The bookstore owner's eyes shifted to Roland. Tower had been surprised, and he'd been guilt-tripped with a vengeance, but the man was already regaining some of his composure. Eddie could see it, and he reflected (not for the first time) on how much simpler life would be if people would stay in the pigeonholes where you originally put them. He did not want to waste time thinking of Calvin Tower as a brave man, or as even second cousin to the good guys, but maybe he was both those things. Damn him.
"You're truly Roland of Gilead?"
Roland regarded him through rising membranes of cigarette smoke. "You say true, I say thank ya."
"Roland of the Eld?"
"Yes."
"Son of Steven?"
"Yes."
"Grandson of Alaric?"
Roland's eyes flickered with what was probably surprise. Eddie himself was surprised, but what he mostly felt was a kind of tired relief. The questions Tower was asking could mean only two things. First, more had been passed down to him than just Roland's name and trade of hand. Second, he was coming around.
"Of Alaric, aye," Roland said, "him of the red hair."
"I don't know anything about his hair, but I know why he went to Garlan. Do you?"
"To slay a dragon."
"And did he?"
"No, he was too late. The last in that part of the world had been slain by another king, one who was later murdered."
Now, to Eddie's even greater surprise, Tower haltingly addressed Roland in a language that was a second cousin to English at best. What Eddie heard was something likeHad heet Rol-uh, fa heet gun, fa heet hak, fa-had gun?
Roland nodded and replied in the same tongue, speaking slowly and carefully. When he was finished, Tower sagged against the wall and dropped his bag of books unheeded to the floor. "I've been a fool," he said.
No one contradicted him.
"Roland, would you step outside with me? I need...I...need..." Tower began to cry. He said something else in that not-English language, once more ending on a rising inflection, as if asking a question.
Roland got up without replying. Eddie also got up, wincing at the pain in his leg. There was a slug in there, all right, he could feel it. He grabbed Roland's arm, pulled him down, and whispered in the gunslinger's ear: "Don't forget that Tower and Deepneau have an appointment at the Turtle Bay Washateria, four years from now. Tell him Forty-seventh Street, between Second and First. He probably knows the place. Tower and Deepneau were...are...will bethe ones who save Don Callahan's life. I'm almost sure of it."
Roland nodded, then crossed to Tower, who initially cringed away and then straightened with a conscious effort. Roland took his hand in the way of the Calla, and led him outside.
When they were gone, Eddie said to Deepneau, "Draw up the contract. He's selling."
Deepneau regarded him skeptically. "You really think so?"
"Yeah," Eddie said. "I really do."
Seven
Drawing the contract didn't take long. Deepneau found a pad in the kitchen (there was a cartoon beaver on top of each sheet, and the legend DAM IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO ) and wrote it on that, pausing every now and then to ask Eddie a question.
When they were finished, Deepneau looked at Eddie's sweat-shiny face and said, "I have some Percocet tablets. Would you like some?"
"You bet," Eddie said. If he took them now, he thought - hoped - he would be ready for what he wanted Roland to do when Roland got back. The bullet was still in there, in there for sure, and it had to come out. "How about four?"
Deepneau's eyes measured him.
"I know what I'm doing," Eddie said. Then added: "Unfortunately."
Eight
Aaron found a couple of children's Band-Aids in the cabin's medicine chest (Snow White on one, Bambi on another) and put them over the hole in Eddie's arm after pouring another shot of disinfectant into the wound's entry and exit points. Then, while drawing a glass of water to go with the painkillers, he asked Eddie where he came from. "Because," he said, "although you wear that gun with authority, you sound a lot more like Cal and me than you do him."
Eddie grinned. "There's a perfectly good reason for that. I grew up in Brooklyn. Co-Op City." And thought:Suppose I were to tell you that I'm there right now, as a matter of fact? Eddie Dean, the world's horniest fifteen-year-old, running wild in the streets? For that Eddie Dean, the most important thing in the world is getting laid. Such things as the fall of the Dark Tower and some ultimate baddie named the Crimson King won't bother me for another -
Then he saw the way Aaron Deepneau was looking at him and came out of his own head in a hurry. "What? Have I got a booger hanging out of my nose, or something?"
"Co-Op City's not in Brooklyn," Deepneau said. He spoke as one does to a small child. "Co-Op City's in the Bronx. Always has been."
"That's - " Eddie began, meaning to addridiculous, but before he could get it out, the world seemed to waver on its axis. Again he was overwhelmed by that sense of fragility, that sense of the entire universe (or an entirecontinuum of universes) made of crystal instead of steel. There was no way to speak rationally of what he was feeling, because there was nothing rational about what was happening.
"There are more worlds than these," he said. "That was what Jake told Roland just before he died. 'Go, then - there are other worlds than these.' And he must have been right, because he came back."
"Mr. Dean?" Deepneau looked concerned. "I don't understand what you're talking about, but you've come over very pale. I think you should sit down."