there, out the Seven-Road. Will you?”
“You’re fucking right,” said Mrs. Tassenbaum, and shoved the gearshift into First with real authority.
The engine screamed, but the truck began to roll backward, as if so frightened by the job ahead that it would rather finish up in the lake. Then she engaged the clutch and the old International Harvester leaped ahead, charging up the steep incline of the driveway and leaving a trail of blue smoke and burnt rubber behind.
Garrett McKeen’s great-grandson watched them go with his mouth hanging open. He had no idea what had just happened, but he felt sure that a great deal depended on what would happen next.
Maybe everything.
FIFTEEN
Needing to piss that bad was weird, because pissing was the last thing Bryan Smith had done before leaving the Million Dollar Campground.
And once he’d clambered over the fucking rock wall, he hadn’t been able to manage more than a few drops, even though it had felt like a real bladder-buster at the time. Bryan hopes he’s not going to have trouble with his prostrate; trouble with the old prostrate is the last thing he needs. He’s got enough other problems, by the hairy old Jesus.
Oh well, now that he’s stopped he might as well try to fix the Styrofoam cooler behind the seat-the dogs are still staring at it with their tongues hanging out. He tries to wedge it underneath the seat, but it won’t go-there’s not quite enough clearance. What he does instead is to point a dirty finger at his rotties and tell them again to ne’mine the cooler and the meat inside, that’s his, that’s gonna be his suppah. This time he even thinks to add a promise that later on he’ll mix a little of the hamburger in with their Purina, if they’re good. This is fairly deep thinking for Bryan Smith, but the simple expedient of swinging the cooler up front and putting it in the unoccupied passenger seat never occurs to him.
“You leave it alone!” he tells them again, and hops back behind the wheel. He slams the door, takes a brief glance in the rearview mirror, sees two old ladies back there (he didn’t notice them before because he wasn’t exactly looking at the road when he passed them), gives them a wave they never see through the Caravan’s filthy rear window, and then pulls back onto Route 7. Now the radio is playing “Gangsta Dream 19,” by Owt-Ray-Juss, and Bryan turns it up (once more swerving across the white line and into the northbound lane as he does so-this is the sort of person who simply cannot fix the radio without looking at it). Rap rules!
And metal rules, too! All he needs now to make his day complete is a tune by Ozzy-“Crazy Train “would be good.
And some of those Marses bars.
SIXTEEN
Mrs. Tassenbaum came bolting out of the Cara Laughs driveway and onto Turtleback Lane in second gear, the old pickup truck’s engine overcranking (if there’d been an RPM gauge on the dashboard, the needle would undoubtedly have been redlining),
the few tools in the back tapdancing crazily in the rusty bed.
Roland had only a bit of the touch-hardly any at all, compared to Jake-but he had met Stephen King, and taken him down into the false sleep of hypnosis. That was a powerful bond to share, and so he wasn’t entirely surprised when he touched the mind Jake hadn’t been able to reach. It probably didn’t hurt that King was thinking about them.
He often does on his walks, Roland thought. When he’s alone, he hears the Song of the Turtle and knows that he has a job to do. One he’s shirking. Well, my friend, that ends today.
If, that was, they could save him.
He leaned past Jake and looked at the woman. “Can’t you make this gods-cursed thing go faster?”
“Yes,” she said. “I believe I can.” And then, to Jake: “Can you really read minds, son, or is that only a game you and your friend play?”
“I can’t read them, exactly, but I can touch them,” Jake said.
“I hope to hell that’s the truth,” she said, “because Turtleback’s hilly and only one lane wide in places. If you sense someone coming the other way, you have to let me know.”
“I will.”
“Excellent,” said Irene Tassenbaum. She bared her teeth in a grin. Really, there was no longer any doubt: this was the best thing that had ever happened to her. The most exciting thing.
Now, as well as hearing those singing voices, she could see faces in the leaves of the trees on the sides of the road, as if they were being watched by a multitude. She could feel some tremendous force gathering all around them, and she was possessed by a sudden giddy notion: that if she floored the gas-pedal of Chip McAvoy’s old rusty pickup, it might go faster than the speed of light. Powered by the energy she sensed around them, it might outrace time itself.
Well, let’s just see about that, she thought. She swung the I-H
into the middle of Turtleback Lane, then punched the clutch and yanked the gearshift into Third. The old truck didn’t go faster than die speed of light, and it didn’t outrace time, but the speedometer needle climbed to fifty… and then past. The truck crested a hill, and when it started down the other side it flew briefly into the air.
At least someone was happy; Irene Tassenbaum shouted in excitement.
SEVENTEEN
Stephen King takes two walks, the short one and the long one. The short one takes him out to the intersection ofWarrington’s Road and Route 7, then back to his house, Cam Laughs, the same way. That one is three miles. The long walk (which also happens to be the name of a book he once wrote under the Bachman name, back before the world moved on)
takes him past the Warrington’s intersection, down Route 7 as far as the Slab City Road, then all the way back Route 7 to Berry Hill, bypassing Warrington’s Road. This walk returns him to his house by way of the north end of Turtleback Lane, and is four miles. This is the one he means to take today, but when he gets back to the intersection of 7 and Warrington ’s he stops, playing with the idea of going back the short way.
He’s always careful about walking on the shoulder of the public road, though traffic is light on Route 7, even in summer; the only time this highway ever gets busy is when the Fryeburg Fair’s going on, and that doesn’t start until the first week of October. Most of the sightlines are good, anyway. If a bad driver’s coming (or a drunk) you can usually spot him half a mile away, which gives you plenty of time to vacate the area. There’s only one blind hill, and that’s the one directly beyond the Warrington’s intersection. Yet that’s also an aerobic hill, one that gets the old heart really pumping, and isn’t that what he’s doing all these stupid walks for'? To promote what the TV talking heads call “heart healthiness?” He’s quit drinking, he’s quit doping, he’s almost quit smoking, he exercises. What else is there?
Yet a voice whispers to him just the same. Get off the main road, it says. Go on back to the house. You’ll have an extra hour before you have to meet the rest of them for the party on the other side of the lake. You can do some work. Maybe start the next Dark Tower story; you know it’s been on your mind.
Aye, so it has, but he already has a story to work on, and he likes it fine. Going back to the tale of the Tower means swimming in deep water.
Maybe drowning there. Yet he suddenly realizes, standing here at this crossroads, that if he goes back early he will begin. He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll have to listen to what he sometimes thinks of as Ves’-
Ka Gan, the Song of the Turtle (and sometimes as Susannah’s Song).
He’ll junk the current story, turn his back on the safety of the land, and swim out into that dark water once again. He’s done it four times before, but this time he’ll have to swim all the way to the other side.
Sioim or drown.
“No, “he says. He speaks aloud, and why not? There’s no one to hear him out here. He perceives, faintly, the attenuate sound of an approaching vehicle-or is it two? one on Route 7 and one on Warrington’s Road?-but that’s all.
“No,” he says again. “I’m gonna walk, and then I’m gonna party.
No more writing today. Especially not that.”
And so, leaving the intersection behind, he begins making his way up the steep hill with its short sightline. He begins to walk toward the sound of the oncoming Dodge Caravan, which is also the sound of his oncoming death. The ka of the rational world wants him dead; that of the Prim wants him alive, and singing his song. So it is that on this sunny afternoon in luestern Maine, the irresistible force rushes toward the immovable object, and for the first time since the Prim receded, all worlds and all existence turn toward the Dark Tower which stands at the far end of Can ’-Ka No Rey, which is to say the Red Fields of None.
Even the Crimson King ceases his angry screaming. For it is the Dark Tower that will decide.
“Resolution demands a sacrifice, “King says, and although no one hears but the birds and he has no idea what this means, he is not disturbed.
He’s always muttering to himself; it’s as though there is a Cave of Voices in his head, one full of brilliant-but not necessarily intelligent- mimics.
He walks, swinging his arms beside his bluejeaned thighs, unaware that his heart is
(isn’t)
