The Waste Lands

23

THE BEAR’S BACKTRAIL WAS easy to find but tougher to follow. Five miles or so out of the clearing, it led them through a low, boggy area that was not quite a swamp. By the time the ground began to rise and firm up a little again, Roland’s faded jeans were soaked to the knees and he was breathing in long, steady rasps. Still, he was in slightly better shape than Eddie, who had found wrestling Susa

“Time to rest and eat something,” Roland said.

“Oh boy, gimme eats,” Eddie puffed. He helped Susa

“You got my wheelchair pretty muddy, white boy,” Susa

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Next carwash we come to, I’ll push you through myself. I’ll even Turtle-wax the goddamn thing. Okay?”

She smiled. “You got a date, handsome.”

Eddie had one of Roland’s waterskins cinched around his waist. He tapped it. “Okay?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “Not too much now; a little more for all of us before we set out again. That way no one takes a cramp.”

“Roland, Eagle Scout of Oz,” Eddie said, and giggled as he unslung the waterskin.

“What is this Oz?”

“A make-believe place in a movie,” Susa

“Oz was a lot more than that. My brother Henry used to read me the stories once in a while. I’ll tell you one some night, Roland.”

“That would be fine,” the gunslinger replied seriously. “I am hungry to know more of your world.”

“Oz isn’t our world, though. Like Susa

Roland handed them chunks of meat which had been wrapped in broad leaves of some sort. “The quickest way to learn about a new place is to know what it dreams of. I would hear of this Oz.”

“Okay, that’s a date, too. Suze can tell you the one about Dorothy and Toto and the Tin Woodman, and I’ll tell you all the rest.” He bit into his piece of meat and rolled his eyes approvingly. It had taken the flavor of the leaves in which it had been rolled, and was delicious. Eddie wolfed his ration, stomach gurgling busily all the while. Now that he was getting his breath back, he felt good-great, in fact. His body was growing a solid sheath of muscle, and every part of it felt at peace with every other part.

Don’t worry, he thought. Everything will be arguing again by tonight. I think he’s go

Susa

Roland nodded. “Yes. I think both memories are true. One is a little truer than the other, but that does not negate the truth of that other.”

“Makes no sense to me,” Eddie said. “Either this boy Jake was at the way station or he wasn’t, Roland.”

“It is a paradox-something that is and isn’t at the same time. Until it’s resolved, I will continue divided. That’s bad enough, but the basic split is widening. I can feel that happening. It is… unspeakable.”

“What do you think caused it?” Susa

“I told you the boy was pushed in front of a car. Pushed. Now, who do we know who liked to push people in front of things?”

Understanding dawned in her face. “Jack Mort. Do you mean he was the one who pushed this boy into the street?”

“Yes.”

“But you said the man in black did it,” Eddie objected. “Your buddy Walter. You said that the boy saw him-a man who looked like a priest. Didn’t the kid even hear him say he was? ’Let me through, I’m a priest,’ something like that?”

“Oh, Walter was there. They were both there, and they both pushed Jake.”

“Somebody bring the Thorazine and the strait-jacket,” Eddie called. “Roland just went over the high side.”

Roland paid no attention to this; he was coming to understand that Eddie’s jokes and clowning were his way of dealing with stress. Cuthbert had not been much different… as Susa

Eddie began to understand. “If Jake wasn’t pushed into the street, he never died. And if he never died, he never came into this world. And if he never came into this world, you never met him at the way station. Right?”

“Right. The thought even crossed my mind that if Jack Mort meant to kill the boy, I would have to stand aside and let him do it. To avoid creating the very paradox that is tearing me apart. But I couldn’t do that. I… I…”

“You couldn’t kill this kid twice, could you?” Eddie asked softly. “Every time I just about make up my mind that you’re as mechanical as that bear, you surprise me with something that actually seems human. Goddam.”

“Quit it, Eddie,” Susa

Eddie took a look at the gunslinger’s slightly lowered face and grimaced. “Sorry, Roland. My mother used to say that my mouth had a bad habit of ru

“It’s all right. I had a friend who was the same way.”

“Cuthbert?”

Roland nodded. He looked at his diminished right hand for a long moment, then clenched it into a painful fist, sighed, and looked up at them again. Somewhere, deeper in the forest, a lark sang sweetly.

“Here is what I believe. If I had not entered Jack Mort when I did, he still wouldn’t have pushed Jake that day. Not then. Why not? Ka-tet. Simply that. For the first time since the last of the friends with whom I set forth on this quest died, I have found myself once again at the center of ka-tet.”

“Quartet?” Eddie asked doubtfully.

The gunslinger shook his head. “Ka-the word you think of as ’destiny,’ Eddie, although the actual meaning is much more complex and hard to define, as is almost always the case with words of the High Speech. And tet, which means a group of people with the same interests and goals. We three are a tet, for instance. Ka-tet, is the place where many lives are joined by fate.”

“Like in The Bridge of San Luis Rey,” Susa

“What’s that?” Roland asked.

“A story about some people who die together when the bridge they’re crossing collapses. It’s famous in our world.”

Roland nodded his understanding. “In this case, ka-tet bound Jake, Walter, Jack Mort, and me. There was no trap, as I first suspected when I realized who Jack Mort meant to be his next victim, because ka-tet ca

“Let’s go back to what would have happened if you hadn’t messed up Jack Mort’s plans on the day he was following Jake,” Eddie said. “You’re saying that if you hadn’t stopped Mort, someone or something else would have. Is that right?”

“Yes-because it wasn’t the right day for Jake to die. It was close to the right day, but not the right day. I felt that, too. Perhaps, just before he did it, Mort would have seen someone watching him. Or a perfect stranger would have intervened. Or-”