprise you, after all we’ve seen together and all the secrets we’ve learned, to know that at quarter past five that afternoon,

Mrs. Tassenbaum pulled Chip McAvoy’s old truck into the driveway of a house we’ve already visited? Probably not, because ka is a wheel, and all it knows how to do is roll. When last we visited here, in 1977, both it and the boathouse on the shore of Keywadin Pond were white with green trim. The Tassenbaums, who bought the place in ’94, had painted it an entirely pleasing shade of cream (no trim; to Irene Tassenbaum’s way of thinking, trim is for folks who can’t make up their minds). They have also put a sign reading SUNSET COTTAGE on a post at the head of the driveway, and as far as Uncle Sam’s concerned it’s part of their mailing address, but to the local folk, this house at the south end of Keywadin Pond will always be the old John Cullum place.

She parked the truck beside her dark red Benz and went inside, mentally rehearsing what she’d tell David about why she had the local shopkeeper’s pickup, but Sunset Cottage hummed with the peculiar silence only empty places have; she picked up on it immediately. She had come back to a lot of empty places-apartments at the beginning, bigger and bigger houses as time went by-over the years. Not because David was out drinking or womanizing, good Lord forbid. No, he and his friends had usually been out in one garage or another, one basement workshop or another, drinking cheap wine and discount beer from the Beverage Barn, creating the Internet plus all the software necessary to support it and make it user-friendly. The profits, although most would not believe it, had only been a side-effect.

The silence to which their wives so often came home was another. After awhile all that humming silence kind of got to you, made you mad, even, but not today. Today she was delighted the house was just hers.

Are you going to sleep with Marshal Dillon, if he wants you?

It wasn’t a question she even had to think about. The answer was yes, she would sleep with him if he wanted her: sideways, backward, doggy-style, or straight-up f**k, if that was his pleasure. He wouldn’t-even if he hadn’t been grieving for his young

(sai? son?)

friend, he wouldn’t have wanted to sleep with her, she with her wrinkles, she with her hair going gray at the roots, she with the spare tire which her designer clothes could not quite conceal. The very idea was ludicrous.

But yes. If he wanted her, she would.

She looked on the fridge and there, under one of the magnets that dotted it (WE ARE POSITHONICS, BUILDING THE FUTURE ONE CIRCUIT AT A TIME, this one said) was a brief note.

Ree-

You wanted me to relax, so I’m relaxing (dammit!).

I.e. gone fishin’ with Sonny Emerson, t’other end of the lake, ayuh, ayuh. Will be back by 7 unless the bugs are too bad. If I bring you a bass, will you cook amp; clean?