The Dark Tower

The hazy green-gold summerglow that lives only in forests (and old forests, at that, like the one where the Bear Shardik had rampaged), deepened. It fell through the trees in dusky beams, and the place where Roland finally stopped felt more like a church than a clearing. He had gone roughly two hundred paces from the road on a westerly line. Here he set Jake down and looked about. He saw two rusty beer-cans and a few ejected shell-casings, probably the leavings of hunters. He tossed them further into the woods so the place would be clean. Then he looked at Jake, wiping away his tears so he could see as clearly as possible. The boy’s face was as clean as the clearing, Oy had seen to that, but one of Jake’s eyes was still open, giving the boy an evil winky look that must not be allowed. Roland rolled the lid closed with a finger, and when it sprang back up again (like a balky windowshade, he thought), he licked the ball of his thumb and rolled the lid shut again. This time it stayed closed.

There was dust and blood on Jake’s shirt. Roland took it off, then took his own off and put it on Jake, moving him like a doll in order to get it on him. The shirt came almost to Jake’s knees, but Roland made no attempt to tuck it in; this way it covered the bloodstains on Jake’s pants.

All of this Oy watched, his gold-ringed eyes bright with tears.

Roland had expected the soil to be soft beneath the thick carpet of needles, and it was. He had a good start on Jake’s grave when he heard the sound of an engine from the roadside. Other motor-carriages had passed since he’d carried Jake into the woods, but he recognized the dissonant beat of this one. The man in the blue vehicle had come back. Roland hadn’t been entirely sure he would.

“Stay,” he murmured to the bumbler. “Guard your master.” But that was wrong. “Stay and guard your friend.”

It wouldn’t have been unusual for Oy to repeat the command (S’ay! was about the best he could manage) in the same low voice, but this time he said nothing. Roland watched him lie down beside Jake’s head, however, and snap a fly out of the air when it came in for a landing on the boy’s nose. Roland nodded, satisfied, then started back the way he had come.

SEVEN

Bryan Smith was out of his motor-carriage and sitting on the rock wall by the time Roland got back in view of him, his cane drawn across his lap. (Roland had no idea if the cane was an affectation or something the man really needed, and didn’t care about this, either.) King had regained some soupy version of consciousness, and the two men were talking.

“Please tell me it’s just sprained,” the writer said in a weak, worried voice.

“Nope! I’d say that leg’s broke in six, maybe seven places.” Now that he’d had time to settle down and maybe work out a story, Smith sounded not just calm but almost happy.

“Cheer me up, why don’t you,” King said. The visible side of his face was very pale, but the flow of blood from the gash on his temple had slowed almost to a stop. “Have you got a cigarette?”

“Nope,” Smith said in that same weirdly cheerful voice. “Gave em up.”

Although not particularly strong in the touch, Roland had enough of it to know this wasn’t so. But Smith only had three and didn’t want to share them with this man, who could probably afford enough cigarettes to fill Smith’s entire van with them. Besides, Smith thought—

“Besides, folks who been in a accident ain’t supposed to smoke,” Smith said virtuously.

King nodded. “Hard to breathe, anyway,” he said.

“Prolly bust a rib or two, too. My name’s Bryan Smith. I’m the one who hit you. Sorry.” He held out his hand and—incredibly—King shook it.

“Nothin like this ever happened to me before,” Smith said. “I ain’t ever had so much as a parkin ticket.”

King might or might not have known this for the lie it was, but chose not to comment on it; there was something else on his mind. “Mr. Smith—Bryan—was anyone else here?”

In the trees, Roland stiffened.

Smith actually appeared to consider this. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Mars bar and began to unwrap it. Then he shook his head. “Just you n me. But I called 911 and Rescue, up to the store. They said someone was real close. Said they’d be here in no time. Don’t you worry.”

“You know who I am.”

“God yeah!” Bryan Smith said, and chuckled. He took a bite of the candy bar and talked through it. “Reckonized you right away. I seen all your movies. My favorite was the one about the Saint Bernard. What was that dog’s name?”

“Cujo,” King said. This was a word Roland knew, one Susan Delgado had sometimes used when they were alone together. In Mejis, cujo meant “sweet one.”

“Yeah! That was great! Scary as hell! I’m glad that little boy lived!”

“In the book he died.” Then King closed his eyes and lay back, waiting.

Smith took another bite, a humongous one this time. “I liked the show they made about the clown, too! Very cool!”