The Dark Tower

Susa

What Jake remembered next was Ted’sfingers—unbelievably gentle fingers—spreading the hair on the backof Eddie’s head and exposing a large hole filled with a dark jelly of blood.There were little white flecks in it. Jake had wanted to believe those fleckswere bits of bone. Better than thinking they might be flecks of Eddie’s brain.

At the sight of this terrible head-woundSusa

(peace ease quiet wait calm slow peace)

soothing message that was as muchcolors—cool blue shading to quiet ashes of gray—as it was words.Roland, meanwhile, held her shoulders.

“Can anything be done for him?” Rolandasked Ted. “Anything at all?”

“He can be made comfortable,” Ted said. “Wecan do that much, at least.” Then he pointed toward the Devar. “Don’t you stillhave work there to finish, Roland?”

For a moment Roland didn’t quite seem tounderstand that. Then he looked at the bodies of the downed guards, and did.“Yes,” he said. “I suppose I do. Jake, can you help me? If the ones left wereto find a new leader and regroup… that wouldn’t do at all.”

“What about Susa

“Susa

She’d looked at him with an expression thatwas not quite vacant; the understanding (and the pleading) in that gaze wentinto Jake’s heart like the tip of an icicle. “Must he die?” she hadasked him.

Ted had lifted her hand to his lips andkissed it. “Yes,” he said. “He must die and you must bear it.”

“Then you have to do something for me,” shesaid, and touched Ted’s cheek with her fingers. To Jake those fingers lookedcold. Cold.

“What, love? Anything I can.” He took holdof her fingers and wrapped them

(peace ease quiet wait calm slow peace)

in his own.

“Stop what you’re doing, unless I tell youdifferent,” said she.

He looked at her, surprised. Then heglanced at Dinky, who only shrugged. Then he looked back at Susa

“You mustn’t use your good-mind to steal mygrief,” Susa

For a moment Ted only stood with his headlowered and a frown creasing his brow. Then he looked up and gave her thesweetest smile Jake had ever seen.

“Aye, lady,” Ted replied. “We’ll do as youask. But if you need us… when you need us…”

“I’ll call,” Susa

Two

As Roland and Jake approached the alleywhich would take them back to the center of the Devar-Toi, where they would putoff mourning their fallen friend by taking care of any who might still standagainst them, Sheemie reached out and plucked the sleeve of Roland’s shirt.

“Beam says thankya, Will Dearborn thatwas.” He had blown out his voice with shouting and spoke in a hoarse croak.“Beam says all may yet be well. Good as new. Better.”

“That’s fine,” Roland said, and Jakesupposed it was. There had been no real joy then, however, as there was no realjoy now. Jake kept thinking of the hole Ted Brautigan’s gentle fingers hadexposed. That hole filled with red jelly.

Roland put an arm around Sheemie’sshoulders, squeezed him, gave him a kiss. Sheemie smiled, delighted. “I’ll comewith you, Roland. Will’ee have me, dear?”

“Not this time,” Roland said.

“Why are you crying?” Sheemie asked. Jakehad seen the happiness draining from Sheemie’s face, being replaced with worry.Meanwhile, more Breakers were returning to Main Street, milling around inlittle groups. Jake had seen consternation in the expressions they directedtoward the gunslinger… and a certain dazed curiosity… and, in some cases, cleardislike. Hate, almost. He had seen no gratitude, not so much as a speck ofgratitude, and for that he’d hated them.

“My friend is hurt,” Roland had said. “Icry for him, Sheemie. And for his wife, who is my friend. Will you go to Tedand sai Dinky, and try to soothe her, should she ask to be soothed?”

“If you want, aye! Anything for you!”

“Thankee-sai, son of Stanley. And help ifthey move my friend.”

“Your friend Eddie! Him who lays hurt!”

“Aye, his name is Eddie, you say true. Willyou help Eddie?”

“Aye!”

“And there’s something else—”

“Aye?” Sheemie asked, then seemed toremember something. “Aye! Help you go away, travel far, you and your friends!Ted told me. ‘Make a hole,’ he said, ‘like you did for me.’ Only they broughthim back. The bad ‘uns. They’d not bring you back, for the bad ‘uns are gone!Beam’s at peace!” And Sheemie laughed, a jarring sound to Jake’s grieving ear.

To Roland’s too, maybe, because his smilewas strained. “In time, Sheemie… although I think Susa

If we do return, Jakethought.

“But I have another chore you may be ableto do. Not helping someone travel to that other world, but like that, alittle. I’ve told Ted and Dinky, and they’d tell you, once Eddie’s been put athis ease. Will you listen?”

“Aye! And help, if I can!”

Roland clapped him on the shoulder. “Good!”Then Jake and the gunslinger had gone in a direction that might have bee

Three

They flushed out another fourteen guards inthe next three hours, most of them humes. Roland surprised Jake—alittle—by only killing the two who shot at them from behind the fireengine that had crashed with one wheel stuck in the cellar bulkhead. The resthe disarmed and then gave parole, telling them that any Devar-Toi guards stillin the compound when the late-afternoon change-of-shifts horn blew would beshot out of hand.

“But where will we go?” asked a taheen witha snowy-white rooster’s head below a great floppy-red coxcomb (he reminded Jakea little of Foghorn Leghorn, the cartoon character).

Roland shook his head. “I care not whereyou fetch,” he said, “as long as you’re not here when the next horn blows,ke

“What do you mean?” asked therooster-taheen, almost timidly, but Roland wouldn’t say, had only told thecreature to pass on the message to any others he might run across.

Most of the remaining taheen and can-toileft Algul Siento in pairs and triplets, going without argument and nervouslylooking back over their shoulders every few moments. Jake thought they wereright to be afraid, because his dinh’s face that day had been abstract withthought and terrible with grief. Eddie Dean lay on his deathbed, and Roland ofGilead would not bear crossing.

“What are you going to do to the place?”Jake asked after the afternoon horn had blown. They were making their way pastthe smoking husk of Damli House (where the robot firemen had posted signs everytwenty feet reading OFF-LIMITS PENDING FIRE DEPT. INVESTIGATION), ontheir way to see Eddie.