by Stephen King
“But we’re stuck with it,” Jake finished.
“Aye. That wouldn’t stop me from kicking his yellow, lazy ass if I got the chance, though.”
Jake burst out laughing at that, and the gunslinger smiled.
Then Roland got to his feet with a grimace, both hands planted on the ball of his right hip. “Bugger,” he growled.
“Hurts bad, huh?”
“Never mind my aches and mollies. Come with me. I’ll show you something more interesting.”
Roland, limping slightly, led Jake to where the path curled around the flank of the lumpy little mountain, presumably bound for the top. Here the gunslinger tried to hunker, grimaced, and settled to one knee, instead. He pointed to the ground with his right hand. “What do you see?”
Jake also dropped to one knee. The ground was littered with pebbles and fallen chunks of rock. Some of this talus had been disturbed, leaving marks in the scree. Beyond the spot where they knelt side by side, two branches of what Jake thought was a mesquite bush had been broken off. He bent forward and smelled the thin and acrid aroma of the sap. Then he examined the marks in the scree again. There were several of them, narrow and not too deep. If they were tracks, they certainly weren’t human tracks. Or those of a desert-dog, either.
“Do you know what made these?” Jake asked. “If you do, just say it-don’t make me arm-rassle you for it.”
Roland gave him a brief grin. “Follow them a little. See what you find.”
Jake rose and walked slowly along the marks, bent over at the waist like a boy with a stomach-ache. The scratches in the talus went around a boulder. There was dust on the stone, and scratches in the dust-as if something bristly had brushed against the boulder on its way by.
There were also a couple of stiff black hairs.
Jake picked one of these up, then immediately opened his fingers and blew it off his skin, shivering with revulsion as he did it. Roland watched this keenly.
“You look like a goose just walked over your grave.”
“It’s awful!” Jake heard a faint stutter in his voice. “Oh God, what was it? What was w-watching us?”
“The one Mia called Mordred.” Roland’s voice hadn’t changed, but Jake found he could hardly bring himself to look into the gunslinger’s eyes; they were that bleak. “The chap she says I fathered.”
“He was here? In the night?”
Roland nodded.
“Listening…?"Jake couldn’t finish.
Roland could. “Listening to our palaver and our plans, aye,
I think so. And Ted’s tale as well.”
“But you don’t know for sure. Those marks could be anything.”
Yet the only thing Jake could think of in connection with those marks, now that he’d heard Susannah’s tale, were the legs of a monster spider.
“Go thee a little further,” Roland said.
Jake looked at him questioningly, and Roland nodded. The wind blew, bringing them the Muzak from the prison compound
(now he thought it was “Bridge Over Troubled Water”),
also bringing the distant sound of thunder, like rolling bones.
“What-”
“Follow,” Roland said, nodding to the stony talus on the slope of the path.
Jake did, knowing this was another lesson-with Roland you were always in school. Even when you were in the shadow of death there were lessons to be learned.
On the far side of the boulder, the path carried on straight for about thirty yards before curving out of sight once more. On this straight stretch, those dash-marks were very clear. Groups of three on one side, groups of four on the other.
“She said she shot off one of its legs,” Jake said.
“So she did.”
Jake tried to visualize a seven-legged spider as big as a human baby and couldn’t do it. Suspected he didn’t want to do it.
Beyond the next curve there was a desiccated corpse in the path. Jake was pretty sure it had been flayed open, but it was hard to tell. There were no innards, no blood, no buzzing flies.
Just a lump of dirty, dusty stuff that vaguely-very vaguely-resembled something canine.
Oy approached, sniffed, then lifted his leg and pissed on the remains. He returned to Jake’s side with the air of one who has concluded some important piece of business.
“That was our visitor’s dinner last night,” Roland said.
Jake was looking around. “Is he watching us now? What do you think?”
Roland said, “I think growing boys need their rest.”
Jake felt a twinge of some unpleasant emotion and put it behind him without much examination. Jealousy? Surely not.
How could he be jealous of a thing that had begun life by eating its own mother? It was blood-kin to Roland, yes-his true son, if you wanted to be picky about it-but that was no more than an accident.
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, 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 litde 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 die 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 die 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 Sheemie’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. Litde by litde 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, diat had been driven into the soft wood. Sheemie’s tongue lolled from the side of his moudi, 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 die Rod, and die low growl deep in Oy’s chest as he stood protectively at Jake’s side, looking at die newcomer widi 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, ajoke 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 Devar-Toi, 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 lighdy.
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 widi a smile), Ted pronounced him fit as a fiddle.
Eddie, who could see Sheemie’s eyes perfecdy 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 litde more time diis 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?