The Waste Lands

Eddie helped Susannah out of the harness and placed her in the chair. She put her hands against the small of her back, stretched, and grimaced with pleasure. Both Eddie and Roland heard the small crackle her spine made as it stretched. Up ahead, a large creature that looked like a badger crossed with a raccoon ambled out of the woods. It looked at them with its large, gold-rimmed eyes, twitched its sharp, whiskery snout as if to say Huh! Big deal!, then strolled the rest of the way across the road and disappeared again. Before it did, Eddie noted its tail—long and closely coiled, it looked like a fur-covered bedspring. “What was that, Roland?”

“A billy-bumbler.”

“No good to eat?”

Roland shook his head. “Tough. Sour. I’d rather eat dog.”

“Have you?” Susannah asked. “Eaten dog, I mean?” Roland nodded, but did not elaborate. Eddie found himself thinking of a line from an old Paul Newman movie: That’s right, lady—eaten em and lived like one. Birds sang cheerily in the trees. A light breeze blew along the road. Eddie and Susannah turned their faces up to it gratefully, then looked at each other and smiled. Eddie was struck again by his grati-tude for her—it was scary to have someone to love, but it was also very fine. “Who made this road?” Eddie asked.

“People who have been gone a long time,” Roland said. “The same ones who made the cups and dishes we found?” Susan-nah asked. “No—not them. This used to be a coach-road, I imagine, and if it’s still here, after all these years of neglect, it must have been a great one indeed . . . perhaps the Great Road. If we dug down, I imagine we’d find the gravel undersurface, and maybe the drainage system, as well. As long as we’re here, let’s have a bite to eat.”

“Food!” Eddie cried. “Bring it on! Chicken Florentine! Polynesian shrimp! Veal lightly sautéed with mushrooms and—“

Susannah elbowed him. “Quit it, white boy.” “I can’t help it if I’ve got a vivid imagination,” Eddie said cheerfully. Roland slipped his purse off his shoulder, hunkered down, and began to put together a small noon meal of dried meat wrapped in olive-colored leaves. Eddie and Susannah had discovered that these leaves tasted a little like spinach, only much stronger.

Eddie wheeled Susannah over to him and Roland handed her three of what Eddie called “gunslinger burritos.” She began to eat. When Eddie turned back, Roland was holding out three of the wrapped pieces of meat to him—and something else, as well. It was the chunk of ash with the key growing out of it. Roland had taken it off the rawhide string, which now lay in an open loop around his neck.

“Hey, you need that, don’t you?” Eddie asked. “When I take it off, the voices return, but they’re very distant,” Roland said. “I can deal with them. Actually, I hear them even when I’m wearing it—like the voices of men who are speaking low over the next hill. I think that’s because the key is yet unfinished. You haven’t worked on it since you gave it to me.” “Well . . . you were wearing it, and I didn’t want to …” Roland said nothing, but his faded blue eyes regarded Eddie with their patient teacher’s look.

“All right,” Eddie said, “I’m afraid of f**king it up. Satisfied?” “According to your brother, you f**ked everything up … isn’t that right?” Susannah asked.

“Susannah Dean, Girl Psychologist. You missed your calling, sweetheart.” Susannah wasn’t offended by the sarcasm. She lifted the waterskin with her elbow, like a redneck tipping a jug, and drank deeply. “It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

Eddie, who realized he hadn’t finished the slingshot, either—not yet, at least—shrugged.

“You have to finish it,” Roland said mildly. “I think the time is coming when you’ll have to put it to use.”

Eddie started to speak, then closed his mouth. It sounded easy when you said it right out like that, but neither of them really understood the bottom line. The bottom line was this: seventy per cent or eighty or even ninety-eight and a half just wouldn’t do. Not this time. And if he did screw up, he couldn’t just toss the thing over his shoulder and walk away. For one thing, he hadn’t seen another ash-tree since the day he had cut this particular piece of wood. But mostly the thing that was f**king him up was just this: it was all or nothing. If he messed up even a little, the key wouldn’t turn when they needed it to turn. And he was increasingly nervous about that little squiggle at the end. It looked simple, but if the curves weren’t exactly right . . .

It won’t work the way it is now, though; that much you do know.

He sighed, looking at the key. Yes, that much he did know. He would have to try to finish it. His fear of failure would make it even harder than it maybe had to be, but he would have to swallow the fear and try anyway. Maybe he could even bring it off. God knew he had brought off a lot in the weeks since Roland had entered his mind on a Delta jet bound into JFK Airport. That he was still alive and sane was an accomplishment in itself. Eddie handed the key back to Roland. “Wear it for now,” he said. “I’ll go back to work when we stop for the night.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

Roland nodded, took the key, and began to re-knot the rawhide string. He worked slowly, but Eddie did not fail to notice how dexterously die remaining fingers on his right hand moved. The man was nothing if not adaptable. “Something is going to happen, isn’t it?” Susannah asked suddenly. Eddie glanced up at her. “What makes you say so?” “I sleep with you, Eddie, and I know you dream every night now. Sometimes you talk, too. They don’t seem like nightmares, exactly, but it’s pretty clear that something is going on inside your head.” “Yes. Something is. I just don’t know what.” “Dreams are powerful,” Roland remarked. “You don’t remember the ones you’re having at all?”