“Eddie?” Roland said. ’You’ve come over all gray. Is it your leg?”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, although right now his leg didn’t hurt at all. He thought again of whittling the key. The dreadful responsibility of knowing it had to be just right. And here he was again, in much the same situation. He had hold of something, he knew he did… but what? “Yeah, my leg.”
He armed sweat from his forehead.
“John, about the name of the book.
“Ayuh.”
“It’s the name of the town in the book.”
“Ayuh.”
“Stephen King’s second book.”
“Ayuh.”
“His second
“Eddie,” Roland said, “surely that’s enough.”
Eddie waved him aside, then winced at the pain in his arm. His attention was fixed on John Cullum. “There
Cullum looked at Eddie as if he were crazy. “Course not,” he said. “It’s a made-up story about made-up folks in a made-up town. It’s about
“Do you happen to know if Stephen King has been living in this Bridgton town his whole life?”
“No, he hasn’t. He ’n his family moved down here two, maybe three years ago. I b’lieve they lived in Windham first when they got down from the northern part of the state. Or maybe ’twas Raymond. One of the towns on Big Sebago, anyway.”
“Would it be fair to say that these walk-ins you mentioned have been turning up since the guy moved into the area?”
Cullum’s bushy eyebrows went up, then knitted together. A loud and rhythmic hooting began to come to them from over the water, a sound like a foghorn.
“You know,” Cullum said, “you might have some thin there, son. It might only be coincidence, but maybe not.”
Eddie nodded. He felt emotionally wrung out, like a lawyer at the end of a long and difficult cross-examination. “Let’s blow this pop-shop,” he said to Roland.
“Might be a good idea,” Cullum said, and tipped his head in the direction of the rhythmic foghorn blasts. “That’s Teddy Wilson’s boat. He’s the county constable. Also a game warden.” This time he tossed Eddie a set of car-keys instead of a baseball. “I’m givin you the automatic transmission,” he said. “Just in case you’re a little rusty. The truck’s a stick shift. You follow me, and if you get in trouble, honk the horn.”
“I will, believe me,” Eddie said.
As they followed Cullum out, Roland said: “Was it Susannah again? Is that why you lost all the color out of your face?”
Eddie nodded.
“We’ll help her if we can,” Roland said, “but this may be our only way back to her.”
Eddie knew that. He also knew that by the time they got to her, it might be too late.
9th STANZA
EDDIE BITES HIS TONGUE
ONE
Pere Callahan had made a brief visit to the East Stoneham Post Office almost two weeks before the shootout at Chip McAvoy’s store, and there the former Jerusalem’s Lot parish priest had written a hurried note. Although addressed to both Aaron Deepneau and Calvin Tower, the note inside the envelope had been aimed at the latter, and its tone had not been particularly friendly:
Tower-
I’m a friend of the guy who helped you with Andolini. Wherever you are, you need to move right away. Find a barn, unused camp, even an abandoned shed if it comes down to that. You probably won’t be comfortable but remember that the alternative is being dead.
Callahan, of the Eld
Callahan had risked his life to leave that note, and Eddie, under the spell of Black Thirteen, had nearly lost his. And the net result of those risks and close calls? Why, Calvin Tower had gone jaunting merrily around the western Maine countryside, looking for buys on rare and out-of-print books.
Following John Cullum up Route 5 with Roland sitting silently beside him, then turning to follow Cullum onto the Dimity Road, Eddie felt his temper edging up into the red zone.
TWO
About two miles from Route 5, Cullum’s Ford F-150 made a right off Dimity Road. The turn was marked by two signs on a rusty pole. The top one said rocket rd. Below it was another (rustier still) which promised lakeside cabins by the wk mo OR seas. Rocket Road was little more than a trail winding through the trees, and Eddie hung well behind Cullum to avoid the rooster-tail of dust their new friend’s old truck was kicking up. The “cartomobile” was another Ford, some anonymous two-door model Eddie couldn’t have named without looking at the chrome on the back or in the owner’s manual. But it felt most religiously fine to be driving again, with not a single horse between his legs but several hundred of them ready to run at the slightest motion of his right foot. It was also good to hear the sound of the sirens fading farther and farther behind.
The shadows of overhanging trees swallowed them. The smell of fir and pinesap was simultaneously sweet and sharp. “Pretty country,” the gunslinger said. “A man could take his long ease here.” It was his only comment.
Cullum’s truck began to pass numbered driveways. Below each number was a small legend reading jaffords rentals. Eddie thought of pointing out to Roland that they’d known a Jaffords in the Calla, known him very well, and then didn’t. It would have been belaboring the obvious.
They passed 15, 16, and 17. Cullum paused briefly to consider at 18, then stuck his arm out the cab’s window and motioned them on again. Eddie had been ready to move on even before the gesture, knowing perfectly well that Cabin 18 wasn’t the one they wanted.
Cullum turned in at the next drive. Eddie followed, the tires of the sedan now whispering on a thick bed of fallen pine needles. Winks of blue once more began to appear between the trees, but when they finally reached Cabin 19 and a view of the water, Eddie saw that this, unlike Key-wadin, was a true pond. Probably not much wider than a football field. The cabin itself looked like a two- room job. There was a screened-in porch facing the water with a couple of tatty but comfortable-looking rockers on it. A tin stovestack poked up from the roof. There was no garage and no car parked in front of the cabin, although Eddie thought he could see where one had been. With the cover of duff, it was hard to tell for sure.
Cullum killed the truck’s engine. Eddie did likewise. Now there was only the lap of water against the rocks, the sigh of a breeze through the pines, and the mild sound of birdsong. When Eddie
