moment when the half in the cave was firm and clear and the half still back in The Manhattan Bookstore of
the Mind shimmered unsteadily. Then Roland took hold of it and pulled it through. It juddered and squalled
across the floor of the cave, pushing aside little piles of pebbles and bones.
As soon as it was out of the doorway, the lid of the ghost-wood box began to close. So did the door itself.
"No, you don't," Roland murmured. "No, you don't, you bastard." He slipped the remaining two fingers of his
right hand into the narrowing space beneath the lid of the box. The door stopped moving and remained ajar
when he did. And enough was enough. Now even his teeth were buzzing. Eddie was having some last little
bit of palaver with Tower, but Roland no longer cared if they were the secrets of the universe.
"Eddie!" he roared. "Eddie, to me!"
And, thankfully, Eddie grabbed his swag-bag and came. The moment he was through the door, Roland closed
the box. The unfound door shut a second later with a flat and undramatic clap. The chimes ceased. So did the
jumble of poison pain pouring into Roland's joints. The relief was so tremendous that he cried out. Then, for
the next ten seconds or so, all he could do was lower his chin to his chest, close his eyes, and struggle not to
sob.
"Say thankya," he managed at last. "Eddie, say thankya."
"Don't mention it. Let's get out of this cave, what do you think?"
"I think yes," Roland said. "Gods, yes."
SIXTEEN
"Didn't like him much, did you?" Roland asked.
Ten minutes had passed since Eddie's return. They had moved a little distance down from the cave, then
stopped where the path twisted through a small rocky inlet. The roaring gale that had tossed back their hair
and plastered their clothes against their bodies was here reduced to occasional prankish gusts. Roland was
grateful for them. He hoped they would excuse the slow and clumsy way he was building his smoke. Yet he
felt Eddie's eyes upon him, and the young man from Brooklyn—who had once been almost as dull and
unaware as Andolini and Biondi—now saw much.
"Tower, you mean."
Roland tipped him a sardonic glance. "Of whom else would I speak? The cat?"
Eddie gave a brief grunt of acknowledgment, almost a laugh. He kept pulling in long breaths of the clean air.
It was good to be back. Going to New York in the flesh had been better than going todash in one way—that
sense of lurking darkness had been gone, and the accompanying sense of thinness— but God, the place stank.
Mostly it was cars and exhaust (the oily clouds of diesel were the worst), but there were a thousand other bad
smells, too. Not the least of them was the aroma of too many human bodies, their essential polecat odor not
hidden at all by the perfumes and sprays the folken put on themselves. Were they unconscious of how bad
they smelled, all huddled up together as they were? Eddie supposed they must be. Had been himself, once
upon a time. Once upon a time he couldn't wait to get back to New York, would have killed to get there.
"Eddie? Come back from Nis!" Roland snapped his fingers in front of Eddie Dean's face.
"I'm sorry," he said. "As for Tower… no, I didn't like him much. God, sending his books through like that!
Making his lousy first editions part of his condition for helping to save the fucking universe!"
"He doesn't think of it in those terms… unless he does so in his dreams. And you know they'll burn his shop
when they get there and find him gone. Almost surely. Pour gasoline under the door and light it. Break his
window and toss in a grenado, either manufactured or homemade. Do you mean to tell me that never
occurred to you?"
Of course it had. "Well, maybe."
It was Roland's turn to utter the humorous grunting sound. "Not much may in that be. So he saved his best
books. And now, in Doorway Cave, we have something to hide the Pere's treasure behind. Although I
suppose it must be counted our treasure now."
"His courage didn't strike me as real courage," Eddie said. "It was more like greed."
"Not all are called to the way of the sword or the gun or the ship," Roland said, "but all serve ka."
"Really? Does the Crimson King? Or the low men and women Callahan talked about?"
Roland didn't reply.
Eddie said, "He may do well. Tower, I mean. Not the cat."
"Very amusing," Roland said dryly. He scratched a match on the seat of his pants, cupped the flame, lit his
smoke.
"Thank you, Roland. You're growing in that respect. Ask me if I think Tower and Deepneau can get out of
New York City clean."
"Do you?"
"No, I think they'll leave a trail. We could follow it, but I'm hoping Balazar's men won't be able to. The one I
worry about is Jack Andolini. He's creepy-smart. As for Balazar, he made a contract with this Sombra
Corporation."
"Took the king's salt."
"Yeah, I guess somewhere up the line he did," Eddie said. He had heard King instead of king, as in Crimson
King. "Balazar knows that when you make a contract, you have to fill it or have a damned good reason why
not. Fail and word gets out. Stories start to circulate about how so-and-so's going soft, losing his shit. They've
still got three weeks to find Tower and force him to sell the lot to Sombra. They'll use it. Balazar's not the
FBI, but he is a connected guy, and… Roland, the worst thing about Tower is that in some ways, none of this
is real to him. It's like he's mistaken his life for a life in one of his storybooks. He thinks things have got to
turn out all right because the writer's under contract."
"You think he'll be careless."
Eddie voiced a rather wild laugh. "Oh, I know he'll be careless. The question is whether or not Balazar will
catch him at it"
"We're going to have to monitor Mr. Tower. Mind him for safety's sake. That's what you think, isn't it?"
"Yer-bugger!" Eddie said, and after a moment's silent consideration, both of them burst out laughing. When
the fit had passed, Eddie said: "I think we ought to send Callahan, if he'll go. You probably think I'm crazy,
but—"
"Not at all," Roland said. "He's one of us… or could be. I felt that from the first. And he's used to traveling in
strange places. I'll put it to him today. Tomorrow I'll come up here with him and see him through the doorway
—"
"Let me do it," Eddie said. "Once was enough for you. At least for awhile."
Roland eyed him carefully, then pitched his cigarette over the drop. "Why do you say so, Eddie?"
"Your hair's gotten whiter up around here." Eddie patted the crown of his own head. "Also, you're walking a
little stiff. It's better now, but I'd guess the old rheumatiz kicked in on you a little. Fess up."
"All right, I fess," Roland said. If Eddie thought it was no more than old Mr. Rheumatiz, that was not so bad.
"Actually, I could bring him up tonight, long enough to get the zip code," Eddie said. "It'll be day again over
there, I bet."
"None of us is coming up this path in the dark. Not if we can help it."
Eddie looked down the steep incline to where the fallen boulder jutted out, turning fifteen feet of their course
into a tightrope-walk. "Point taken."
Roland started to get up. Eddie reached out and took his arm. "Stay a couple of minutes longer, Roland. Do
ya."
Roland sat down again, looking at him.
Eddie took a deep breath, let it out. "Ben Slightman's dirty," he said. "He's the tattletale. I'm almost sure of
it."
"Yes, I know."
Eddie looked at him, wide-eyed. "You know? How could you possibly—"
"Let's say I suspected."
"How?"
"His spectacles," Roland said. "Ben Slightman the Elder's the only person in Calla Bryn Sturgis with
spectacles. Come on, Eddie, day's waiting. We can talk as we walk."
SEVENTEEN
They couldn't, though, not at first, because the path was too steep and narrow. But later, as they approached
the bottom of the mesa, it grew wider and more forgiving. Talk once more became practical, and Eddie told
Roland about the book, The Dogan or The Hogan, and the author's oddly disputable name. He recounted the
oddity of the copyright page (not entirely sure that Roland grasped this part), and said it had made him
wonder if something was pointing toward the son, too. That seemed like a crazy idea, but—
"I think that if Benny Slightman was helping his father inform on us," Roland said, "Jake would know."
"Are you sure he doesn't?" Eddie asked.
This gave Roland some pause. Then he shook his head. "Jake suspects the father."
"He told you that?"
"He didn't have to."
They had almost reached the horses, who raised their heads alertly and seemed glad to see them.
"He's out there at the Rocking B," Eddie said. "Maybe we ought to take a ride out there. Invent some reason
to bring him back to the Pere's…" He trailed off, looking at Roland closely. "No?"
"No." '
"Why not?"
"Because this is Jake's part of it."
"That's hard, Roland. He and Benny Slightman like each other. A lot. If Jake ends up being the one to show
the Calla what his Dad's been doing—"
"Jake will do what he needs to do," Roland said. "So will we all."
"But he's still just a boy, Roland. Don't you see that?"
"He won't be for much longer," Roland said, and mounted up. He hoped Eddie didn't see the momentary
wince of pain that cramped his face when he swung his right leg over the saddle, but of course Eddie did.
Contents -Prev / Next
Chapter III: The Dogan, Part 2
ONE
Jake and Benny Slightman spent the morning of that same day moving hay bales from the upper lofts of the
Rocking B's three inner barns to the lower lofts, then breaking them open. The afternoon was for swimming
and water-fighting in the Whye, which was still pleasant enough if one avoided the deep pools; those had
grown cold with the season.
In between these two activities they ate a huge lunch in the bunkhouse with half a dozen of the hands (not
Slightman the Elder; he was off at Telford's Buckhead Ranch, working a stock-trade). "I en't seen that boy of
Ben's work's'hard in my life," Cookie said as he put fried chops down on the table and the boys dug in
eagerly. "You'll wear him plumb out, Jake."
That was Jake's intention, of course. After haying in the morning, swimming in the afternoon, and a dozen or
more barn-jumps for each of them by the red light of evening, he thought Benny would sleep like the dead.
The problem was he might do the same himself. When he went out to wash at the pump—sunset come and
gone by then, leaving ashes of roses deepening to true dark—he took Oy with him. He splashed his face
clean and flicked drops of water for the animal to catch, which he did with great alacrity. Then Jake dropped
to one knee and gently took hold of the sides of the billy-bumbler's face. "Listen to me, Oy."
"Oy!"
"I'm going to go to sleep, but when the moon rises, I want you to wake me up. Quietly, do'ee ken?"
"Ken!" Which might mean something or nothing. If someone had been taking wagers on it, Jake would have
bet on something. He had great faith in Oy. Or maybe it was love. Or maybe those things were the same.
"When the moon rises. Say moon, Oy."
"Moon!"
Sounded good, but Jake would set his own internal alarm clock to wake him up at moonrise. Because he
wanted to go out to where he'd seen Benny's Da' and Andy that other time. That queer meeting worried at his
mind more rather than less as time went by. He didn't want to believe Benny's Da' was involved with the
Wolves—Andy, either—but he had to make sure. Because it was what Roland would do. For that reason if no
other.
TWO
The two boys lay in Benny's room. There was one bed, which Benny had of course offered to his guest, but
Jake had refused it. What they'd come up with instead was a system by which Benny took the bed on what he
called "even-hand" nights, and Jake took it on "odd-hand" nights. This was Jake's night for the floor, and he
was glad. Benny's goosedown-filled mattress was far too soft. In light of his plan to rise with the moon, the
floor was probably better. Safer.
Benny lay with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. He had coaxed Oy up onto the bed with
him and the bumbler lay sleeping in a curled comma, his nose beneath his cartoon squiggle of a tail.
"Jake?" A whisper. "You asleep?"
"No."
"Me neither." A pause. "It's been great, having you here."
"It's been great for me," Jake said, and meant it.
"Sometimes being the only kid gets lonely."
"Don't I know it… and I was always the only one." Jake paused. "Bet you were sad after your sissa died."
"Sometimes I'm still sad." At least he said it in a matter-of-fact tone, which made it easier to hear. "Reckon
you'll stay after you beat the Wolves?"
"Probably not long."
"You're on a quest, aren't you?"
"I guess so."
"For what?"
The quest was to save the Dark Tower in this where and the rose in the New York where he and Eddie and
