Most of the remaining taheen and can-toi left Algul Siento in pairs and triplets, going without argument and nervously looking back over their shoulders every few moments. Jake thought they were right to be afraid, because his dinh's face that day had been abstract with thought and terrible with grief.
Eddie Dean lay on his deathbed, and Roland of Gilead would not bear crossing.
"What are you going to do to the place?" Jake asked after the afternoon horn had blown. They were making their way past the smoking husk of Damli House (where the robot firemen had posted signs every twenty feet reading OFF-LIMITS PENDING FIRE DEPT. INVESTIGATION), on their way to see Eddie.
Roland only shook his head, not answering the question.
On the Mall, Jake spied six Breakers standing in a circle, holding hands. They looked like folks having a seance. Sheemie was there, and Ted, and Dani Rostov; there also was a young woman, an older one, and a stout, bankerly-looking man.
Beyond, lying with their feet sticking out under blankets, was a line of the nearly fifty guards who had died during the brief action.
"Do you know what they're doing?" Jake asked, meaning the seance-folken-the ones behind them were just being dead, a job that would occupy them from now on.
Roland glanced toward the circle of Breakers briefly. "Yes."
"What?"
"Not now," said the gunslinger. "Now we're going to pay our respects to Eddie. You're going to need all the serenity you can manage, and that means emptying your mind."
FOUR
Now, sitting with Oy outside the empty Clover Tavern with its neon beer-signs and silent jukebox, Jake reflected on how right Roland had been, and how grateful Jake himself had been when, after forty-five minutes or so, the gunslinger had looked at him, seen his terrible distress, and excused him from the room where Eddie lingered, giving up his vitality an inch at a time, leaving the imprint of his remarkable will on every last inch of his life's tapestry.
The litter-bearing party Ted Brautigan had organized had borne the young gunslinger to Corbett Hall, where he was laid in the spacious bedroom of the first-floor proctor's suite.
The litter-bearers lingered in the dormitory's courtyard, and as the afternoon wore on, the rest of the Breakers joined them.
When Roland and Jake arrived, a pudgy red-haired woman stepped into Roland's way.
Lady, I wouldn't do that,]ake had thought. Not this afternoon.
In spite of the day's alarums and excursions, this woman-who'd looked to Jake like the Lifetime President of his mother's garden club-had found time to put on a fairly heavy coat of makeup: powder, rouge, and lipstick as red as the side of a Devar fire engine. She introduced herself as Grace Rumbelow (formerly of Aldershot, Hampshire, England) and demanded to know what was going to happen next-where they would go, what they would do, who would take care of them. The same questions the rooster-headed taheen had asked, in other words.
"For we have been taken care of," said Grace Rumbelow in ringing tones (Jake had been fascinated with how she said
"been," so it rhymed with "seen"), "and are in no position, at least for the time being, to care for ourselves."
There were calls of agreement at this.
Roland looked her up and down, and something in his face had robbed the lady of her measured indignation. "Get out of my road," said the gunslinger, "or I'll push you down."
She grew pale beneath her powder and did as he said without uttering another word. A birdlike clatter of disapproval followed Jake and Roland into Corbett Hall, but it didn't start until the gunslinger was out of their view and they no longer had to fear falling beneath the unsettling gaze of his blue eyes. The Breakers reminded Jake of some kids with whom he'd gone to school at Piper, classroom nitwits willing to shout out stuff like this test sucks or bite my bag... but only when the teacher was out of the room.
The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly of smoke from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding chair to the right of the door marked PROCTOR's SUITE, smoking a cigarette.
He looked up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind Jake's heel.
"How is he?" Roland asked.
"Dying, man," Dinky said, and shrugged.
"And Susannah?"
"Strong. Once he's gone-" Dinky shrugged again, as if to say it could go either way, any way.
Roland knocked quietly on the door.
"Who is it?" Susannah's voice, muffled.
"Roland and Jake," the gunslinger said. "Will you have us?"
The question was met with what seemed to Jake an unusually long pause. Roland, however, didn't seem surprised. Neither did Dinky, for that matter.
At last Susannah said: "Come in."
They did.
FIVE
Sitting with Oy in the soothing dark, waiting for Roland's call,