The Dark Tower

The hazy green-gold summerglow that livesonly in forests (and old forests, at that, like the one where the BearShardik had rampaged), deepened. It fell through the trees in dusky beams, andthe place where Roland finally stopped felt more like a church than a clearing.He had gone roughly two hundred paces from the road on a westerly line. Here heset Jake down and looked about. He saw two rusty beer-cans and a few ejectedshell-casings, probably the leavings of hunters. He tossed them further intothe woods so the place would be clean. Then he looked at Jake, wiping away histears so he could see as clearly as possible. The boy’s face was as clean asthe clearing, Oy had seen to that, but one of Jake’s eyes was still open,giving the boy an evil winky look that must not be allowed. Roland rolled thelid closed with a finger, and when it sprang back up again (like a balkywindowshade, he thought), he licked the ball of his thumb and rolled the lidshut again. This time it stayed closed.

There was dust and blood on Jake’s shirt.Roland took it off, then took his own off and put it on Jake, moving him like adoll in order to get it on him. The shirt came almost to Jake’s knees, butRoland made no attempt to tuck it in; this way it covered the bloodstains onJake’s pants.

All of this Oy watched, his gold-ringedeyes bright with tears.

Roland had expected the soil to be softbeneath the thick carpet of needles, and it was. He had a good start on Jake’sgrave when he heard the sound of an engine from the roadside. Othermotor-carriages had passed since he’d carried Jake into the woods, but herecognized the dissonant beat of this one. The man in the blue vehicle had comeback. Roland hadn’t been entirely sure he would.

“Stay,” he murmured to the bumbler. “Guardyour master.” But that was wrong. “Stay and guard your friend.”

It wouldn’t have been unusual for Oy torepeat the command (S’ay! was about the best he could manage) in thesame low voice, but this time he said nothing. Roland watched him lie downbeside Jake’s head, however, and snap a fly out of the air when it came in fora landing on the boy’s nose. Roland nodded, satisfied, then started back theway he had come.

Seven

Bryan Smith was out of his motor-carriageand sitting on the rock wall by the time Roland got back in view of him, hiscane drawn across his lap. (Roland had no idea if the cane was an affectationor something the man really needed, and didn’t care about this, either.) Kinghad regained some soupy version of consciousness, and the two men were talking.

“Please tell me it’s just sprained,” thewriter said in a weak, worried voice.

“Nope! I’d say that leg’s broke in six,maybe seven places.” Now that he’d had time to settle down and maybe work out astory, Smith sounded not just calm but almost happy.

“Cheer me up, why don’t you,” King said.The visible side of his face was very pale, but the flow of blood from the gashon his temple had slowed almost to a stop. “Have you got a cigarette?”

“Nope,” Smith said in that same weirdlycheerful voice. “Gave em up.”

Although not particularly strong in thetouch, Roland had enough of it to know this wasn’t so. But Smith only had threeand didn’t want to share them with this man, who could probably afford enoughcigarettes to fill Smith’s entire van with them. Besides, Smiththought—

“Besides, folks who been in a accidentain’t supposed to smoke,” Smith said virtuously.

King nodded. “Hard to breathe, anyway,” hesaid.

“Prolly bust a rib or two, too. My name’sBryan Smith. I’m the one who hit you. Sorry.” He held out his handand—incredibly—King shook it.

“Nothin like this ever happened to mebefore,” Smith said. “I ain’t ever had so much as a parkin ticket.”

King might or might not have known this forthe lie it was, but chose not to comment on it; there was something else on hismind. “Mr. Smith—Bryan—was anyone else here?”

In the trees, Roland stiffened.

Smith actually appeared to consider this.He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Mars bar and began to unwrap it. Thenhe shook his head. “Just you n me. But I called 911 and Rescue, up to thestore. They said someone was real close. Said they’d be here in no time. Don’tyou worry.”

“You know who I am.”

“God yeah!” Bryan Smith said, andchuckled. He took a bite of the candy bar and talked through it. “Reckonizedyou right away. I seen all your movies. My favorite was the one about the SaintBernard. What was that dog’s name?”

“Cujo,” King said. This was a word Rolandknew, one Susan Delgado had sometimes used when they were alone together. InMejis, cujo meant “sweet one.”

“Yeah! That was great! Scary as hell! I’mglad that little boy lived!”

“In the book he died.” Then King closed hiseyes and lay back, waiting.

Smith took another bite, a humongous onethis time. “I liked the show they made about the clown, too! Very cool!”

King made no reply. His eyes stayed closed,but Roland thought the rise and fall of the writer’s chest looked deep andsteady. That was good.

Then a truck roared toward them and swervedto a stop in front of Smith’s van. The new motor-carriage was about the size ofa funeral bucka, but orange instead of black and equipped with flashing lights.Roland was not displeased to see it roll over the tracks of the storekeeper’struck before coming to a stop.

Roland half-expected a robot to get out ofthe coach, but it was a man. He reached back inside for a black sawbones’ bag.Satisfied that everything here would be as well as it could be, Roland returnedto where he had laid Jake, moving with all his old unconscious grace: hecracked not a single twig, surprised not a single bird into flight.

Eight

Would it surprise you, after all we’ve seentogether and all the secrets we’ve learned, to know that at quarter past fivethat afternoon, Mrs. Tassenbaum pulled Chip McAvoy’s old truck into thedriveway of a house we’ve already visited? Probably not, because ka is a wheel,and all it knows how to do is roll. When last we visited here, in 1977, both itand the boathouse on the shore of Keywadin Pond were white with green trim. TheTassenbaums, who bought the place in ‘94, had painted it an entirely pleasingshade of cream (no trim; to Irene Tassenbaum’s way of thinking, trim is forfolks who can’t make up their minds). They have also put a sign reading SUNSETCOTTAGE on a post at the head of the driveway, and as far as Uncle Sam’sconcerned it’s part of their mailing address, but to the local folk, this houseat the south end of Keywadin Pond will always be the old John Cullum place.

She parked the truck beside her dark redBenz and went inside, mentally rehearsing what she’d tell David about why shehad the local shopkeeper’s pickup, but Sunset Cottage hummed with the peculiarsilence only empty places have; she picked up on it immediately. She had comeback to a lot of empty places—apartments at the begi

Are you going to sleep with MarshalDillon, if he wants you?

It wasn’t a question she even had to thinkabout. The answer was yes, she would sleep with him if he wanted her: sideways,backward, doggy-style, or straight-up fuck, if that was his pleasure. Hewouldn’t—even if he hadn’t been grieving for his young