When the grave was filled and the rocks placed over it, Roland walked back to the clearing by the road and examined the tale the various tracks told, simply because there was nothing else to do. When that meaningless task was finished, he sat down on a fallen log. Oy had stayed by the grave, and Roland had an idea he might bide there. He would call the bumbler when Mrs.
Tassenbaum returned, but knew Oy might not come; if he didn't, it meant that Oy had decided to join his friend in the clearing. The bumbler would simply stand watch by Jake's grave until starvation (or some predator) took him. The idea deepened Roland's sorrow, but he would bide by Oy's decision.
Ten minutes later the bumbler came out of the woods on his own and sat down by Roland's left boot. "Good boy," Roland said, and stroked the bumbler's head. Oy had decided to live.
It was a small thing, but it was a good thing.
Ten minutes after that, a dark red car rolled almost silently up to the place where King had been struck and Jake killed. It pulled over. Roland opened the door on the passenger side and got in, still wincing against pain that wasn't there. Oy jumped up between his feet without being asked, lay down with his nose against his flank, and appeared to go to sleep.
"Did you see to your boy?" Mrs. Tassenbaum asked, pulling away.
"Yes. Thankee-sai."
"I guess I can't put a marker there," she said, "but later on I could plant something. Is there something you think he might like?"
Roland looked up, and for the first time since Jake's death, he smiled. 'Yes," he said. "A rose."
TWELVE
They rode for almost twenty minutes without speaking. She stopped at a small store over the Bridgton town line and pumped gas: MOBIL, a brand Roland recognized from his wanderings.
When she went in to pay, he looked up at los dngeles, running clear and true across the sky. The Path of the Beam, and stronger already, unless that was just his imagination. He supposed it didn't matter if it was. If the Beam wasn't stronger now, it soon would be. They had succeeded in saving it, but Roland felt no gladness at the idea.
When Mrs. Tassenbaum came out of the store, she was holding a singlet-style shirt with a picture of a bucka-wagon on it-a real bucka-wagon-and words written in a circle. He could make out HOME, but nothing else. He asked her what the words said.
"BRIDGTON OLD HOME DAYS, JULY 27TH TO JULY 30TH, 1999,"
she told him. "It doesn't really matter what it says as long as it covers your chest. Sooner or later we'll want to stop, and there's a saying we have in these parts: 'No shirt, no shoes, no service."
Your boots look beat-up and busted down, but I guess they'll get you through the door of most places. But topless? Huh-uh, no way Jose. I'll get you a better shirt later on-one with a collar-and some decent pants, too. Those jeans are so dirty I bet they'd stand up on their own." She engaged in a brief (but furious)
interior debate, then plunged. 'You've got I'm going to say roughly two billion scars. And that's just on the part of you I can see."
Roland did not respond to this. "Do you have money?" he asked.
"I got three hundred dollars when I went back to the house to get my car, and I had thirty or forty with me. Also credit cards, but your late friend said to use cash as long as I could. Until you go on by yourself, if possible. He said there might be folks looking for you. He called them 'low men.'"
Roland nodded. Yes, there would be low men out there, and after all he and his ka-tet had done to thwart the plans of their master, they'd be twice as eager to have his head. Preferably smoking, and on the end of a stick. Also the head of sai Tassenbaum, if they found out about her.
"What else did Jake tell you?" Roland asked.
"That I must take you to New York City, if you wanted to go there. He said there's a door there that will take you to a place called Faydag."
"Was there more?"
"Yes. He said there was another place you might want to go before you used the door." She gave him a timid litde sideways glance. "Is there?"
He considered this, then nodded.
"He also spoke to the dog. It sounded as if he was giving the dog... orders? Instructions?" She looked at him doubtfully.
"Could that be?"
Roland thought it could. The woman Jake could only ask.
As for Oy... well, it might explain why the bumbler hadn't stayed by the grave, much as he might have wanted to.
For awhile they traveled in silence. The road they were on led to a much busier one, filled with cars and trucks running at high speed in many lanes. She had to stop at a tollbooth and give money to get on. The toll-taker was a robot with a basket for an arm. Roland thought he might be able to sleep, but he saw Jake's face when he closed his eyes. Then Eddie's, with the useless bandage covering his forehead. If this is what comes when I dose my eyes, he thought, what will my dreams be like?
He opened his eyes again and watched as she drove down a smooth, paved ramp, slipping into the heavy flow of traffic without a pause. He leaned over and looked up through the window on his side. There were the clouds, los dngeles, traveling above them, in the same direction. They were still on the Path of the Beam.
THIRTEEN