by Vincent, Bev
Margaret is Henchick of the Manni’s granddaughter, but she abandoned the tribe because they are a peaceful people and below the surface she is not. The Manni call her one of “the forgetful.” They believe she is damned for leaving them, which may be true given her fate during the battle with the Wolves.
She and her friends, the Sisters of Oriza—a women’s social club with a deadly pastime that includes Zalia Jaffords and Rosalita Muñoz, Roland’s new lover—have kept Lady Oriza’s legacy alive, using modern plates made of titanium instead of glass. Though flustered with excitement, Margaret impresses Roland with her skill. He asks her to gather the four best throwers for a contest, and has Zalia instruct Susannah in the way of the Oriza. Susannah masters the skill quickly but she deliberately loses the contest so that a local woman can win. The victor is Roland’s new companion, Rosalita. The gunslingers have their local help.
Things were easier for Roland when he traveled alone. He didn’t have to decide with whom he could share information. He can’t trust Susannah because of Mia, nor Eddie because he loves Susannah. Jake might let something slip to Benny Slightman, and Roland is suspicious of Benny’s father, the only person in the Calla who wears glasses. Slightman says he got them by trading a colt to one of the merchants on the riverboat shops that occasionally passed the Calla. Jake’s “touch” tells him Slightman is lying, but doesn’t reveal that the glasses were actually part of his payment for betraying his neighbors and friends to the agents of Thunderclap.
Jake learns about Mia on his own through a dream about one of her foraging excursions where Mia thinks she’s eating a roasted pig that resembles a baby but is really devouring one of Tian’s pigs raw. In his dream, Jake hears her muttering about the Dixie Pig in New York, which will help him track her down when Mia takes her through the doorway later.
Roland’s disease of secrecy infects other members of the ka-tet. Jake, alerted by Oy, sees Andy and Benny’s father meeting clandestinely one night. Afterward, Slightman wades across the river in the direction of Thunderclap. Jake keeps this suspicious activity to himself, but he knows that if he takes matters too much into his own hands he’ll have to face Roland in a test of manhood that he would surely lose. He would be sent east into Thunderclap in exile and shame.
He does confront Roland with his concerns about Susannah as they ride along the East Road, where the final battle against the Wolves will take place, a symbolic location for this tense confrontation between leader and follower, father and surrogate son. When Jake mistakes Roland’s shame for anger, Roland realizes how badly their ka-tet is broken. They agree to tell Susannah before the Wolves come, but as late as possible. Jake reluctantly agrees to monitor Susannah with his touch to see if Mia is exerting more control.
Henchick, the Manni leader, takes Roland to the cave where they found Callahan. Someone local knew he was coming and left a message on a tape recorder27 revealing where to find him. Both the door and the box containing Black Thirteen were open slightly. Henchick had been terrified by the glow coming from the door, which made him feel dim, perhaps Walter’s lingering influence. In the box’s blackness, Henchick saw the red eye of the Crimson King, someone Roland has heard of before but doesn’t know much about. He knows only that he’s either in Thunderclap or farther east. “I believe he may be a guardian of the Dark Tower. He may even think he owns it.”
When Henchick shut the box, the door slammed closed, too, and hasn’t opened since.
People who enter what was once known as the Cave of Voices hear condemning voices drawn from their memories, in a manner similar to the visions seen by the Sawyer Gang when they entered the Black House in Wisconsin.28 Roland hears his mother and father, Walter, Cuthbert and Rhea.
The door is exactly like those Roland encountered on the beach. Etched upon it are a rose and the word UNFOUND in hieroglyphics. Roland knows Black Thirteen will open the door, and could take them to any place or any time.
While Roland and Henchick explore the cave, the members of his ka-tet go shopping using gold and silver coins and gems from a magic grow-bag, the last thing of magic Roland owns. Took,29 the shopkeeper, opposes the gunslingers’ mission because the Wolves once burned down the store when the townspeople tried to hide children there. However, he cannot turn down hard currency, though he drives hard bargains. Susannah enjoys bartering with him and putting him in his place when he gets too flippant.
Afterward, they sit on the porch in front of the store and greet the townspeople for five hours, answering a thousand difficult questions.
Callahan’s Catholicism comes into play in three different ways during the buildup to the battle with the Wolves. First, he hears Roland’s confession, which consists of his story from the time he draws Odetta from New York through his awareness of her pregnancy. Roland isn’t looking for absolution, and gets none. Callahan tells Roland he has been a fool, “ka-mai.”
Roland is afraid that Mia will take control of Susannah and go off somewhere to have the child. “I have every reason to believe it would begin its work by slaughtering the mother,” he says, calling the child “poison with a heartbeat.” Callahan chastises Roland for being more concerned about the breaking of the tet than the death of a friend. “I wonder if your friends know what sort of man you are,” Callahan says. “They know,” he responds.
Callahan’s religious training also permits him to see another possibility for Susannah’s predicament beyond Roland’s assumption that Mia is a new personality, a notion that depresses Susannah once they as a group finally talk about her pregnancy. Callahan suggests that Mia might be possessing Susannah, though he doesn’t go so far as to propose an exorcism.
Finally, when Roland proposes aborting the demon child, Callahan stands firm. Not only won’t he let Roland suggest it, but Roland also must dissuade Susannah if she comes up with the idea herself. Callahan promises to raise the townspeople against the gunslingers if Roland won’t agree.30
Callahan’s strong beliefs concerning venal sins are hard to rationalize with his own suicide in Detroit. Roland doesn’t know enough about Catholicism to raise this issue, though, and arguments about saving Susannah’s life or all of creation won’t sway Callahan. Roland regrets raising the subject, for in doing so he’s eliminated a possible solution to their problem. Callahan tells him, “It won’t be first time you mistook your will for ka, would it?”
Eddie is nervous about the passage of time in New York. He believes that the world containing the rose is a special reality where they can’t double back. Each time they cross over, it will be later. They can’t afford to miss the July 15 deadline.
He has a simpler plan than the one they discussed outside the Calla. He believes Tower will sell them the vacant lot for a token amount—a dollar—because he’s been waiting for them to come along. Even though Tower thinks he’d be better off without the lot, he’s kept it all these years, in much the same way that Father Callahan has guarded the black Wizard’s Glass.
Eddie and Roland take Black Thirteen to the Doorway Cave in Jake’s bowling bag. Roland waits in the cave with bullets in his ears to block out the cave’s voices.
Three weeks have passed since their last trip to New York. Eddie finds two of Balazar’s thugs, George Biondi and Jack Andolini, threatening to burn Tower’s valuable books unless he will make a verbal commitment to sell the lot to them after their option expires. Eddie surprises the men, whom he knows from his own time, though they won’t know him for another decade. He uses his knowledge of Andolini’s family to intimidate the thug before sending him back to Balazar. He’s sufficiently brutal to make Balazar’s chief lieutenant believe the message he is to deliver: Calvin Tower is off-limits. Eddie invents a new company and tells Andolini that Tower will be selling the lot to Tet Corporation, not Sombra.
After Andolini is sent on his way, Tower comments that some of Eddie’s diction reminds him of language from a book by Benjamin Slightman Jr.31 The cover shows a building that resembles a wooden Quonset hut. On the title
page, the book is called The Hogan, but the cover says The Dogan, a word that doesn’t exist. Tower tells Eddie that this and other printing mistakes make the book valuable.32
Tower begrudgingly agrees to sell the vacant lot for a dollar, with the promise of fair market value later. Aaron Deepneau is a lawyer, as ka would have it, and Eddie tells Tower to get him to draw up the contract. Once he recovers from his scare, though, Tower has second thoughts, displaying the stubbornness that kept him from selling to Sombra long ago.
He finally agrees that if Eddie can tell him the name on a piece of paper in an old envelope with Tower’s great-great-great-grandfather’s name and the UNFOUND hieroglyphics on it, he’ll do as Eddie asks. Another riddle for Eddie to solve, this one affecting the fate of all of creation. He guesses true: The paper says “Roland Deschain, of Gilead, The line of ELD, GUNSLINGER.”
Eddie knows how Balazar will react to Andolini’s report and warns Tower to get out of New York until July 15. Tower resists until Eddie finally convinces him of the danger he’s in. Eddie instructs him to have Deepneau write the zip code of where they’re going on the vacant lot’s fence. Before Eddie leaves, Tower convinces him to transfer a shelf of his most valuable books through the UNFOUND door. He correctly assumes that Balazar will burn down the store when he discovers Tower has left town.
Jake takes it upon himself to figure out why Benny Slightman’s father and Andy are sneaking around at night. Oy leads him along the path Slightman took toward Thunderclap, where they find a Quonset hut resembling the Dogan from Benjamin Slightman’s novel.
Inside the North Central Positronics outpost—which he accesses by guessing the entry code—Jake finds a bank of monitors. Of those that still work, some show different parts of the Calla, explaining how the Wolves know where the townspeople hide their children or if they plan to resist. Fortunately, the ka-tet held most of its palavers out of sight of these cameras.
On another monitor Jake sees Andy and Slightman approaching. From his closet hiding place, he learns that Slightman is cooperating with Andy to guarantee Benny’s safety. His son’s twin sister is dead, making Benny especially vulnerable to the Wolves.
Andy relays an intelligence report to Finli O’Tego at Algul Siento33—where the Breakers are being held—and reveals the real reason he warns the townspeople about the Wolves: He enjoys the grief it brings them. “Each tear’s a drop of gold.” Shortly after meeting the robot, Eddie had suspected Andy’s pleasure at the discomfort of humans, but he didn’t follow up on it.
Jake understands the conflict of duty. In spite of their friendship, he must report Benny’s father as a traitor, thinking it might be a worse betrayal than when Roland let him fall to his death. His dilemma is complicated by the fact that he’s never been good at making friends his own age and now he has a good one he will have to let down.
After he reports what he learned, he begs Roland to spare Slightman. Roland says he’ll do what he can, but he’s not sure it’s a mercy because Slightman will be through in the Calla if they win.
As the day of the battle draws near, Roland sends Callahan to New York to retrieve the zip code of Tower’s destination. Only one day has elapsed, but The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind has been torched. Callahan hears the voice of the rose for the first time and understands the nature of Roland’s quest. He feels part of their ka-tet.
While Callahan is in New York, Roland finds ’Salem’s Lot on Tower’s bookshelf in the cave. He keeps his discovery secret—even from readers—not wanting to distract the ka-tet from the upcoming battle.
Eddie accompanies Callahan to the Doorway Cave the next time. While Callahan delivers a note to Tower and Deepneau in Stoneham, Maine, Eddie notices something sewn into the lining of the bowling bag Jake found in the vacant lot, but the voices in the cave distract him from exploring further.34 Callahan realizes that he can no longer see Eddie through the open doorway. He returns just in time to save Eddie from jumping off the edge of the cliff, having been convinced by the voices that he could fly to the Tower.
The time comes to learn how the Calla-folken want to proceed. Roland gathers them at the pavilion where he danced the commala. Tian, plagued by worries about what he’s set into motion, fears Roland will perform the death dance this time.
After asking the first two questions again, Roland poses the third, crucial question: Do you seek aid and succor from us? The townspeople respond with a resounding yes, except for a few dissenting voices and abstentions. Much of the plan Roland lays out is a lie, since he knows that Slightman will report what he says to whoever is in charge of the Wolves.
With Tian’s help, the night before the battle Eddie sets a trap for Andy and shoots out the robot’s eyes. He guesses the robot’s access code based on Jake’s experience at the Dogan and shuts him down permanently. Rosa suggests they bury him beneath the floor of Father Callahan’s privy. Roland believes Andy killed Benny’s sister to make someone in the village vulnerable to being coerced into spying on his own people, and suspects that the robot has been doing something similar for generations.
Slightman realizes he’s been uncovered, partly because of what they’ve done to Andy and partly because he’s sensed a change in the way Jake relates to him. The morning of the battle, he asks Roland what will become of him. Roland tells him that if he fights hard to save the children, and the ka-tet defeats the Wolves, Roland won’t expose him as a traitor. However, he says the best thing that could happen is for Slightman to die a hero. That way there’s no chance Benny will ever find out that his father sold out for a pair of glasses and some other trinkets.
Slightman tells Roland about the Breakers,35 humans with extrasensory powers who eat normal food but also need something extra to nourish their mental talents. The only source of this brain food is twins, who possess a chemical that links them mind to mind. Slightman doesn’t realize that the Breakers are working to destroy the Tower.
Finally, Roland reveals what he and the ka-tet have known since Eddie’s talk with Gran-Pere: The Wolves and their horses are robots. Their hoods cover tiny rotating dishes like the one atop Shardik and his robotic menagerie.
The moment a cloud of dust in the distance heralds the Wolves’ arrival, things start to go wrong. Jake, Benny and two other children are trapped in the open while leaving a false trail. Roland knows what’s happening but leaves Jake to handle the situation. He can’t justify risking the hundred children hiding in the rice fields for four, even if one of them is his surrogate son.
Roland’s fears about Susannah bear out. Her water breaks before the battle begins. Mia tries to take control, but Susannah fights her. She promises to help Mia with the baby if Mia will allow Susannah to finish her part. Rather than struggle in the middle of a war, Mia agrees.
The Wolves enter Roland’s trap. The gunslingers and the Sisters of Oriza, a total of seven defenders, arise from the blind and attack their sixty-one opponents (19 upside-down), dispatching many of the Wolves before they realize they’ve been misled.
Margaret Eisenhart is the first defender killed, beheaded by one of the Wolves’ glow sticks, reminiscent of a Star Wars light saber.36 Her head lands next to Benny Slightman, surprising him into leaping from cover only to be destroyed by a sneetch.37 Later, Roland asks Father Callahan for a blessing against the curse Vaughn Eisenhart promised to bring upon him if Margaret died during the battle.
Eddie, Jake and Roland, assisted by Rosa, destroy most of the remaining Wolves. Jake, enraged by Benny’s death, turns into a killing machine, much like Roland was in Tull. Eddie and Roland leave the last two Wolves for him. He in turn leaves the last one for Susannah, who couldn’t follow them up the path.
* * *
Lucky Seven
Seven is a mystical number in many cultures, but the seven defenders of the Calla refer directly to The Magnificent Seven. Susannah lost seven minutes as Mia in New York. Andy the robot is seven feet tall. Seven weeks have elapsed at the beginning of the book since the ending of Wizard and
Glass. Mia was promised seven years with her chap. Young Stephen King was seven when he was sent to the barn as punishment. Walter’s tarot reading consisted of seven cards, and seven Losers stood against the creature in It, who commented on the number’s talismanic quality. And, of course, there are seven volumes in the Dark Tower series.
* * *
As Roland predicted, “you’ll wonder what all the planning and palaver was for, when in the end it always comes down to the same five minutes’ worth of blood and stupidity.” He tells the people of the Calla that they now know the secret of how to defeat the Wolves, though they’ll probably never see them again.
In the confusion following the battle, Mia takes charge of Susannah’s body. After she wrecks Susannah’s wheelchair, she transfers to an ATV that someone—probably Andy before he was decommissioned—left for her, so she can make it up the hill to the Doorway Cave. When she passes through, she takes Black Thirteen with her, sealing the door.
Rosa notices Susannah is missing, and the ka-tet follows her trail. Along the way, Eddie finds the hand-carved wooden ring that Susannah wore around her neck because it was too big for her hand. Mia had no use for it and cast it aside, but told Susannah that the Crimson King is on her trail and she doesn’t want Eddie’s scent associated with her. “Later, if ka wills, you may wear it again.” [DT6]
When the ka-tet reaches the cave and realizes the door is locked against them, Roland shows them ’Salem’s Lot, saying it represents the heart of perhaps the greatest mystery. Jake recognizes the author’s name from the deli board outside Tower’s bookstore. The church on the dust jacket resembles both the Calla Gathering Hall and the Stoneham Methodist Meeting Hall, which Father Callahan saw earlier.