"Never!" someone shouted adamantly, but Jake thought some of the others looked unsure.
"As you will," said Roland. "I've spoken my last word on it, and the next who speaks back to me may remain silent ever after, for one of my friends is preparing another, her husband, to lie in the ground and I am full of grief and rage. Would you speak more? Would you dare my rage? If so, you dare this." He drew his gun and laid it in the hollow of his shoulder. Jake stepped up beside him, at last drawing his own.
There was a moment of silence, and then the man who had spoken turned away.
"Don't shoot us, mister, you've done enough," someone said bitterly.
Roland made no reply and the crowd began to disperse.
Some went running, and the others caught that like a cold. They fled in silence, except for a few who were weeping, and soon the dark had swallowed them up.
"Wow," Dinky said. His voice was soft and respectful.
"Roland," Ted said. "What they did wasn't entirely their fault. I thought I had explained that, but I guess I didn't do a very good job."
Roland holstered his revolver. 'You did an excellentjob," he said. "That's why they're still alive."
Now they had the Damli House end of the Mall to themselves again, and Sheemie limped up to Roland. His eyes were round and solemn. "Will you show me where you'd go, dear?"
he asked. "Can you show me the place?"
The place. Roland had been so fixed on the when that he'd scarcely thought of the where. And his memories of the road they had traveled in Lovell were pretty skimpy. Eddie had been driving John Cullum's car, and Roland had been deep in his own thoughts, concentrating on the things he would say to convince the caretaker to help them.
"Did Ted show you a place before you sent him on?" he asked Sheemie.
"Aye, so he did. Only he didn't know he was showing me. It was a baby-picture... I don't know how to tell you, exactly...
stupid head! Full of cobwebbies!" Sheemie made a fist and clouted himself between the eyes.
Roland took the hand before Sheemie could hit himself again and unrolled the fingers. He did this with surprising gentleness. "No, Sheemie. I think I understand. You found a thought... a memory from when he was a little boy."
Ted had come over to them. "Of course that must be it," he said. "I don't know why I didn't see it before now. Too simple, maybe. I grew up in Milford, and the place where I came out in I960 was barely a spit from there in geographical terms.
Sheemie must have found a memory of a carriage-ride, or maybe a trip on the Hartford Trolley to see my Uncle Jim and Aunt Molly in Bridgeport. Something in my subconscious."
He shook his head. "I knew the place where I came out looked familiar, but of course it was years later. The Merritt Parkway wasn't there when I was a boy."
"Can you show me a picture like that?" Sheemie asked Roland hopefully.
Roland thought once more of the place in Lovell where they'd parked on Route 7, the place where he'd called Chevin of Chayven out of the woods, but it simply wasn't sure enough; there was no landmark that made the place only itself and no other. Not one that he remembered, anyway.
Then another idea came. One that had to do with Eddie.
"Sheemie!"
"Aye, Roland of Gilead, Will Dearborn that was!"
Roland reached out and placed his hands on the sides of Sheemie's head. "Close your eyes, Sheemie, son of Stanley."
Sheemie did as he was told, then reached out his own hands and grasped the sides of Roland's head. Roland closed his own eyes.
"See what I see, Sheemie," he said. "See where we would go.
See it very well."
And Sheemie did.
EIGHTEEN
While they stood there, Roland projecting and Sheemie seeing,
Dani Rostov softly called to Jake.
Once he was before her she hesitated, as if unsure what she would say or do. He began to ask her, but before he could, she stopped his mouth with a kiss. Her lips were amazingly soft.
"That's for good luck," she said, and when she saw his look of amazement and understood the power of what she had done, her timidity lessened. She put her arms around his neck
(still holding her scuffed Pooh Bear in one hand; he felt it soft against his back) and did it again. He felt the push of her tiny, hard br**sts and would remember the sensation for the rest of his life. Would remember her for the rest of his life.
"And that's for me." She retreated to Ted Brautigan's side, eyes downcast and cheeks burning red, before he could speak.
Not that he could have, even if his life had depended upon it.
His throat was locked shut.
Ted looked at him and smiled. 'You judge the rest of them by the first one," he said. "Take it from me. I know."
Jake could still say nothing. She might have punched him in the head instead of kissing him on the lips. He was that dazed.
NINETEEN