“Yeah—it’s land of hard to miss.”
The bridge, which had to be at least three quarters of a mile long, might not have had any proper maintenance for over a thousand years, but Roland guessed that the real destruction might have been going on for only the last fifty or so. As the hangers on the right snapped, the bridge had listed farther and farther to the left. The greatest twist had occurred in the center of the bridge, between the two four-hundred-foot cable-towers. At the place where the pressure of the twist was the great-est, a gaping, eye-shaped hole ran across the deck. The break in the walkway was narrower, but even so, at least two adjoining concrete box-sections had fallen into the Send, leaving a gap at least twenty or thirty feet wide. Where these boxes had been, they could clearly see the rusty steel rod or cable which supported the walkway. They would have to use it to get across the gap.
“I think we can cross,” Roland said, calmly pointing. “The gap is inconvenient, but the side-rail is still there, so we’ll have something to hold onto.” Eddie nodded, but he could feel his heart pounding hard. The exposed walkway support looked like a big pipe made of jointed steel, and was probably four feet across at the top. In his mind’s eye he could see how they would have to edge across, feet on the broad, slightly curved back of the support, hands clutching the rail, while the bridge swayed slowly like a ship in a mild swell. “Jesus,” he said. He tried to spit, but nothing came out. His mouth was too dry. “You sure, Roland?”
“So far as I can see, it’s the only way.” Roland pointed downriver and Eddie saw a second bridge. This one had fallen into the Send long ago. The remains stuck out of the water in a rusted tangle of ancient steel. “What about you, Jake?” Susannah asked.
“Hey, no problem,” Jake said at once. He was actually smiling. “I hate you, kid,” Eddie said.
Roland was looking at Eddie with some concern. “If you feel you can’t do it, say so now. Don’t get halfway across and then freeze up.” Eddie looked along the twisted surface of the bridge for a long time, then nodded. “I guess I can handle it. Heights have never been my favorite thing, but
I’ll manage.”
“Good.” Roland surveyed them. “Soonest begun, soonest done. I’ll go first, with Susannah. Then Jake, and Eddie’s drogue. Can you handle the wheelchair?” “Hey, no problem,” Eddie said giddily.
“Let’s go, then.”
As SOON AS HE stepped onto the walkway, fear filled up Eddie’s hollow places like cold water and he began to wonder if he hadn’t made a very dangerous mistake. From solid ground, the bridge seemed to be swaying only a little, but once he was actually on it, he felt as if he were standing on the pendulum of the world’s biggest grandfather clock. The movement was very slow, but it was regular, and the length of the swings was much longer than he had anticipated. The walkway’s surface was badly cracked and canted at least ten degrees to the left. His feet gritted in loose piles of powdery concrete, and the low squealing sound of the box-segments grinding together was constant. Beyond the bridge, the city skyline tilted slowly back and forth like the artificial horizon of the world’s slowest-moving video game.
Overhead, the wind hummed constantly in the taut hangers. Below, the ground fell away sharply to the muddy northwest bank of the river. He was thirty feet up … then sixty . . . then a hundred and ten. Soon he would be over the water. The wheelchair banged against his left leg with every step. Something furry brushed between his feet and he clutched madly for the rusty handrail with his right hand, barely holding in a scream. Oy went trotting past him with a brief upward glance, as if to say Excuse me—-just passing. “Fucking dumb animal,” Eddie said through gritted teeth. He discovered that, although he didn’t like looking down, he had an even greater aversion to looking at the hangers which were still managing to hold the deck and the overhead cables together. They were sleeved with rust and Eddie could see snarls of metal thread poking out of most—these snarls looked like metallic puffs of cotton. He knew from his Uncle Reg, who had worked on both the George Washington and Triborough bridges as a painter, that the hangers and overhead cables were “spun” from thousands of steel threads. On this bridge, the spin was finally letting go. The hangers were quite literally becoming unravelled, and as they did, the threads were snapping, one interwoven strand at a time. It’s held this long, it’ll hold a little longer. You think this thing’s going to fall into the river just because you’re crossing it? Don’t flatter yourself. He wasn’t comforted, however. For all Eddie knew, they might be the first people to attempt the crossing in decades. And the bridge, after all, would have to collapse sometime, and from the look of things, it was going to be soon. Their combined weight might be the straw that broke the camel’s back. His moccasin struck a chunk of concrete and Eddie watched, sick-ened but helpless to look away, as the chunk fell down and down and down, turning over as it went. There was a small—very small—splash when it hit the river. The freshening wind gusted and stuck his shirt against his sweaty skin. The bridge groaned and swayed. Eddie tried to remove his hands from the side-rail, but they seemed frozen to the pitted metal in a deathgrip. He closed his eyes for a moment. You’re not going to freeze. You’re not. I … I forbid it. If you need something to look at, make it long tall and ugly. Eddie opened his eyes again, fixed them on the gunslinger, forced his hands to open, and began to move forward again.