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He pulls out of the campground and ontoRoute 7 without so much as a glance in either direction, then says “Whoops,forgot again!” No traffic, though. Later on—especially after the Fourthof July and until Labor Day—there’ll be plenty of traffic to contendwith, even out here in the boonies, and he’ll probably stay closer to home. Heknows he isn’t much of a driver; one more speeding ticket or fender-bender andhe’ll probably lose his license for six months. Again.
No problem this time, though; nothingcoming but an old pick-em-up, and that baby’s almost half a mile back.
“Eat my dust, cowboy!” he says, andgiggles. He doesn’t know why he said cowboy when the word in his mindwas muthafuckah, as in eat my dust muthafuckah, but it soundsgood. It sounds right. He sees he’s drifted into the other lane and correctshis course. “Back on the road again!” he cries, and lets loose anotherhighpitched giggle. Back on the road again is a good one, and he alwaysuses it on girls. Another good one is when you twist the wheel from side toside, making your car loop back and forth, and you say Ahh jeez, musta hadtoo much cough-syrup! He knows lots of lines like this, even once thought ofwriting a book called Crazy Road Jokes, wouldn’t that be asketch, Bryan Smith writing a book just like that guy King over in Lovell!
He turns on the radio (the van yawingonto the soft shoulder to the left of the tarvy, throwing up a rooster-tail ofdust, but not quite ru
“You boys ne’mine that cooler,” BryanSmith says, speaking to the dogs he can see in the rear-view mirror. This timethe minivan pitches instead of yawing, crossing the white line as it climbs ablind grade at fifty miles an hour. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on yourpoint of view—nothing is coming the other way; nothing puts a stop toBryan Smith’s northward progress.
“You ne’mine that hamburg, that’s mysupper.” He says suppah, as John Cullum would, but the face looking backat the bright-eyed dogs from the rearview mirror is the face of Sheemie Ruiz.Almost exactly.
Sheemie could be Bryan Smith’slitter-twin.
Six
Irene Tassenbaum was driving the truck withmore assurance now, standard shift or not. She almost wished she didn’t have toturn right a quarter of a mile from here, because that would necessitate usingthe clutch again, this time to downshift. But that was Turtleback Lane right upahead, and Turtleback was where these boys wanted to go.
Walk-ins! They said so, and shebelieved it, but who else would? Chip McAvoy, maybe, and surely the ReverendPeterson from that crazy Church of the Walk-Ins down in Stoneham Corners, butanyone else? Her husband, for instance? Nope. Never. If you couldn’t engrave athing on a microchip, David Tassenbaum didn’t believe it was real. Shewondered—not for the first time lately—if forty-seven was too oldto think about a divorce.
She shifted back to Second without grindingthe gears too much, but then, as she turned off the highway, had toshift all the way down to First when the silly old pickup began to grunt andchug. She thought that one of her passengers would make some sort of smartcomment (perhaps the boy’s mutant dog would even say fuck again), butall the man in the passenger seat said was, “This doesn’t look the same.”
“When were you here last?” Irene Tassenbaumasked him. She considered shifting up to second gear again, then decided toleave things just as they were. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” David likedto say.
“It’s been awhile,” the man admitted. Shehad to keep sneaking glances at him. There was something strange and exoticabout him—especially his eyes. It was as if they’d seen things she’dnever even dreamed of.
Stop it, she told herself. He’sprobably a drugstore cowboy all the way from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
But she kind of doubted that. The boy wasodd, as well—him and his exotic crossbreed dog—but they werenothing compared to the man with the haggard face and the strange blue eyes.
“Eddie said it was a loop,” the boy said.“Maybe last time you guys came in from the other end.”
The man considered this and nodded. “Wouldthe other end be the Bridgton end?” he asked the woman.
“Yes indeed.”
The man with the odd blue eyes nodded.“We’re going to the writer’s house.”
“Cara Laughs,” she said at once. “It’s a beautifulhouse. I’ve seen it from the lake, but I don’t know which driveway—”
“It’s nineteen,” the man said. They werecurrently passing the one marked 27. From this end of Turtleback Lane, thenumbers would go down rather than up.
“What do you want with him, if I may I beso bold?”
It was the boy who answered. “We want tosave his life.”
Seven
Roland recognized the steeply descendingdriveway at once, even though he’d last seen it under black, thundery skies,and much of his attention had been taken by the brilliant flying taheen. Therewas no sign of taheen or other exotic wildlife today. The roof of the housebelow had been dressed with copper instead of shingles at some point during theintervening years, and the wooded area beyond it had become a lawn, but thedriveway was the same, with a sign reading CARA LAUGHS on the lefthand side andone bearing the number 19 in large numerals on the right. Beyond was thelake, sparkling blue in the strong afternoon light.
From the lawn came the blat of a hard-workingsmall engine. Roland looked at Jake and was dismayed by the boy’s pale cheeksand wide, frightened eyes.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“He’s not here, Roland. Not him, not any ofhis family. Just the man cutting the grass.”
“Nonsense, you can’t—” Mrs. Tassenbaumbegan.
“I know!” Jake shouted at her. “I know,lady!”
Roland was looking at Jake with a frank andhorrified sort of fascination… but in his current state, the boy either did notunderstand the look or missed it entirely.
Why are you lying, Jake? the gunslingerthought. And then, on the heels of that: He’s not.
“What if it’s already happened?” Jakedemanded, and yes, he was worried about King, but Roland didn’t think that was allhe was worried about. “What if he’s dead and his family’s not here because thepolice called them, and—”
“It hasn’t happened,” Roland said, but thatwas all of which he was sure. What do you know, Jake, and why won’t you tellme?
There was no time to wonder about it now.
Eight
The man with the blue eyes sounded calm ashe spoke to the boy, but he didn’t look calm to Irene Tassenbaum; not atall. And those singing voices she’d first noticed outside the East StonehamGeneral Store had changed. Their song was still sweet, but wasn’t there a noteof desperation in it now, as well? She thought so. A high, pleading qualitythat made her temples throb.
“How can you know that?” the boycalled Jake shouted at the man—his father, she assumed. “How can you beso fucking sure?”
Instead of answering the kid’s question,the one called Roland looked at her. Mrs. Tassenbaum felt the skin ofher arms and back break out in gooseflesh.