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Suddenly Justine doesn’t feel likepicking berries anymore. She wants to go back home and have a strong cup oftea.
The man comes limping briskly out of thebushes and uses his cane to help him back over the rock wall.
“I guess he didn’t need to Number Two,”Elvira says, and as the bad driver climbs back into his blue van, the twogoing-on-old women look at each other and burst into giggles.
Twelve
Roland watched the old man give the womaninstructions—something about using Warrington’s Road as ashortcut—and then Jake opened his eyes. To Roland the boy lookedunutterably weary.
“I was able to make him stop and take aleak,” he said. “Now he’s fixing something behind his seat. I don’t know whatit is, but it won’t keep him busy for long. Roland, this is bad. We’re awfullylate. We have to go.”
Roland looked at the woman, hoping that hisdecision not to replace her behind the wheel with the old man had been theright one. “Do you know where to go? Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said. “Up Warrington’s to Route7. We sometimes go to di
“Can’t guarantee you’ll cut his path gointhat way,” said the caretaker, “but it seems likely.” He bent down to pick uphis hat and began to brush bits of freshly cut grass from it. He did this withlong, slow strokes, like a man caught in a dream. “Ayuh, seems likely t’me.”And then, still like a man who dreams awake, he tucked his hat beneath his arm,raised a fist to his forehead, and bent a leg to the stranger with the bigrevolver on his hip. Why would he not?
The stranger was surrounded by white light.
Thirteen
When Roland pulled himself back into thecab of the storekeeper’s truck—a chore made more difficult by the rapidlyescalating pain in his right hip—his hand came down on Jake’s leg, andjust like that he knew what Jake had been keeping back, and why. He had beenafraid that knowing might cause the gunslinger’s focus to drift. It was notka-shume the boy had felt, or Roland would have felt it, too. How couldthere be ka-shume among them, with the tet already broken? Their special power,something greater than all of them, perhaps drawn from the Beam itself, wasgone. Now they were just three friends (four, counting the bumbler) united by asingle purpose. And they could save King. Jake knew it. They could save the writerand come a step closer to saving the Tower by doing so. But one of them wasgoing to die doing it.
Jake knew that, too.
Fourteen
An old saying—one taught to him byhis father—came to Roland then: If ka will say so, let it be so.Yes; all right; let it be so.
During the long years he had spent on thetrail of the man in black, the gunslinger would have sworn nothing in theuniverse could have caused him to renounce the Tower; had he not literallykilled his own mother in pursuit of it, back at the start of his terriblecareer? But in those years he had been friendless, childless, and (he didn’tlike to admit it, but it was true) heartless. He had been bewitched by thatcold romance the loveless mistake for love. Now he had a son and he had beengiven a second chance and he had changed. Knowing that one of them must die inorder to save the writer—that their fellowship must be reduced again, andso soon—would not make him cry off. But he would make sure that Roland ofGilead, not Jake of New York, provided the sacrifice this time.
Did the boy know that he’d penetrated hissecret? No time to worry about that now.
Roland slammed the truckomobile’s door shutand looked at the woman. “Is your name Irene?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Drive, Irene. Do it as if Lord HighSplitfoot were on your trail with rape on his mind, do ya I beg. OutWarrington’s Road. If we don’t see him there, out the Seven-Road. Will you?”
“You’re fucking right,” said Mrs.Tassenbaum, and shoved the gearshift into First with real authority.
The engine screamed, but the truck began toroll backward, as if so frightened by the job ahead that it would rather finishup in the lake. Then she engaged the clutch and the old International Harvesterleaped ahead, charging up the steep incline of the driveway and leaving a trailof blue smoke and burnt rubber behind.
Garrett McKeen’s great-grandson watchedthem go with his mouth hanging open. He had no idea what had just happened, buthe felt sure that a great deal depended on what would happen next.
Maybe everything.
Fifteen
Needing to piss that bad was weird,because pissing was the last thing Bryan Smith had done before leaving theMillion Dollar Campground. And once he’d clambered over the fucking rock wall,he hadn’t been able to manage more than a few drops, even though it had feltlike a real bladder-buster at the time. Bryan hopes he’s not going to havetrouble with his prostrate; trouble with the old prostrate is the last thing heneeds. He’s got enough other problems, by the hairy old Jesus.
Oh well, now that he’s stopped he mightas well try to fix the Styrofoam cooler behind the seat—the dogs arestill staring at it with their tongues hanging out. He tries to wedge itunderneath the seat, but it won’t go—there’s not quite enough clearance.What he does instead is to point a dirty finger at his rotties and tell themagain to ne’mine the cooler and the meat inside, that’s his, that’s go
“You leave it alone!” he tellsthem again, and hops back behind the wheel. He slams the door, takes a briefglance in the rearview mirror, sees two old ladies back there (he didn’t noticethem before because he wasn’t exactly looking at the road when he passed them),gives them a wave they never see through the Caravan’s filthy rear window, andthen pulls back onto Route 7. Now the radio is playing “Gangsta Dream 19,” byOwt-Ray-Juss, and Bryan turns it up (once more swerving across the white lineand into the northbound lane as he does so—this is the sort of person whosimply ca
And some of those Marses bars.
Sixteen
Mrs. Tassenbaum came bolting out of theCara Laughs driveway and onto Turtleback Lane in second gear, the old pickuptruck’s engine overcranking (if there’d been an RPM gauge on the dashboard, theneedle would undoubtedly have been red-lining), the few tools in the backtapdancing crazily in the rusty bed.
Roland had only a bit of thetouch—hardly any at all, compared to Jake—but he had met StephenKing, and taken him down into the false sleep of hypnosis. That was a powerfulbond to share, and so he wasn’t entirely surprised when he touched the mindJake hadn’t been able to reach. It probably didn’t hurt that King was thinkingabout them.
He often does on his walks, Rolandthought. When he’s alone, he hears the Song of the Turtle and knows that hehas a job to do. One he’s shirking. Well, my friend, that ends today.
If, that was, they could save him.
He leaned past Jake and looked at thewoman. “Can’t you make this gods-cursed thing go faster?”
“Yes,” she said. “I believe I can.” Andthen, to Jake: “Can you really read minds, son, or is that only a game you andyour friend play?”
“I can’t read them, exactly, but I cantouch them,” Jake said.