"Save it for yourself, if you want."
Roland smiled. "A man who can't bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them." He rolled a pair of cigarettes, using some sort of leaf which he tore in two, handed one to Jake, then lit them up with a match he popped alight on his thumbnail. In the still, chill air of Can Steek-Tete, the smoke hung in front of them, then rose slowly, stacking on the air. Jake thought the tobacco was hot, harsh, and stale, but he said no word of complaint. He liked it. He thought of all the times he'd promised himself he wouldn't smoke like his father did-never in life-and now here he was, starting the habit. And with his new father's agreement, if not approval.
Roland reached out a finger and touched Jake's forehead... his left cheek... his nose... his chin. The last touch hurt a little. "Pimples," Roland said. "It's the air of this place."
He suspected it was emotional upset, as well-grief over the Pere-but to let Jake know he thought that would likely just increase the boy's unhappiness over Callahan's passing.
"You don't have any," Jake said. "Skin's as clear as a bell.
"Huck-ee."
"No pimples," Roland agreed, and smoked. Below them in the seeping light was the village. The peaceful village, Jake thought, but it looked more than peaceful; it looked downright dead.
Then he saw two figures, little more than specks from here, strolling toward each other. Hume guards patrolling the outer run of the fence, he presumed. They joined together into a single speck long enough for Jake to imagine a bit of their palaver, and then the speck divided again. "No pimples, but my hip hurts like a son of a bitch. Feels like someone opened it in the night and poured it full of broken glass. Hot glass. But this is far worse." He touched the right side of his head. "It feels cracked."
"You really think it's Stephen King's injuries you're feeling?"
Instead of making a verbal reply, Roland laid the forefinger of his left hand across a circle made by the thumb and pinky of his right: that gesture which meant I tell you the truth.
"That's a bummer," Jake said. "For him as well as you."
"Maybe; maybe not. Because, think you, Jake; think you well. Only living things feel pain. What I'm feeling suggests that King won't be killed instandy. And that means he might be easier to save."
Jake thought it might only mean King was going to lie beside the road in semi-conscious agony for awhile before expiring, but didn't like to say so. Let Roland believe what he liked. But there was something else. Something that concerned Jake a lot more, and made him uneasy.
"Roland, may I speak to you dan-dinh?"
The gunslinger nodded. "If you would." A slight pause. A flick at the left corner of the mouth that wasn't quite a smile. "If thee would."
Jake gathered his courage. "Why are you so angry now? What are you angry at? Or whom?" Now it was his turn to pause. "Is it me?"
Roland's eyebrows rose, then he barked a laugh. "Not you, Jake. Not a bit. Never in life."
Jake flushed with pleasure.
"I keep forgetting how strong the touch has become in you. You'd have made a fine Breaker, no doubt."
This wasn't an answer, but Jake didn't bother saying so.
And the idea of being a Breaker made him repress a shiver.
"Don't you know?" Roland asked. "If thee knows I'm what Eddie calls royally pissed, don't you know why?"
"I could look, but it wouldn't be polite." But it was a lot more than that. Jake vaguely remembered a Bible story about Noah getting loaded on the ark, while he and his sons were waiting out the flood. One of the sons had come upon his old man lying drunk on his bunk, and had laughed at him. God had cursed him for it. To peek into Roland's thoughts wouldn't be the same as looking-and laughing-while he was drunk, but it was close.
"Thee's a fine boy," Roland said. "Fine and good, aye." And although the gunslinger spoke almost absently, Jake could have died happily enough at that moment. From somewhere beyond and above them came that resonant CLICK! sound, and all at once the special-effects sunbeam speared down on the Devar-
Toi. A moment later, faintly, they heard the sound of music:
"Heyjude," arranged for elevator and supermarket. Time to rise and shine down below. Another day of Breaking had just begun.
Although, Jake supposed, down there the Breaking never really stopped.
"Let's have a game, you and I," Roland proposed. 'You try to get into my head and see who I'm angry at. I'll try to keep you out."
Jake shifted position slightly. "That doesn't sound like a fun game to me, Roland."
"Nevertheless, I'd play against you."
"All right, if you want to."