"No. Not long. I haven"t been here long."
The fire lit in him again. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the can and drank from it with hands that trembled the smallest bit. A fragment of the cradle song recurred, but this time, instead of his mother"s face, he saw the scarred face of Alice, who had been his jilly in the now-defunct town of Tull. "A week? Two? Three?"
The boy looked at him distractedly. "Yes."
"Which?"
"A week. Or two." He looked aside, blushing a little. "Three p.o.o.ps ago, that"s the only way I can measure things now. He didn"t even drink. I thought he might be the ghost of a priest, like in this movie I saw once, only Zorro figured out he wasn"t a priest at all, or a ghost, either. He was just a banker who wanted some land because there was gold on it. Mrs. Shaw took me to see that movie. It was in Times Square."
None of this made any sense to the gunslinger, so he did not comment on it.
"I was scared," the boy said. "I"ve been scared almost all the time." His face quivered like crystal on the edge of the ultimate, destructive high note. "He didn"t even build a fire. He just sat there. I don"t even know if he went to sleep."
Close! Closer than he had ever been, by the G.o.ds! In spite of his extreme dehydration, his hands felt faintly moist; greasy.
"There"s some dried meat," the boy said.
"All right." The gunslinger nodded. "Good."
The boy got up to fetch it, his knees popping slightly. He made a fine straight figure. The desert had not yet sapped him. His arms were thin, but the skin, although tanned, had not dried and cracked. He"s got juice, He"s got juice, the gunslinger thought. the gunslinger thought. Mayhap some sand in his craw, as well, or he would have taken one of my guns and shot me right where I lay. Mayhap some sand in his craw, as well, or he would have taken one of my guns and shot me right where I lay.
Or perhaps the boy simply hadn"t thought of it.
The gunslinger drank from the can again. Sand in his craw or not, he didn"t come from this place. Sand in his craw or not, he didn"t come from this place.
Jake came back with a pile of dried jerky on what looked like a sun-scoured breadboard. The meat was tough, stringy, and salty enough to make the cankered lining of the gunslinger"s mouth sing. He ate and drank until he felt logy, and then settled back. The boy ate only a little, picking at the dark strands with an odd delicacy.
The gunslinger regarded him, and the boy looked back at him candidly enough. "Where did you come from, Jake?" he asked finally.
"I don"t know." The boy frowned. "I did did know. I knew when I came here, but it"s all fuzzy now, like a bad dream when you wake up. I have lots of bad dreams. Mrs. Shaw used to say it was because I watched too many horror movies on Channel Eleven." know. I knew when I came here, but it"s all fuzzy now, like a bad dream when you wake up. I have lots of bad dreams. Mrs. Shaw used to say it was because I watched too many horror movies on Channel Eleven."
"What"s a channel?" A wild idea occurred to him. "Is it like a beam?"
"No-it"s TV."
"What"s teevee?"
"I-" The boy touched his forehead. "Pictures."
"Did somebody tote you here? This Mrs. Shaw?"
"No," the boy said. "I just was was here." here."
"Who is Mrs. Shaw?"
"I don"t know."
"Why did she call you "Bama?"
"I don"t remember."
"You"re not making any sense," the gunslinger said flatly.
Quite suddenly the boy was on the verge of tears. "I can"t help it. I was just here. If you asked me about TV and channels yesterday, I bet I still could have remembered! Tomorrow I probably won"t even remember I"m Jake-not unless you tell me, and you won"t be here, will you? You"re going to go away and I"ll starve because you ate up almost all my food. I didn"t ask to be here. I don"t like it. It"s spooky."
"Don"t feel so sorry for yourself. Make do."
"I didn"t ask to be here," the boy repeated with bewildered defiance.
The gunslinger ate another piece of the meat, chewing the salt out of it before swallowing. The boy had become part of it, and the gunslinger was convinced he told the truth-he had not asked for it. It was too bad. He himself... he he had asked for it. But he had not asked for the game to become this dirty. He had not asked to turn his guns on the townsfolk of Tull; had not asked to shoot Allie, with her sadly pretty face at the end marked by the secret she had finally asked to be let in on, using that word, that nineteen, like a key in a lock; had not asked to be faced with a choice between duty and flat-out murder. It was not fair to ring in innocent bystanders and make them speak lines they didn"t understand on a strange stage. had asked for it. But he had not asked for the game to become this dirty. He had not asked to turn his guns on the townsfolk of Tull; had not asked to shoot Allie, with her sadly pretty face at the end marked by the secret she had finally asked to be let in on, using that word, that nineteen, like a key in a lock; had not asked to be faced with a choice between duty and flat-out murder. It was not fair to ring in innocent bystanders and make them speak lines they didn"t understand on a strange stage. Allie, Allie, he thought, he thought, Allie was at least part of this world, in her own self-illusory way. But this boy... this G.o.dd.a.m.ned boy... Allie was at least part of this world, in her own self-illusory way. But this boy... this G.o.dd.a.m.ned boy...
"Tell me what you can remember," he told Jake.
"It"s only a little. It doesn"t seem to make any sense anymore."
"Tell me. Maybe I can pick up the sense."
The boy thought about how to begin. He thought about it very hard. "There was a place... the one before this one. A high place with lots of rooms and a patio where you could look at tall buildings and water. There was a statue that stood in the water."
"A statue in the water?"
"Yes. A lady with a crown and a torch and... I think... a book."
"Are you making this up?"
"I guess I must be," the boy said hopelessly. "There were things to ride in on the streets. Big ones and little ones. The big ones were blue and white. The little ones were yellow. A lot of yellow ones. I walked to school. There were cement paths beside the streets. Windows to look in and more statues wearing clothes. The statues sold the clothes. I know it sounds crazy, but the statues sold the clothes."
The gunslinger shook his head and looked for a lie on the boy"s face. He saw none.
"I walked to school," the boy repeated doggedly. "And I had a"-his eyes tilted closed and his lips moved gropingly-"a brown... book... bag. I carried a lunch. And I wore"-the groping again, agonized groping-"a tie."
"A cravat?"
"I don"t know." The boy"s fingers made a slow, unconscious clinching motion at his throat, one the gunslinger a.s.sociated with hanging. "I don"t know. It"s just all gone." And he looked away.
"May I put you to sleep?" the gunslinger asked.
"I"m not sleepy."
"I can make you sleepy, and I can make you remember."
Doubtfully, Jake asked, "How could you do that?"
"With this."
The gunslinger removed one of the sh.e.l.ls from his gunbelt and twirled it in his fingers. The movement was dexterous, as flowing as oil. The sh.e.l.l cartwheeled effortlessly from thumb and index to index and second, to second and ring, to ring and pinky. It popped out of sight and reappeared; seemed to float briefly, then reversed. The sh.e.l.l walked across the gunslinger"s fingers. The fingers themselves marched as his feet had marched on his last miles to this place. The boy watched, his initial doubt first replaced with plain delight, then by raptness, then by dawning blankness as he opened. His eyes slipped shut. The sh.e.l.l danced back and forth. Jake"s eyes opened again, caught the steady, limpid movement between the gunslinger"s fingers a little while longer, and then they closed once more. The gunslinger continued the howken, but Jake"s eyes did not open again. The boy breathed with slow and steady calmness. Did this have to be part of it? Yes. It did. There was a certain cold beauty to it, like the lacy frettings that fringe hard blue ice-packs. He once more seemed to hear his mother singing, not the nonsense about the rain in Spain this time, but sweeter nonsense, coming from a great distance as he rocked on the rim of sleep: Baby-bunting, baby dear, baby bring your basket here. Baby-bunting, baby dear, baby bring your basket here.
Not for the first time the gunslinger tasted the smooth, loden taste of soul-sickness. The sh.e.l.l in his fingers, manipulated with such unknown grace, was suddenly horrific, the spoor of a monster. He dropped it into his palm, made a fist, and squeezed it with painful force. Had it exploded, in that moment he would have rejoiced at the destruction of his talented hand, for its only true talent was murder. There had always been murder in the world, but telling himself so was no comfort. There was murder, there was rape, there were unspeakable practices, and all of them were for the good, the b.l.o.o.d.y good, the b.l.o.o.d.y myth, for the grail, for the Tower. Ah, the Tower stood somewhere in the middle of things (so they did say), rearing its black-gray bulk to the sky, and in his desert-scoured ears, the gunslinger heard the faint sweet sound of his mother"s voice: Chussit, chissit, cha.s.sit, bring enough to fill your basket. Chussit, chissit, cha.s.sit, bring enough to fill your basket.
He brushed the song, and the sweetness of the song, aside. "Where are you?" he asked.
III.
Jake Chambers-sometimes "Bama-is going downstairs with his bookbag. There is Earth Science, there is Geography, there is a notepad, a pencil, a lunch his mother"s cook, Mrs. Greta Shaw, has made for him in the chrome-and-Formica kitchen where a fan whirrs eternally, sucking up alien odors. In his lunch sack he has a peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwich; a bologna, lettuce, and onion sandwich; and four Oreo cookies. His parents do not hate him, but they do seem to have overlooked him. They have abdicated and left him to Mrs. Greta Shaw, to nannies, to a tutor in the summer and The Piper School (which is Private and Nice, and most of all, White) the rest of the time. None of these people have ever pretended to be more than what they are-professional people, the best in their fields. None have folded him to a particularly warm bosom as usually happens in the historical romance novels his mother reads and which Jake has dipped into, looking for the "hot parts." Hysterical novels, his father sometimes calls them, and sometimes "bodice-rippers." sandwich; and four Oreo cookies. His parents do not hate him, but they do seem to have overlooked him. They have abdicated and left him to Mrs. Greta Shaw, to nannies, to a tutor in the summer and The Piper School (which is Private and Nice, and most of all, White) the rest of the time. None of these people have ever pretended to be more than what they are-professional people, the best in their fields. None have folded him to a particularly warm bosom as usually happens in the historical romance novels his mother reads and which Jake has dipped into, looking for the "hot parts." Hysterical novels, his father sometimes calls them, and sometimes "bodice-rippers." You should talk, You should talk, his mother says with infinite scorn from behind some closed door where Jake listens. His father works for The Network, and Jake could pick him out of a line-up of skinny men with crewcuts. Probably. his mother says with infinite scorn from behind some closed door where Jake listens. His father works for The Network, and Jake could pick him out of a line-up of skinny men with crewcuts. Probably.
Jake does not know that he hates all the professional people but Mrs. Shaw. People have always bewildered him. His mother, who is scrawny in a s.e.xy way, often goes to bed with sick friends. His father sometimes talks about people at The Network who are doing "too much Coca-Cola." This statement is always accompanied by a humorless grin and a quick little sniff of the thumbnail.
Now he is on the street, Jake Chambers is on the street, he has "hit the bricks." He is clean and well-mannered, comely, sensitive. He bowls once a week at Mid-Town Lanes. He has no friends, only acquaintances. He has never bothered to think about this, but it hurts him. He does not know or understand that a long a.s.sociation with professional people has caused him to take on many of their traits. Mrs. Greta Shaw (better than the rest of them, but gosh, is that ever a consolation prize) makes very professional sandwiches. She quarters them and cuts off the breadcrusts so that when he eats in the gym period four he looks like he ought to be at a c.o.c.ktail party with a drink in his other hand instead of a sports novel or a Clay Blaisdell Western from the school library. His father makes a great deal of money because he is a master of "the kill"-that is, placing a stronger show on his Network against a weaker show on a rival Network. His father smokes four packs of cigarettes a day. His father does not cough, but he has a hard grin, and he"s not averse to the occasional shot of the old Coca-Cola. hand instead of a sports novel or a Clay Blaisdell Western from the school library. His father makes a great deal of money because he is a master of "the kill"-that is, placing a stronger show on his Network against a weaker show on a rival Network. His father smokes four packs of cigarettes a day. His father does not cough, but he has a hard grin, and he"s not averse to the occasional shot of the old Coca-Cola.
Down the street. His mother leaves cab fare, but he walks every day it doesn"t rain, swinging his bookbag (and sometimes his bowling bag, although mostly he leaves it in his locker), a small boy who looks very American with his blond hair and blue eyes. Girls have already begun to notice him (with their mothers" approval), and he does not shy away with skittish little-boy arrogance. He talks to them with unknowing professionalism and puzzles them away. He likes geography and bowling in the afternoon. His father owns stock in a company that makes automatic pin-setting machinery, but Mid-Town Lanes does not use his father"s brand. He does not think he has thought about this, but he has.
Walking down the street, he pa.s.ses Bloomie"s, where the models stand dressed in fur coats, in six-b.u.t.ton Edwardian suits, some in nothing at all; some are "barenaked." These models-these mannequins mannequins-are perfectly professional, and he hates all professionalism. He is too young to have learned to hate himself yet, but that seed is already there; given time, it will grow, and bear bitter fruit.
He comes to the corner and stands with his bookbag at his side. Traffic roars by-grunting blue-and-white busses, yellow taxis, Volkswagens, a large truck. He is just a boy, but not average, and he sees the man who kills him out of the corner of his eye. It is the man in black, and he doesn"t see the face, only the swirling robe, the outstretched hands, and the hard, professional grin. He falls into the street with his arms outstretched, not letting go of the bookbag which contains Mrs. Greta Shaw"s extremely professional lunch. There is a brief glance through a polarized windshield at the horrified face of a businessman wearing a dark-blue hat in the band of which is a small, jaunty feather. Somewhere a radio is blasting rock and roll. An old woman on the far curb screams-she is wearing a black hat with a net. Nothing jaunty about that black net; it is like a mourner"s veil. Jake feels nothing but surprise and his usual sense of headlong bewilderment-is this how it ends? Before he"s bowled better than two-seventy? He lands hard in the street and looks at an asphalt-sealed crack some two inches from his eyes. The bookbag is jolted from his hand. He is wondering if he has skinned his knees when the car belonging to the businessman wearing the blue hat with the jaunty feather pa.s.ses over him. It is a big blue 1976 Cadillac with whitewall Firestone tires. The car is almost exactly the same color as the businessman"s hat. It breaks Jake"s back, mushes his guts to gravy, and sends blood from his mouth in a high-pressure jet. He turns his head and sees the Cadillac"s flaming taillights and smoke spurting from beneath its locked rear wheels. The car has also run over his bookbag and left a wide black tread on it. He turns his head the other way and sees a large gray Ford screaming to a stop inches from his body. A black fellow who has been selling pretzels and sodas from a pushcart is coming toward him on the run. Blood runs from Jake"s nose, ears, eyes, r.e.c.t.u.m. His genitals have been squashed. He wonders irritably how badly he has skinned his knees. He wonders if he"ll be late for school. Now the driver of the Cadillac is running toward him, babbling. Somewhere a terrible, calm voice, the voice of doom, says: "I am a priest. Let me through. An Act of Contrition..." grin. He falls into the street with his arms outstretched, not letting go of the bookbag which contains Mrs. Greta Shaw"s extremely professional lunch. There is a brief glance through a polarized windshield at the horrified face of a businessman wearing a dark-blue hat in the band of which is a small, jaunty feather. Somewhere a radio is blasting rock and roll. An old woman on the far curb screams-she is wearing a black hat with a net. Nothing jaunty about that black net; it is like a mourner"s veil. Jake feels nothing but surprise and his usual sense of headlong bewilderment-is this how it ends? Before he"s bowled better than two-seventy? He lands hard in the street and looks at an asphalt-sealed crack some two inches from his eyes. The bookbag is jolted from his hand. He is wondering if he has skinned his knees when the car belonging to the businessman wearing the blue hat with the jaunty feather pa.s.ses over him. It is a big blue 1976 Cadillac with whitewall Firestone tires. The car is almost exactly the same color as the businessman"s hat. It breaks Jake"s back, mushes his guts to gravy, and sends blood from his mouth in a high-pressure jet. He turns his head and sees the Cadillac"s flaming taillights and smoke spurting from beneath its locked rear wheels. The car has also run over his bookbag and left a wide black tread on it. He turns his head the other way and sees a large gray Ford screaming to a stop inches from his body. A black fellow who has been selling pretzels and sodas from a pushcart is coming toward him on the run. Blood runs from Jake"s nose, ears, eyes, r.e.c.t.u.m. His genitals have been squashed. He wonders irritably how badly he has skinned his knees. He wonders if he"ll be late for school. Now the driver of the Cadillac is running toward him, babbling. Somewhere a terrible, calm voice, the voice of doom, says: "I am a priest. Let me through. An Act of Contrition..."
He sees the black robe and knows sudden horror. It is him, the man in black. Jake turns his face away with the last of his strength. Somewhere a radio is playing a song by the rock group Kiss. He sees his own hand trailing on the pavement, small, white, shapely. He has never bitten his nails. man in black. Jake turns his face away with the last of his strength. Somewhere a radio is playing a song by the rock group Kiss. He sees his own hand trailing on the pavement, small, white, shapely. He has never bitten his nails.
Looking at his hand, Jake dies.
IV.
The gunslinger hunkered in frowning thought. He was tired and his body ached and the thoughts came with aggravating slowness. Across from him the amazing boy slept with his hands folded in his lap, still breathing calmly. He had told his tale without much emotion, although his voice had trembled near the end, when he had come to the part about the "priest" and the "Act of Contrition." He had not, of course, told the gunslinger about his family and his own sense of bewildered dichotomy, but that had seeped through anyway-enough for the gunslinger to make out its shape. The fact that there had never been such a city as the boy described (unless it was the mythic city of Lud) was not the most upsetting part of the story, but it was disturbing. It was all disturbing. The gunslinger was afraid of the implications.
"Jake?"
"Uh-huh?"
"Do you want to remember this when you wake up, or forget it?"
"Forget it," the boy said promptly. "When the blood came out of my mouth I could taste my own s.h.i.t."
"All right. You"re going to sleep, understand? Real sleep now. Go ahead and lie over, if it do please ya."
Jake laid over, looking small and peaceful and harmless. The gunslinger did not believe he was harmless. There was a deadly feeling about him, the stink of yet another trap. He didn"t like the feeling, but he liked the boy. He liked him a great deal.
"Jake?"
"Shhh. I"m sleeping. I want to sleep."
"Yes. And when you wake up you won"t remember any of this."
""Kay. Good."
The gunslinger watched him for a brief time, thinking of his own boyhood, which usually seemed to have happened to another person-to a person who had leaped through some fabulous lens of time to become someone else-but which now seemed poignantly close. It was very hot in the stable of the way station, and he carefully drank some more water. He got up and walked to the back of the building, pausing to look into one of the horse stalls. There was a small pile of white hay in the corner, and a neatly folded blanket, but there was no smell of horse. There was no smell of anything in the stable. The sun had bled away every smell and left nothing. The air was perfectly neutral.
At the back of the stable was a small, dark room with a stainless steel machine in the center. It was untouched by rust or rot. It looked like a b.u.t.ter churn. At the left, a chrome pipe jutted from it, terminating over a drain in the floor. The gunslinger had seen pumps like it in other dry places, but never one so big. He could not contemplate how deep they (some long-gone they) must have drilled before they struck water, secret and forever black under the desert.
Why hadn"t they removed the pump when the way station had been abandoned?
Demons, perhaps.
He shuddered abruptly, an abrupt twisting of his back. Heat-flesh poked out on his skin, then receded. He went to the control switch and pushed the ON b.u.t.ton. The machine began to hum. After perhaps half a minute, a stream of cool, clear water belched from the pipe and went down the drain to be recirculated. Perhaps three gallons flowed out of the pipe before the pump shut itself down with a final click. It was a thing as alien to this place and time as true love, and yet as concrete as a Judgment, a silent reminder of the time when the world had not yet moved on. It probably ran on an atomic slug, as there was no electricity within a thousand miles of here and even dry batteries would have lost their charge long ago. It had been made by a company called North Central Positronics. The gunslinger didn"t like it.
He went back and sat down beside the boy, who had put one hand under his cheek. Nice-looking boy. The gunslinger drank some more water and crossed his legs so he was sitting Indian fashion. The boy, like the squatter on the edge of the desert who kept the bird (Zoltan, the gunslinger remembered abruptly, the bird"s name was Zoltan), had lost his sense of time, but the fact that the man in black was closer seemed beyond doubt. Not for the first time, the gunslinger wondered if the man in black was letting him catch up for some reason of his own. Perhaps the gunslinger was playing into his hands. He tried to imagine what the confrontation might be like, and could not.
He was very hot, but no longer felt sick. The nursery rhyme occurred to him again, but this time instead of his mother, he thought of Cort-Cort, an ageless engine of a man, his face st.i.tched with the scars of bricks and bullets and blunt instruments. The scars of war and instruction in the arts of war. He wondered if Cort had ever had a love to match those monumental scars. He doubted it. He thought of Susan, and his mother, and of Marten, that incomplete enchanter.
The gunslinger was not a man to dwell on the past; only a shadowy conception of the future and of his own emotional make-up saved him from being a man without imagination, a dangerous dullard. His present run of thought therefore rather amazed him. Each name called up others-Cuthbert, Alain, the old man Jonas with his quavery voice; and again Susan, the lovely girl at the window. Such thoughts always came back to Susan, and the great rolling plain known as the Drop, and fishermen casting their nets in the bays on the edge of the Clean Sea.
The piano player in Tull (also dead, all dead in Tull, and by his hand) had known those places, although he and the gunslinger had only spoken of them that once. Sheb had been fond of the old songs, had once played them in a saloon called the Traveller"s Rest, and the gunslinger hummed one tunelessly under his breath: Love o love o careless loveSee what careless love has done.
The gunslinger laughed, bemused. I am the last of that green and warm-hued world. I am the last of that green and warm-hued world. And for all his nostalgia, he felt no self-pity. The world had moved on mercilessly, but his legs were still strong, and the man in black was closer. The gunslinger nodded out. And for all his nostalgia, he felt no self-pity. The world had moved on mercilessly, but his legs were still strong, and the man in black was closer. The gunslinger nodded out.
V.
When he awoke, it was almost dark and the boy was gone.
The gunslinger got up, hearing his joints pop, and went to the stable door. There was a small flame dancing in darkness on the porch of the inn. He walked toward it, his shadow long and black and trailing in the reddish-ochre light of sunset.
Jake was sitting by a kerosene lamp. "The oil was in a drum," he said, "but I was scared to burn it in the house. Everything"s so dry-"
"You did just right." The gunslinger sat down, seeing but not thinking about the dust of years that puffed up around his rump. He thought it something of a wonder that the porch didn"t simply collapse beneath their combined weight. The flame from the lamp shadowed the boy"s face with delicate tones. The gunslinger produced his poke and rolled a cigarette.
"We have to palaver," he said.
Jake nodded, smiling a little at the word.
"I guess you know I"m on the prod for that man you saw."
"Are you going to kill him?"
"I don"t know. I have to make him tell me something. I may have to make him take me someplace."
"Where?"
"To find a tower," the gunslinger said. He held his cigarette over the chimney of the lamp and drew on it; the smoke drifted away on the rising night breeze. Jake watched it. His face showed neither fear nor curiosity, certainly not enthusiasm.
"So I"m going on tomorrow," the gunslinger said. "You"ll have to come with me. How much of that meat is left?"
"Only a little."
"Corn?"
"A little more."
The gunslinger nodded. "Is there a cellar?"
"Yes." Jake looked at him. The pupils of his eyes had grown to a huge, fragile size. "You pull up on a ring in the floor, but I didn"t go down. I was afraid the ladder would break and I wouldn"t be able to get up again. And it smells bad. It"s the only thing around here that smells at all."