"Not a bit," Roland said, and cocked his revolver.
"Be damned to you, then, chary-ka," said the taheen, and Roland of Gilead shot him where he stood, and Lamia of Galee fell down dead.
Flaherty's posse lay stacked in front of the door like cordwood,
Lamia facedown in front. Not a single one had had a chance to fire. The tile-throated corridor stank of the gunsmoke which hung in a blue layer. Then the purifiers kicked in, chugging wearily in the wall, and the gunslingers felt the air first stirred into motion and then sucked across their faces.
Eddie reloaded the gun-his, now, so he had been told-and dropped it back into its holster. Then he went to the dead and yanked four of them absently aside so he could get to the door. "Susannah! Suze, are you there?"
Do any of us, except in our dreams, truly expect to be reunited with our hearts' deepest loves, even when they leave us only for minutes, and on the most mundane of errands? No, not at all. Each time they go from our sight we in our secret hearts count them as dead. Having been given so much, we reason, how could we expect not to be brought as low as Lucifer for the staggering presumption of our love?
So Eddie didn't expect her to answer until she did-from another world, and through a single diickness of wood. "Eddie?
Sugar, is it you?"
Eddie's head, which had seemed perfectly normal only seconds before, was suddenly too heavy to hold up. He leaned it against the door. His eyes were similarly too heavy to hold open and so he closed them. The weight must have been tears, for suddenly he was swimming in them. He could feel them rolling down his cheeks, warm as blood. And Roland's hand, touching his back.
"Susannah," Eddie said. His eyes were still closed. His fingers were splayed on the door. "Can you open it?"
Jake answered. "No, but you can."
"What word?" Roland asked. He had been alternating glances at the door with looks behind him, almost hoping for reinforcements (for his blood was up), but the tiled corridor was empty. "What word, Jake?"
There was a pause-brief, but it seemed very long to Eddie-and then both spoke together. "Chassit," they said.
Eddie didn't trust himself to say it; his throat was too full of tears. Roland had no such problem. He hauled several more bodies away from the door (including Flaherty's, his face still fixed in its final snarl) and then spoke the word. Once again the door between the worlds clicked open. It was Eddie who opened it wide and then the four of them were face-to-face again,
Susannah and Jake in one world, Roland and Eddie in another, and between them a shimmering transparent membrane like living mica. Susannah held out her hands and they plunged through the membrane like hands emerging from a body of water that had been somehow magically turned on its side.
Eddie took them. He let her fingers close over his and draw him into Fedic.
THREE
By the time Roland stepped through, Eddie had already lifted Susannah and was holding her in his arms. The boy looked up at the gunslinger. Neither of them smiled. Oy sat at Jake's feet and smiled for both of them.
"Hile, Jake," Roland said.
"Hile, Father."
"Will you call me so?"
Jake nodded. "Yes, if I may."
"Such would please me ever," Roland said. Then, slowly-as one performs an action with which he's unfamiliar-he held out his arms. Looking up at him solemnly, never taking his eyes from Roland's face, the boy Jake moved between those killer's hands and waited until they locked at his back. He had had dreams of this that he would never have dared to tell.
Susannah, meanwhile, was covering Eddie's face with kisses.
"They almost got Jake," she was saying. "I sat down on my side of the door... and I was so tired I nodded off. He musta called me three, four times before I..."
Later he would hear her tale, every word and to the end.
Later there would be time for palaver. For now he cupped her breast-the left one, so he could feel the strong, steady beat of her heart-and then stopped her speech with his mouth.
Jake, meanwhile, said nothing. He stood with his head turned so his cheek rested against Roland's midsection. His eyes were closed. He could smell rain and dust and blood on the gunslinger's shirt. He thought of his parents, who were lost; his friend Benny, who was dead; the Pere, who had been overrun by all those from whom he had so long fled. The man he held had betrayed him once for the Tower, had let him fall, and Jake couldn't say the same might not happen again. Certainly there were miles ahead, and they would be hard ones. Still, for now, he was content. His mind was quiet and his sore heart was at peace. It was enough to hold and be held.
Enough to stand here with his eyes shut and to think My father has come for me.
Part Two BLUE HEAVEN
Chapter I:THE DEVAR-TETE