He had now reached the snowbank marking the spot where Tower Road ended... or where it began, depending on your point of view and the direction you were traveling, Susannah supposed. He looked up at them, one eye bright as a bird's, the other looking off into the white wastes with dull fascination.
"Long days and pleasant nights, yar, so say I, and anyone who'd say different, they ain't here anyway, so who gives a good goddam what they say?" From his pocket he took what could only be a gumdrop and tossed it up. Oy grabbed it out of the air easily: Snap!and gone.
At this both Roland and Susannah laughed. It felt strange to laugh, but it was a good feeling, like finding something of value long after you were sure it was lost forever. Even Oy appeared to be grinning, and if the horse bothered him (it trumpeted again as they looked down on sai Collins from their snowbank perch), it didn't show.
"I got a million questions for yer," Collins said, "but I'll start with just one: how in the hell are yers gonna get down offa that snowbank?"
FOUR
As it turned out, Susannah slid down, using their travois as a sled. She chose the place where die northwestern end of Odd's Lane disappeared beneath the snow, because die embankment was a litde shallower there. Her trip was short but not smooth.
She hit a large and crusted snow-boulder three quarters of the way down, fell off the travois, and made the rest of her descent in a pair of gaudy somersaults, laughing wildly as she fell. The travois turned over-turned turde, may it do ya-and spilled their gunna every whichway and hell to breakfast.
Roland and Oy came leaping down behind. Roland bent over her at once, clearly concerned, and Oy sniffed anxiously at her face, but Susannah was still laughing. So was the codger.
Daddy Mose would have called his laughter "gay as old Dad's hatband."
"I'm fine, Roland-took worse tumbles off my Flexible Flyer when I was a kid, tell ya true."
"All's well diat ends well," Joe Collins agreed. He gave her a look with his good eye to make sure she was indeed all right, then began to pick up some of the scattered goods, leaning laboriously over on his stick, his fine white hair blowing around his rosy face.
"Nah, nah," Roland said, reaching out to grasp his arm. "I'll do that, thee'll fall on thy thiddles."
At this the old man roared with laughter, and Roland joined him willingly enough. From behind the cottage, the horse gave another loud whinny, as if protesting all this good humor.
"'Fall on thy thiddles'! Man, that's a good one! I don't have the veriest clue under heaven what my diiddles are, yet it's a good one! Ain't it just!" He brushed the snow off Susannah's hide coat while Roland quickly picked up the spilled goods and stacked them back on dieir makeshift sled. Oy helped, bringing several wrapped packages of meat in his jaws and dropping them on the back of the travois.
"That's a smart little beastie!" Joe Collins said admiringly.
"He's been a good trailmate," Susannah agreed. She was now very glad they had stopped; would not have deprived herself of this good-natured old man's acquaintance for worlds.
She offered him her clumsily clad right hand. "I'm Susannah Dean-Susannah of New York. Daughter of Dan."
He took her hand and shook it. His own hand was ungloved, and although the fingers were gnarled with arthritis, his grip was strong. "New York, is it! Why, I once hailed from there, myself.
Also Akron, Omaha, and San Francisco. Son of Henry and Flora, if it matters to you."
"You're from America-side?" Susannah asked.
"Oh God yes, but long ago and long," he said. "What'chee might call delah." His good eye sparkled; his bad eye went on regarding the snowy wastes with that same dead lack of interest.
He turned to Roland. "And who might you be, my friend? For I'll call you my friend same as I would anyone, unless they prove different, in which case I'd belt em with Bessie, which is what I call my stick."
Roland was grinning. Was helpless not to, Susannah thought. "Roland Deschain, of Gilead. Son of Steven."
"Gilead! Gilead!" Collins's good eye went round with amazement.
"There's a name out of the past, ain't it? One for the books! Holy Pete, you must be older'n God!"
"Some would say so," Roland agreed, now only smiling...
but warmly.
"And the little fella?" he asked, bending forward. From his pocket, Collins produced two more gumdrops, one red and one green. Christmas colors, and Susannah felt a faint touch of deja vu. It brushed her mind like a wing and then was gone. "What's your name, little fella? What do they holler when they want you to come home?"
"He doesn't-"
-talk anymore, although he did once was how Susannah meant to finish, but before she could, the bum bier said: "Oy!" And he said it as brightly and firmly as ever in his time with Jake.
"Good fella!" Collins said, and tumbled the gumdrops into Oy's mouth. Then he reached out with that same gnarled hand, and Oy raised his paw to meet it. They shook, well-met near the intersection of Odd's Lane and Tower Road.
"I'll be damned," Roland said mildly.
"So won't we all in the end, I reckon, Beam or no Beam,"