"I got somethin might help out," Cullum said when Eddie re-appeared. The old guy disappeared into the next room and returned with a brown prescription bottle. There were three pills inside it. He tipped them into Eddie's palm and said, "This is from when I fell down on the ice last winter and busted my goddam collarbone. Percodan, it's called. I dunno if there's any good left in em or not, but - "
Eddie brightened. "Percodan, huh?" he asked, and tossed the pills into his mouth before John Cullum could answer.
"Don't you want some water with those, son?"
"Nope," Eddie said, chewing enthusiastically. "Neat's a treat."
A glass case full of baseballs stood on a table beside the fireplace, and Eddie wandered over to look at it. "Oh my God," he said, "you've got a signed Mel Parnell ball! And a Lefty Grove! Holy shit!"
"Those ain't nothing," Cullum said, picking up the briar pipe. "Look up on t' top shelf." He took a sack of Prince Albert tobacco from the drawer of an endtable and began to fill his pipe. As he did so, he caught Roland watching him. "Do ya smoke?"
Roland nodded. From his shirt pocket he took a single bit of leaf. "P'raps I might roll one."
"Oh, I can do ya better than that," Cullum said, and left the room again. The room beyond was a study not much bigger than a closet. Although the Dickens desk in it was small, Cullum had to sidle his way around it.
"Holy shit," Eddie said, seeing the baseball Cullum must have meant. "Autographed by the Babe!"
"Ayuh," Cullum said. "Not when he was a Yankee, either, I got no use for baseballs autographed by Yankees. That 'us signed when Ruth was still wearing a Red Sox..." He broke off. "Here they are, knew I had em. Might be stale, but it's a lot staler where there's none, my mother used to say. Here you go, mister. My nephew left em. He ain't hardly old enough to smoke, anyway."
Cullum handed the gunslinger a package of cigarettes, three-quarters full. Roland turned them thoughtfully over in his hand, then pointed to the brand name. "I see a picture of a dromedary, but that isn't what this says, is it?"
Cullum smiled at Roland with a kind of cautious wonder. "No," he said. "That word'sCamel. It means about the same."
"Ah," Roland said, and tried to look as if he understood. He took one of the cigarettes out, studied the filter, then put the tobacco end in his mouth.
"No, turn it around," Cullum said.
"Say true?"
"Ayuh."
"Jesus, Roland! He's got a Bobby Doerr...two Ted Williams balls...a Johnny Pesky...a Frank Malzone..."
"Those names don't mean anything to you, do they?" John Cullum asked Roland.
"No," Roland said. "My friend...thank you." He took a light from the match sai Cullum offered. "My friend hasn't been on this side very much for quite awhile. I think he misses it."
"Gorry," Cullum said. "Walk-ins! Walk-ins inmy house! I can't hardly believe it!"
"Where's Dewey Evans?" Eddie asked. "You don't have a Dewey Evans ball."
"Pardon?" Cullum asked. It came outpaaa-aaadon.
"Maybe they don't call him that yet," Eddie said, almost to himself. "Dwight Evans? Right fielder?"
"Oh." Cullum nodded. "Well, I only have the best in that cabinet, don't you know."
"Dewey fills the bill, believe me," Eddie said. "Maybe he's not worthy of being in the John Cullum Hall of Fame yet, but wait a few years. Wait until '86. And by the way, John, as a fan of the game, I want to say two words to you, okay?"
"Sure," Cullum said. It came out exactly as the word was said in the Calla: SHO -ah.
Roland, meanwhile, had taken a drag from his smoke. He blew it out and looked at the cigarette, frowning.
"The words areRoger Clemens, " Eddie said. "Remember that name."
"Clemens," John Cullum said, but dubiously. Faintly, from the far side of Keywadin Pond, came the sound of more sirens. "Roger Clemens, ayuh, I'll remember. Who is he?"
"You're gonna want him in here, leave it at that," Eddie said, tapping the case. "Maybe on the same shelf with the Babe."
Cullum's eyes gleamed. "Tell me somethin, son. Have the Red Sox won it all yet? Have they - "
"This isn't a smoke, it's nothing but murky air," Roland said. He gave Cullum a reproachful look that was so un-Roland that it made Eddie grin. "No taste to speak of at all. People here actuallysmoke these?"
Cullum took the cigarette from Roland's fingers, broke the filter off the end, and gave it back to him. "Try it now," he said, and returned his attention to Eddie. "So? I got you out of a jam on t'other side of the water. Seems like you owe me one. Have they ever won the Series? At least up to your time?"
Eddie's grin faded and he looked at the old man seriously. "I'll tell you if you really want me to, John. Butdo ya?"
John considered, puffing his pipe. Then he said, "I s'pose not. Knowin'd spoil it."
"Tell you one thing," Eddie said cheerfully. The pills John had given him were kicking in and hefelt cheerful. A little bit, anyway. "You don't want to die before 1986. That one's gonna be a corker."
"Ayuh?"
"Say absolutely true." Then Eddie turned to the gunslinger. "What are we going to do about our gunna, Roland?"
Roland hadn't even thought about it until this moment. All their few worldly possessions, from Eddie's fine new whittling knife, purchased in Took's Store, to Roland's ancient grow-bag, given to him by his father far on the other side of time's horizon, had been left behind when they came through the door. When they had beenblown through the door. The gunslinger assumed their gunna had been left lying in the dirt in front of the East Stoneham store, although he couldn't remember for sure; he'd been too fiercely focused on getting Eddie and himself to safety before the fellow with the long-sighted rifle blew their heads off. It hurt to think of all those companions of the long trek burned up in the fire that had undoubtedly claimed the store by now. It hurt even worse to think of them in the hands of Jack Andolini. Roland had a brief but vivid picture of his grow-bag hanging on Andolini's belt like a 'backy-pouch (or an enemy's scalp) and winced.