16.

She did not scream in the night... but she was still there the next morning.

17.

That day they made only two miles, although Detta made no effort to upset her chair; Eddie thought she might be growing too weak for acts of attempted sabotage. Or perhaps she had seen there was really no need for them. Three fatal factors were drawing inexorably together: Eddie's weariness, the terrain, which after endless days of endless days of sameness, was finally beginning to change, and Roland's deteriorating condition.

There were fewer sandtraps, but that was cold comfort. The ground was becoming grainier, more and more like cheap and unprofitable soil and less and less like sand (in places bunches of weeds grew, looking almost ashamed to be there), and there were so many large rocks now jutting from this odd combination of sand and soil that Eddie found himself detouring around them as he had previously tried to detour the Lady's chair around the sandtraps. And soon enough, he saw, there would be no beach left at all. The hills, brown and cheerless things, were drawing steadily closer. Eddie could see the ravines which curled between them, looking like chops made by an awkward giant wielding a blunt cleaver. That night, before falling asleep, he heard what sounded like a very large cat squalling far up in one of them.

The beach had seemed endless, but he was coming to realize it had an end after all. Somewhere up ahead, those hills were simply going to squeeze it out of existence. The eroded hills would march down to the sea and then into it, where they might become first a cape or peninsula of sorts, and then a series of archipelagoes.

That worried him, but Roland's condition worried him more.

This time the gunslinger seemed not so much to be burning as fading, fading, losing himself, becoming transparent. losing himself, becoming transparent.

The red lines had appeared again, marching relentlessly up the underside of his right arm toward the elbow.

For the last two days Eddie had looked constantly ahead, squinting into the distance, hoping to see the door, the door, the magic door. For the last two days he had waited for Odetta to reappear.

Neither had appeared.

Before falling asleep that night two terrible thoughts came to him, like some joke with a double punchline: What if there was no door?

What if Odetta Holmes was dead?

18.

"Rise and shine, mahfah!" Detta screeched him out of unconsciousness. "I think it jes be you and me now, honeychile. Think yo frien done finally pa.s.sed on. I think yo frien be pokin the devil down in h.e.l.l."

Eddie looked at the rolled huddled shape of Roland and for one terrible moment he thought the b.i.t.c.h was right. Then the gunslinger stirred, moaned furrily, and pawed himself into a sitting position.

"Well looky yere!" Detta had screamed so much that now there were moments when her voice disappeared almost entirely, becoming no more than a weird whisper, like winter wind under a door. "I thought you was dead, Mister Man!"

Roland was getting slowly to his feet. He still looked to Eddie like a man using the rungs of an invisible ladder to make it. Eddie felt an angry sort of pity, and this was a familiar emotion, oddly nostalgic. After a moment he understood. It was like when he and Henry used to watch the fights on TV, and one fighter would hurt the other, hurt him terribly, again and again, and the crowd would be screaming for blood, and Henry Henry would be screaming for blood, but Eddie only sat there, feeling that angry pity, that dumb disgust; he'd sat there sending thought-waves at the referee: would be screaming for blood, but Eddie only sat there, feeling that angry pity, that dumb disgust; he'd sat there sending thought-waves at the referee: Stop it, man, are you f.u.c.king blind? He's Stop it, man, are you f.u.c.king blind? He's dying dying out there! DYING! Stop the f.u.c.king fight! out there! DYING! Stop the f.u.c.king fight!

There was no way to stop this one.

Roland looked at her from his haunted feverish eyes. "A lot of people have thought that, Detta." He looked at Eddie. "You ready?"

"Yeah, I guess so. Are you? you?"

"Yes."

"Can you?" you?"

"Yes."

They went on.

Around ten o'clock Detta began rubbing her temples with her fingers.

"Stop," she said. "I feel sick. Feel like I goan throw up."

"Probably that big meal you ate last night," Eddie said, and went on pushing. "You should have skipped dessert. I told you that chocolate layer cake was heavy."

"I goan throw up! I-"

"Stop, Eddie!" the gunslinger said.

Eddie stopped.

The woman in the chair suddenly twisted galvanically, as if an electric shock had run through her. Her eyes popped wide open, glaring at nothing.

"I BROKE YO PLATE YOU STINKIN OLE BLUE LADY!" she screamed. she screamed. "I BROKE IT AND I'M f.u.c.kIN GLAD I D-" "I BROKE IT AND I'M f.u.c.kIN GLAD I D-"

She suddenly slumped forward in her chair. If not for the ropes, she would have fallen out of it.

Christ, she's dead, she's had a stroke and she's dead, Eddie thought. He started around the chair, remembered how sly and tricksy she could be, and stopped as suddenly as he had started. He looked at Roland. Roland looked back at him evenly, his eyes giving away not a thing. Eddie thought. He started around the chair, remembered how sly and tricksy she could be, and stopped as suddenly as he had started. He looked at Roland. Roland looked back at him evenly, his eyes giving away not a thing.

Then she moaned. Her eyes opened.

Her eyes. eyes.

Odetta's eyes. eyes.

"Dear G.o.d, I've fainted again, haven't I?" she said. "I'm sorry you had to tie me in. My stupid legs! I think I could sit up a little if you-"

That was when Roland's own legs slowly came unhinged and he swooned some thirty miles south of the place where the Western Sea's beach came to an end.

RESHUFFLE.

reshuffle

1.

To Eddie Dean, he and the Lady no longer seemed to be trudging or even walking up what remained of the beach. They seemed to be flying. flying.

Odetta Holmes still neither liked nor trusted Roland; that was clear. But she recognized how desperate his condition had become, and responded to that. Now, instead of pushing a dead clump of steel and rubber to which a human body just happened to be attached, Eddie felt almost as if he were pushing a glider.

Go with her. Before, I was watching out for you and that was important. Now I'll only slow you down.

He came to realize how right the gunslinger was almost at once. Eddie pushed the chair; Odetta pumped it.

One of the gunslinger's revolvers was stuck in the waistband of Eddie's pants.

Do you remember when I told you to be on your guard and you weren't?

Yes.

I'm telling you again: Be on your guard. Be on your guard. Every moment. If her Every moment. If her other other comes back, don't wait even a second. Brain her. comes back, don't wait even a second. Brain her.

What if I kill her?

Then it's the end. But if she she kills kills you, you, that's the end, too. And if she comes back she'll try. She'll try. that's the end, too. And if she comes back she'll try. She'll try.

Eddie hadn't wanted to leave him. It wasn't just that cat-scream in the night (although he kept thinking about it); it was simply that Roland had become his only touchstone in this world. He and Odetta didn't belong here.

Still, he realized that the gunslinger had been right.

"Do you want to rest?" he asked Odetta. "There's more food. A little."

"Not yet," she answered, although her voice sounded tired. "Soon."

"All right, but at least stop pumping. You're weak. Your... your stomach, you know."

"All right." She turned, her face gleaming with sweat, and favored him with a smile that both weakened and strengthened him. He could have died for such a smile... and thought he would, if circ.u.mstances demanded.

He hoped to Christ circ.u.mstances wouldn't, but it surely wasn't out of the question. Time had become something so crucial it screamed.

She put her hands in her lap and he went on pushing. The tracks the chair left behind were now dimmer; the beach had become steadily firmer, but it was also littered with rubble that could cause an accident. You wouldn't have to help one happen at the speed they were going. A really bad accident might hurt Odetta and that would be bad; such an accident could also wreck the chair, and that would be bad for them and probably worse for the gunslinger, who would almost surely die alone. And if Roland died, they would be trapped in this world forever.

With Roland too sick and weak to walk, Eddie had been forced to face one simple fact: there were three people here, and two of them were cripples.

So what hope, what chance was there?

The chair.

The chair was the hope, the whole hope, and nothing but but the hope. the hope.

So help them G.o.d.

2.

The gunslinger had regained consciousness shortly after Eddie dragged him into the shade of a rock outcropping. His face, where it was not ashy, was a hectic red. His chest rose and fell rapidly. His right arm was a network of twisting red lines.

"Feed her," he croaked at Eddie.

"You-"

"Never mind me. me. I'll be all right. Feed her. She'll eat now, I think. And you'll need her strength." I'll be all right. Feed her. She'll eat now, I think. And you'll need her strength."

"Roland, what if she's just pretending pretending to be-" to be-"

The gunslinger gestured impatiently.

"She's not pretending to be anything, except alone in her body. I know it and you do, too. It's in her face. Feed her, for the sake of your father, and while she eats, come back to me. Every minute counts now. Every second. second."

Eddie got up, and the gunslinger pulled him back with his left hand. Sick or not, his strength was still there.

"And say nothing about the other. other. Whatever she tells you, however she explains, Whatever she tells you, however she explains, don't contradict her. don't contradict her."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I just know it's wrong. Now do as I say and don't waste any more time!"

Odetta had been sitting in her chair, looking out at the sea with an expression of mild and bemused amazement. When Eddie offered her the chunks of lobster left over from the previous night, she smiled ruefully. "I would if I could," she said, "but you know what happens."

Eddie, who had no idea what she was talking about, could only shrug and say, "It wouldn't hurt to try again, Odetta. You need to eat, you know. We've got to go as fast as we can."

She laughed a little and touched his hand. He felt something like an electric charge jump from her to him. And it was her; Odetta. He knew it as well as Roland did.

"I love you, Eddie. You have tried so hard. Been so patient. So has he- he-" She nodded toward the place where the gunslinger lay propped against the rocks, watching. "-but he is a hard man to love."