Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated

by Robin Furth

  Like all folktales, “The Wind Through the Keyhole” begins in the land of “Once upon a bye.” In this particular story, that land is the unexplored wilderness of the ENDLESS FOREST, and the little village of TREE which exists on its edge. At the outset of the tale, Big Jack Ross is alive and well, and is living in his cottage with his son, Tim, and his wife, NELL. Big Ross is proud of the fact that, though he doesn’t have much in the world, he has four possessions to pass on to his son. Those are his sharp ax, his lucky coin (a rhodite double which hangs around his neck on a fine silver chain), his wood plot along the IRONWOOD TRAIL, and his home place, GOODVIEW COTTAGE, which is as good as the place of any king or gunslinger in Mid-World.

  But, as so often happens in tales and in life, those good days aren’t destined to last. When Tim is eleven, Big Ross and his partner, BIG KELLS, set off as usual for a day of cutting ironwood. However, only Kells returns, sooty and charred, and slumped on the seat of his wagon as if he were too weary to sit up straight. According to Kells, he and Ross had been set upon by a DRAGON, and Big Ross had been incinerated.

  Although Nell, now widowed, accepts Kells’s offer of marriage (though more out of fear of the tax-collecting COVENANT MAN than out of love for her deceased husband’s partner), life soon goes tragically wrong. Soon after his wedding, Kells—who in his youth had been a drunken carouser—takes up the bottle again and begins to beat both his new wife and stepson. He even forces Tim to give up his lessons at the WIDOW SMACK’S COTTAGE, so that he can earn a little in scrip from the TREE SAWMILL. To make matters worse, after Big Ross’s accident, the other woodsmen distrust Big Kells and refuse to partner him in the forest. In their eyes, without Big Ross’s positive influence, Kells is little more than a drunken, raging lout.

  Into this terrible situation comes the Barony tax collector, or Covenant Man. While collecting taxes at Goodview Cottage, the Covenanter slips Tim a key which will open any lock. Using it to open his steppa’s trunk, Tim finds his father’s lucky coin, proof that Jack Ross had been murdered, not incinerated by a dragon. Enraged, Tim sets off to find the Barony Covenanter. Later that night, in a stream running through the COSINGTON-MARCHLY STAKE, the Covenant Man shows Tim his father’s corpse. The body lies six or eight inches below the water and is perfectly preserved. (According to Tree’s old wives, neither the flesh-eating bugs of forest streams nor the hungry POOKIES of the woods will dare to eat the flesh of a virtuous man. In the case of Tim’s father, the old tales are true.)

  Upon returning home with his father’s ax (Kells had tossed it as far across the stream as he was able, but the Covenant Man had fetched it back again), Tim informs PETER COSINGTON, ERNIE MARCHLY, and BALDY ANDERSON about his stepfather’s crimes. The men not only fetch Big Ross’s body home, but gather a posse to hunt down Kells. Tim’s last sight of his father is in DUSTIN STOKES’s burial parlor. There, in a little room painted with forest scenes, in an ironwood bier meant to represent the clearing at the end of life’s path, Big Ross lies dressed in a fine white shroud. Holding his father’s cold hand as he had when he was a sma’ one, Tim bids his father goodbye.

  W:106, W:109–10, W:111, W:112, W:113, W:114, W:115 (indirect), W:116 (indirect), W:117, W:118–19, W:126, W:127, W:129, W:131–32, W:133 (death described), W:134, W:139, W:140, W:142–43, W:144, W:145, W:146, W:147, W:154, W:158, W:159–63 (Tim finds body; 161 skull riven from behind; 162 body; 163 hand ax), W:166, W:167, W:168, W:171 (ax), W:172, W:174, W:175, W:176, W:177–78, W:179, W:181 (son of Jack), W:182, W:188 (indirect), W:190, W:191 (dead father’s sign), W:201, W:202 (da), W: 206, W:214 (indirect, in dream), W:222, W:229, W:239, W:241, W:246, W:249, W:251 (ax), W:252, W:254 (son of), W:260 (indirect), W:261 (indirect), W:262 (murdered), W:263

  FLESH-EATING BUGS: These fat white bugs live in the sluggish stream that runs through the COSINGTON-MARCHLY STAKE. Their oversized black heads have eyes which sprout from stalks. These waterborne maggots are constantly at war, eating each other. However, like all flesh-eaters, they cannot eat the flesh of a virtuous man. Hence, when TIM ROSS finds his father’s body, it is perfectly preserved. W:151–153, W:158, W:159, W:160–61 (will not eat the flesh of a virtuous man)

  MULES: Big Jack Ross had two mules, MISTY and BITSY, which he had raised from guffins. They were both mollies—unsterilized females theoretically capable of bearing offspring—but Ross kept them for their sweetness of temper rather than for breeding. According to Big Ross, such mollies rarely gave birth to true-threaded offspring.

  MISTY: Unlike Bitsy, Misty liked to stop and nibble at every bush on the forest floor. Hence, Tim chose BITSY to share his adventures in the ENDLESS FOREST. W:126, W:127, W:145–64, W:173, W:255

  BITSY: Bitsy was Tim’s favorite mule. After discovering his father’s lucky coin in BIG KELLS’s trunk, Tim rode Bitsy into the ENDLESS FOREST to meet the COVENANT MAN. Later in the story he rode Bitsy to the IRONWOOD TRAIL again, this time to find the magician MAERLYN. Rather than risk Bitsy on this dangerous venture, Tim tied her to a bush at the side of the trail and scattered oats in front of her, confident that sai COSINGTON would come for her in the morning. W:126, W:127, W:145, W:173, W:184, W:189, W:190, W:255

  ROSS, NELL (NELL ROBERTSON, NELL KELLS)

  Nell Ross was a character in the folktale “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” which Roland shared with YOUNG BILL STREETER in DEBARIA’s JAIL. (Neither of them had done anything wrong. Young Bill was the sole survivor of the JEFFERSON RANCH massacre and the only person who could identify the SKIN-MAN responsible for the attack. Hence, Roland wanted to keep him safe.)

  Nell Ross (born Nell Robertson) was mother of TIM ROSS and the wife of the burly, good-tempered woodsman BIG JACK ROSS. After being widowed, she became the wife of Ross’s former pard, BIG BERN KELLS. According to Roland’s story, Nell Robertson, Jack Ross, and Bern Kells had been childhood friends. Both boys had fallen in love with the chestnut-haired Nell, but Nell chose Ross, who had the sweeter disposition and better temperament. Although Kells had stood by Ross at the wedding and had slipped the silk around the new couple, in his secret heart he was eaten alive by jealousy. After Nell and Big Ross’s wedding, Kells’s habit of drunken violence worsened. In fact, it was not until Kells met and married MILLICENT REDHOUSE that he reformed his behavior. Unfortunately, Millicent died giving birth six seasons after her marriage. After this, Kells’s jealousy of Ross and his lust for Nell grew into a secret but murderous rage.

  One day in Tim’s eleventh year, Big Ross and Big Kells traveled into the wood together as they always did, but only Kells returned. Sooty, blistered, and charred, Kells claimed that he and his partner had been attacked by a she-DRAGON deep in the forest, and that Ross had been incinerated. A few months after Big Ross’s death, Kells began courting Nell. Reluctantly—and for the most part out of fear of the Barony’s tax-collecting COVENANT MAN—Nell agreed to slip the rope with her deceased husband’s partner.

  Although Kells managed to remain teetotal for a brief period, soon his temper and his simmering resentment of Nell got the better of him. Blaming his new wife for all the ills of his life (after all, if she hadn’t tempted him with her good looks he wouldn’t have killed his friend), he turned to drink. Kells—whose beard was now streaked with gray—began beating his wife on a regular basis, and even made Tim give up his lessons at the WIDOW SMACK’S COTTAGE so that he could earn money at the TREE SAWMILL. Hating Kells for his abusive behavior, Tim took a magic key from the evil Covenant Man, one that would open any lock. He used this to open his steppa’s beloved trunk and to spy on what he kept there. Within the trunk, a horrified Tim discovered his father’s lucky coin—the one Big Ross always wore around his neck on a fine silver chain. Now certain that Kells had murdered his da, Tim went in search of the wicked Covenanter. Unfortunately, while he was gone, drunken Kells blamed Nell for opening his trunk and smashed a ceramic jug against her forehead. He then beat her into unconsciousness. Nell was permanently blinded.

  Upon returning to the cottage with his father’s ax a
nd certain knowledge of his father’s horrible manner of death, Tim informed the men of Tree about his stepfather’s crime. Then, egged on by false scrying visions seen in the Covenanter’s MAGICAL SILVER PAIL, Tim set off for the Endless Forest, where he hoped to find the sorcerer MAERLYN who would be able to restore Nell’s sight. Nell remained blind and bedridden, cared for by the WIDOW SMACK, until her son Tim returned from the forest with one of MAERLYN’S MAGICAL OBJECTS: a BROWN BOTTLE of liquid, drops of which cured Nell’s blindness. Nell’s first sighted act (after embracing her son) was to save Tim’s life.

  Unbeknownst to either Nell or Tim, by the time Tim returned with the magic drops for Nell’s eyes, Kells was already hiding in the cottage’s mudroom. When Tim exited Nell’s bedroom and tried to wake the Widow Smack (who had already had her throat cut by Kells), Kells attacked. Choking his stepson, Kells tossed away Tim’s gun and told him that he was going to throw him onto the fire to burn him alive. Kells never managed to fulfill his threat, since Nell buried her first husband’s ax in his head. Years later, when Tim Ross became the gunslinger Tim Stoutheart, Nell became a great lady in GILEAD.

  W:106, W:109, W:113–22, W:123–24 (124 wedding day), W:125, W:126, W:127, W:128, W:129, W:130, W:131–41 (141 remembers Covenant Man), W:145, W:146, W:148, W:150, W:153–54 (in basin vision), W:155, W:156, W:157, W:158, W:161–62, W:163, W:164, W:167 (she has been blinded; asleep part of this time), W:168, W:171, W:172, W:173, W:174, W:175–76, W:178, W:179, W:180, W:184 (water Nell), W:185, W:188, W:195 (mother’s sheets), W:201, W:202, W:206, W:214 (Tim’s dream), W:221, W:223, W:236, W:238, W:239, W:250, W:251 (drops in eyes, Tim gives her the ax), W:254 (mama), W:255, W:258, W:259–64, W:267, W:268

  FATHER: W:140, W:143, W:144, W:145

  ROSS, TIM (TIM STOUTHEART, LEFTY ROSS)

  Tim Ross, also known as Tim Stoutheart and Lefty Ross, was an important figure in Mid-World folklore. According to Roland, Tim was one of the very, very few men to become a gunslinger even though he was not descended from the proven line of ELD. When Tim was twenty-one years old, three gunslingers, bound for TAVARES, came through his home village of TREE. The gunslingers were hoping to raise a posse, but Tim was the only local man willing to go with them. At first the men called him “the lefthanded gun,” for that was the way he drew. But he was both fearless and a dead shot, and so earned the name tet-fa, or friend of the tet. After a great battle on the shores of LAKE CAWN at which he proved his bravery, Tim gained his name Tim Stoutheart. Later, he became ka-tet, or a fully-fledged member of Gilead’s tet of the gun.

  In the novel The Wind Through the Keyhole, Roland tells YOUNG BILL STREETER the story of Tim Stoutheart’s first adventure, when he (like Young Bill) was eleven years old. Like Young Bill Streeter, who was about to identify the shapeshifting SKIN-MAN who had murdered his father, Young Tim Stoutheart had to brave many perils in order to bring to justice the man who had murdered his father and blinded his mother.

  At the opening of the tale, Tim lived happily with his mother, NELL ROSS, and his father, BIG JACK ROSS, in their cottage called GOODVIEW, in the village of Tree, located on the edge of the beautiful but dangerous ENDLESS FOREST. Big Ross was a woodcutter, partnered with his old friend BIG BERN KELLS. Together they worked the ROSS-KELLS STAKE, located far down the IRONWOOD TRAIL where the ironwood trees grew tall. However, one day in the year that Tim turned eleven, Big Kells came back from the forest alone. There was a hole in the left leg of his homespun pants, his skin was sooty and blistered, and his jerkin was charred. According to Kells, he and his partner had been set upon by a DRAGON and Big Ross had been incinerated.

  Without Big Ross to support them, Tim and his mother fell on hard times. As Reaptide drew closer and the annual visit of the Barony COVENANT MAN, or tax collector, drew near, Nell began to fear that the two of them would be turned off the land. But just as Nell was certain that come the following Full Earth she and Tim would be following the crops with burlap rucksacks on their backs, Big Kells came courting. He promised to sell his own place and pay the Covenant Man what Nell owed, if Nell would become his wife. Although Nell was terrified of losing her husband’s plot and place to the Covenant Man, she hesitated before accepting Kells’s offer. She had known Big Kells all of her life, but she also knew that he was a drinker and at times, violent. In the end her fear of the Covenant Man outweighed her misgivings, but her decision was one she came to regret.

  As Nell had feared, soon after their marriage, Big Kells returned to drink and took up his father’s pastime of wife-beating. He forced Young Tim to give up his lessons at the WIDOW SMACK’S COTTAGE—a pursuit that Tim dearly loved—so that he could earn scrip at the TREE SAWMILL. (Tim would have been happy to pursue his father’s profession of woodcutting, but Big Kells said that he was, and always would be, too small to cut ironwood.) When the gales of Wide Earth came howling in from the west, and Tim began to think that life with Big Bern Kells had become too unbearable, the evil Barony Covenanter blew into Tree. While collecting the taxes at Goodview Cottage, the Covenant Man gave Tim a key which would open any lock. Secretly, Tim used the key to open his stepfather’s trunk, which was exactly what the Barony Covenanter wanted him to do. Inside, below ragged old clothes, rusty tools, and a picture of Kells’s first wife, MILLICENT, Tim found his father’s lucky coin, a rhodite double. Tim knew that a dragon couldn’t have incinerated his father, since Big Ross’s coin had survived. There was only one answer—he had been murdered by his partner, Big Kells.

  Mounting BITSY, his father’s mule, Tim rode deep into the Endless Forest to find the Covenant Man’s camp. There, in the waters of a MAGICAL SILVER BASIN, and using the gearshift of an old Dodge Dart as a magic wand, the Barony Covenanter showed Tim a terrible image—of Bern Kells smashing a ceramic jug into Nell Kells’s face and then beating her into unconsciousness. After showing Tim the image of the Widow Smack tending to Nell’s wounds (otherwise the boy would have galloped home immediately on Bitsy’s back), the nasty Covenant Man showed Tim his father’s dead body, floating in a stream which ran through a fallow stub on the COSINGTON-MARCHLY STAKE.

  Returning home with his father’s ax tucked into his belt (the Covenanter had found Big Ross’s belongings in the forest), Tim told PETER COSINGTON, ERNIE MARCHLY, and BALDY ANDERSON about his stepfather’s crimes. After bidding Big Ross goodbye in the Tree BURYING PARLOR, Tim set off for yet another journey into the depths of the forest. This time—egged on by a vision provided by yet another one of the treacherous Covenanter’s scrying vessels—Tim was determined to find the magician MAERLYN, who he was certain could restore his mother’s sight.

  Wearing his father’s lucky coin around his neck, scuffed shor’boots upon his feet, and his father’s ax tucked into his belt by his right hip, Tim set off for the Widow Smack’s cottage. He wanted the Widow to inform his ma about his travels, and also to send him on with a blessing. Unlike Tim, the Widow Smack did not trust the visions sent by the blackhearted Barony Covenanter. However, since she knew she could not stop Tim from taking his journey, she sent him on with a lamp, a loaf of bread, and a four-shot revolver which had belonged to her brother, JOSHUA. Tim lost the lamp while following the pretty but treacherous SIGHE named ARMANEETA through the FAGONARD (she led Tim right on top of a sleeping DRAGON, probably hoping that the boy would be eaten), but Tim kept the gun. In fact, he used it to shoot one of the Fagonard’s hungry CANNIBAL REPTILES that wanted to swallow him whole.

  Holding a smoking gun but stranded on a grassy tussock deep in the watery Fagonard, Tim was eventually rescued by the MUTANT MUDMEN who mistook him for a young gunslinger. From these friendly if physically disgusting mutants Tim received the talking NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS guidance mechanism called DARIA. Daria led Tim along the PATH of the EAGLE-LION BEAM, past dancing BUMBLERS, GIANT YELLOW MUSHROOMS, MUTANT BLUE DEER, and a DEMON TENTACLED MONSTER, all the way to the NORTH FOREST KINNOCK DOGAN. Upon reaching the Dogan, and the deep magic which Daria detected there, Tim’s North Central Positronics friend was for
ced to shut down for providing Tim with too much restricted information and hence violating Directive NINETEEN.

  At the Dogan, Tim found not the magician Maerlyn, whom he had hoped to find, but a huge caged TYGER with two objects attached to its collar. One was a flat keycard; the other was a key shaped like a letter from High Speech. Beneath a silver pail located just outside the cage, Tim found a note from the Covenant Man along with the key to the tyger’s cage. The note, which was signed RF/MB, dared Tim to open the cage, since around the tyger’s neck hung the key to the nearby Dogan.

  With the deadly winds of the STARKBLAST already blowing down the ironwoods of the forest, Tim felt he had little choice and so set the tyger free. Much to his surprise, the tyger did not try to eat him, but instead waited patiently for the boy to remove his collar. As the winds buffeted him, Tim tried to use the keycard, but unfortunately the Dogan was offline. However, just outside the Dogan’s permanently locked door was the METAL BOX for which the tyger’s second key was made. Inside that box were three MAGICAL OBJECTS: a large white FEATHER, a small BROWN BOTTLE, and a white dinner napkin that was actually a magical DIBBEN. As gale force winds blew Tim against the side of the Dogan, the tyger held the white dibben between his teeth and began shaking it out. The napkin, Tim soon realized, was enchanted and could expand exponentially. It was also windproof. Huddling beneath the expansive dibben with his furry companion, Tim found that he did not feel the wind at all, though the starkblast wreaked havoc all around them.