Dark Tower VII, The (v. 7)

by Stephen King

  He looked up and saw the woman holding his gun on the driver of the van. That was good. She was good: why hadn’t Gan given the story of the Tower to someone like her? In any case, his instinct to keep her with them had been true. Even the infernal racket of dogs and bumbler had quieted. Oy was licking the dirt and oil from Jake’s face, while in the van, Pistol and Bullet were gobbling up the hamburger, this time without interference from their master.

  Roland turned back to King, and the shell did its old sure dance across the backs of his fingers. King went under almost immediately, as most people did when they’d been hypnotized before. His eyes were still open, but now they seemed to look through the gunslinger, beyond him.

  Roland’s heart screamed at him to get through this as quickly as he could, but his head knew better. You must not botch it. Not unless you want to render Jake’s sacrifice worthless.

  The woman was looking at him, and so was the van’s driver as he sat in the open door of his vehicle. Sai Tassenbaum was fighting it, Roland saw, but Bryan Smith had followed King into the land of sleep. This didn’t surprise the gunslinger much. If the man had the slightest inkling of what he’d done here, he’d be apt to seize any opportunity for escape. Even a temporary one.

  The gunslinger turned his attention back to the man who was, he supposed, his biographer. He started just as he had before. Days ago in his own life. Over two decades ago in the writer’s.

  “Stephen King, do you see me?”

  “Gunslinger, I see you very well.”

  “When did you last see me?”

  “When we lived in Bridgton. When my tet was young. When I was just learning how to write.” A pause, and then he gave what Roland supposed was, for him, the most important way of marking time, a thing that was different for every man: “When I was still drinking.”

  “Are you deep asleep now?”

  “Deep.”

  “Are you under the pain?”

  “Under it, yes. I thank you.”

  The billy-bumbler howled again. Roland looked around, terribly afraid of what it might signify. The woman had gone to Jake and was kneeling beside him. Roland was relieved to see Jake put an arm around her neck and draw her head down so he could speak into her ear. If he was strong enough to do that—

  Stop it! You saw the changed shape of him under his shirt. You can’t afford to waste time on hope.

  There was a cruel paradox here: because he loved Jake, he had to leave the business of Jake’s dying to Oy and a woman they had met less than an hour ago.

  Never mind. His business now was with King. Should Jake pass into the clearing while his back was turned …if ka will say so, let it be so.

  Roland summoned his will and concentration. He focused them to a burning point, then turned his attention to the writer once more. “Are you Gan?” he asked abruptly, not knowing why this question came to him—only that it was the right question.

  “No,” King said at once. Blood ran into his mouth from the cut on his head and he spat it out, never blinking. “Once I thought I was, but that was just the booze. And pride, I suppose. No writer is Gan—no painter, no sculptor, no maker of music. We are kas-ka Gan. Not ka-Gan but kas-ka Gan. Do you understand? Do you … do you ken?”

  “Yes,” Roland said. The prophets of Gan or the singers of Gan: it could signify either or both. And now he knew why he had asked. “And the song you sing is Ves’-Ka Gan. Isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes!” King said, and smiled. “The Song of the Turtle. It’s far too lovely for the likes of me, who can hardly carry a tune!”

  “I don’t care,” Roland said. He thought as hard and as clearly as his dazed mind would allow. “And now you’ve been hurt.”

  “Am I paralyzed?”

  “I don’t know.” Nor care. “All I know is that you’ll live, and when you can write again, you’ll listen for the Song of the Turtle, Ves’-Ka Gan, as you did before. Paralyzed or not. And this time you’ll sing until the song is done.”

  “All right.”

  “You’ll—”

  “And Urs-Ka Gan, the Song of the Bear,” King interrupted him. Then he shook his head, although this clearly hurt him despite the hypnotic state he was in. “Urs-A-Ka Gan.”

  The Cry of the Bear? The Scream of the Bear? Roland didn’t know which. He would have to hope it didn’t matter, that it was no more than a writer’s quibble.

  A car hauling a motor home went past the scene of the accident without slowing, then a pair of large motor-bicycles sped by heading the other way. And an oddly persuasive thought came to Roland: time hadn’t stopped, but they were, for the time being, dim. Being protected in that fashion by the Beam, which was no longer under attack and thus able to help, at least a little.

  FOUR

  Tell him again. There must be no misunderstanding. And no weakening, as he weakened before.

  He bent down until his face was before King’s face, their noses nearly touching. “This time you’ll sing until the song is done, write until the tale is done. Do you truly ken?”

  “‘And they lived happily ever after until the end of their days,’” King said dreamily. “I wish I could write that.”

  “So do I.” And he did, more than anything. Despite his sorrow, there were no tears yet; his eyes felt like hot stones in his head. Perhaps the tears would come later, when the truth of what had happened here had a chance to sink in a little.

  “I’ll do as you say, gunslinger. No matter how the tale falls when the pages grow thin.” King’s voice was itself growing thin. Roland thought he would soon fall into unconsciousness. “I’m sorry for your friends, truly I am.”

  “Thank you,” Roland said, still restraining the urge to put his hands around the writer’s neck and choke the life out of him. He started to stand, but King said something that stopped him.

  “Did you listen for her song, as I told you to do? For the Song of Susannah?”

  “I … yes.”

  Now King forced himself up on one elbow, and although his strength was clearly failing, his voice was dry and strong. “She needs you. And you need her. Leave me alone now. Save your hate for those who deserve it more. I didn’t make your ka any more than I made Gan or the world, and we both know it. Put your foolishness behind you—and your grief—and do as you’d have me do.” King’s voice rose to a rough shout; his hand shot out and gripped Roland’s wrist with amazing strength. “Finish the job!”

  At first nothing came out when Roland tried to reply. He had to clear his throat and start again. “Sleep, sai—sleep and forget everyone here except the man who hit you.”

  King’s eyes slipped closed. “Forget everyone here except the man who hit me.”

  “You were taking your walk and this man hit you.”

  “Walking … and this man hit me.”

  “No one else was here. Not me, not Jake, not the woman.”

  “No one else,” King agreed. “Just me and him. Will he say the same?”

  “Yar. Very soon you’ll sleep deep. You may feel pain later, but you feel none now.”

  “No pain now. Sleep deep.” King’s twisted frame relaxed on the pine needles.

  “Yet before you sleep, listen to me once more,” Roland said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “A woman may come to y—wait. Do’ee dream of love with men?”

  “Are you asking if I’m gay? Maybe a latent homosexual?” King sounded weary but amused.

  “I don’t know.” Roland paused. “I think so.”

  “The answer is no,” King said. “Sometimes I dream of love with women. A little less now that I’m older … and probably not at all for awhile, now. That fucking guy really beat me up.”

  Not near so bad as he beat up mine, Roland thought bitterly, but he didn’t say this.

  “If’ee dream only of love with women, it’s a woman that may come to you.”

  “Do you say so?” King sounded faintly interested.

  “Yes. If she comes, she’ll be fair. She may
speak to you about the ease and pleasure of the clearing. She may call herself Morphia, Daughter of Sleep, or Selena, Daughter of the Moon. She may offer you her arm and promise to take you there. You must refuse.”

  “I must refuse.”

  “Even if you are tempted by her eyes and breasts.”

  “Even then,” King agreed.

  “Why will you refuse, sai?”

  “Because the Song isn’t done.”

  At last Roland was satisfied. Mrs. Tassenbaum was kneeling by Jake. The gunslinger ignored both her and the boy and went to the man sitting slumped behind the wheel of the motor-carriage that had done all the damage. This man’s eyes were wide and blank, his mouth slack. A line of drool hung from his beard-stubbly chin.

  “Do you hear me, sai?”

  The man nodded fearfully. Behind him, both dogs had grown silent. Four bright eyes regarded the gunslinger from between the seats.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bryan, do it please you—Bryan Smith.”

  No, it didn’t please him at all. Here was yet one more he’d like to strangle. Another car passed on the road, and this time the person behind the wheel honked the horn as he or she passed. Whatever their protection might be, it had begun to grow thin.

  “Sai Smith, you hit a man with your car or truckomobile or whatever it is thee calls it.”

  Bryan Smith began to tremble all over. “I ain’t never had so much as a parking ticket,” he whined, “and I have to go and run into the most famous man in the state! My dogs ’us fightin—”

  “Your lies don’t anger me,” Roland said, “but the fear which brings them forth does. Shut thy mouth.”

  Bryan Smith did as told. The color was draining slowly but steadily from his face.

  “You were alone when you hit him,” Roland said. “No one here but you and the storyteller. Do you understand?”

  “I was alone. Mister, are you a walk-in?”

  “Never mind what I am. You checked him and saw that he was still alive.”

  “Still alive, good,” Smith said. “I didn’t mean to hurt nobody, honest.”

  “He spoke to you. That’s how you knew he was alive.”

  “Yes!” Smith smiled. Then he frowned. “What’d he say?”

  “You don’t remember. You were excited and scared.”

  “Scared and excited. Excited and scared. Yes I was.”

  “You drive now. As you drive, you’ll wake up, little by little. And when you get to a house or a store, you’ll stop and say there’s a man hurt down the road. A man who needs help. Tell it back, and be true.”

  “Drive,” he said. His hands caressed the steering wheel as if he longed to be gone immediately. Roland supposed he did. “Wake up, little by little. When I get to a house or store, tell them Stephen King’s hurt side o’ the road and he needs help. I know he’s still alive because he talked to me. It was an accident.” He paused. “It wasn’t my fault. He was walking in the road.” A pause. “Probably.”

  Do I care upon whom the blame for this mess falls? Roland asked himself. In truth he did not. King would go on writing either way. And Roland almost hoped he would be blamed, for it was indeed King’s fault; he’d had no business being out here in the first place.

  “Drive away now,” he told Bryan Smith. “I don’t want to look at you anymore.”

  Smith started the van with a look of profound relief. Roland didn’t bother watching him go. He went to Mrs. Tassenbaum and fell on his knees beside her. Oy sat by Jake’s head, now silent, knowing his howls could no longer be heard by the one for whom he grieved. What the gunslinger feared most had come to pass. While he had been talking to two men he didn’t like, the boy whom he loved more than all others—more than he’d loved anyone ever in his life, even Susan Delgado—had passed beyond him for the second time. Jake was dead.

  FIVE

  “He talked to you,” Roland said. He took Jake in his arms and began to rock him gently back and forth. The ’Rizas clanked in their pouch. Already he could feel Jake’s body growing cool.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me to come back for you ‘after the business here is done.’ Those were his exact words. And he said, ‘Tell my father I love him.’”

  Roland made a sound, choked and miserable, deep in his throat. He was remembering how it had been in Fedic, after they had stepped through the door. Hile, Father, Jake had said. Roland had taken him in his arms then, too. Only then he had felt the boy’s beating heart. He would give anything to feel it beat again.

  “There was more,” she said, “but do we have time for it now, especially when I could tell you later?”

  Roland took her point immediately. The story both Bryan Smith and Stephen King knew was a simple one. There was no place in it for a lank, travel-scoured man with a big gun, nor a woman with graying hair; certainly not for a dead boy with a bag of sharp-edged plates slung over his shoulder and a machine-pistol in the waistband of his pants.

  The only question was whether or not the woman would come back at all. She was not the first person he had attracted into doing things they might not ordinarily have done, but he knew things might look different to her once she was away from him. Asking for her promise—Do you swear to come back for me, sai? Do you swear on this boy’s stilled heart?—would do no good. She could mean every word here and then think better of it once she was over the first hill.

  Yet when he’d had a chance to take the shopkeeper who owned the truck, he didn’t. Nor had he swapped her for the old man cutting the grass at the writer’s house.

  “Later will do,” he said. “For now, hurry on your way. If for some reason you feel you can’t come back here, I’ll not hold it against you.”

  “Where would you go on your own?” she asked him. “Where would you know to go? This isn’t your world. Is it?”

  Roland ignored the question. “If there are people still here the first time you come back—peace officers, guards o’ the watch, bluebacks, I don’t know—drive past without stopping. Come back again in half an hour’s time. If they’re still here, drive on again. Keep doing that until they’re gone.”

  “Will they notice me going back and forth?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Will they?”

  She considered, then almost smiled. “The cops in this part of the world? Probably not.”

  He nodded, accepting her judgment. “When you feel it’s safe, stop. You won’t see me, but I’ll see you. I’ll wait until dark. If you’re not here by then, I go.”

  “I’ll come for you, but I won’t be driving that miserable excuse for a truck when I do,” she said. “I’ll be driving a Mercedes-Benz S600.” She said this with some pride.

  Roland had no idea what a Mercedes-Bends was, but he nodded as though he did. “Go. We’ll talk later, after you come back.”

  If you come back, he thought.

  “I think you may want this,” she said, and slipped his revolver back into its holster.

  “Thankee-sai.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He watched her go to the old truck (which he thought she’d rather come to like, despite her dismissive words) and haul herself up by the wheel. And as she did, he realized there was something he needed, something that might be in the truck. “Whoa!”

  Mrs. Tassenbaum had put her hand on the key in the ignition. Now she took it off and looked at him inquiringly. Roland settled Jake gently back to the earth beneath which he must soon lie (it was that thought which had caused him to call out) and got to his feet. He winced and put his hand to his hip, but that was only habit. There was no pain.

  “What?” she asked as he approached. “If I don’t go soon—”

  It wouldn’t matter if she went at all. “Yes. I know.”

  He looked in the bed of the truck. Along with the careless scatter of tools there was a square shape under a blue tarpaulin. The edges of the tarp had been folded beneath the object to keep
it from blowing away. When Roland pulled the tarp free, he saw eight or ten boxes made of the stiff paper Eddie called “card-board.” They’d been pushed together to make the square shape. The pictures printed on the card-board told him they were boxes of beer. He wouldn’t have cared if they had been boxes of high explosive.

  It was the tarpaulin he wanted.

  He stepped back from the truck with it in his arms and said, “Now you can go.”

  She grasped the key that started the engine once more, but did not immediately turn it. “Sir,” said she, “I am sorry for your loss. I just wanted to tell you that. I can see what that boy meant to you.”

  Roland Deschain bowed his head and said nothing.

  Irene Tassenbaum looked at him for a moment longer, reminded herself that sometimes words were useless things, then started the engine and slammed the door. He watched her drive into the road (her use of the clutch had already grown smooth and sure), making a tight turn so she could drive north, back toward East Stoneham.

  Sorry for your loss.

  And now he was alone with that loss. Alone with Jake. For a moment Roland stood surveying the little grove of trees beside the highway, looking at two of the three who had been drawn to this place: a man, unconscious, and a boy dead. Roland’s eyes were dry and hot, throbbing in their sockets, and for a moment he was sure that he had again lost the ability to weep. The idea horrified him. If he was incapable of tears after all of this—after what he’d regained and then lost again—what good was any of it? So it was an immense relief when the tears finally came. They spilled from his eyes, quieting their nearly insane blue glare. They ran down his dirty cheeks. He cried almost silently, but there was a single sob and Oy heard it. He raised his snout to the corridor of fast-moving clouds and howled a single time at them. Then he too was silent.

  SIX

  Roland carried Jake deeper into the woods, with Oy padding at his heel. That the bumbler was also weeping no longer surprised Roland; he had seen him cry before. And the days when he had believed Oy’s demonstrations of intelligence (and empathy) might be no more than mimicry had long since passed. Most of what Roland thought about on that short walk was a prayer for the dead he had heard Cuthbert speak on their last campaign together, the one that had ended at Jericho Hill. He doubted that Jake needed a prayer to send him on, but the gunslinger needed to keep his mind occupied, because it did not feel strong just now; if it went too far in the wrong direction, it would certainly break. Perhaps later he could indulge in hysteria—or even irina, the healing madness—but not now. He would not break now. He would not let the boy’s death come to nothing.