The Dark Tower (58 page)

“Yes,” she said. “Not because I want to—all the spit and git is out of me—but because
he
wanted me to.” Gently, very gently, she put Eddie’s hand back on his chest with the other one. Then she pointed a finger at Roland. The tip trembled minutely. “Just don’t start up with any of that ‘we are ka-tet, we are one from many’ crap. Because those days are gone. Ain’t they?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “But the Tower still stands. And waits.”

“Lost my taste for that, too, big boy.” Not quite
los’ mah tase fo’ dat, too,
but almost. “Tell you the truth.”

But Jake realized that she was
not
telling the truth. She
hadn’t
lost her desire to see the Dark Tower any more than Roland had. Any more than Jake had himself. Their tet might be broken, but ka remained. And she felt it just as they did.

They kissed her (and Oy licked her face) before leaving.

“You be careful, Jake,” Susannah said. “Come back safe, hear? Eddie would have told you the same.”

“I know,” Jake said, and then kissed her again. He was smiling because he could hear Eddie telling him to watch his ass, it was cracked already, and starting to cry once more for the same reason. Susannah held him tight a moment longer, then let him go and turned back to her husband, lying so still and cold in the proctor’s bed. Jake understood that she had little time for Jake Chambers or Jake Chambers’s grief just now. Her own was too big.

Outside the suite, Dinky waited by the door. Roland was walking on with Ted, the two of them already at the end of the corridor and deep in conversation. Jake supposed they were headed back to the Mall, where Sheemie (with a little help from the others) would attempt to send them once more to America-side. That reminded him of something.

“The D-line trains go south,” Jake said. “Or what’s supposed to be south—is that right?”

“More or less, partner,” Dinky said. “Some of the engines have got names, like
Delicious Rain
or
Spirit of the Snow Country,
but they’ve
all
got letters and numbers.”

“Does the D stand for Dandelo?” Jake asked.

Dinky looked at him with a puzzled frown. “Dandelo? What in the hell is that?”

Jake shook his head. He didn’t even want to tell Dinky where he’d heard the word.

“Well, I don’t know, not for sure,” Dinky said as they resumed walking, “but I always assumed the D stood for Discordia. Because that’s where all the trains supposedly end up, you know—somewhere deep in the universe’s baddest Badlands.”

Jake nodded. D for Discordia. That made sense. Sort of, anyway.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Dinky said. “What’s a Dandelo?”

“Just a word I saw written on the wall in Thunderclap Station. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

Outside Corbett Hall, a delegation of Breakers waited. They looked grim and frightened.
D for Dandelo,
Jake thought.
D for Discordia. Also D for desperate.

Roland faced them with his arms folded over his chest. “Who speaks for you?” he asked. “If one speaks, let him come forward now, for our time here is up.”

A gray-haired gentleman—another bankerly-looking fellow, in truth—stepped forward. He was wearing gray suit-pants, a white shirt open at the collar, and a gray vest, also open. The vest sagged. So did the man wearing it.

“You’ve taken our lives from us,” he said. He spoke these words with a kind of morose satisfaction—as if he’d always known it would come to
this (or something like this). “The lives we knew. What will you give back in return, Mr. Gilead?”

There was a rumble of approval at this. Jake Chambers heard it and was suddenly more angry than ever before in his life. His hand, seemingly of its own accord, stole to the handle of the Coyote machine-pistol, caressed it, and found a cold comfort in its shape. Even a brief respite from grief. And Roland knew, for he reached behind him without looking and put his hand on top of Jake’s. He squeezed until Jake let loose of the gun.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll give, since you ask,” Roland said. “I meant to have this place, where you have fed on the brains of helpless children in order to destroy the universe, burned to the ground; aye, every stick of it. I intended to set certain flying balls that have come into our possession to explode, and blow apart anything that would not burn. I intended to point you the way to the River Whye and the green Callas which lie beyond it, and set you on with a curse my father taught me: may you live long, but not in good health.”

A resentful murmur greeted this, but not an eye met Roland’s own. The man who had agreed to speak for them (and even in his rage, Jake gave him points for courage) was swaying on his feet, as if he might soon faint away.

“The Callas still lie in that direction,” Roland said, and pointed. “If you go, some—many, even—may die on the way, for there are animals out there that are hungry, and what water there is may be poison. I’ve no doubt the Calla-
folken
will know who you are and what you’ve been about even if you lie, for they have the Manni among them and the Manni see much. Yet you may find
forgiveness there rather than death, for the capacity for forgiveness in the hearts of such people is beyond the capacity of hearts such as yours to understand. Or mine, for that matter.

“That they would put you to work and that the rest of your lives would pass not in the comfort you’ve known but in toil and sweat I have no doubt, yet I urge you to go, if only to find some redemption for what you have done.”

“We didn’t
know
what we were doing, ye chary man!” a woman in the back yelled furiously.

“YOU KNEW!
” Jake shouted back, screaming so loudly that he saw black dots in front of his eyes, and Roland’s hand was once again instantly over his to stay his draw. Would he actually have sprayed the crowd with the Coyote, bringing more death to this terrible place? He didn’t know. What he did know was that a gunslinger’s hands were sometimes not under his control once a weapon was in them. “Don’t you dare say you didn’t!
You knew!
”

“I’ll give this much, may it do ya,” Roland said. “My friends and I—those who survive, although I’m sure the one who lies dead yonder would agree, which is why I speak as I do—will let this place stand. There’s food enough to see you through the rest of your lives, I have no doubt, and robots to cook it and wash your clothes and even wipe your asses, if that’s what you think you need. If you prefer purgatory to redemption, then stay here. Were I you, I’d make the trek instead. Follow the railroad tracks out of the shadows. Tell them what you did before they can tell you, and get on your knees with your heads bared, and beg their forgiveness.”

“Never!” someone shouted adamantly, but Jake thought some of the others looked unsure.

“As you will,” said Roland. “I’ve spoken my last word on it, and the next who speaks back to me may remain silent ever after, for one of my friends is preparing another, her husband, to lie in the ground and I am full of grief and rage. Would you speak more? Would you dare my rage? If so, you dare this.” He drew his gun and laid it in the hollow of his shoulder. Jake stepped up beside him, at last drawing his own.

There was a moment of silence, and then the man who had spoken turned away.

“Don’t shoot us, mister, you’ve done enough,” someone said bitterly.

Roland made no reply and the crowd began to disperse. Some went running, and the others caught that like a cold. They fled in silence, except for a few who were weeping, and soon the dark had swallowed them up.

“Wow,” Dinky said. His voice was soft and respectful.

“Roland,” Ted said. “What they did wasn’t entirely their fault. I thought I had explained that, but I guess I didn’t do a very good job.”

Roland holstered his revolver. “You did an excellent job,” he said. “That’s why they’re still alive.”

Now they had the Damli House end of the Mall to themselves again, and Sheemie limped up to Roland. His eyes were round and solemn. “Will you show me where you’d go, dear?” he asked. “Can you show me the place?”

The place. Roland had been so fixed on the
when
that he’d scarcely thought of the
where
. And his memories of the road they had traveled in Lovell were pretty skimpy. Eddie had been driving John Cullum’s car, and Roland had been deep in
his own thoughts, concentrating on the things he would say to convince the caretaker to help them.

“Did Ted show you a place before you sent him on?” he asked Sheemie.

“Aye, so he did. Only he didn’t know he was showing me. It was a baby-picture . . . I don’t know how to tell you, exactly . . . stupid head! Full of cobwebbies!” Sheemie made a fist and clouted himself between the eyes.

Roland took the hand before Sheemie could hit himself again and unrolled the fingers. He did this with surprising gentleness. “No, Sheemie. I think I understand. You found a thought . . . a memory from when he was a little boy.”

Ted had come over to them. “Of course that must be it,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it before now. Too simple, maybe. I grew up in Milford, and the place where I came out in 1960 was barely a spit from there in geographical terms. Sheemie must have found a memory of a carriage-ride, or maybe a trip on the Hartford Trolley to see my Uncle Jim and Aunt Molly in Bridgeport. Something in my subconscious.” He shook his head. “I
knew
the place where I came out looked familiar, but of course it was years later. The Merritt Parkway wasn’t there when I was a boy.”

“Can you show me a picture like that?” Sheemie asked Roland hopefully.

Roland thought once more of the place in Lovell where they’d parked on Route 7, the place where he’d called Chevin of Chayven out of the woods, but it simply wasn’t sure enough; there was no landmark that made the place only itself and no other. Not one that he remembered, anyway.

Then another idea came. One that had to do with Eddie.

“Sheemie!”

“Aye, Roland of Gilead, Will Dearborn that was!”

Roland reached out and placed his hands on the sides of Sheemie’s head. “Close your eyes, Sheemie, son of Stanley.”

Sheemie did as he was told, then reached out his own hands and grasped the sides of Roland’s head. Roland closed his own eyes.

“See what I see, Sheemie,” he said. “See where we would go. See it very well.”

And Sheemie did.

While they stood there, Roland projecting and Sheemie seeing, Dani Rostov softly called to Jake.

Once he was before her she hesitated, as if unsure what she would say or do. He began to ask her, but before he could, she stopped his mouth with a kiss. Her lips were amazingly soft.

“That’s for good luck,” she said, and when she saw his look of amazement and understood the power of what she had done, her timidity lessened. She put her arms around his neck (still holding her scuffed Pooh Bear in one hand; he felt it soft against his back) and did it again. He felt the push of her tiny, hard breasts and would remember the sensation for the rest of his life. Would remember
her
for the rest of his life.

“And that’s for me.” She retreated to Ted Brautigan’s side, eyes downcast and cheeks burning red, before he could speak. Not that he could have,
even if his life had depended upon it. His throat was locked shut.

Ted looked at him and smiled. “You judge the rest of them by the first one,” he said. “Take it from me. I know.”

Jake could still say nothing. She might have punched him in the head instead of kissing him on the lips. He was that dazed.

Fifteen minutes later, four men, one girl, a billy-bumbler, and one dazed, amazed (and very tired) boy stood on the Mall. They seemed to have the grassy quad to themselves; the rest of the Breakers had disappeared completely. From where he stood, Jake could see the lighted window on the first floor of Corbett Hall where Susannah was tending to her man. Thunder rumbled. Ted spoke now as he had in Thundercap Station’s office closet, where the red blazer’s brass tag read
HEAD OF SHIPPING
, back when Eddie’s death had been unthinkable: “Join hands. And concentrate.”

Jake started to reach for Dani Rostov’s hand, but Dinky shook his head, smiling a little. “Maybe you can hold hands with her another day, hero, but right now you’re the monkey in the middle. And your dinh’s another one.”

“You hold hands with each other,” Sheemie said. There was a quiet authority in his voice that Jake hadn’t heard before. “That’ll help.”

Jake tucked Oy into his shirt. “Roland, were you able to show Sheemie—”

“Look,” Roland said, taking his hands. The others
now made a tight circle around them. “Look. I think you’ll see.”

A brilliant seam opened in the darkness, obliterating Sheemie and Ted from Jake’s view. For a moment it trembled and darkened, and Jake thought it would disappear. Then it grew bright again and spread wider. He heard, very faintly (the way you heard things when you were underwater), the sound of a car or truck passing in that other world. And saw a building with a small asphalt lot in front of it. Three cars and a pickup truck were parked there.

Daylight!
he thought, dismayed. Because if time never ran backward in the Keystone World, that meant that time
had
slipped. If that was Keystone World, then it was Saturday, the nineteenth of June, in the year—

“Quick!” Ted shouted from the other side of that brilliant hole in reality. “If you’re going, go now! He’s going to faint! If you’re going—”

Roland yanked Jake forward, his purse bouncing on his back as he did so.

Wait!
Jake wanted to shout.
Wait, I forgot my stuff!

But it was too late. There was the sensation of big hands squeezing his chest, and he felt all the air whoosh out of his lungs. He thought,
Pressure change.
There was a sensation of falling
up
and then he was reeling onto the pavement of the parking lot with his shadow tacked to his heels, squinting and grimacing, wondering in some distant part of his mind how long it had been since his eyes had been exposed to plain old natural daylight. Not since entering the Doorway Cave in pursuit of Susannah, maybe.