The Dark Tower

“Gosh, I hope Stephen King sees that asshole,” Elvira says. They have passed the writer half a mile or so back, and said hello. Probably everyone in town has seen him on his afternoon walk, at one time or another.

As if the driver of the blue van has heard Elvira Toothaker call him an asshole, the van’s brakelights flare. The van suddenly pulls all the way off the road and stops. When the door opens, the ladies hear a louder blast of rock and roll music. They also hear the driver—a man—yelling at someone (Elvira and Justine just pity the person stuck driving with that guy on such a beautiful June afternoon). “You leave ’at alone!” he shouts. “That ain’t yoahs, y’hear?” And then the driver reaches back into the van, brings out a cane, and uses it to help him over the rock wall and into the bushes. The van sits rumbling on the soft shoulder, driver’s door open, emitting blue exhaust from one end and rock from the other.

“What’s he doing?” Justine asks, a little nervously.

“Taking a leak would be my guess,” her friend replies. “But if Mr. King back there is lucky, maybe doing Number Two, instead. That might give him time to get off Route 7 and back onto Turtleback Lane.”

Suddenly Justine doesn’t feel like picking berries anymore. She wants to go back home and have a strong cup of tea.

The man comes limping briskly out of the bushes and uses his cane to help him back over the rock wall.

“I guess he didn’t need to Number Two,” Elvira says, and as the bad driver climbs back into his blue van, the two going-on-old women look at each other and burst into giggles.

TWELVE

Roland watched the old man give the woman instructions—something about using Warrington’s Road as a shortcut—and then Jake opened his eyes. To Roland the boy looked unutterably weary.

“I was able to make him stop and take a leak,” he said. “Now he’s fixing something behind his seat. I don’t know what it is, but it won’t keep him busy for long. Roland, this is bad. We’re awfully late. We have to go.”

Roland looked at the woman, hoping that his decision not to replace her behind the wheel with the old man had been the right one. “Do you know where to go? Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said. “Up Warrington’s to Route 7. We sometimes go to dinner at Warrington’s. I know that road.”

“Can’t guarantee you’ll cut his path goin that way,” said the caretaker, “but it seems likely.” He bent down to pick up his hat and began to brush bits of freshly cut grass from it. He did this with long, slow strokes, like a man caught in a dream. “Ayuh, seems likely t’me.” And then, still like a man who dreams awake, he tucked his hat beneath his arm, raised a fist to his forehead, and bent a leg to the stranger with the big revolver on his hip. Why would he not?

The stranger was surrounded by white light.

THIRTEEN