"Yeah. Don"t I know it."
"I"ll try one more time.
"For you."
She smiled and he felt all the world move for her, because of her, and he thought Please G.o.d, I have never had much, so please don"t take her away from me again. Please. Please G.o.d, I have never had much, so please don"t take her away from me again. Please.
She took the chunks of lobster-meat, wrinkled her nose in a rueful comic expression, and looked up at him.
"Must I?"
"Just give it a shot," he said.
"I never ate scallops again," she said.
"Pardon?"
"I thought I told you."
"You might have," he said, and gave a little nervous laugh. What the gunslinger had said about not letting her know about the other other loomed very large inside his mind just then. loomed very large inside his mind just then.
"We had them for dinner one night when I was ten or eleven. I hated the way they tasted, like little rubber b.a.l.l.s, and later I vomited them up. I never ate them again. But..." She sighed. "As you say, I"ll "give it a shot.""
She put a piece in her mouth like a child taking a spoonful of medicine she knows will taste nasty. She chewed slowly at first, then more rapidly. She swallowed. Took another piece. Chewed, swallowed. Another. Now she was nearly wolfing wolfing it. it.
"Whoa, slow down!" Eddie said.
"It must be another kind! kind! That"s it, of That"s it, of course course it is!" She looked at Eddie shiningly. "We"ve moved further up the beach and the species has changed! I"m no longer allergic, it seems! It doesn"t taste it is!" She looked at Eddie shiningly. "We"ve moved further up the beach and the species has changed! I"m no longer allergic, it seems! It doesn"t taste nasty, nasty, like it did before... and I like it did before... and I did did try to keep it down, didn"t I?" She looked at him nakedly. "I tried try to keep it down, didn"t I?" She looked at him nakedly. "I tried very very hard." hard."
"Yeah." To himself he sounded like a radio broadcasting a very distant signal. She thinks she"s been eating every day and then She thinks she"s been eating every day and then up-chucking everything. She thinks that"s why she"s so weak. Christ Almighty. up-chucking everything. She thinks that"s why she"s so weak. Christ Almighty. "Yeah, you tried like h.e.l.l." "Yeah, you tried like h.e.l.l."
"It tastes-" These words were hard to pick up because her mouth was full. "It tastes so good! good!" She laughed. The sound was delicate and lovely. "It"s going to stay down! I"m going to take nourishment! I know it! I feel feel it!" it!"
"Just don"t overdo it," he cautioned, and gave her one of the water-skins. "You"re not used to it. All that-" He swallowed and there was an audible (audible to him, at least) click in his throat. "All that throwing up."
"Yes. Yes."
"I need to talk to Roland for a few minutes."
"All right."
But before he could go she grasped his hand again.
"Thank you, Eddie. Thank you for being so patient. And thank him. him." She paused gravely. "Thank him, and don"t tell him that he scares me."
"I won"t," Eddie had said, and went back to the gunslinger.
3.
Even when she wasn"t pushing, Odetta was a help. She navigated with the prescience of a woman who has spent a long time weaving a wheelchair through a world that would not acknowledge handicapped people such as she for years to come.
"Left," she"d call, and Eddie would gee to the left, gliding past a rock snarling out of the pasty grit like a decayed fang. On his own, he might have seen it... or maybe not.
"Right," she called, and Eddie hawed right, barely missing one of the increasingly rare sandtraps.
They finally stopped and Eddie lay down, breathing hard.
"Sleep," Odetta said. "An hour. I"ll wake you."
Eddie looked at her.
"I"m not lying. I observed your friend"s condition, Eddie-"
"He"s not exactly my friend, you kn-"
"-and I know how important time is. I won"t let you sleep longer than an hour out of a misguided sense of mercy. I can tell the sun quite well. You won"t do that man any good by wearing yourself out, will you?"
"No," he said, thinking: But you don"t understand. If I sleep and Detta Walker comes back- But you don"t understand. If I sleep and Detta Walker comes back- "Sleep, Eddie," she said, and since Eddie was too weary (and too much in love) to do other than trust her, he did. He slept and she woke him when she said she would and she was still Odetta, and they went on, and now she was pumping again, helping. They raced up the diminishing beach toward the door Eddie kept frantically looking for and kept not seeing.
4.
When he left Odetta eating her first meal in days and went back to the gunslinger, Roland seemed a little better.
"Hunker down," he said to Eddie.
Eddie hunkered.
"Leave me the skin that"s half full. All I need. Take her to the door."
"What if I don"t-"
"Find it? You"ll find it. The first two were there; this one will be, too. If you get there before sundown tonight, wait for dark and then kill double. You"ll need to leave her food and make sure she"s sheltered as well as she can be. If you don"t reach it tonight, kill triple. Here."
He handed over one of his guns.
Eddie took it with respect, surprised as before by how heavy it was.
"I thought the sh.e.l.ls were all losers."
"Probably are. But I"ve loaded with the ones I believe were wetted least-three from the buckle side of the left belt, three from the buckle side of the right. One may fire. Two, if you"re lucky. Don"t try them on the crawlies." His eyes considered Eddie briefly. "There may be other things out there."
"You heard it too, didn"t you?"
"If you mean something yowling in the hills, yes. If you mean the b.u.g.g.e.r-Man, as your eyes say, no. I heard a wildcat in the brakes, that"s all, maybe with a voice four times the size of its body. It may be nothing you can"t drive off with a stick. But there"s her to think about. If her other other comes back, you may have to-" comes back, you may have to-"
"I won"t kill her, if that"s what you"re thinking!"
"You may have to wing her. You understand?"
Eddie gave a reluctant nod. G.o.ddam sh.e.l.ls probably wouldn"t fire anyway, so there was no sense getting his panties in a bunch about it.
"When you get to the door, leave her. Shelter her as well as you can, and come back to me with the chair."
"And the gun?"
The gunslinger"s eyes blazed so brightly that Eddie snapped his head back, as if Roland had thrust a flaming torch in his face. "G.o.ds, yes! Leave her with a loaded gun, when her other other might come back at any time? Are you insane?" might come back at any time? Are you insane?"
"The sh.e.l.ls-"
"f.u.c.k the sh.e.l.ls!" the gunslinger cried, and a freak drop in the wind allowed the words to carry. Odetta turned her head, looked at them for a long moment, then looked back toward the sea. "Leave it with her not!" the sh.e.l.ls!" the gunslinger cried, and a freak drop in the wind allowed the words to carry. Odetta turned her head, looked at them for a long moment, then looked back toward the sea. "Leave it with her not!"
Eddie kept his voice low in case the wind should drop again. "What if something comes down from the brakes while I"m on my way back here? Some kind of cat four times bigger than its voice, instead of the other way around? Something you can"t drive off with a stick?"
"Give her a pile of stones," the gunslinger said.
"Stones! Jesus wept! Man, you are such a f.u.c.king s.h.i.t!" Jesus wept! Man, you are such a f.u.c.king s.h.i.t!"
"I am thinking, thinking," the gunslinger said. "Something you seem unable to do. I gave you the gun so you could protect her from the sort of danger you"re talking about for half of the trip you must make. Would it please you if I took the gun back? Then perhaps you could die die for her. Would for her. Would that that please you? Very romantic... except then, instead of just her, all three of us would go down." please you? Very romantic... except then, instead of just her, all three of us would go down."
"Very logical. You"re still a f.u.c.king s.h.i.t, however."
"Go or stay. Stop calling me names."
"You forgot something," Eddie said furiously.
"What was that?"
"You forgot to tell me to grow up. That"s what Henry always used to say. "Oh grow up, kid.""
The gunslinger had smiled, a weary, oddly beautiful smile. "I think you have have grown up. Will you go or stay?" grown up. Will you go or stay?"
"I"ll go," Eddie said. "What are you going to eat? She scarfed the left-overs."
"The f.u.c.king s.h.i.t will find a way. The f.u.c.king s.h.i.t has been finding one for years."
Eddie looked away. "I... I guess I"m sorry I called you that, Roland. It"s been-" He laughed suddenly, shrilly. "It"s been a very trying day."
Roland smiled again. "Yes," he said. "It has."
5.
They made the best time of the entire trek that day, but there was still no door in sight when the sun began to spill its gold track across the ocean. Although she told him she was perfectly capable of going on for another half an hour, he called a halt and helped her out of the chair. He carried her to an even patch of ground that looked fairly smooth, got the cushions from the back of the chair and the seat, and eased them under her.
"Lord, it feels so good to stretch out," she sighed. "But..." Her brow clouded. "I keep thinking of that man back there, Roland, all by himself, and I can"t really enjoy it. Eddie, who is he? What What is he?" And, almost as an afterthought: "And why does he is he?" And, almost as an afterthought: "And why does he shout shout so much?" so much?"
"Just his nature, I guess," Eddie said, and abruptly went off to gather rocks. Roland hardly ever shouted. He guessed some of it was this morning-f.u.c.k the sh.e.l.ls!-but that the rest of it was false memory: the time she thought thought she had been Odetta. she had been Odetta.
He killed triple, as the gunslinger had instructed, and was so intent on the last that he skipped back from a fourth which had been closing in on his right with only an instant to spare. He saw the way its claws clicked on the empty place which had been occupied by his foot and leg a moment before, and thought of the gunslinger"s missing fingers.
He cooked over a dry wood fire-the encroaching hills and increasing vegetation made the search for good fuel quicker and easier, that was one thing-while the last of the daylight faded from the western sky.
"Look, Eddie!" she cried, pointing up.
He looked, and saw a single star gleaming on the breast of the night.
"Isn"t it beautiful? beautiful?"
"Yes," he said, and suddenly, for no reason, his eyes filled with tears. Just where had he been all of his G.o.dd.a.m.ned life? Where had he been, what had he been doing, who had been with him while he did it, and why did he suddenly feel so grimy and abysmally bes.h.i.tted?
Her lifted face was terrible in its beauty, irrefutable in this light, but the beauty was unknown to its possessor, who only looked at the star with wide wondering eyes, and laughed softly.
"Star light, star bright," she said, and stopped. She looked at him. "Do you know it, Eddie?"
"Yeah." Eddie kept his head down. His voice sounded clear enough, but if he looked up she would see he was weeping.
"Then help me. But you have to look."
"Okay."
He wiped the tears into the palm of one hand and looked up at the star with her.
"Star light-" she looked at him and he joined her. "Star bright- bright-"
Her hand reached out, groping, and he clasped it, one the delicious brown of light chocolate, the other the delicious white of a dove"s breast.
"First star I see tonight," they spoke solemnly in unison, boy and girl for this now, not man and woman as they would be later, when the dark was full and she called to ask him if he was asleep and he said no and she asked if he would hold her because she was cold; "Wish I may, wish I might-"
They looked at each other, and he saw that tears were streaming down her cheeks. His own came again, and he let them fall in her sight. This was not a shame but an inexpressible relief.
They smiled at each other.