by Stephen King
Wasn’t it?
Jake became aware that Roland was looking at him closely, looking in a way that made Jake uneasy.
“Penny for em, dimmy-da,” the gunslinger said.
“Nothing,” Jake said. “Just wondering where he’s laid up.”
“Hard to tell,” Roland said. “There’s got to be a hundred holes in this hill alone. Come.”
Roland led the way back around the boulder where Jake had found the stiff black hairs, and once he was there, he began to methodically scuff away the tracks Mordred had left behind.
“Why are you doing that?” Jake asked, more sharply than he had intended.
“There’s no need for Eddie and Susannah to know about this,” Roland said. “He only means to watch, not to interfere in our business. At least for the time being.”
How do you know that? Jake wanted to ask, but that twinge came again—the one that absolutely couldn’t be jealousy— and he decided not to. Let Roland think whatever he wanted. Jake, meanwhile, would keep his eyes open. And if Mordred should be foolish enough to show himself …
“It’s Susannah I’m most concerned about,” Roland said. “She’s the one most likely to be distracted by the chap’s presence. And her thoughts would be the easiest for him to read.”
“Because she’s its mother,” Jake said. He didn’t notice the change of pronoun, but Roland did.
“The two of them are connected, aye. Can I count on you to keep your mouth shut?”
“Sure.”
“And try to guard your mind—that’s important, as well.”
“I can try, but …” Jake shrugged in order to say that he didn’t really know how one did that.
“Good,” Roland said. “And I’ll do the same.”
The wind gusted again. “Bridge Over Troubled Water” had changed to (Jake was pretty sure) a Beatles tune, the one with the chorus that ended Beep-beep-mmm-beep-beep, yeah! Did they know that one in the dusty, dying towns between Gilead and Mejis? Jake wondered. Were there Shebs in some of those towns that played “Drive My Car” jagtime on out-of-tune pianos while the Beams weakened and the glue that held the worlds together slowly stretched into strings and the worlds themselves sagged?
He gave his head a hard, brisk shake, trying to clear it. Roland was still watching him, and Jake felt an uncharacteristic flash of irritation. “I’ll keep my mouth shut, Roland, and at least try to keep my thoughts to myself. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not worried,” Roland said, and Jake found himself fighting the temptation to look inside his dinh’s head and find out if that was actually true. He still thought looking was a bad idea, and not just because it was impolite, either. Mistrust was very likely a kind of acid. Their ka-tet was fragile enough already, and there was much work to do.
“Good,” Jake said. “That’s good.”
“Good!” Oy agreed, in a hearty that’s settled tone that made them both grin.
“We know he’s there,” Roland said, “and it’s likely he doesn’t know we know. Under the circumstances, there’s no better way for things to be.”
Jake nodded. The idea made him feel a little calmer.
Susannah came to the mouth of the cave at her usual speedy crawl while they were walking back toward it. She sniffed at the air and grimaced. When she glimpsed them, the grimace turned into a grin. “I see handsome men! How long have you boys been up?”
“Only a little while,” Roland said.
“And how are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Roland said. “I woke up with a headache, but now it’s almost gone.”
“Really?” Jake asked.
Roland nodded and squeezed the boy’s shoulder.
Susannah wanted to know if they were hungry. Roland nodded. So did Jake.
“Well, come on in here,” she said, “and we’ll see what we can do about that situation.”
THREE
Susannah found powdered eggs and cans of Prudence corned beef hash. Eddie located a can-opener and a small gas-powered hibachi grill. After a little muttering to himself, he got it going and was only a bit startled when the hibachi began talking.
“Hello! I’m three-quarters filled with Gamry Bottled Gas, available at Wal-Mart, Burnaby’s, and other fine stores! When you call for Gamry, you’re calling for quality! Dark in here, isn’t it? May I help you with recipes or cooking times?”
“You could help me by shutting up,” Eddie said, and the grill spoke no more. He found himself wondering if he had offended it, then wondered if perhaps he should kill himself and spare the world a problem.
Roland opened four cans of peaches, smelled them, and nodded. “Okay, I think,” he said. “Sweet.”
They were just finishing this repast when the air in front of the cave shimmered. A moment later, Ted Brautigan, Dinky Earnshaw, and Sheemie Ruiz appeared. With them, cringing and very frightened, dressed in fading and tattered biballs, was the Rod Roland had asked them to bring.
“Come in and have something to eat,” Roland said amiably, as if a quartet of teleports showing up was a common occurrence. “There’s plenty.”
“Maybe we’ll skip breakfast,” Dinky said. “We don’t have much t—”
Before he could finish, Sheemie’s knees buckled and he collapsed at the mouth of the cave, his eyes rolling up to whites and a thin froth of spit oozing out between his cracked lips. He began to shiver and buck, his legs kicking aimlessly, his rubber moccasins scratching lines in the talus.
CHAPTER X:
THE LAST PALAVER
(SHEEMIE’S DREAM)
ONE
Susannah supposed you couldn’t classify what came next as pandemonium; surely it took at least a dozen people to induce such a state, and they were but seven. Eight counting the Rod, and you certainly had to count him, because he was creating a large part of the uproar. When he saw Roland he dropped to his knees, raised his hands over his head like a ref signaling a successful extra-point kick, and began salaaming rapidly. Each downstroke was extreme enough to thump his forehead on the ground. He was at the same time babbling at the top of his lungs in his odd, vowelly language. He never took his eyes off Roland while he performed these gymnastics. Susannah had little doubt the gunslinger was being saluted as some kind of god.
Ted also dropped on his knees, but it was Sheemie with whom he was concerned. The old man put his hands on the sides of Sheemie’s head to stop it whipping back and forth; already Roland’s old acquaintance from his Mejis days had cut one cheek on a sharp bit of stone, a cut that was dangerously close to his left eye. And now blood began to pour from the corners of Sheemie’s mouth and run up his modestly stubbled cheeks.
“Give me something to put in his mouth!” Ted cried. “Come on, somebody! Wake up! He’s biting the shit out of himself!”
The wooden lid was still leaning against the open crate of sneetches. Roland brought it smartly down on his raised knee— no sign of dry twist in that hip now, she noted—and smashed it to bits. Susannah grabbed a piece of board on the fly, then turned to Sheemie. No need to get on her knees; she was always on them, anyway. One end of the wooden piece was jagged with splinters. She wrapped a protective hand around this and then put the piece of wood in Sheemie’s mouth. He bit down on it so hard she could hear the crunch.
The Rod, meanwhile, continued his high, almost falsetto chant. The only words she could pick out of the gibberish were Hile, Roland, Gilead, and Eld.
“Somebody shut him up!” Dinky cried, and Oy began barking.
“Never mind the Rod, get Sheemie’s feet!” Ted snapped. “Hold him still!”
Dinky dropped to his knees and grabbed Sheemie’s feet, one now bare, the other still wearing its absurd rubber moc.
“Oy, hush!” Jake said, and Oy did. But he was standing with his short legs spread and his belly low to the ground, his fur bushed out so he seemed nearly double his normal size.
Roland crouched by Sheemie’s head, forearms on the dirt floor of the cave, mouth by one of Sh
eemie’s ears. He began to murmur. Susannah could make out very little of it because of the Rod’s falsetto babbling, but she did hear Will Dearborn that was and All’s well and—she thought—rest.
Whatever it was, it seemed to get through. Little by little Sheemie relaxed. She could see Dinky easing his hold on the former tavern-boy’s ankles, ready to grab hard again if Sheemie renewed his kicking. The muscles around Sheemie’s mouth also relaxed, and his teeth unlocked. The piece of wood, still nailed lightly to his mouth by his upper incisors, seemed to levitate. Susannah pulled it gently free, looking with amazement at the blood-rimmed holes, some almost half an inch deep, that had been driven into the soft wood. Sheemie’s tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, reminding her of how Oy looked at siesta time, sleeping on his back with his legs spread to the four points of the compass.
Now there was only the rapid auctioneer’s babble of the Rod, and the low growl deep in Oy’s chest as he stood protectively at Jake’s side, looking at the newcomer with narrowed eyes.
“Shut your mouth and be still,” Roland told the Rod, then added something else in another language.
The Rod froze halfway into another salaam, hands still raised above his head, staring at Roland. Eddie saw the side of his nose had been eaten away by a juicy sore, red as a strawberry. The Rod put his scabbed, dirty palms over his eyes, as if the gunslinger were a thing too bright to look at, and fell on his side. He drew his knees up to his chest, producing a loud fart as he did so.
“Harpo speaks,” Eddie said, a joke snappy enough to make Susannah laugh. Then there was silence except for the whine of the wind outside the cave, the faint sound of recorded music from the DevarToi, and the distant rumble of thunder, that sound of rolling bones.
Five minutes later Sheemie opened his eyes, sat up, and looked around with the bewildered air of one who knows not where he is, how he got there, or why. Then his eyes fixed on Roland, and his poor, tired face lit in a smile.
Roland returned it, and held out his arms. “Can’ee come to me, Sheemie? If not, I’ll come to you, sure.”
Sheemie crawled to Roland of Gilead on his hands and knees, his dark and dirty hair hanging in his eyes, and laid his head on Roland’s shoulder. Susannah felt tears stinging her eyes and looked away.
TWO
Some short time later Sheemie sat propped against the wall of the cave with the mover’s pad that had been over Suzie’s Cruisin Trike cushioning his head and back. Eddie had offered him a soda, but Ted suggested water might be better. Sheemie drank the first bottle of Perrier at a single go, and now sat sipping another. The rest of them had instant coffee, except for Ted; he was drinking a can of Nozz-A-La.
“Don’t know how you stand that stuff,” Eddie said.
“Each to his own taste, said the old maid as she kissed the cow,” Ted replied.
Only the Child of Roderick had nothing. He lay where he was, at the mouth of the cave, with his hands pressed firmly over his eyes. He was trembling lightly.
Ted had checked Sheemie over between Sheemie’s first and second bottle of water, taking his pulse, looking in his mouth, and feeling his skull for any soft places. Each time he asked Sheemie if it hurt, Sheemie solemnly shook his head, never taking his eyes off Roland during the examination. After feeling Sheemie’s ribs (“Tickles, sai, so it do,” Sheemie said with a smile), Ted pronounced him fit as a fiddle.
Eddie, who could see Sheemie’s eyes perfectly well—one of the gas-lanterns was nearby and cast a strong glow on Sheemie’s face—thought that was a lie of near Presidential quality.
Susannah was cooking up a fresh batch of powdered eggs and corned beef hash. (The grill had spoken up again—“More of the same, eh?” it asked in a tone of cheery approval.) Eddie caught Dinky Earnshaw’s eye and said, “Want to step outside with me for a minute while Suze makes with the chow?”
Dinky glanced at Ted, who nodded, then back at Eddie. “If you want. We’ve got a little more time this morning, but that doesn’t mean we can waste any.”
“I understand,” Eddie said.
THREE
The wind had strengthened, but instead of freshening the air, it smelled fouler than ever. Once, in high school, Eddie had gone on a field trip to an oil refinery in New Jersey. Until now he thought that was hands-down the worst thing he’d ever smelled in his life; two of the girls and three of the boys had puked. He remembered their tour-guide laughing heartily and saying, “Just remember that’s the smell of money—it helps.” Maybe Perth Oil and Gas was still the all-time champeen, but only because what he was smelling now wasn’t quite so strong. And just by the way, what was there about Perth Oil and Gas that seemed familiar? He didn’t know and it probably didn’t matter, but it was strange, the way things kept coming around over here. Only “coming around” wasn’t quite right, was it?
“Echoing back,” Eddie murmured. “That’s what it is.”
“Beg pardon, partner?” Dinky asked. They were once again standing on the path, looking down at the blue-roofed buildings in the distance, and the tangle of stalled traincars, and the perfect little village. Perfect, that was, until you remembered it was behind a triple run of wire, one of those runs carrying an electrical charge strong enough to kill a man on contact.
“Nothing,” Eddie said. “What’s that smell? Any idea?”
Dinky shook his head, but pointed beyond the prison compound in a direction that might or might not be south or east. “Something poison out there is all I know,” he said. “Once I asked Finli and he said there used to be factories in that direction. Positronics business. You know that name?”
“Yes. But who’s Finli?”
“Finli o’ Tego. The top security guy, Prentiss’s number one boy, also known as The Weasel. A taheen. Whatever your plans are, you’ll have to go through him to make them work. And he won’t make it easy for you. Seeing him stretched out dead on the ground would make me feel like it was a national holiday. By the way, my real name’s Richard Earnshaw. Pleased as hell to meetcha.” He put out his hand. Eddie shook it.
“I’m Eddie Dean. Known as Eddie of New York out here west of the Pecos. The woman’s Susannah. My wife.”
Dinky nodded. “Uh-huh. And the boy’s Jake. Also of New York.”
“Jake Chambers, right. Listen, Rich—”
“I salute the effort,” he said, smiling, “but I’ve been Dinky too long to change now, I guess. And it could be worse. I worked for awhile at the Supr Savr Supermarket with a twentysomething guy known as JJ the Fuckin Blue Jay. People will still be calling him that when he’s eighty and wearing a pee-bag.”
“Unless we’re brave, lucky, and good,” Eddie said, “nobody’s gonna see eighty. Not in this world or any of the others.”
Dinky looked startled, then glum. “You got a point.”
“That guy Roland used to know looks bad,” Eddie said. “Did you see his eyes?”
Dinky nodded, glummer than ever. “I think those little spots of blood in the whites are called petechiae. Something like that.” Then, in a tone of apology Eddie found rather bizarre, under the circumstances: “I don’t know if I’m saying that right.”
“I don’t care what you call them, it’s not good. And him pitching a fit like that—”
“Not a very nice way to put it,” Dinky said.
Eddie didn’t give a shit if it was or wasn’t. “Has it ever happened to him before?”
Dinky’s eyes broke contact with Eddie’s and looked down at his own shuffling feet, instead. Eddie thought that was answer enough.
“How many times?” Eddie hoped he didn’t sound as appalled as he felt. There were enough pinprick-sized bloodspots in the whites of Sheemie’s eyes to make them look as if someone had flung paprika into them. Not to mention the bigger ones in the corners.
Still without looking at him, Dinky raised four fingers.
“Four times?”
“Yuh,” Dinky said. He was still studying his makeshift mocs. “Starting with the time he sent Ted to Conn
ecticut in 1960. It was like doing that ruptured something inside him.” He looked up, trying to smile. “But he didn’t faint yesterday, when the three of us went back to the Devar.”
“Let me make sure I’ve got this right. In the prison down there, you guys have all sorts of venial sins, but only one mortal one: teleportation.”
Dinky considered this. The rules certainly weren’t that liberal for the taheen and the can-toi; they could be exiled or lobotomized for all sorts of reasons, including such wrongs as negligence, teasing the Breakers, or the occasional act of outright cruelty. Once—so he had been told—a Breaker had been raped by a low man, who was said to have explained earnestly to the camp’s last Master that it was part of his becoming—the Crimson King himself had appeared to this fellow in a dream and told him to do it. For this the can-toi had been sentenced to death. The Breakers had been invited to attend his execution (accomplished by a single pistol-shot to the head), which had taken place in the middle of Pleasantville’s Main Street.
Dinky told Eddie about this, then admitted that yes, for the inmates, at least, teleportation was the only mortal sin. That he knew of, anyway.
“And Sheemie’s your teleport,” Eddie said. “You guys help him—facilitate for him, to use the Tedster’s word—and you cover up for him by fudging the records, somehow—”
“They have no idea how easy it is to cook their telemetry,” Dinky said, almost laughing. “Partner, they’d be shocked. The hard part is making sure we don’t tip over the whole works.”
Eddie didn’t care about that, either. It worked. That was the only thing that mattered. Sheemie also worked … but for how long?
“—but he’s the one who does it,” Eddie finished. “Sheemie.”
“Yuh.”
“The only one who can do it.”
“Yuh.”
Eddie thought about their two tasks: freeing the Breakers (or killing them, if there was no other way to make them stop) and keeping the writer from being struck and killed by a minivan while taking a walk. Roland thought they might be able to accomplish both things, but they’d need Sheemie’s teleportation ability at least twice. Plus, their visitors would have to get back inside the triple run of wire after today’s palaver was done, and presumably that meant he’d have to do it a third time.
