The Dark Tower

Instead of turning away, as part of her wanted to do, Susannah took Roland’s hands. He pulled her up, not to her feet (for she had none, although for awhile a pair had been given her on loan) but into his arms. And when he tried to kiss her cheek, she turned her face so that his lips pressed on hers. Let him understand it’s no halfway thing, she thought, breathing her air into him and then taking his back, changed. Let him understand that if I’m in it, I’m in to the end. God help me, I’m in with him to the end.

THREE

There were clothes in the Fedic Millinery & Ladies’ Wear, but they fell apart at the touch of their hands—the moths and the years had left nothing usable. In the Fedic Hotel (QUIET ROOMS, GUD BEDS) Roland found a cabinet with some blankets that would do them at least against the afternoon chill. They wrapped up in them—the afternoon breeze was just enough to make their musty smell bearable—and Susannah asked about Jake, to have the immediate pain of it out of the way.

“The writer again,” she said bitterly when he had finished, wiping away her tears. “God damn the man.”

“My hip let go and the . . . and Jake never hesitated.” Roland had almost called him the boy, as he had taught himself to think of Elmer’s son as they closed in on Walter. Given a second chance, he had promised himself he would never do that again.

“No, of course he didn’t,” she said, smiling. “He never would. He had a yard of guts, our Jake. Did you take care of him? Did you do him right? I’d hear that part.”

So he told her, not failing to include Irene Tassenbaum’s promise of the rose. She nodded, then said: “I wish we could do the same for your friend, Sheemie. He died on the train. I’m sorry, Roland.”

Roland nodded. He wished he had tobacco, but of course there was none. He had both guns again and they were seven Oriza plates to the good, as well. Otherwise they were stocked with little-going-on-none.

“Did he have to push again, while you were coming here? I suppose he did. I knew one more might kill him. Sai Brautigan did, too. And Dinky.”

“But that wasn’t it, Roland. It was his foot.”

The gunslinger looked at her, not understanding.

“He cut it on a piece of broken glass during the fight to take Blue Heaven, and the air and dirt of that place was poison!” It was Detta who spat the last word, her accent so thick that the gunslinger barely understood it: Pizen! “Goddam foot swole up . . . toes like sausages . . . then his cheeks and throat went all dusky, like a bruise . . . he took fever . . .” She pulled in a deep breath, clutching the two blankets she wore tighter around her. “He was delirious, but his head cleared at the end. He spoke of you, and of Susan Delgado. He spoke with such love and such regret . . .” She paused, then burst out: “We will go there, Roland, we will, and if it isn’t worth it, your Tower, somehow we’ll make it worth it!”

“We’ll go,” he said. “We’ll find the Dark Tower, and nothing will stand against us, and before we go in, we’ll speak their names. All of the lost.”

“Your list will be longer than mine,” she said, “but mine will be long enough.”

To this Roland did not reply, but the robot huckster, perhaps startled out of its long sleep by the sound of their voices, did. “Girls, girls, girls!” it cried from inside the batwing doors of the Gaiety Bar and Grill. “Some are humie and some are cybie, but who cares, you can’t tell, who cares, they give, you tell, girls tell, you tell . . .” There was a pause and then the robot huckster shouted one final word—“SATISFACTION!”—and fell silent.

“By the gods, but this is a sad place,” he said. “We’ll stay the night and then see it no more.”

“At least the sun’s out, and that’s a relief after Thunderclap, but isn’t it cold!”

He nodded, then asked about the others.

“They’ve gone on,” she said, “but there was a minute there when I didn’t think any of us were going anywhere except to the bottom of yonder crevasse.”

She pointed to the end of the Fedic high street furthest from the castle wall.

“There are TV screens that still work in some of the traincars, and as we came up on town we got a fine view of the bridge that’s gone. We could see the ends sticking out over the hole, but the gap in the middle had to be a hundred yards across. Maybe more. We could see the train trestle, too. That was still intact. The train was slowing down by then, but not enough so any of us could have jumped off. By then there was no time. And the jump would likely have killed anyone who tried. We were going, oh I’m gonna say fifty miles an hour. And as soon as we were on the trestle, the fucking thing started to creak and groan. Or to queel and grale, if you’ve ever read your James Thurber, which I suppose you have not. The train was playing music. Like Blaine did, do you remember?”

“Yes.”