The Dark Tower

Four

Luckily for them, this first stretch of thenarrow path winding into the Badlands was mostly level, and when they didcome to an uphill stretch, Roland made no objection to Susa

She had none. They’d brought along enoughbones and khaki rags to make a fire, but Susa

“Probably we’ll find more stuff we can usefor fuel as we go along,” she said hopefully once the fire was lit (the burningbones gave off a nasty smell, and they were careful to sit downwind). “Weeds…bushes… more bones… maybe even deadwood.”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Not on thisside of the Crimson King’s castle. Not even devilgrass, which grows damned nearanywhere in Mid-World.”

“You don’t know that. Not for sure.” Shecouldn’t bear thinking about days and days of unvarying chill, with the two ofthem dressed for nothing more challenging than a spring day in Central Park.

“I think he murdered this land when hedarkened Thunderclap,” Roland mused. “It probably wasn’t much of a shake tobegin with, and it’s sterile now. But count your blessings.” He reached overand touched a pimple that had popped out of her skin beside her full lower lip.“A hundred years ago this might have darkened and spread and eaten your skinright off your bones. Gotten into your brain and run you mad before you died.”

“Cancer? Radiation?”

Roland shrugged as if to say it didn’tmatter. “Somewhere beyond the Crimson King’s castle we may come to grasslandsand even forests again, but the grass will likely be buried under snow when weget there, for the season’s wrong. I can feel it in the air, see it in the waythe day’s darkening so quickly.”

She groaned, striving for comic effect, butwhat came out was a sound of fear and weariness so real that it frightened her.Oy pricked up his ears and looked around at them. “Why don’t you cheer me up alittle, Roland?”

“You need to know the truth,” he said. “Wecan get on as we are for a good long while, Susa

“But you’re afraid it will.”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid it will. Forover a long period of time there’s little in life so disheartening as constantcold—not deep enough to kill, mayhap, but always there, stealing yourenergy and your will and your body-fat, an ounce at a time. I’m afraid we’re infor a very hard stretch. You’ll see.”

She did.

Five

There’s little in life that’s sodisheartening as constant cold.

The days weren’t so bad. They were on themove, at least, exercising and keeping their blood up. Yet even during the daysshe began to dread the open areas they sometimes came to, where the wind howledacross miles of broken bushless rock and between the occasional butte or mesa.These stuck up into the unvarying blue sky like the red fingers of otherwiseburied stone giants. The wind seemed to grow ever sharper as they trudged belowthe milky swirls of cloud moving along the Path of the Beam. She would hold herchapped hands up to shield her face from it, hating the way her fingers wouldnever go completely numb but instead turned into dazed things full of buriedbuzzings. Her eyes would well up with water, and then the tears would gush downher cheeks. These tear-tracks never froze; the cold wasn’t that bad. It wasjust deep enough to make their lives a slowly escalating misery. For whatpittance would she have sold her immortal soul during those unpleasant days andhorrible nights? Sometimes she thought a single sweater would have purchasedit; at other times she thought No, honey, you got too much self-respect,even now. Would you be willing to spend an eternity in hell—or maybe inthe todash darkness—for a single sweater? Surely not!

Well, maybe not. But if the deviltempting her were to throw in a pair of earmuffs—

And it would have taken so little, really,to make them comfortable. She thought of this constantly. They had the food,and they had water, too, because at fifteen-mile intervals along the path theycame to pumps that still worked, pulling great cold gushes of mineral-tastingwater from deep under the Badlands.

Badlands. She had hours and daysand, ultimately, weeks to meditate on that word. What made lands bad? Poisonedwater? The water out here wasn’t sweet, not by any means, but it wasn’tpoisoned, either. Lack of food? They had food, although she guessed it mightbecome a problem later on, if they didn’t find more. In the meantime she wasgetting almighty tired of corned beef hash, not to mention raisins forbreakfast and raisins if you wanted dessert. Yet it was food. Body-gasoline.What made the Badlands bad when you had food and water? Watching the sky turnfirst gold and then russet in the west; watching it turn purple and thenstarshot black in the east. She watched the days end with increasing dread: thethought of another endless night, the three of them huddled together while thewind whined and twined its way through the rocks and the stars glared down.Endless stretches of cold purgatory while your feet and fingers buzzed and youthought If I only had a sweater and a pair of gloves, I could becomfortable. That’s all it would take, just a sweater and a pair of gloves.Because it’s really not that cold.

Exactly how cold did it get aftersundown? Never below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, she knew, because the watershe put out for Oy never froze solid. She guessed that the temperature droppedto around forty in the hours between midnight and dawn; on a couple of nightsit might have fallen into the thirties, because she saw tiny spicules of icearound the edge of the pot that served Oy as a dish.

She began to eye his fur coat. At first shetold herself this was nothing but a speculative exercise, a way of passing thetime—exactly how hot did the bumbler’s metabolism run, and exactly howwarm did that coat (that thick, luxuriantly thick, that amazinglythick coat) keep him? Little by little she recognized her feelings for whatthey were: jealousy that muttered in Detta’s voice. L’il buggah doan feel nopain after the sun go down, do he? No, not him! You reckon you could git twosets o’ mittens outta that hide?

She would thrust these thoughts away,miserable and horrified, wondering if there was any lower limit to the humanspirit at its nasty, calculating, self-serving worst, not wanting to know.

Deeper and deeper that cold worked intothem, day by day and night by night. It was like a splinter. They would sleephuddled together with Oy between them, then turn so the sides of them that hadbeen facing the night were turned inward again. Real restorative sleep neverlasted long, no matter how tired they were. When the moon began to wax,brightening the dark, they spent two weeks walking at night and sleeping in thedaytime. That was a little better.