ELEVEN
Never, ever, had Roland seen an eye so bright, not even on Jericho Hill, when Cuthbert had bade him a laughing goodbye.
Eddie smiled. "We had... some times."
Roland nodded again.
"You... you..." But this Eddie couldn't finish. He raised one hand and made a weak twirling motion.
"I danced," Roland said, nodding. "Danced the commala."
Yes, Eddie mouthed, then drew in another of those whooping, painful breaths. It was the last.
"Thank you for my second chance," he said. "Thank you...
Father."
That was all. Eddie's eyes still looked at him, and they were still aware, but he had no breath to replace the one expended on that final word, that father. The lamplight gleamed on the hairs of his bare arms, turning them to gold. The thunder murmured.
Then Eddie's eyes closed and he laid his head to one side. His work was finished. He had left the path, stepped into the clearing. They sat around him a-circle, but ka-tet no more.
TWELVE
And so, thirty minutes later.
Roland, Jake, Ted, and Sheemie sat on a bench in the middle of the Mall. Dani Rostov and the bankerly-looking fellow were nearby. Susannah was in the bedroom of the proctor's suite, washing her husband's body for burial. They could hear her from where they were sitting. She was singing. All the songs seemed to be ones they'd heard Eddie singing along the trail.
One was "Born to Run." Another was "The Rice Song," from Calla Bryn Sturgis.
"We have to go, and right away," Roland said. His hand had gone to his hip and was rubbing, rubbing. Jake had seen him take a botde of aspirin (gotten God knew where) from his purse and dry-swallow three. "Sheemie, will you send us on?"
Sheemie nodded. He had limped to the bench, leaning on Dinky for support, and still none of them had had a chance to look at the wound on his foot. His limp seemed so minor compared to their other concerns; surely if Sheemie Ruiz were to die this night it would be as a result of opening a makeshift door between Thunder-side and America. Another strenuous act of teleportation might be lethal to him-what was a sore foot compared to that?
"I'll try," he said. "I'll try my very hardest, so I will."
"Those who helped us look into New York will help us do this," Ted said.
It was Ted who had figured out how to determine the current when on America-side of the Keystone World. He, Dinky,
Fred Worthington (the bankerly-looking man), and Dani Rostov had all been to New York, and were all able to summon up clear mental images of Times Square: the lights, the crowds, the movie marquees... and, most important, the giant news-ticker which broadcast the events of the day to the crowds below, making a complete circuit of Broadway and Forty-eighth Street every thirty seconds or so. The hole had opened long enough to inform them that UN forensics experts were examining supposed mass graves in Kosovo, that Vice President Gore had spent the day in New York City campaigning for President, that Roger Clemens had struck out thirteen Texas Rangers but the Yankees had still lost the night before.
With the help of the rest, Sheemie could have held the hole open a good while longer (the others had been staring into the brilliance of that bustling New York night with a kind of hungry amazement, not Breaking now but Opening, Seeing), only there turned out to be no need for that. Following the baseball score, the date and time had gone speeding past them in brilliant yellow-green letters a story high: JUNE 18,1999 9:19 PM.
Jake opened his mouth to ask how they could be sure they had been looking into Keystone World, the one where Stephen King had less than a day to live, and then shut it again. The answer was in the time, stupid, as the answer always was: the numbers comprising 9:19 also added up to nineteen.
THIRTEEN
"And how long ago was it that you saw this?" Roland asked.
Dinky calculated. "Had to've been five hours, at least. Based on when the change-of-shifts horn blew and the sun went out for the night."
Which should make it two-thirty in the morning right now on the other side, Jake calculated, counting the hours on his fingers.
Thinking was hard now, even simple addition slowed by constant thoughts of Eddie, but he found he could do it if he really tried. Only you can't depend on its only being five hours, because time goes faster on America-side. That may change now that the Breakers have quit beating up on the Beam-it may equalize-but probably not yet. Right now it's probably still running fast.