The Drawing of the Three

SHUFFLE

The time following that night was broken time for Roland, time that didn't really exist as time at all. What he remembered was only a series of images, moments, conversation without context; images flashing past like one-eyed jacks and treys and nines and the Bloody Black Bitch Queen of Spiders in a card-sharp's rapid shuffle.

Later on he asked Eddie how long that time lasted, but Eddie didn't know either. Time had been destroyed for both of them. There is no time in hell, and each of them was in his own private hell: Roland the hell of the fever and infection, Eddie the hell of withdrawal.

'It was less than a week,' Eddie said. 'That's all I know for sure.'

'How do you know that?'

'A week's worth of pills was all I had to give you. After that, you were gonna have to do the one thing or the other on your own.'

'Get well or die.'

'Right.'

shuffle

There's a gunshot as twilight draws down to dark, a dry crack impinging on the inevitable and ineluctable sound of the breakers dying on the desolate beach: KA-BLAM! He smells a whiff of gunpowder. Trouble, the gunslinger thinks weakly, and gropes for revolvers that aren't there. Oh no, it's the end, it's …

But there's no more, as something starts to smell

shuffle

good in the dark. Something, after all this long dark dry time, something is cooking. It's not just the smell. He can hear the snap and pop of twigs, can see the faint orange flicker of a campfire. Sometimes, when the sea-breeze gusts, he smells fragrant smoke as well as that mouth-watering other smell. Food, he thinks. My God, am I hungry? If I'm hungry, maybeI'm getting well.

Eddie, he tries to say, but his voice is all gone. His throat hurts, hurts so bad. We should have brought some astin, too, he thinks, and then tries to laugh: all the drugs for him, none for Eddie.

Eddie appears. He's got a tin plate, one the gunslinger would know anywhere: it came, after all, from his own purse. On it are steaming chunks of whitish-pink meat.

What? he tries to ask, and nothing comes out but a squeaky little farting sound.

Eddie reads the shape of his lips. 'I don't know,' he says crossly. 'All I know is it didn't kill me. Eat it, damn you.'

He sees Eddie is very pale, Eddie is shaking, and he smells something coming from Eddie that is either shit or death, and he knows Eddie is in a bad way. He reaches out a groping hand, wanting to give comfort. Eddie strikes it away.

'I'll feed you,' he says crossly. 'Fucked if I know why. I ought to kill you. I would, if I didn't think that if you could get through into my world once, maybe you could do it again.'

Eddie looks around.

'And if it wasn't that I'd be alone. Except for them.'

He looks back at Roland and a fit of shuddering runs through him?it is so fierce that he almost spills the chunks of meat on the tin plate. At last it passes.

'Eat, God damn you.'

The gunslinger eats. The meat is more than not bad; the meat is delicious. He manages three pieces and then everything blurs into a new

shuffle

effort to speak, but all he can do is whisper. The cup of Eddie's ear is pressed against his lips, except every now and then it shudders away as Eddie goes through one of his spasms. He says it again. 'North. Up … up the beach.'

'How do you know?'

'Just know,' he whispers.

Eddie looks at him. 'You're crazy,' he says.

The gunslinger smiles and tries to black out but Eddie slaps him, slaps him hard. Roland's blue eyes fly open and for a moment they are so alive and electric Eddie looks uneasy. Then his lips draw back in a smile that is mostly snarl.

'Yeah, you can drone off,' he said, 'but first you gotta take your dope. It's time. Sun says it is, anyway. I guess. I was never no Boy Scout, so I don't know for sure. But I guess it's close enough for Government work. Open wide, Roland. Open wide for Dr. Eddie, you kidnapping fuck.'

The gunslinger opens his mouth like a baby for the breast. Eddie puts two of the pills in his mouth and then slops fresh water carelessly into Roland's mouth. Roland guesses it must be from a hill stream somewhere to the east. It might be poison; Eddie wouldn't know fair water from foul. On the other hand, Eddie seems fine himself, and there's really no choice, is there? No.

He swallows, coughs, and nearly strangles while Eddie looks at him indifferently.

Roland reaches for him.

Eddie tries to draw away.

The gunslinger's bullshooter eyes command him.

Roland draws him close, so close he can smell the stink of Eddie's sickness and Eddie can smell the stink of his; the combination sickens and compels them both.

'Only two choices here,' Roland whispers. 'Don't know how it is in your world, but only two choices here. Stand and maybe live, or die on your knees with your head down and the stink of your own armpits in your nose. Nothing …' He hacks out a cough. 'Nothing to me.'

'Who are you?' Eddie screams at him.

'Your destiny, Eddie,' the gunslinger whispers.

'Why don't you just eat shit and die?' Eddie asks him. The gunslinger tries to speak, but before he can he floats off as the cards

shuffle

KA-BLAM!

Roland opens his eyes on a billion stars wheeling through the blackness, then closes them again.

He doesn't know what's going on but he thinks everything's okay. The deck's still moving, the cards still

shuffle

More of the sweet, tasty chunks of meat. He feels better. Eddie looks better, too. But he also looks worried.

'They're getting closer,' he says. 'They may be ugly, but they ain't completely stupid. They know what I been doing. Somehow they know, and they don't dig it. Every night they get a little closer. It might be smart to move on when daybreak comes, if you can. Or it might be the last daybreak we ever see.'

'What?' This is not exactly a whisper but a husk somewhere between a whisper and real speech.