Page 11 (1/2)

1

You reed, but the gunslinger knew Eddie didn&039;t knohat he was talking about; the whole back half of Eddie&039;s et the er saw this

It was a good thing for Eddie he did

2

In theopen They were full of starlight and clear intelligence

She reht them, how they had tied her into her chair, how they had taunted her, calling her niggerbitch, niggerbitch

She re out of the waves, and she remembered how one of the er had built a fire and cooked it and then had offered her s She re into an angry honky scowl He had hit her upside the face, and told her Well, that&039;s all right, you&039;ll coerbitch Wait and see if you don&039;t Then he and the Really Bad Man�Dhad laughed and the Really Bad Man had brought out a haunch of beef which he spitted and slowly cooked over the fire on the beach of this alien place to which they had brought her

The s beef had been seductive, but she had er one had waved a chunk of it near her face, chanting Bite for it, niggerbitch, go on and bite for it, she had sat like stone, holding herself in

Then she had slept, and now she ake, and the ropes they had tied her ere gone She was no longer in her chair but lying on one blanket and under another, far above the high-tide line, where the lobster-things still wandered and questioned and snatched the odd unfortunate gull out of the air

She looked to her left and saw nothing

She looked to her right and sao sleeping er one was closer, and the Really Bad Man had taken off his gunbelts and laid theuns were still in theht, and rolled to her right The gritty crunch and squeak of her body on the sand was inaudible under the wind, the waves, the questioning creatures She crawled slowly along the sand (like one of the lobstrosities herself), her eyes glittering

She reached the gunbelts and pulled one of the guns

It was very heavy, the grip smooth and somehow independently deadly in her hand The heaviness didn&039;t bother her She had strong arms, did Detta Walker

She crawled a little further

The youngerrock, but the Really Bad Man stirred a little in his sleep and she froze with a snarl tattooed on her face until he quieted again

He be one sneaky sumbitch You check, Detta You check, be sho

She found the worn cha, and pulled it instead The chaoan do this young cocka-de-walk first, and dat Really Bad Man be wakin up and you goan give hirin�Dsoan clean his clock so the chamber back, started to pull the hammerand then waited

When the wind kicked up a gust, she pulled the haun at Eddie&039;s teer watched all this from one half-open eye The fever was back, but not bad yet, not so bad that he must mistrust hier on the trigger of his body, the body which had always been his revolver when there was no revolver at hand

She pulled the trigger

Click

Of course click

When he and Eddie had come back with the waterskins from their palaver, Odetta Holmes had been deeply asleep in her wheelchair, slumped to one side They had ently from her wheelchair to the spread blankets Eddie had been sure she would awake, but Roland knew better

He had killed, Eddie had built a fire, and they had eaten, saving a portion aside for Odetta in the

Then they had talked, and Eddie had said sohtning It was too bright and too brief to be total understanding, but he saw le lucky stroke of lightning

He could have told Eddie then, but did not He understood that he must be Eddie&039;s Cort, and when one of Cort&039;s pupils was left hurt and bleeding by some unexpected blow, Cort&039;s response had always been the same: A child doesn&039;t understand a haer at a nail Get up and stop whining, otten the face of your father!

So Eddie had fallen asleep, even though Roland had told hiuard, and when Roland was sure they both slept (he had waited longer for the Lady, who could, he thought, be sly), he had reloaded his guns with spent casings, unstrapped the), and put them by Eddie

Then he waited

One hour; two; three

Halfway through the fourth hour, as his tired and feverish body tried to drowse, he sensed rather than saw the Lady come awake and came fully awake himself

He watched her roll over He watched her turn her hands into claws and pull herself along the sand to where his gun-belts lay He watched her take one of the, her nostrils swelling and contracting, doingit

Yes This was the wolanced toward the gunslinger he did n sleep, because she would have sensed shaaze shift away he awoke and opened that single eye again He saw her begin to raise the gun�Dshe did this with less effort than Eddie had shown the first ti�Dand point it toward Eddie&039;s head Then she paused, her face filled with an inexpressible cunning

In that moment she reminded hietting it wrong at first, then swinging it open She looked at the heads of the shells Roland tensed, waiting first to see if she would know the firing pins had already been struck, waiting next to see if she would turn the gun, look into the other end of the cylinder, and see there was only e the guns with cartridges which had already un is ultie which misfires onceat once

But she swung the cylinder back in, began to cock the haain Paused for the wind to ht: Here is another God, she&039;s evil, this one, and she&039;s legless, but she&039;s a gunslinger as surely as Eddie is one

He waited with her

The wind gusted

She pulled the hammer to full cock and placed it half an inch frorier

Click

He waited

She pulled it again And again And again

Click-Click-Click

"MahFAH!" she screarace

Roland coiled but did not leap A child doesn&039;t understand a haer at a nail

If she kills him, she kills you

Doesn&039;t matter, the voice of Cort answered inexorably

Eddie stirred And his reflexes were not bad; hedriven unconscious or killed Instead of coun-butt cracked the side of his jaw

"WhatJesus!"

"MAHFAH! HONKY MAHFUH!" Detta screaun a second ti away, it was as much as he dared If Eddie hadn&039;t learned the lesson now, he never would The next tiuard, Eddie would be, and besides�Dthe bitch was quick It would not be wise to depend further than this on either Eddie&039;s quickness or the Lady&039;s infir her backward, ending up on top of her

"You want it,her crotch against his groin and raising the aroan give you what you want, sho!"

"Eddie!" he shouted again, not just yelling now but co there, eyes wide, blood dripping fro, eyes wide Move, can&039;t you ht, or is it that you don&039;t want to? His strength was fading now, and the next ti to break his arot his ar to break his head with it

Then Eddieand she shrieked, turning toward hiutter patois so darkly southern that even Eddie couldn&039;t understand it; to Roland it sounded as if the woe But Eddie was able to yank the gun out of her hand and with the ione, Roland was able to pin her

She did not quit even then but continued to buck and heave and curse, sweat standing out all over her dark face

Eddie stared,like the mouth of a fish He touched tentatively at his jainced, pulled his fingers back, examined the that she would kill them both; they could try and rape her but she would kill them with her cunt, they would see, that was one bad son of a bitching cave with teeth around the entrance and if they wanted to try and explore it they would find out

"What in the hell�D" Eddie said stupidly

"One of er panted harshly at hi to roll her over on top of rab her arms and tie her hands behind her"

"You ain&039;t NEVAH!" Detta shrieked, and sunfished her legless body with such sudden force that she al the re to drive it into his balls

"IIshe "

"Move, God curse your father&039;s face!" Roland roared, and at last Eddie moved

4

They al But Eddie was at last able to slip-knot one of Roland&039;s gunbelts around her wrists when Roland�Dusing all his force�Dfinally brought theing bites like a oose from a snake; the bites he avoided but before Eddie had finished, the gunslinger was drenched with spittle) and then Eddie dragged her off, holding the short leash of the makeshift slip-knot to do it He did not want to hurt this thrashing screalier than the lobstrosities by far because of the greater intelligence which informed it, but he knew it could also be beautiful He did not want to harm the other person the vessel held somewhere inside it (like a live dove deep inside one of the secret coic box)

Odetta Hol

5

Although his last er still had a piece of its tether-rope (which, in turn, had once been a fine gunslinger&039;s lariat) They used this to bind her in her wheelchair, as she had iined (or falsely re, didn&039;t they?) they had done already Then they dreay fros, Eddie would have gone down to the water and washed his hands

"I feel like I&039;ed up and down the scale like the voice of an adolescent boy

"Why don&039;t you go on and eat each other&039;s COCKS?" the struggling thing in the chair screeched "Why don&039;t you jus go on and do dat if you fraid of a black woo on! Sho! Suck on yo each one&039;s candles! Do it while you got a chance, causeDetta Walker goan get outen dis chair and cut dem skinny ole white candles off and feed em to those walkm buzzsan there!"

"She&039;s the woman I was in Do you believe me now?"

"I believed you before," Eddie said "I told you that"

"You believed you believed You believed on the top of your mind Do you believe it all the way do? All the way to the botto thing in the chair and then looked ahite except for the slash on his jahich was still dripping a little That side of his face was beginning to look a little like a balloon

"Yes, "he said "God, yes"

"This woan to cry

The gunslinger wanted to coe (he remembered Jake too well), and walked off into the dark with his new fever burning and aching inside hiht, while Odetta still slept, Eddie said he thought he er asked what he meant

"She could be a schizophrenic"

Roland only shook his head Eddie explained what he understood of schizophrenia, gleanings frorams (mostly the soap operas he and Henry had often watched while stoned) Roland had nodded Yes The disease Eddie described sounded about right A woht and one dark A face like the one the man in black had shown him on the fifth Tarot card

"And they don&039;t know�Dthese schizophrenes�Dthat they have another?"

"No," Eddie said "But " He trailed off,the lobstrosities crawl and question, question and crawl

"But what?"

"I&039;m no shrink," Eddie said, "so I don&039;t really know�D"

"Shrink? What is a shrink?"

Eddie tapped his temple "A head-doctor A doctor for your mind They&039;re really called psychiatrists"

Roland nodded He liked shrink better Because this Lady&039;s e as it needed to be

"But I think schizos al with them," Eddie said "Because there are blanks Maybe I&039;ot the idea that they were usually two people who thought they had partial amnesia, because of the blank spaces in their memories when the other personality was in control Sheshe says she re"

"I thought you said she didn&039;t believe any of this was happening"

"Yeah," Eddie said, "but forget that for now I&039; to say that, no ht fro in her bathrobe watching the ht news to here, with no break at all She doesn&039;t have any sense that sorabbed her in Macy&039;s Hell, that ht have been the next day or even weeks later I knoas still winter, becausecoats�D"

The gunslinger nodded Eddie&039;s perceptions were sharpening That was good He hadout of coat pockets, but it was still a start

"�Dbut otherwise it&039;s i Odetta was that other woman because she doesn&039;t know I think she&039;s in a situation she&039;s never been in before, and her way of protecting both sides is this story about getting cracked over the head"

Roland nodded

"And the rings Seeing those really shook her up She tried not to show it, but it showed, all right"

Roland asked: "If these tomen don&039;t know they exist in the sa , if each has her own separate chain of memories, partly real but partly made up to fit the times the other is there, what are we to do with her? How are we even to live with her?"

Eddie had shrugged "Don&039;t ask me It&039;s your problem You&039;re the one who says you need her Hell, you risked your neck to bring her here&039;&039; Eddie thought about this for aover Roland&039;s body with Roland&039;s knife held just above the gunslinger&039;s throat, and laughed abruptly and without huht

A silence fell between theer was about to reiterate his warning for Eddie to be on guard and announce (loud enough for the Lady to hear, if she was only sha which lighted Roland&039;swhich made him understand at least part of what he needed so badly to know

At the end, when they caed at the end

And he had seen so�D

"Tell you what," Eddie said,the reht&039;s kill, "when you brought her through, I felt like I was a schizo"

"Why?"

Eddie thought, then shrugged It was too hard to explain, or maybe he was just too tired "It&039;s not important"

"Why?"

Eddie looked at Roland, saas asking a serious question for a serious reason�Dor thought he was�Dand took a minute to think back "It&039;s really hard to describe,in that door That&039;s what freaked me out When you see so with the about"

Roland nodded

"Well, I watched it like it was a movie�Dnever mind, it&039;s not important�Duntil the very end Then you turned her toward this side of the doorway and for the first tiroped and could find nothing "I dunno It should have been like looking in a uess, but it wasn&039;t, becausebecause it was like looking at another person It was like being turned inside out Like being in two places at the saunslinger was thunderstruck That hat he had sensed as they cah; that hat had happened to her, no, not just her, them: for a moment Detta and Odetta had looked at each other, not the way one would look at her reflection in a mirror but as separate people; the mirror became a pane and for a moment Odetta had seen Detta and Detta had seen Odetta and had been equally horror-struck

They each know, the gunslinger thought grimly They may not have known before, but they do now They can try to hide it from themselves, but for amust still be there

"Roland?"

"What?"

"Just wanted to one to sleep with your eyes open Because for a o and far away"

"If so, I&039; to turn in Reuard"

"I&039;ll watch," Eddie said, but Roland knew that, sick or not, he would have to be the one to do the watching tonight

Everything else had followed fro the ruckus Eddie and Detta Walker eventually went to sleep again (she did not so much fall asleep as drop into an exhausted state of unconsciousness in her chair, lolling to one side against the restraining ropes)

The gunslinger, however, lay wakeful

Iwill have to bring the two of theht, but he didn&039;t need one of Eddie&039;s "shrinks" to tell hiht one, Odetta, were to win that battle, all ht yet be well If the dark one were to win it, all would surely be lost with her

Yet he sensed that what really needed doing was not killing but joining He had already recognized much that would be of value to hihness, and he wanted her�Dbut he wanted her under control There was a long way to go Detta thought he and Eddie were monsters of soerous delusion, but there would be realthe way�Dthe lobstrosities were not the first, nor would they be the last The fight-until-you-drop woht ainst such monsters, if she could be tempered by Odetta Holmes&039;s calers, al more fever

But that is a step ahead I think if I canthem into confrontation How ht, thinking, and although he felt the fever in hirow, he found no answer to his question

8

Eddie woke up shortly before daybreak, saw the gunslinger sitting near the ashes of last night&039;s fire with his blanket wrapped around him Indian-fashion, and joined him

"How do you feel?" Eddie asked in a low voice The Lady still slept in her crisscrossing of ropes, although she occasionally jerked and ht"

Eddie gave hiht"

"Thank you, Eddie," the gunslinger said dryly

"You&039;re shivering"

"It will pass"

The Lady jerked and ain�Dthis tiht have been Oxford

"God, I hate to see her tied up like that," Eddie oddam calf in a barn"

"She&039;ll wake soon Mayhap we can unloose her when she does"

It was the closest either of the out loud that when the Lady in the chair opened her eyes, the calreet them

Fifteen minutes later, as the first sunrays struck over the hills, those eyes did open�Dbut what the lare of Detta Walker

"How many times you done rape me while I was buzzed out?" she asked "My cunt feel all slick an tallowy, like somebody done been at it with a couple therayhed

"Let&039;s get going," he said, and gained his feet with a grioan nowhere wit choo, mahfah," Detta spat

"Oh yes you are," Eddie said "Dreadfully sorry, oan?"

"Well,&039;&039; Eddie said,&039; &039;as behind Door Number One wasn&039;t so hot, and as behind Door Nu like sane people, we&039;re going to go right on ahead and check out Door Nu, I think it&039;s likely to be so like Godzilla or Ghidra the Three-Headed Monster, but I&039; for the stainless steel cookware"

"I ain&039;t goan"

"You&039;re going, all right," Eddie said, and walked behind her chair She began struggling again, but the gunslinger had hter Soon enough she saw this and ceased She was full of poison but far from stupid But she looked back over her shoulder at Eddie with a grin which made him recoil a little It seemed to him the most evil expression he had ever seen on a huoan on a little way," she said, "but maybe not s&039;far&039;s you think, white boy And sure-God not s&039;fast&039;s you think"

"What do you ain

"You find out, white boy" Her eyes, er "You bofe be findin dat out"

Eddie wrapped his hands around the bicycle grips at the ends of the push-handles on the back of her wheelchair and they began north again, now leaving not only footprints but the twin tracks of the Lady&039;s chair as they ly endless beach

9

The day was a nightmare

It was hard to calculate distance travelled when you werea landscape which varied so little, but Eddie knew their progress had slowed to a crawl

And he kneas responsible

Oh yeah

You bofe befindin dat out, Detta had said, and they hadn&039;t been on the an

Pushing

That was the first thing Pushing the wheelchair up a beach of fine sand would have been as ih deep unplowed snow This beach, with its gritty,the chair possible but far froh for awhile, crunching over shells and popping little pebbles to either side of its hard rubber tiresand then it would hit a dip where finer sand had drifted, and Eddie would have to shove, grunting, to get it and its solid unhelpful passenger through it The sand sucked greedily at the wheels You had to siainst the handles of the chair in a doard direction, or it and its bound occupant would tumble over face-first onto the beach

Detta would cackle as he tried to ood time back dere, honey-chile?" she asked each tis

When the gunslinger et your chance," he said "We&039;ll switch off"But I think er than his, a voice in his head spoke up The way he looks, he&039;s going to have his hands full just keeping hi the woman inthis chair No sir, Eddie, I&039;e, you know it? All those years you spent as a junkie, and guess what? You&039;re finally the pusher!

He uttered a short out-of-breath laugh

"What&039;s so funny, white boy?" Detta asked, and although Eddie thought shejust a tiny bit angry

Ain&039;t supposed to be any laughs in this for ht None at all Not as far as she&039;s concerned

"You wouldn&039;t understand, babe Just let it lie"

"I be lettin you lie before this be all over," she said "Be lettin you and yo bad-ass buddy there lie in pieces all ovah dis beach Sho Meantime you better save yo breaf to do yo pushin with You already sound like you gettin a little sho&039;t winded"

"Well, you talk for both of us, then," Eddie panted "You never seeraymeat! Goan break it ovah yo dead face!"

"Promises, promises" Eddie shoved the chair out of the sand and onto relatively easier going�Dfor awhile, at least The sun was not yet fully up, but he had already worked up a sweat

This is going to be an aht I can see that already

Stopping

That was the next thing

They had struck a fir faster, thinking vaguely that if he could keep this bit of extra speed, he h the next sandtrap he happened to strike on pure impetus

All at once the chair stopped Stopped dead The crossbar on the back hit Eddie&039;s chest with a thuunslinger&039;s cat-quick reflexes could stop the Lady&039;s chair fro over exactly as it had threatened to do in each of the sandtraps It went and Detta ith it, tied and helpless but cackling wildly She still hen Roland and Eddie finally ain So cruelly into her flesh, cutting off the circulation to her extremities; her forehead was slashed and blood trickled into her eyebrows She went on cackling just the sa, out of breath, by the tiht of it and the woman in it must have totaled two hundred and fifty pounds, er had snatched Detta frohed as led, snorted, blinked blood out of her eyes

"Looky here, you boys done opsot me," she said

"Call your lawyer," Eddie ot yoselfs all tuckered out gittin in Must have taken you ten er took a piece of his shirt�Denough of it was gone now so the rest didn&039;t much matter�Dand reached forith his left hand to mop the blood away from the cut on her forehead She snapped at hie click those teeth ht that, if Roland had been only one instant slower in drawing back, Detta Walker would have evened up the nuain

She cackled and stared at hier saw fear hidden far back in those eyes She was afraid of him Afraid because he was The Really Bad Man

Why was he The Really Bad Man? Maybe because, on some deeper level, she sensed what he knew about her

"Alot you that time" And cackled, witchlike

"Hold her head," the gunslinger said evenly "She bites like a weasel"

Eddie held it while the gunslinger carefully wiped the wound clean It wasn&039;t wide and didn&039;t look deep, but the gunslinger took no chances; he walked slowly down to the water, soaked the piece of shirting in the salt water, and then caan to scream as he approached

"Doan you be touchin ! Doan you be touchin s come from! Git it away! Git it away!"

" Hold her head,&039;&039; Roland said in the sa it from side to side "I don&039;t want to take any chances"

Eddie held itand squeezed it when she tried to shake free She saw henoIt had been only sham, after all

She s out the last clinging particles of grit

"In fact, you look ray trip I don&039;t think you ready fo nuthin like dat"

Eddie exaency hand-brake which locked both wheels Detta had worked her right hand over there, had waited patiently until she thought Eddie was going fast enough, and then she had yanked the brake, purposely spilling herself over Why? To slow the, but a woht, needed no reasons A wos out of sheer meanness

Roland loosened her bonds a bit so the blood could flow more freely, then tied her hand firht, Mister Man," Detta said, offering hiht jest the same There be other ways to slow you boys down All sorts of ways"

"Let&039;s go," the gunslinger said tonelessly

"You all right, er looked very pale

"Yes Let&039;s go"

They started up the beach again

10

The gunslinger insisted on pushing for an hour, and Eddie gave way to hih the first sandtrap, but Eddie had to pitch in and help get the wheelchair out of the second The gunslinger was gasping for air, sweat standing out on his forehead in large beads

Eddie let hio on a little further, and Roland was quite adept at weaving his way around the places where the sand was loose enough to bog the wheels, but the chair finally becaain and Eddie could bear only a few , chest heaving, while the witch (for so Eddie had cohter and actually threw her body backwards in the chair to make the task that er aside and heaved the chair out of the sand with one angry lurching lunge The chair tottered and now he saw/sensed her shifting forward asthis with a weird prescience at the exactly proper ain

Roland threw his weight on the back of the chair next to Eddie&039;s and it settled back

Detta looked around and gave them a wink of such obscene conspiracy that Eddie felt his arooseflesh

"You alin, boys," she said "You want to look out for me, now I ain&039;t nuthin but a old crippled lady, so you want to have a care for hed fit to split

Although Eddie cared for the wo her just on the basis of the brief time he had seen her and spoken with her - he felt his hands itch to close around her windpipe and choke that laugh, choke it until she could never laugh again

She peered around again, sahat he was thinking as if it had been printed on hihed all the harder Her eyes dared hiraymeat Go on You want to do it? Go on and do it

In other words, don&039;t just tip the chair; tip the woood That&039;s what she wants For Detta, being killed by a white oal she has in life

"Coonna tour the seacoast, sweet thang, like it or not"

"Fuck you," she spat

"Craunslinger walked beside him, head down

11

They ca of rocks when the sun said it was about eleven and here they stopped for nearly an hour, taking the shade as the sun clier ate leftovers froht&039;s kill Eddie offered a portion to Detta, who again refused, telling him she knehat they wanted to do, and if they wanted to do it, they best to do it with their bare hands and stop trying to poison her That, she said, was the coward&039;s way

Eddie&039;s right, the gunslinger mused This wo that happened to her last night, even though she was really fast asleep

She believed they had brought her pieces of meat which smelled of death and putrescence, had taunted her with it while they themselves ate salted beef and drank some sort of beer from flasks She believed they had, every now and then, held pieces of their own untainted supper out to her, drawing it away at the lastwhile they did it, of course In the world (or at least in the s to broohed at them Or both at the same time

It was al his ride in the sky-carriage, and Roland had seen none since the last of his jerky was eaten, Gods alone kne long ago As far as beerhe cast his mind back

Tull

There had been beer in Tull Beer and beef

God, it would be good to have a beer His throat ached and it would be so good to have a beer to cool that ache Better even than the astin from Eddie&039;s world

They drew off a distance froh cump&039;ny for white boys like you?" she cawed after them "Or did you jes maybe want to have a pull on each other one&039;s little bitty white candle?"

She threw her head back and screa, from the rocks where they had been unslinger sat with his hands dangling between his knees, thinking Finally he raised his head and told Eddie, "I can only understand about one word in every ten she says"

"I&039; at least two in every three Doesn&039;t matter Most of it comes back to honky mahfah"

Roland nodded "Do many of the dark-skinned people talk that here you come from? Her other didn&039;t"

Eddie shook his head and laughed "No And I&039;ll tell you so sort of funny - at least I think it&039;s sort of funny, but maybe that&039;s just because there isn&039;t all that h at out here It&039;s not real It&039;s not real and she doesn&039;t even know it"

Roland looked at hi

"Remember when you washed off her forehead, how she pretended she was scared of the water?"

"Yes"

"You knew she was pretending?"

"Not at first, but quite soon"

Eddie nodded "That was an act, and she kneas an act But she&039;s a pretty good actress and she fooled both of us for a few seconds The way she&039;s talking is an act, too But it&039;s not as good It&039;s so stupid, so goddam hokey!"

"You believe she pretends well only when she knows she&039;s doing it?"

"Yes She sounds like a cross between the darkies in this book called Mandingo I read once and Butterfly McQueen in Gone with the Wind I know you don&039;t know those names, but what I mean is she talks like a cliche Do you know that word?"

"It means what is always said or believed by people who think only a little or not at all"

"Yeah I couldn&039;t have said it half so good"

&039;&039;Ain&039;t you boys done jerkin on de hoarse and cracked "Or maybe it&039;s just you can&039;t fine eot slowly to his feet He swayed for aat hiht"

"For how long?"

"As long as I have to be," the gunslinger answered, and the serenity in his voice chilled Eddie&039;s heart

12

That night the gunslinger used his last sure live cartridge tothe ones he believed to be duds toht, but he believed it was prettythe dahts: the fire, the cooking, the shelling, the eating - eating which was no and unenthusiastic We&039;re just gassing up, Eddie thought They offered food to Detta, who screaoan take her for a fool, and then she began throwing her body wildly frorew steadily tighter, only trying to upset the chair to one side or the other so they would have to pick her up again before they could eat

Just before she could rabbed her and Roland braced the wheels on either sides with rocks

"I&039;ll loosen the ropes a bit if you&039;ll be still," Roland told her

"Suck shit out my ass, mahfah!"

"I don&039;t understand if that means yes or no"

She looked at hi some buried barb of satire in that calm voice (Eddie also wondered, but couldn&039;t tell if there was or not), and after a ry to kick up ive oan starve me to death? Dat yo plan? You too chickenshit to choke oan eat no poison, so dat oan see Sho we are"

She offered theain

Not long after she fell asleep

Eddie touched the side of Roland&039;s face Roland glanced at him but did not pull away froht"

"Yeah, you&039;re Ji very far today"

"I know" There was also theused the last live shell, but that was knowledge Eddie could do without, at least tonight Eddie wasn&039;t sick, but he was exhausted Too exhausted for more bad news

No, he&039;s not sick, not yet, but if he goes too long without rest, gets tired enough, he&039;ll get sick

In a way, Eddie already was; both of them were Cold-sores had developed at the corners of Eddie&039;s er could feel his teeth loosening up in their sockets, and the flesh between his toes had begun to crack open and bleed, as had that between his re the sao on that way for a time, but in the end they would die as surely as if they had starved

What we have is Shipht Sireens

Eddie nodded toward the Lady "She&039;s going to go right on h"

"Unless the other one inside her comes back"

"That would be nice, but we can&039;t count on it," Eddie said He took a piece of blackened claw and began to scrawl aimless patterns in the dirt "Any idea how far the next door ht be?"

Roland shook his head

"I only ask because if the distance between Number Two and Number Three is the same as the distance between Number One and Number Te could be in deep shit"

"We&039;re in deep shit right now"

"Neck deep," Eddie agreedI can tread water"

Roland clapped hiesture of affection so rare itthat Lady doesn&039;t know," he said

"Oh? What&039;s that?"

"We Honk Mahfahs can tread water a long tihed hard, sainst his arh of her for one day, please and thank you

The gunslinger looked at hi to turn in," he said "Be - "

" - on uard Yeah I will"

13

Screa was next

Eddie fell asleep the moment his head touched the bunched bundle of his shirt, and it see

He ake at once, ready for anything, soe for its slain children or a horror down frounslinger was already on his feet, a gun in his left hand

When she saw they were both awake, Detta proht I&039;d see if you boys on yo toes," she said "Might be woofs Looks likely enough country for &039;eet you on yo feet in tilinted with ily The moon was up but barely risen; they had been asleep less than two hours

The gunslinger holstered his gun

"Don&039;t do it again," he said to the Lady in the wheelchair

"What you goan do if I do? Rapeto rape you, you would be one well-raped woain"

He lay down again, pulling his blanket over hiht, what aand that was as far as the thought went before trailing off into exhausted sleep again and then she was splintering the air with fresh shrieks, shrieking like a firebell, and Eddie was up again, his body flahing, her voice hoarse and raspy

Eddie glanced up and saw the rees since she had awakened the it, he thought wearily She means to stay awake and watch us, and when she&039;s sure we&039;re getting down into deep sleep, that place where you recharge, she&039;s going to open her ain She&039;ll do it and do it and do it until she doesn&039;t have any voice left to belloith

Her laughter stopped abruptly Roland was advancing on her, a dark shape in the raymeat," Detta said, but there was a quiver of nerves in her voice "You ain&039;t goan do nothing to me"

Roland stood before her and for a er had reached the end of his patience and would sily, he dropped to one knee before her like a suitor about to propose e

"Listen," he said, and Eddie could scarcely credit the silky quality of Roland&039;s voice He could see much the same deep surprise on Detta&039;s face, only there fear was joined to it "Listen to me, Odetta"

"Who you callin O-Detta? Dat ain er said in a growl, and then, reverting to that same silken voice: "If you hear me, and if you can control her at all - "

"Why you talkin at me dat way? Why you talkin like you was talkin to somebody else? You quit dat honky jive! You jes quit it now, you hearher, but I don&039;t want to do that A hard gag is a dangerous business People choke"

"YOU QUIT IT YOU HONKY BULLSHIT VOODOO MAHFAH!"

"Odetta" His voice was a whisper, like the onset of rain

She fell silent, staring at hie eyes Eddie had never in his life seen such hate and fear combined in human eyes

"I don&039;t think this bitch would care if she did die on a hard gag She wants to die, but maybe even more, she wants you to die But you haven&039;t died, not so far, and I don&039;t think Detta is brand-new in your life She feels too at ho, and maybe you can keep some control over her even if you can&039;t come out yet

"Don&039;t let her wake us up a third ti her

"But if I have to, I will"

He got up, left without looking back, rolled hiain, and pro at hi

"Honky voodoo bullshit," she whispered

Eddie lay down, but this ti time before sleep came to claim him, in spite of his deep tiredness He would come to the brink, anticipate her screams, and snap back

Three hours or so later, with thethe other way, he finally dropped off

Detta did no htened her, or because she wanted to conserve her voice for future alarums and excursions, or - possibly, just possibly - because Odetta had heard and had exercised the control the gunslinger had asked of her

Eddie slept at last but awoke sodden and unrefreshed He looked toward the chair, hoping against hope that it would be Odetta, please God let it be Odetta this-

"Mawnin, whitebread," Detta said, and grinned her sharklike grin at hioan sleep till noonYou cain&039;t be doin nuthin like dat, kin you? We got to bus us some miles here, ain&039;t dat d&039;fac of d&039;oan have to do most of de bustin, cause dat other fella, one with de voodoo eyes, he lookin oan be eatin anythin er, not even dat fancy smoked meat you whitebread boys keep fo when you done joikin on each other one&039;s little bitty white candles So let&039;s go, whitebread! Detta doan want to be d&039;one keepin you"

Her lids and her voice both dropped a little; her eyes peeked at him slyly from their corners

"Not f&039;uoan be a day you &039;oan be a day you &039; time

Sho

14

They made three miles that day, maybe a shade under Detta&039;s chair upset twice Once she did it herself, working her fingers slowly and unobtrusively over to that handbrake again and yanking it The second ti too hard in one of those goddamned sandtraps That was near the end of the day, and he si to be able to get her out this tiave that one last titanic heave with his quivering arms, and of course it had been one, like Hu off his wall, and he and Roland had to labor to get her upright again They finished the job just in time The rope under her breasts was now pulled taut across her windpipe The gunslinger&039;s efficient running slipknot was choking her to death Her face had gone a funny blue color, she was on the verge of losing consciousness, but still she went on wheezing her nasty laughter

Let her be, why don&039;t you? Eddie nearly said as Roland bent quickly forward to loosen the knot Let her choke! I don&039;t know if she wants to do herself like you said, but I know she wants to do US so let her go!

Then he reh their encounter had been so brief and see dier pushed him impatiently aith one hand "Only room for one"

When the rope was loosened and the Lady gasping harshly for breath (which she expelled in gusts of her angry laughter), he turned and looked at Eddie critically "I think we ought to stop for the night"

"A little further" He was alo a little further"

"Sho! He be one strong buck He be good fo choppin one ive yo little bitty white candle one fine suckin-on t&039;night"

She still wouldn&039;t eat, and her face was becolittered in deepening sockets

Roland gave her no notice at all, only studied Eddie closely At last he nodded "A little way Not far, but a little way"

Twenty minutes later Eddie called it quits himself His arms felt like Jell-O

They sat in the shadows of the rocks, listening to the gulls, watching the tide coo down and the lobstrosities to coin their cumbersome cross-examinations

Roland told Eddie in a voice too low for Detta to hear that he thought they were out of live shells Eddie&039;s htened down a little but that was all Roland was pleased

"So you&039;ll have to brain one of them yourself," Roland said "I&039;h to do the joband still be sure"

Eddie was now the one to do the studying

He had no liking for what he saw

The gunslinger waved his scrutiny away

"Never mind," he said "Never mind, Eddie What is, is"

"Ka," Eddie said

The gunslinger nodded and smiled faintly "Ka"

"Kaka," Eddie said, and they looked at each other, and both laughed Roland looked startled and perhaps even a little afraid of the rusty sound e When it had stopped he looked distant and melancholy

"Dat laffin ed to joik each other off?" Detta cried over at theet down to de pokin? Dat&039;s what I want to see! Dat pokin!"

15

Eddie made the kill

Detta refused to eat, as before Eddie ate half a piece so she could see, then offered her the other half

"Nossuh!" she said, eyes sparking at him "No SUH! You done put de poison in t&039;other end One you trine to give , Eddie look the rest of the piece, put it in his ," Detta said sulkily "Leave rayht her another piece

"You tear it in half Give me whichever you want I&039;ll eat it, then you eat the rest"

"Ain&039;t fallin fo none o yo honky tricks, Mist&039; Chahlie Git away f&039;uit away f&039;um me is what I meant"

16

She did not screa

17

That day they h Detta ht be growing too weak for acts of attee Or perhaps she had seen there was really no need for theether: Eddie&039;s weariness, the terrain, which after endless days of endless days of sae, and Roland&039;s deteriorating condition

There were less sandtraps, but that was cold corainier, more and more like cheap and unprofitable soil and less and less like sand (in places bunches of weeds grew, looking ale rocks now jutting from this odd co around them as he had previously tried to detour the Lady&039;s chair around the sandtraps And soon enough, he saw, there would be no beach left at all The hills, brown and cheerless things, were drawing steadily closer Eddie could see the ravines which curled between the a blunt cleaver That night, before falling asleep, he heard what sounded like a very large cat squalling far up in one of them

The beach had see to realize it had an end after all So to squeeze it out of existence The eroded hills would ht become first a cape or peninsula of sorts, and then a series of archipelagoes

That worried him, but Roland&039;s condition worried hier see hi transparent

The red lines had appeared again, ht arm toward the elbow

For the last two days Eddie had looked constantly ahead, squinting into the distance, hoping to see the door, the door, the ic door For the last two days he had waited for Odetta to reappear

Neither had appeared

Before falling asleep that night two terrible thoughts came to him, like some joke with a double punchline:

What if there was no door?

What if Odetta Holmes was dead?

18

"Rise and shine, mahfah!" Detta screeched him out of unconsciousness "I think it jes be you and me now, honey-chile Think yo frien done finally passed on I think yo frien be pokin the devil down in hell"

Eddie looked at the rolled huddled shape of Roland and for one terrible er stirred,position

"Well looky yere!" Detta had screamed so much that now there wereno more than a weird whisper, like winter wind under a door "I thought you was dead, Mister Man!"

Roland was getting slowly to his feet He still looked to Eddie like a s of an invisible ladder to ry sort of pity, and this was a faic After a moment he understood It was like when he and Henry used to watch the fights on TV, and one fighter would hurt the other, hurt hi for blood, and Henry would be screary pity, that duht-waves at the referee: Stop it,out there! DYING! Stop the fucking fight!

There was no way to stop this one

Roland looked at her froht that, Detta" He looked at Eddie "You ready?"

"Yeah, I guess so Are you?"

"Yes"

"Can you?"

"Yes"

They went on

Around ten o&039;clock Detta began rubbing her teers

"Stop," she said "I feel sick Feel like I goan throw up"

"Probably that big"You should have skipped dessert I told you that chocolate layer cake was heavy"

"I goan throw up! I - "

"Stop, Eddie!" the gunslinger said

Eddie stopped

The woalvanically, as if an electric shock had run through her Her eyes popped wide open, glaring at nothing

"IBROKE YO PLATE YOU STINKIN OLE BLUE LADY!" she screamed "IBROKE IT AND I&039;M FUCKIN GLAD ID�D"

She suddenly slumped forward in her chair If not for the ropes, she would have fallen out of it

Christ, she&039;s dead, she&039;s had a stroke and she&039;s dead, Eddie thought He started around the chair, remembered how sly and tricksy she could be, and stopped as suddenly as he had started He looked at Roland Roland looked back at hi

Then she moaned Her eyes opened

Her eyes

Odetta&039;s eyes

"Dear God, I&039;ve fainted again, haven&039;t I?" she said "I&039;s! I think I could sit up a little if you - "

That hen Roland&039;s own legs slowly caed and he swooned some thirty miles south of the place where the Western Sea &039;s beach came to an end

RE-SHUFFLE

1

To Eddie Dean, he and the Lady no longer see up what re

Odetta Holmes still neither liked nor trusted Roland; that was clear But she recognized how desperate his condition had beco a dead clump of steel and rubber to which a human body just happened to be attached, Eddie felt allider

Go with her Before, I atching out for you and that was important Now I&039;ll only slow you down

He caer was almost at once Eddie pushed the chair; Odetta puer&039;s revolvers was stuck in the waistband of Eddie&039;s pants

Do you reuard and you weren&039;t?

Yes

I&039;uard Every moment If her other comes back, don&039;t wait even a second Brain her

What if I kill her?

Then it&039;s the end But if she kills you, that&039;s the end, too And if she comes back she&039;ll try She&039;ll try