The Dark Tower

When Roland pulled himself back into the cab of the storekeeper’s truck—a chore made more difficult by the rapidly escalating pain in his right hip—his hand came down on Jake’s leg, and just like that he knew what Jake had been keeping back, and why. He had been afraid that knowing might cause the gunslinger’s focus to drift. It was not kashume the boy had felt, or Roland would have felt it, too. How could there be ka-shume among them, with the tet already broken? Their special power, something greater than all of them, perhaps drawn from the Beam itself, was gone. Now they were just three friends (four, counting the bumbler) united by a single purpose. And they could save King. Jake knew it. They could save the writer and come a step closer to saving the Tower by doing so. But one of them was going to die doing it.

Jake knew that, too.

FOURTEEN

An old saying—one taught to him by his father—came to Roland then: If ka will say so, let it be so. Yes; all right; let it be so.

During the long years he had spent on the trail of the man in black, the gunslinger would have sworn nothing in the universe could have caused him to renounce the Tower; had he not literally killed his own mother in pursuit of it, back at the start of his terrible career? But in those years he had been friendless, childless, and (he didn’t like to admit it, but it was true) heartless. He had been bewitched by that cold romance the loveless mistake for love. Now he had a son and he had been given a second chance and he had changed. Knowing that one of them must die in order to save the writer—that their fellowship must be reduced again, and so soon—would not make him cry off. But he would make sure that Roland of Gilead, not Jake of New York, provided the sacrifice this time.

Did the boy know that he’d penetrated his secret? No time to worry about that now.

Roland slammed the truckomobile’s door shut and looked at the woman. “Is your name Irene?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Drive, Irene. Do it as if Lord High Splitfoot were on your trail with rape on his mind, do ya I beg. Out Warrington’s Road. If we don’t see him there, out the Seven-Road. Will you?”

“You’re fucking right,” said Mrs. Tassenbaum, and shoved the gearshift into First with real authority.

The engine screamed, but the truck began to roll backward, as if so frightened by the job ahead that it would rather finish up in the lake. Then she engaged the clutch and the old International Harvester leaped ahead, charging up the steep incline of the driveway and leaving a trail of blue smoke and burnt rubber behind.

Garrett McKeen’s great-grandson watched them go with his mouth hanging open. He had no idea what had just happened, but he felt sure that a great deal depended on what would happen next.

Maybe everything.

FIFTEEN

Needing to piss that bad was weird, because pissing was the last thing Bryan Smith had done before leaving the Million Dollar Campground. And once he’d clambered over the fucking rock wall, he hadn’t been able to manage more than a few drops, even though it had felt like a real bladder-buster at the time. Bryan hopes he’s not going to have trouble with his prostrate; trouble with the old prostrate is the last thing he needs. He’s got enough other problems, by the hairy old Jesus.