THEY WERE ABLE TO use the wheelchair longer than Roland had expected. The firs of this forest were very old, and their spreading branches had created a deep carpet of needles which discouraged most undergrowth. Susannah’s arms were strong—stronger than Eddie’s, although Roland did not think that would be true much longer—and she wheeled herself along easily over the level, shady forest floor. When they came to one of the trees the bear had pushed over, Roland lifted her out of the chair and Eddie boosted it over the obstacle. From behind them, only a little deadened by distance, the bear told them, at the top of its mechanical voice, that the capacity of its last operating nuclear subcell was now negligible.
“I hope you keep that damn harness lying empty over your shoulders all day!” Susannah shouted at the gunslinger.
Roland agreed, but less than fifteen minutes later the land began to slope downward and this old section of the forest began to be invaded with smaller, younger trees: birch, alder, and a few stunted maples scrab-bling grimly in the soil for purchase. The carpet of needles thinned and the wheels of Susannah’s chair began to catch in the low, tough bushes which grew in the alleys between the trees. Their thin branches boinged and rattled in the stainless steel spokes. Eddie threw his weight against the handles and they were able to go on for another quarter of a mile that way. Then the slope began to grow more steep, and the ground underfoot became mushy.
“Time for a pig-back, lady,” Roland said. “Let’s try the chair a little longer, what do you say? Going might get easier—” Roland shook his head. “If you try that hill, you’ll . . . what did you call it, Eddie? … do a dugout?”
Eddie shook his head, grinning. “It’s called doing a doughnut, Roland. A term from my misspent sidewalk-surfing days.” “Whatever you call it, it means landing on your head. Come on, Susannah. Up you come.”
“I hate being a cripple,” Susannah said crossly, but allowed Eddie to hoist her out of the chair and worked with him to seat herself firmly in the harness Roland wore on his back. Once she was in place, she touched the butt of Roland’s pistol. “Y’all want this baby?” she asked Eddie. He shook his head. “You’re faster. And you know it, too.” She grunted and adjusted the belt, settling the gunbutt so it was easily accessible to her right hand. “I’m slowing you boys down and I know that . . . but if we ever make it to some good old two-lane blacktop, I’ll leave the both of you kneelin in the blocks.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Roland said . . . and then cocked his head. The woods had fallen silent.
“Br’er Bear has finally given up,” Susannah said. “Praise God.” “I thought it still had seven minutes to go,” Eddie said. Roland adjusted the straps of the harness. “Its clock must have started running a little slow during the last five or six hundred years.” “You really think it was that old, Roland?” Roland nodded. “At least. And now it’s passed . . . the last of the Twelve Guardians, for all we know.”
“Yeah, ask me if I give a shit,” Eddie replied, and Susannah laughed. “Are you comfortable?” Roland asked her. “No. My butt hurts already, but go on. Just try not to drop me.” Roland nodded and started down the slope. Eddie followed, pushing the empty chair and trying not to bang it too badly on the rocks which had begun to jut out of the ground like big white knuckles. Now that the bear had finally shut up, he thought the forest seemed much too quiet—it almost made him feel like a character in one of those hokey old jungle movies about cannibals and giant apes.
THE BEAR’S BACKTRAIL WAS easy to find but tougher to follow. Five miles or so out of the clearing, it led them through a low, boggy area that was not quite a swamp. By the time the ground began to rise and firm up a little again, Roland’s faded jeans were soaked to the knees and he was breathing in long, steady rasps. Still, he was in slightly better shape than Eddie, who had found wrestling Susannah’s wheelchair through the muck and standing water hard going. “Time to rest and eat something,” Roland said. “Oh boy, gimme eats,” Eddie puffed. He helped Susannah out of the harness and set her down on the bole of a fallen tree with claw-marks slashed into its trunk in long diagonal grooves. Then he half-sat, half-collapsed next to her. “You got my wheelchair pretty muddy, white boy,” Susannah said. “It’s all goan be in my repote.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Next carwash we come to, I’ll push you through myself. I’ll even Turtle-wax the goddamn thing. Okay?” She smiled. “You got a date, handsome.”
Eddie had one of Roland’s waterskins cinched around his waist. He tapped it. “Okay?”
“Yes,” Roland said. “Not too much now; a little more for all of us before we set out again. That way no one takes a cramp.” “Roland, Eagle Scout of Oz,” Eddie said, and giggled as he unslung the waterskin.
“What is this Oz?”
“A make-believe place in a movie,” Susannah said. “Oz was a lot more than that. My brother Henry used to read me the stories once in a while. I’ll tell you one some night, Roland.” “That would be fine,” the gunslinger replied seriously. “I am hungry to know more of your world.”
“Oz isn’t our world, though. Like Susannah said, it’s a make-believe place—” Roland handed them chunks of meat which had been wrapped in broad leaves of some sort. “The quickest way to learn about a new place is to know what it dreams of. I would hear of this Oz.”