The Dark Tower

“Those wanks,” Dinky said, but not without sympathy. “They’re…what do they call em in the old movies? Trusties, I guess. They’ve got a little village about two miles beyond the station in that direction.” He pointed. “They do groundskeeping work at the Algul, and there might be three or four skilled enough to do roofwork…replacing shingles and such. Whatever contaminants there are in the air here, those poor shmucks are especially vulnerable to em. Only on them it comes out looking like radiation sickness instead of just pimples and eczema.”

“Tell me about it,” Eddie said, remembering poor old Chevin of Chayven: his sore-eaten face and urine-soaked robe.

“They’re wandering folken,” Ted put in. “Bedouins. I think they follow the railroad tracks, for the most part. There are catacombs under the station and Algul Siento. The Rods know their way around them. There’s tons of food down there, and twice a week they’ll bring it into the Devar on sledges. Mostly now that’s what we eat. It’s still good, but…” He shrugged.

“Things are falling down fast,” Dinky said in a tone of uncharacteristic gloom. “But like the man said, the wine’s great.”

“If I asked you to bring one of the Children of Roderick with you tomorrow,” Roland said, “could you do that?”

Ted and Dinky exchanged a startled glance. Then both of them looked at Stanley. Stanley nodded, shrugged, and spread his hands before him, palms down: Why, gunslinger?

Roland stood for a moment lost in thought. Then he turned to Ted. “Bring one with half a brain left in his head,” Roland instructed. “Tell him ‘Dan sur, dan tur, dan Roland, dan Gilead.’ Tell it back.”

Without hesitation, Ted repeated it.

Roland nodded. “If he still hesitates, tell him Chevin of Chayven says he must come. They speak a little plain, do they not?”

“Sure,” Dinky said. “But mister…you couldn’t let a Rod come up here and see you and then turn him free again. Their mouths are hung in the middle and run on both ends.”

“Bring one,” Roland said, “and we’ll see what we see. I have what my ka-mai Eddie calls a hunch. Do you ken hunch-think?”

Ted and Dinky nodded.

“If it works out, fine. If not…be assured that the fellow you bring will never tell what he saw here.”

“You’d kill him if your hunch doesn’t pan out?” Ted asked.

Roland nodded.

Ted gave a bitter laugh. “Of course you would. It reminds me of the part in Huckleberry Finn when Huck sees a steamboat blow up. He runs to Miss Watson and the Widow Douglas with the news, and when one of them asks if anyone was killed, Huck says with perfect aplomb, ‘No, ma’am, only a nigger.’ In this case we can say ‘Only a Rod. Gunslinger-man had a hunch, but it didn’t pan out.’ ”

Roland gave him a cold smile, one that was unnaturally full of teeth. Eddie had seen it before and was glad it wasn’t aimed at him. He said, “I thought you knew what the stakes were, sai Ted. Did I misunderstand?”

Ted met his gaze for a moment, then looked down at the ground. His mouth was working.

During this, Dinky appeared to be engaged in silent palaver with Stanley. Now he said: “If you want a Rod, we’ll get you one. It’s not much of a problem. The problem may be getting here at all. If we don’t…”

Roland waited patiently for the young man to finish. When he didn’t, the gunslinger asked: “If you don’t, what would you have us do?”

Ted shrugged. The gesture was such a perfect imitation of Dinky’s that it was funny. “The best you can,” he said. “There are also weapons in the lower cave. A dozen of the electric fireballs they call sneetches. A number of machine-guns, what I’ve heard some of the low men call speed-shooters. They’re U.S. Army AR-15s. Other things we’re not sure of.”

“One of them’s some kind of sci-fi raygun like in a movie,” Dinky said. “I think it’s supposed to disintegrate things, but either I’m too dumb to turn it on or the battery’s dead.” He turned anxiously to the white-haired man. “Five minutes are up, and more. We have to put an egg in our shoe and beat it, Tedster. Let’s chug.”

“Yes. Well, we’ll be back tomorrow. Perhaps by then you’ll have a plan.”

“You don’t?” Eddie asked, surprised.

“My plan was to run, young man. It seemed like a terribly bright idea at the time. I ran all the way to the spring of 1960. They caught me and brought me back, with a little help from my young friend Bobby’s mother. And now, we really must—”

“One more minute, do it please ya,” Roland said, and stepped toward Stanley. Stanley looked down at his feet, but his beard-scruffy cheeks once more flooded with color. And—

He’s shivering, Susannah thought. Like an animal in the woods, faced with its first human being.