The Dark Tower

“What news of Estelle?” Winn asked indifferently. “None particularly. She doesn’t like Peter’s language. My people seem to have taken to him rather, and I hear he’s picked up parts of the Governor’s vocabulary. It’ll be jolly hearing him talk; he couldn’t when I left. Estelle’s taken up religion. It’s funny, my mother said she would, before we were married. My mother’s got a pretty strong head; Estelle hasn’t, she was keen about the Tango when I left; but I dare say religion’s better for her; hers is the high church kind. Up there is the valley — funny sort of place; it’ll remind you of the hills — that’s one reason why I brought you out here — that and the hotel being like a fly paper. Davos is like all the places where our sort of people go — fashion or disease — it don’t matter a penny which — they’re all over the place itself, in and out of each other’s pockets, and yet get a mile or two out and nobody’s in sight. Funny how people like each other. I don’t like ’em, you know. I hate ’em.”

In the early February afternoon the valley lay before them singularly still and white. There were no fir-trees on the sides of the abrupt snow slopes, and it took Winn some time to rediscover a faint pathway half blotted out by recent snow.

A few minutes later the road behind them vanished, everything dropped away from them but the snow, and the low gray skies. A tiny wind slipped along the valley; it was strange not to see it, for it felt like the push of a Presence, in the breathless solitude. A long way off Lionel could hear a faint noise like the sound of some one choking.

It reminded him of the sound behind the green baize doors in the hotel. It was just such a sound, suppressed, faint, but quite audible, that he heard along the passages at night. He looked questioningly at Winn.

“That’s a waterfall,” said Winn; “most of it’s frozen up but it leaks through a little. There’s a story about this place — I didn’t mention it to you before, did I?”

Lionel shook his head. Winn was not in the habit of telling him stories about places. He had informed Lionel on one occasion some years ago, that he thought legends too fanciful, unless they were in the Bible, which was probably true, and none of our business. But Lionel had already wondered if this change in Winn wasn’t on the whole making him more fanciful.

“I dare say,” Winn began, “there’s not a word of truth in it, and it’s perfectly pointless besides; still it’s a queer place, this valley, and what’s particularly odd is, that though you can find it easily enough sometimes, there are days when I’m blessed if it’s there at all! Anyhow I’ve gone wrong times out of number when I’ve looked for it, and you know I don’t usually go wrong about finding places. This is the middle one of three valleys, count ’em backwards or forwards, whichever way you like — but I give you my word, after you’ve passed the first, and take the second turn, you’ll find yourself in the third valley — or take it the other way, you’ll be in the first. It’s made me jumpy before now, looking for it. However, that hasn’t anything to do with the story, such as it is.

“They say that on New Year’s eve, all the dead that have died in Davos (there must be a jolly lot of ’em when you come to think of it) process through the valley to the Waterfall. What their object is, of course, the story doesn’t mention — ghosts, as far as I can see, never have much object, except to make you sit up; but they set out anyhow, scores and scores of ’em.

“If it happens to be moonlight, you can see them slipping over the snow, making for the waterfall as fast as they can hoof it, but none of them look back — and if they were all your dearest friends you couldn’t catch a glimpse of their faces — unless, I suppose, you had the gumption to start off by sitting up at the waterfall and waiting for ’em — which nobody has, of course. The point of the story, if you can call it a point, is that the last man in the procession isn’t dead at all. He’s a sort of false spook of the living — taking his first turn in with them — because as sure as fate he dies before the next year’s out, and when the other chaps have reached the waterfall, he stops short and looks back toward Davos — that’s how he’s been spotted, and he’s always died all right before the end of the year. Rum tale, isn’t it?”

“How did you get hold of it?” Lionel asked curiously. “It’s not much in your line, is it?”

“Well — I don’t know,” said Winn, taking out his pipe and preparing to light it. “The last six months or so, I’ve thought a lot of funny things. I came up here prepared to die; that’s to say, I thought I’d got to, which is as far as you can prepare for most things, but I’m not going to die, as I told you yesterday, but what I didn’t mention to you then was that, on the whole, as it happens now, I’d jolly well rather.”