"Gave em up."
Although not particularly strong in the touch, Roland had enough of it to know this wasn't so. But Smith only had three and didn't want to share them with this man, who could probably afford enough cigarettes to fill Smith's entire van with them. Besides, Smith thought-
"Besides, folks who been in a accident ain't supposed to smoke," Smith said virtuously.
King nodded. "Hard to breathe, anyway," he said.
"Trolly bust a rib or two, too. My name's Bryan Smith. I'm the one who hit you. Sorry." He held out his hand and-incredibly-King shook it.
"Nothin like this ever happened to me before," Smith said.
"I ain't ever had so much as a parkin ticket."
King might or might not have known this for the lie it was, but chose not to comment on it; there was something else on his mind. "Mr. Smith-Bryan-was anyone else here?"
In the trees, Roland stiffened.
Smith actually appeared to consider this. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Mars bar and began to unwrap it.
Then he shook his head. "Just you n me. But I called 911 and Rescue, up to the store. They said someone was real close. Said they'd be here in no time. Don't you worry."
"You know who I am."
"God yeah!" Bryan Smith said, and chuckled. He took a bite of the candy bar and talked through it. "Reckonized you right away. I seen all your movies. My favorite was the one about the Saint Bernard. What was that dog's name?"
"Cujo," King said. This was a word Roland knew, one Susan Delgado had sometimes used when they were alone together.
In Mejis, cujo meant "sweet one."
"Yeah! That was great! Scary as hell! I'm glad that litde boy lived!"
"In the book he died." Then King closed his eyes and lay back, waiting.
Smith took another bite, a humongous one this time. "I
liked the show they made about the clown, too! Very cool!"
King made no reply. His eyes stayed closed, but Roland thought the rise and fall of the writer's chest looked deep and steady. That was good.
Then a truck roared toward them and swerved to a stop in front of Smith's van. The new motor-carriage was about the size of a funeral bucka, but orange instead of black and equipped with flashing lights. Roland was not displeased to see it roll over the tracks of the storekeeper's truck before coming to a stop.
Roland half-expected a robot to get out of the coach, but it was a man. He reached back inside for a black sawbones' bag.
Satisfied that everything here would be as well as it could be,
Roland returned to where he had laid Jake, moving with all his old unconscious grace: he cracked not a single twig, surprised not a single bird into flight.
EIGHT
Would it surprise you, after all we've seen together and all the secrets we've learned, to know that at quarter past five that afternoon,
Mrs. Tassenbaum pulled Chip McAvoy's old truck into the driveway of a house we've already visited? Probably not, because ka is a wheel, and all it knows how to do is roll. When last we visited here, in 1977, both it and the boathouse on the shore of Keywadin Pond were white with green trim. The Tassenbaums, who bought the place in '94, had painted it an entirely pleasing shade of cream (no trim; to Irene Tassenbaum's way of thinking, trim is for folks who can't make up their minds). They have also put a sign reading SUNSET COTTAGE on a post at the head of the driveway, and as far as Uncle Sam's concerned it's part of their mailing address, but to the local folk, this house at the south end of Keywadin Pond will always be the old John Cullum place.
She parked the truck beside her dark red Benz and went inside, mentally rehearsing what she'd tell David about why she had the local shopkeeper's pickup, but Sunset Cottage hummed with the peculiar silence only empty places have; she picked up on it immediately. She had come back to a lot of empty places-apartments at the beginning, bigger and bigger houses as time went by-over the years. Not because David was out drinking or womanizing, good Lord forbid. No, he and his friends had usually been out in one garage or another, one basement workshop or another, drinking cheap wine and discount beer from the Beverage Barn, creating the Internet plus all the software necessary to support it and make it user-friendly. The profits, although most would not believe it, had only been a side-effect.
The silence to which their wives so often came home was another. After awhile all that humming silence kind of got to you, made you mad, even, but not today. Today she was delighted the house was just hers.
Are you going to sleep with Marshal Dillon, if he wants you?
It wasn't a question she even had to think about. The answer was yes, she would sleep with him if he wanted her: sideways, backward, doggy-style, or straight-up f**k, if that was his pleasure. He wouldn't-even if he hadn't been grieving for his young