The Dark Tower

“Drive,” he said. His hands caressed thesteering wheel as if he longed to be gone immediately. Roland supposed he did.“Wake up, little by little. When I get to a house or store, tell them StephenKing’s hurt side o’ the road and he needs help. I know he’s still alive becausehe talked to me. It was an accident.” He paused. “It wasn’t my fault. He waswalking in the road.” A pause. “Probably.”

Do I care upon whom the blame for thismess falls? Roland asked himself. In truth he did not. King would go onwriting either way. And Roland almost hoped he would be blamed, for itwas indeed King’s fault; he’d had no business being out here in the firstplace.

“Drive away now,” he told Bryan Smith. “Idon’t want to look at you anymore.”

Smith started the van with a look ofprofound relief. Roland didn’t bother watching him go. He went to Mrs.Tassenbaum and fell on his knees beside her. Oy sat by Jake’s head, now silent,knowing his howls could no longer be heard by the one for whom he grieved. Whatthe gunslinger feared most had come to pass. While he had been talking to twomen he didn’t like, the boy whom he loved more than all others—more thanhe’d loved anyone ever in his life, even Susan Delgado—had passed beyondhim for the second time. Jake was dead.

Five

“He talked to you,” Roland said. He tookJake in his arms and began to rock him gently back and forth. The ‘Rizasclanked in their pouch. Already he could feel Jake’s body growing cool.

“Yes,” she said.

“What did he say?”

“He told me to come back for you ‘after thebusiness here is done.’ Those were his exact words. And he said, ‘Tell myfather I love him.’”

Roland made a sound, choked and miserable,deep in his throat. He was remembering how it had been in Fedic, after they hadstepped through the door. Hile, Father, Jake had said. Roland had takenhim in his arms then, too. Only then he had felt the boy’s beating heart. Hewould give anything to feel it beat again.

“There was more,” she said, “but do we havetime for it now, especially when I could tell you later?”

Roland took her point immediately. Thestory both Bryan Smith and Stephen King knew was a simple one. There was noplace in it for a lank, travel-scoured man with a big gun, nor a woman withgraying hair; certainly not for a dead boy with a bag of sharp-edged platesslung over his shoulder and a machine-pistol in the waistband of his pants.

The only question was whether or not thewoman would come back at all. She was not the first person he had attractedinto doing things they might not ordinarily have done, but he knew things mightlook different to her once she was away from him. Asking for her promise—Doyou swear to come back for me, sai? Do you swear on this boy’s stilled heart?—woulddo no good. She could mean every word here and then think better of it once shewas over the first hill.

Yet when he’d had a chance to take theshopkeeper who owned the truck, he didn’t. Nor had he swapped her for the oldman cutting the grass at the writer’s house.

“Later will do,” he said. “For now, hurryon your way. If for some reason you feel you can’t come back here, I’ll nothold it against you.”

“Where would you go on your own?” she askedhim. “Where would you know to go? This isn’t your world. Is it?”

Roland ignored the question. “If there arepeople still here the first time you come back—peace officers, guards o’the watch, bluebacks, I don’t know—drive past without stopping. Come backagain in half an hour’s time. If they’re still here, drive on again. Keep doingthat until they’re gone.”

“Will they notice me going back and forth?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Will they?”

She considered, then almost smiled. “Thecops in this part of the world? Probably not.”

He nodded, accepting her judgment. “Whenyou feel it’s safe, stop. You won’t see me, but I’ll see you. I’ll wait untildark. If you’re not here by then, I go.”

“I’ll come for you, but I won’t be drivingthat miserable excuse for a truck when I do,” she said. “I’ll be driving aMercedes-Benz S600.” She said this with some pride.

Roland had no idea what a Mercedes-Bendswas, but he nodded as though he did. “Go. We’ll talk later, after you comeback.”

If you come back, he thought.

“I think you may want this,” she said, andslipped his revolver back into its holster.

“Thankee-sai.”

“You’re welcome.”

He watched her go to the old truck (whichhe thought she’d rather come to like, despite her dismissive words) and haulherself up by the wheel. And as she did, he realized there was something heneeded, something that might be in the truck. “Whoa!”

Mrs. Tassenbaum had put her hand on the keyin the ignition. Now she took it off and looked at him inquiringly. Rolandsettled Jake gently back to the earth beneath which he must soon lie (it wasthat thought which had caused him to call out) and got to his feet. He wincedand put his hand to his hip, but that was only habit. There was no pain.

“What?” she asked as he approached. “If Idon’t go soon—”

It wouldn’t matter if she went at all.“Yes. I know.”

He looked in the bed of the truck. Alongwith the careless scatter of tools there was a square shape under a bluetarpaulin. The edges of the tarp had been folded beneath the object to keep itfrom blowing away. When Roland pulled the tarp free, he saw eight or ten boxesmade of the stiff paper Eddie called “card-board.” They’d been pushed togetherto make the square shape. The pictures printed on the card-board told him theywere boxes of beer. He wouldn’t have cared if they had been boxes of highexplosive.

It was the tarpaulin he wanted.

He stepped back from the truck with it inhis arms and said, “Now you can go.”

She grasped the key that started the engineonce more, but did not immediately turn it. “Sir,” said she, “I am sorry foryour loss. I just wanted to tell you that. I can see what that boy meant toyou.”

Roland Deschain bowed his head and saidnothing.

Irene Tassenbaum looked at him for a momentlonger, reminded herself that sometimes words were useless things, then startedthe engine and slammed the door. He watched her drive into the road (her use ofthe clutch had already grown smooth and sure), making a tight turn so she coulddrive north, back toward East Stoneham.

Sorry for your loss.

And now he was alone with that loss. Alonewith Jake. For a moment Roland stood surveying the little grove of trees besidethe highway, looking at two of the three who had been drawn to this place: aman, unconscious, and a boy dead. Roland’s eyes were dry and hot, throbbing intheir sockets, and for a moment he was sure that he had again lost the abilityto weep. The idea horrified him. If he was incapable of tears after all ofthis—after what he’d regained and then lost again—what good was anyof it? So it was an immense relief when the tears finally came. They spilledfrom his eyes, quieting their nearly insane blue glare. They ran down his dirtycheeks. He cried almost silently, but there was a single sob and Oy heard it.He raised his snout to the corridor of fast-moving clouds and howled a singletime at them. Then he too was silent.

Six

Roland carried Jake deeper into the woods,with Oy padding at his heel. That the bumbler was also weeping no longersurprised Roland; he had seen him cry before. And the days when he had believedOy’s demonstrations of intelligence (and empathy) might be no more than mimicryhad long since passed. Most of what Roland thought about on that short walk wasa prayer for the dead he had heard Cuthbert speak on their last campaigntogether, the one that had ended at Jericho Hill. He doubted that Jake needed aprayer to send him on, but the gunslinger needed to keep his mind occupied,because it did not feel strong just now; if it went too far in the wrongdirection, it would certainly break. Perhaps later he could indulge inhysteria—or even irina, the healing madness—but not now. He wouldnot break now. He would not let the boy’s death come to nothing.