If Roland had spotted the tripwires—a far more subtle trap than the one which followed—was it really likely that he had missed seeing the fountain? Jake supposed it was possible, but it didn’t make much sense. Jake thought it more likely that Roland had tripped the fountain on purpose, to lull Gasher and perhaps slow him down. He didn’t believe Roland could follow them through this maze under the streets—the total darkness would defeat even the gunslinger’s tracking abilities—but it cheered his heart to think that Roland might not have died in an attempt to keep his promise.
They turned right, left, then left again. As Jake’s other senses sharp-ened in an attempt to compensate for his lack of sight, he had a vague perception of other tunnels around him. The muffled sounds of ancient, laboring machinery would grow loud for a moment, then fade as the stone foundations of the city drew close around them again. Drafts blew intermittently against his skin, sometimes warm, sometimes chilly. Their splashing footfalls echoed briefly as they passed the intersecting tunnels from which these stenchy breaths blew, and once Jake nearly brained himself on some metal object jutting down from the ceiling. He slapped at it with one hand and felt something that might have been a large valve-wheel. After that he waved his hands as he trotted along in an attempt to read the air ahead of him.
Gasher guided him with taps to the shoulders, as a waggoner might have guided his oxen. They moved at a good clip, trotting but not run-ning. Gasher got enough of his breath back to first hum and then begin singing in a low, surprisingly tuneful tenor voice.
“Bibble-ti-tibble-ti-ting-ting-ting,
I’ll get a job and buy yer a ring,
When I get my -mitts
On yerjiggly tits,
Ribble-ti-tibble-ti-ting-ting-ting!
O ribble-ti-tibble,
I just wanter fiddle,
Fiddle around with your ting-ting-ting!” There were five or six more verses along this line before Gasher quit. “Now you sing somethin, squint.”
“I don’t know anything,” Jake puffed. He hoped he sounded more out of breath than he actually was. He didn’t know if it would do him any good or not, but down here in the dark any edge seemed worth trying for. Gasher brought his elbow down in the center of Jake’s back, almost hard enough to send him sprawling into the ankle-high water running sluggishly through the tunnel they were traversing. “Yon better know sominat, ‘less you want me to rip your ever-lovin spine right outcher back.” He paused, then added: “There’s haunts down here, boy. They live inside the f**kin machines, so they do. Singin keeps em off . . . don’t you know that? Now sing!” Jake thought hard, not wanting to earn another love-tap from Gasher, and came up with a song he’d learned in summer day camp at the age of seven or eight. He opened his mouth and began to bawl it into the darkness, listening to the echoes bounce back amid the sounds of running water, falling water, and ancient thudding machinery.
“My girl’s a corker, she’s a New Yorker, I buy her everything to keep her in style, She got a pair of hips Just like two battleships, Oh boy, that’s how my money goes.
My girl’s a dilly, she comes from Philly, I buy her everything to keep her in style, She’s got a pair of eyes Just like two pizza pies,
Oh boy, that’s how—“
Gasher reached out, seized Jake’s ears as if they were jug-handles, and yanked him to a stop. “There’s a hole right ahead of yer,” he said. “With a voice like yours, squint, it’d be doin the world a mercy to letcher fall in, so it would, but Tick-Tock wouldn’t approve at all, so I reckon ye’re safe for a little longer.” Gasher’s hands left Jake’s ears, which burned like fire, and fastened on the back of his shirt. “Now lean forward until you feel the ladder on the t’other side. And mind you don’t slip and drag us both down!” Jake leaned cautiously forward, hands outstretched, terrified of fall-ing into a pit he couldn’t see. As he groped for the ladder, he became aware of warm air—clean and almost fragrant—whooshing past his face, and a faint blush of rose-colored light from beneath him. His fingers touched a steel rung and closed over it. The bite-wounds on his left hand broke open again, and he felt warm blood running across his palm.
“Got it?” Gasher asked.