The Waste Lands (Page 31)

“Well,” Eddie said, “I suppose we ought to get going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and all that shit.” “Wait a minute.” Susannah was looking at Roland. “It isn’t just a thousand miles, is it? Not anymore. How far are we talking about, Roland? Five thousand miles? Ten?”

“I can’t say. It will be very far.”

“Well, how in the hell we ever goan get there, with you two pushing me in this goddam wheelchair? We’ll be lucky to make three miles a day through yonder Drawers, and you know it.”

“The way has been opened,” Roland said patiently, “and that’s enough for now. The time may come, Susannah Dean, when we travel faster than you would like.” “Oh yeah?” She looked at him truculently, and both men could see Detta Walker dancing a dangerous hornpipe in her eyes again. “You got a race-car lined up? If you do, it might be nice if we had a damn road to run it on!” “The land and the way we travel on it will change. It always does.” Susannah flapped a hand at the gunslinger; go on with you, it said. “You sound like my old mamma, sayin God will provide.” “Hasn’t He?” Roland asked gravely.

She looked at him for a moment in silent surprise, then threw her head back and laughed at the sky. “Wt-11, I guess that depends on how you look at it. All I can say is that if this is providin, Roland, I’d hate to see what’d happen if He decided to let us go hungry.”

“Come on, let’s do it,” Eddie said. “I want to get out of this place. I don’t like it.” And that was true, but that wasn’t all. He also felt a deep eagerness to set his feet upon that concealed path, that highway in hiding. Every step was a step closer to the field of roses and the Tower which dominated it. He realized—not without some wonder—that he meant to see that Tower … or die trying.

Congratulations, Roland, he thought. You’ve done it. I’m one of the converted. Someone say hallelujah.

“There’s one other thing before we go.” Roland bent and untied the rawhide lace around his left thigh. Then he slowly began to unbuckle his gunbelt. “What’s this jive?” Eddie asked.

Roland pulled the gunbelt free and held it out to him. “You know why I’m doing this,” he said calmly.

“Put it back on, man!” Eddie felt a terrible stew of conflicting emo-tions roiling inside him; could feel his fingers trembling even inside his clenched fists. “What do you think you’re doing?” “Losing my mind an inch at a time. Until the wound inside me closes—if it ever does—I am not fit to wear this. And you know it.” “Take it, Eddie,” Susannah said quietly. “If you hadn’t been wearing this goddamn thing last night, when that bat came at me, I’d be gone from the nose up this morning!” The gunslinger replied by continuing to hold his remaining gun out to Eddie. The posture of his body said he was prepared to stand that way all day, if that was what it took.

“All right!” Eddie cried. “Goddammit, all right!” He snatched the gunbelt from Roland’s hand and buckled it about his own waist in a series of rough gestures. He should have been relieved, he supposed—hadn’t he looked at this gun, lying so close to Roland’s hand in the middle of the night, and thought about what might happen if Roland really did go over the high side? Hadn’t he and Susannah both thought about it? But there was no relief. Only fear and guilt and a strange, aching sadness far too deep for tears. He looked so strange without his guns.

So wrong.

“Okay? Now that the numb-fuck apprentices have the guns and the master’s unarmed, can we please go? If something big comes out of the bush at us, Roland, you can always throw your knife at it.”

“Oh, that,” he murmured. “I almost forgot.” He took the knife from his purse and held it out, hilt first, to Eddie.

“This is ridiculous!” Eddie shouted.

“Life is ridiculous.”

“Yeah, put it on a postcard and send it to the f**king Reader’s Digest.” Eddie jammed the knife into his belt and then looked defiantly at Roland. “Now can we go?”

“There is one more thing,” Roland said.

“Weeping, creeping Jesus!”

The smile touched Roland’s mouth again. “Just joking,” he said. Eddie’s mouth dropped open. Beside him, Susannah began to laugh again. The sound rose, as musical as bells, in the morning stillness.

IT TOOK THEM MOST of the morning to clear the zone of destruction with which the great bear had protected itself, but the going was a little easier along the path of the Beam, and once they had put the deadfalls and tangles of underbrush behind them, deep forest took over again and they were able to move at better speed. The brook which had emerged from the rock wall in the clearing ran busily along to their right. It had been joined by several smaller streamlets, and its sound was deeper now. There were more animals here—they heard them moving through the woods, going about their daily round—and twice they saw small groups of deer. One of them, a buck with a noble rack of antlers on its upraised and questioning head, looked to be at least three hundred pounds. The brook bent away from their path as they began to climb again. And, as the afternoon began to slant down toward evening, Eddie saw something. “Could we stop here? Rest a minute?”

“What is it?” Susannah asked.

“Yes,” Roland said. “We can stop.”

Suddenly Eddie felt Henry’s presence again, like a weight settling on his shoulders. Oh lookit the sissy. Does the sissy see something in the twee? Does the sissy want to carve something? Does he? Ohhhh, ain’t that CUTE? “We don’t have to stop. I mean, no big deal. I just—” “—saw something,” Roland finished for him. “Whatever it is, stop running your everlasting mouth and get it.”