Waiting for one or both of them to snap. Whether it was them trailing Susannah or Rosa cooking her dinner or even Ben Slightman, mourning his dead son out there on Vaughn Eisenhart's ranch, all of them would now be thinking of the same thing: only two left, and the Breakers working against them night and day, eating into them,killing them.
How long before everything ended? Andhow would it end? Would they hear the vast rumble of those enormous slate-colored stones as they fell? Would the sky tear open like a flimsy piece of cloth, spilling out the monstrosities that lived in the todash darkness? Would there be time to cry out? Would there be an afterlife, or would even Heaven and Hell be obliterated by the fall of the Dark Tower?
He looked at Roland and sent a thought, as clearly as he could:Roland, help us.
And one came back, filling his mind with cold comfort (ah, but comfort served cold was better than no comfort at all):If I can.
"Watch Me," said Rosalita, and laid down her cards. She had built Wands, the high run, and the card on top was Madame Death.
STAVE: Commala-come-come
There's a young man with a gun.
Young man lost his honey
When she took it on the run.
RESPONSE: Commala-come-one!
She took it on the run!
Left her baby lonely but
Her baby ain't done.
2nd Stanza: The Persistence of Magic
One
They needn't have worried about the Manni-folk showing up. Henchick, dour as ever, appeared at the town common, which had been the designated setting-out point, with forty men. He assured Roland it would be enough to open the Unfound Door, if it could indeed be opened now that what he called "the dark glass" was gone. The old man offered no word of apology for showing up with less than the promised number of men, but he kept tugging on his beard. Sometimes with both hands.
"Why does he do that, Pere, do you know?" Jake asked Callahan. Henchick's troops were rolling eastward in a dozen bucka waggons. Behind these, drawn by a pair of albino asses with freakishly long ears and fiery pink eyes, was a two-wheeled fly completely covered in white duck. To Jake it looked like a big Jiffy-Pop container on wheels. Henchick rode upon this contraption alone, gloomily yanking at his chin-whiskers.
"I think it means he's embarrassed," Callahan said.
"I don't see why. I'm surprised so many showed up, after the Beamquake and all."
"What he learned when the ground shook is that some of his men were more afraid of that than of him. As far as Henchick's concerned, it adds up to an unkept promise. Not justany unkept promise, either, but one he made to your dinh. He's lost face." And, without changing his tone of voice at all, tricking him into an answer he would not otherwise have given, Callahan asked: "Is she still alive, then, your molly?"
"Yes, but in ter - " Jake began, then covered his mouth. He looked at Callahan accusingly. Ahead of them, on the seat of the two-wheeled fly, Henchick looked around, startled, as if they had raised their voices in argument. Callahan wondered if everyone in this damned story had the touch but him.
It's not a story. It's not a story, it's my life!
But it was hard to believe that, wasn't it, when you'd seen yourself set in type as a major character in a book with the word FICTION on the copyright page. Doubleday and Company, 1975. A book about vampires, yet, which everyoneknew weren't real. Except they had been. And, in at least some of the worlds adjacent to this one, still were.
"Don't treat me like that," Jake said. "Don'ttrick me like that. Not if we're all on the same side, Pere. Okay?"
"I'm sorry," Callahan said. And then: "Cry pardon."
Jake smiled wanly and stroked Oy, who was riding in the front pocket of his poncho.
"Is she - "
The boy shook his head. "I don't want to talk about her now, Pere. It's best we not even think about her. I have a feeling - I don't know if it's true or not, but it's strong - that something's looking for her. If there is, it's better it not overhear us. And it could."
"Something...?"
Jake reached out and touched the kerchief Callahan wore around his neck, cowboy-style. It was red. Then he put a hand briefly over his left eye. For a moment Callahan didn't understand, and then he did. The red eye. The Eye of the King.
He sat back on the seat of the waggon and said no more. Behind them, not talking, Roland and Eddie rode horseback, side by side. Both were carrying their gunna as well as their guns, and Jake had his own in the waggon behind him. If they came back to Calla Bryn Sturgis after today, it wouldn't be for long.
In terrorwas what he had started to say, but it was worse than that. Impossibly faint, impossibly distant, but still clear, Jake could hear Susannah screaming. He only hoped Eddie did not.
Two