The Dark Tower Companion
Page 45
PHIL (7)
The Asimov robot that drove the bus that picked up Ted Brautigan and the other Breakers who arrived in Thunderclap Station from Santa Mira. He was in bad shape at the time and died not long after and was dumped in the robot graveyard.
PICKENS (4.5)
One of two not-so-good deputies in Debaria. A little man with a peculiar undershot jaw.
PITTSTON, SYLVIA (1, 3, 4, M)
A wandering preacher who came from beyond the Mohaine Desert to Tull. The year before Roland arrived in Hambry, she passed through town. The man in black told her he impregnated her with the Crimson King’s child. Roland says it is a demon child and rids her of it. She preaches against Roland, calling him the Interloper, and raises the townspeople against him. Roland kills her, along with everyone else in Tull.
POSELLA, FARREN (5)
A farmhand in Calla Bryn Sturgis.
PRENTISS, PIMLI (7)
The Master of Algul Siento. Originally Paul Prentiss of Rahway, New Jersey. He’s about six foot two, balding, grossly overweight and has the nose of a veteran drinker. After he was laid off as a prison guard at Attica in 1970, he found the job at the Breaker prison in the New York Times. He appears to be fifty years old, but he was fifty when he came to Thunderclap at least twenty-five years ago. The poisonous atmosphere gives him pimples and a cyst on his neck.
He believes he’s doing God’s work and sincerely cares for his prisoners, whether they like it or not. He doesn’t care that there’s no money in his job. The benefits are exceptional. He wallows in food, booze and sex. On the day of the battle, he feels something amiss and takes his pistol with him. Roland shoots him in the back of the head, but it wasn’t a kill shot. Prentiss recovers long enough to inflict major damage on the ka-tet. Roland’s second shot kills him.
PUBES (3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
One of two factions fighting in Lud for many years. So called because they were, on average, younger than their adversaries. They were the original residents of Lud, a group comprised of artisans and manufacturers. They used the Great Old Ones’ weapons against the invading force, the Grays led by David Quick, until they stopped working. They became superstitious and believed the drums broadcast through the city’s network of speakers were a sign from the gods demanding human sacrifice.
QUICK, ANDREW (3)
The Tick-Tock Man’s real name. He is David Quick’s great-grandson and leader of the Grays in Lud. Shot in the head by Jake Chambers but not killed. Randall Flagg turned him into one of his minions. The ka-tet shoots him to death in the Green Palace.
QUICK, DAVID (3, 4, 4.5, 5)
Legendary outlaw prince and inspiration for the legend of Lord Perth. He was the leader of the last army of Grays that fought the Pubes for control of Lud. He was killed in an airplane crash ninety years before the ka-tet reaches Lud. His great-grandson is Andrew Quick, also known as the Tick-Tock Man.
QUINT, HIRAM (4)
From the Piano Ranch in Hambry. A trustworthy idiot. He owns a musketoon gun. He is one of the people assigned to guard the tankers at Citgo and is ordered to send for oxen to pull them out to Hanging Rock. Jonas leaves him in charge of the lead party when they turn back in the Bad Grass. He survives the ambush at Hanging Rock and flees.
RAINES (4)
The bugler in Rodney Hendricks’s company. A pimply, scared-looking boy with a dented bugle on a frayed strap.
RALPH (L, M)
One of the slow mutants who killed everyone in Eluria and ambushed the caravan that John and James Norman were guarding. He leads the group of muties against Roland in the town square. He wears ancient red suspenders over rags of shirt and a filthy bowler hat. He has only one good eye. The Little Sisters bribe him with whiskey and tobacco to get him to take the religious medallion from around John Norman’s neck. He’s smart enough to draw blood so they will be distracted and he can escape.
RANDOLPH ([1], M)
A survivor of the fall of Gilead. His wife, Chloe, and young son, Edmund, are captured by Farson and used to turn him into a traitor against Roland’s ka-tet. He provides misleading information that leads to General DeMullet’s death. When his duplicity is revealed, he shoots himself. Walter had already killed Chloe and Edmund. His name is mentioned only in the original version of The Gunslinger and the person who betrays the ka-tet is never identified in Wolves of the Calla.
RAVENHEAD, PIET (4)
His signature affirms Richard Stockworth’s identity when Alain goes to Mejis.
REED, JAMES (4)
His signature affirms William Dearborn’s identity when Roland goes to Mejis.
RENFREW, HASH (4, M)
Owner of the Lazy Susan, the biggest horse ranch in Mejis. Called Rennie by some. He sits next to Roland at dinner at Mayor’s House and tells lies about the local livestock. He also breaks the news to Roland about Susan Delgado’s situation. He’s in charge of moving the tankers to Hanging Rock and is part of Eldred Jonas’s advance team, guiding them through the Bad Grass with a click-line to measure the stars. He shoots Roland’s hat off and is killed by Roland a second later. If he had lived, he might have replaced Thorin as mayor.
REYNOLDS, CLAY (4, 5, M)
One of the Big Coffin Hunters. He has curly red hair, always wears a cloak and is vain about his looks. He’s half Eldred Jonas’s age. He comes from the North’rd Baronies, is terrified of rabies, and has been riding with Jonas since he was fifteen, longer than Roy Depape has. He’s smarter than Depape and Eldred likes him better. He walks with his left foot turned inward a little.
The encounter with the Affiliation Brats in the Travellers’ Rest is the first time he’s felt the mastery of a situation slip away from him since he hooked up with Jonas. He enjoys stabbing Kimba Rimer because the man insulted him the first time they met. He’s relieved, though, to be sent with Susan Delgado to Mayor’s House afterward, away from the main action. He has a bad feeling about their association with Latigo and Mejis.
He’s with Coral Thorin when they intercept Susan and Olive Thorin trying to leave town and is forced to shoot Olive when she draws on him. He stays for Reap Fest, riding behind the cart bearing Susan through the streets, holding a noose around her neck. Even if Depape and Jonas hadn’t been killed, though, Reynolds had decided to travel on without them. Without Jonas, he’s a lot less, and he knows it. Ultimately, he becomes the leader of a group of bank robbers, some of them deserters from Farson’s army, with Coral Thorin at his side. He is captured in Oakley and hanged for his crimes.
RHEA OF THE CÖOS
See Dubativo, Rhea.
RIGGINS, GEORGE (4)
One of Sheriff Avery’s deputies in Hambry.
RIMER, KIMBA (4)
Mayor Hart Thorin’s chancellor and Hambry’s minster of inventory. He is an elderly man as gaunt as Old Doctor Death. Six foot eight and as pale as candle wax. He is bald on the top with wisps of hair on the sides. He has a large nose and wears pince-nez. He has the smooth voice of a politician or an undertaker. A provincial man under a veneer of cynical sophistication. Though Thorin is the mayor, Rimer calls the shots in collusion with Eldred Jonas. He has also been sleeping with Coral Thorin. He suggested Rhea as the perfect guardian for the grapefruit. Though Rimer benefits greatly from his treachery (he looted half of Hambry’s treasury, and what he didn’t give to Farson he kept for himself), it’s the trappings of power that drive him. Clay Reynolds stabs him in the chest as part of the plot to frame Roland, Cuthbert and Alain.
RIMER, LASLO “LAS” (4)
Kimber’s older brother. Owner of the Rocking H Ranch, where Roland finds oxen, a rare creature in Mid-World.
RITTER, AILEEN (1, M)
The young woman from Gilead whom Roland’s parents hope he will marry. She accompanies him to a ball. In the Marvel series, she is Cort’s niece and a gunslinger in her own right, although female gunslingers are not allowed. She steals a gun from her uncle’s armory and practices alone, developing fearsome skills. She becomes part of Roland’s first ka-tet and
is struck by a spear at Jericho Hill. She survives—barely—and asks Roland to take her to Gilead so she can be buried with her family. A not-man kills her with a poison dart. Roland fulfills his promise, laying her to rest with Cort. In the original version of The Gunslinger, she was Roland’s lover. In the Marvel comics, he wished he could have loved her.
RIVERS, LUCAS (4)
His signature affirms Arthur Heath’s identity when Cuthbert goes to Mejis.
ROBERT AND FRANCESCA (4)
Hambry’s version of Romeo and Juliet, which dates back to the days before the world moved on. Francesca’s brains were dashed out on a slate wall in the Hambry cemetery and Robert cut his throat next to the Thorin mausoleum, according to legend.
ROBESON (1, M)
A guard in Gilead who was working for John Farson. He passed along orders to Hax, the cook.
RODERICKS (7)
Also known as Children of Roderick or Rods. A nomadic tribe originally from the South Plains, far beyond any lands Roland ever knew. They pledged allegiance to Arthur Eld before the world moved on. Now they are mutants. Some appear as walkins in Maine. Others followed the train tracks to Algul Siento, where they have a village and forage in the catacombs beneath Thunderclap for food, which they bring to Algul Siento. Each day they show up at the gate seeking work as groundskeepers and maintenance men. The Rods react to Roland as if he’s a god. Roland enlists the help of Haylis of Chayven during the battle of Algul Siento. He puts Chevin of Chayven out of his misery in Lovell after eliciting the name of Fedic from him.
ROLAND, KING (6)
King of Delain. He slew the last dragon in Garlan and was later murdered.
Crossover to Other Works: This story is told in The Eyes of the Dragon.
ROSARIO, FREDDY (5)
Owner of a small farm next to Tian Jaffords’s in Calla Bryn Sturgis.
ROSS, BIG JACK (4.5)
Tim’s father. Handsome and clean-shaven, because he didn’t think a beard would suit him. He partnered with his childhood friend Bern Kells and tried to get him to stop drinking when he got out of control. A dragon supposedly killed him while he was chopping ironwood trees in the Endless Forest, but Kells murdered him in a jealous rage.
ROSS, NELL (4.5)
Tim’s mother and widow of her childhood friend, Jack Ross. Maiden name: Robertson. She is forced to marry her late husband’s partner, Bern Kells, after Ross dies, otherwise she won’t be able to pay the Barony Covenanter and she and her son, Tim, will end up homeless. Kells beats her and mistreats Tim. She ends up blind after one of his attacks. Tim goes on a quest to find a cure for her blindness. She gets the better of Kells, “divorcing” him with her husband’s ax. She finishes her days in Gilead as a great lady after her son becomes a gunslinger.
ROSS, TIMOTHY “TIM” (4.5)
Hero of the story “The Wind Through the Keyhole” that Roland tells Young Bill Streeter in Debaria. Son of Jack and Nell Ross, he lived in a cottage called Goodview in Tree Village at the edge of the Endless Forest. When he was eleven, his father was supposedly burned by a dragon while chopping trees. The Covenant Man shows him that his father’s partner, Bern Kells, killed him.
Kells marries his mother and starts drinking again because he’s worried Jack’s body will be found. He beats Nell so badly that she goes blind. Tim raises a posse, but Kells flees. Tim goes on a quest into the Endless Forest in search of Maerlyn, who he believes will provide a cure for his mother. He’s armed with a pistol given to him by his teacher, Widow Smack. The first time he fires it, he grins and feels the coldness familiar to any gunslinger. When he meets Maerlyn, the wizard predicts that he will become one.
When he is twenty-one, he joins a posse with three gunslingers. He is both fearless and a dead shot, and becomes tet-fa and, later, ka-tet, one of the very few gunslingers not from the proven line of Eld. He is called Lefty Ross, the left-hand gun, because of the way he draws, then becomes known as Tim Stoutheart.
ROWENA, QUEEN (6, M)
Arthur Eld’s wife. Perhaps one of three. In the Marvel series, she is supposedly barren.
RUIZ, STANLEY “SHEEMIE” (1, 4, 7, M)
A simple boy from Mejis. Son of Stanley Ruiz and Dolores Sheemer, though he doesn’t know who his father is. He works at the Travellers’ Rest in Hambry, cleaning up the saloon. He’s a good worker, cheerful most of the time. He can be discreet when necessary, but he can’t tell a lie without shifting his eyes away. He can’t read.
He becomes good friends with Roland, Alain and Cuthbert, the latter of whom saved his life from Roy Depape and taught him how to swear. He passes messages back and forth between Roland and Susan Delgado and is willing to die for his friends, but not unless it serves a purpose. As part of the young ka-tet, he exhibits a mild sense of the touch. When the boys are jailed, he helps Susan break them out.
He follows Roland and his friends after they leave Mejis, though Roland doesn’t know how. At one point they cut the only bridge across a river for hundreds of miles and he stayed on their trail. When the young ka-tet sets out in search of the Dark Tower, he joins them as a kind of squire.
What happened to him in the days after Jericho Hill isn’t known. He ended up at Algul Siento as one of the Crimson King’s Breakers, at which point he looks to be about thirty-five. Unlike the others in Thunderclap, he has no pimples or blemishes. He has a mass of curly hair, stubbly cheeks and spit-shiny lips.
Dinky Earnshaw befriends him after he hears him sobbing at night because he’s scared of the dark. He communicates telepathically and by sending vivid mental images. Ted Brautigan and Dinky think he can’t speak, but he does after Roland recognizes him, apologizing for not dying in Susan’s place.
His special power is teleportation, another word for making magic doors. This explains how he was able to follow Roland to Gilead. He opens a portal so Ted can escape and creates a magic Gingerbread House outside of time so Ted has a place to rest after he’s caught. He knows Roland is trying to save the Beams, which is why he, Ted and Dinky are waiting for the gunslingers at Thunderclap Station.
Using his power causes brain bleeds and seizures, but he insists on assisting the ka-tet. He opens doorways so they can see what day it is in Keystone Earth. He’s particularly receptive to the Voice of the Beam. His dream of a boy representing the Beam helps Roland decide whether to free the Breakers first or save Stephen King. In the aftermath of the battle, he cuts his foot on a piece of glass. He dies of an infection on the Spirit of Topeka en route to Fedic.
RUIZ, STANLEY (4, 7)
Bartender at the Travellers’ Rest in Mejis. He is Sheemie’s father, though he isn’t sure of it. He tries to intervene when Roy Depape gets into a conflict with Sheemie and ends up with three broken teeth and a bloody mouth. He has two clubs behind the bar: The Calmer and The Killer.
SALTY SAM (4.5)
Occupant of the drunk tank in Debaria when Roland and Jamie DeCurry arrive.
SCOWTHER, DR. (6, 7)
The doctor who delivers Mia’s baby in the Fedic Dogan. A stoutish man with brown eyes, flushed cheeks and black hair swept back. He was in charge of the extractions and possibly involved in Mia’s transformation. During the confusion surrounding Mordred’s birth, Susannah steals his gun and shoots him with it—along with just about everyone else in the room.
SELENA (7, M)
Daughter of the moon. In the Marvel comics, she is Walter o’Dim’s mother.
SHEEMER, DOLORES (4)
Sheemie Ruiz’s mother.
SHUNT, SAM (4.5)
A rich man in Little Debaria who owns bars, prostitutes, the shacks where the miners sleep and the company store. Several times a year, he sets up footraces, obstacle courses and horse races for the miners. Winners get a year’s worth of debt forgiven at his store.
SI (3)
Resident of River Crossing. Husband to Mercy.
SIGHE (4.5)
Fairy folk who live in the Endless Forest. See Armaneeta.
SISTERS OF ORIZA (5, 6, 7)
SKIN-MAN (4.5)
A man who can take on the forms of animals. A kind of werewolf that can be killed only with a silver bullet. Not many people know what they are, but Roland’s teacher Vannay gathers the information they need to stop the one stalking Debaria.
SLIDELL, POKEY (5)
The oldest of the four people from Calla Bryn Sturgis who confronted the Wolves when his best friend Jamie Jaffords was nineteen. Slidell lost a brother and a young son to the Wolves. He was killed by a sneetch.
SLIGHTMAN, BEN (5, 6, 7)
Foreman of Vaughn Eisenhart’s ranch. He’s about forty-five years old. His daughter died when she was ten, which makes his son, Benny, particularly vulnerable to the Wolves. Andy exploits this to turn Slightman into a spy, rewarding him with gifts like glasses and a record player.
SLIGHTMAN, BENNY (5, 6, 7)
Fourteen-year-old son of Ben Slightman, the foreman of Vaughn Eisenhart’s ranch. He is unusual in Calla Bryn Sturgis in that his sister died of pneumonia when he was ten. He becomes a good friend to Jake. Though he’s a couple of years older, he’s younger in a lot of ways. He is open to fun, but willing to work hard when necessary. He proves his bravery during the battle with the Wolves, but is killed by a sneetch after Margaret Eisenhart is beheaded next to him.
SLOW MUTANTS (THROUGHOUT)
Victims of the weapons, wars and experiments of the Great Old Ones. Also known as the green folk because of the color of their skin. They were mutated by the long-term effects of the Great Poisoning. Jake and Roland encounter a group in the mountains while pursuing the man in black. They move into Gilead after its fall. They are marauders in Eluria, ambushing caravans for the wagons and their contents. Roland heard of one tribe that prays to Big Sky Daddy. A desert tribe called the Total Hogs once had the blue glass from the Wizard’s Rainbow, but they lost it. Not all are dangerous—the mudmen Tim Ross encounters in the Fagonard Swamp help him on his quest.