Eddie popped open the aspirin tin and looked greedily at the little line-up of tablets. Once a junkie, always a junkie, he reckoned. Even when it came to this stuff. "Ayuh," he said, with his tongue only pardy in his cheek; he had become quite the mimic of regional dialects since meeting Roland on a Delta jet descending into Kennedy Airport. 'You said that lane was nothing but a two-mile loop off Route 7, didn't you?"
"So I did. Some very nice homes along Turtleback." A brief, reflective pause. "And a lot of em for sale. There's been quite a number of walk-ins in that part of the world just lately. As I may have also mentioned. Such things make folks nervous, and rich folks, at least, c'n afford to get away from what makes it ha'ad to sleep at night."
Eddie could wait no longer; he took three of the aspirin and tossed them into his mouth, relishing the bitter taste as they dissolved on his tongue. Bad as die pain currendy was, he would have borne twice as much if he could have heard from Susannah.
But she was quiet. He had an idea that the line of communication between them, chancy at best, had ceased to exist with the coming of Mia's damned baby.
"You boys might want to keep your shootin irons close at hand if you're headed over to Turtleback in Lovell," Cullum said. "As for me, I think I'll just toss m'shotgun in m'truck before I set sail."
"Why not?" Eddie agreed. "You want to look for your car along the loop, okay? You'll find it."
"Ayuh, that old Galaxie's ha'ad to miss," Cullum agreed.
"Tell me somethin, son. I'm not goin to V'mont, bvit I gut a feelin you mean to send me somewhere, if I agree to go. You mind tellin me where?"
Eddie thought that Mark Twain might elect to call the next chapter of John Cullum's no doubt colorful life A Maine Yankee in the Crimson King's Court, but elected not to say so.
"Have you ever been to New York City?"
"Gorry, yes. Had a forty-eight-hour pass there, when I was in the Army." The final word came out in a ridiculously flat drawl.
"Went to Radio City Music Hall and the Empire State Buildin, that much I remember. Musta made a few other tourist stops, though, because I lost thirty dollars out of m'wallet and a couple of months later I got diagnosed with a pretty fine case of the clap."
"This time you'll be too busy to catch the clap. Bring your credit cards. I know you have some, because I got a look at the receipts in your glove-compartment." He felt an almost insane urge to draw the last word out, make it compaa-aaaatment.
"Mess in there, ennit?" Cullum asked equably.
"Ayuh, looks like what was left when the dog chewed the shoes. See you in Lovell, John." Eddie hung up. He looked at the bag Roland was carrying and lifted his eyebrows.
"It's a poorboy sanditch," Roland said. "With lots of mayo, whatever that is. I'd want a sauce that didn't look quite so much like come, myself, but may it do ya fine."
Eddie rolled his eyes. "Gosh, that's a real appetite-builder."
"Do you say so?"
Eddie had to remind himself once more that Roland had almost no sense of humor. "I do, I do. Come on. I can eat my come-and-cheese sandwich while I drive. Also, we need to talk about how we're going to handle this."
SEVEN
The way to handle it, both agreed, was to tell John Cullum as much of their tale as they thought his credulity (and sanity) could stand. Then, if all went well, they would entrust him with the vital bill of sale and send him to Aaron Deepneau.
With strict orders to make sure he spoke to Deepneau apart from the not entirely trustworthy Calvin Tower.
"Cullum and Deepneau can work together to track Moses Carver down," Eddie said, "and I think I can give Cullum enough information about Suze-private stuff-to convince Carver that she's still alive. After that, though … well, a lot depends on how convincing those two guys can be. And how eager they are to work for the Tet Corporation in their sunset years. Hey, they may surprise us! I can't see Cullum in a suit and tie, but traveling around the country and throwing monkeywrenches in Sombra's business?" He considered, head cocked, then nodded with a smile. "Yeah. I can see that pretty well." A "Susannah's godfather is apt to be an old codger himself,"
Roland observed. "Just one of a different color. Such fellows often speak their own language when they're an-tet. And mayhap I can give John Cullum something that will help convince Carver to throw in with us."
"Asigul?"
"Yes."
Eddie was intrigued. "What kind?"
But before Roland could answer, they saw something that made Eddie stomp on the brake-pedal. They were in Lovell now, and on Route 7. Ahead of them, staggering unsteadily along the shoulder, was an old man with snarled and straggly white hair. He wore a clumsy wrap of dirty cloth that could by no means be called a robe. His scrawny arms and legs were whipped with scratches. There were sores on them as well, burning a dull red. His feet were bare, and equipped with ugly and dangerous-looking yellow talons instead of toes. Clasped under one arm was a splintery wooden object that might have been a broken lyre. Eddie thought no one could have looked more out of place on this road, where the only pedestrians they had seen so far were serious-looking exercisers, obviously from "away," looking ever so put-together in their nylon jogging shorts, baseball hats, and tee-shirts (one jogger's shirt bore the legend DON'T SHOOT THE TOURISTS).
The thing that had been trudging along the berm of Route 7 turned toward them, and Eddie let out an involuntary cry of horror. Its eyes bled together above the bridge of its nose, reminding him of a double-yolked egg in a frypan. A fang depended from one nostril like a bone booger. Yet somehow worst of all was the dull green glow that baked out from the creature's face. It was as if its skin had been painted with some sort of thin fluorescent gruel.
It saw them and immediately dashed into the woods, dropping its splintered lyre behind.
"Christ!" Eddie screamed. If that was a walk-in, he hoped never to see another.
"Stop, Eddie!" Roland shouted, then braced die heel of one hand against the dashboard as Cullum's old Ford slid to a dusty halt close to where the thing had vanished.
"Open the backhold," Roland said as he opened the door.
"Get my widowmaker."
"Roland, we're in kind of a hurry here, and Turtleback Lane's still three miles north. I really think we ought to-"
"Shut your fool's mouth and get it!" Roland roared, then ran to the edge of the woods. He drew a deep breath, and when he shouted after the rogue creature, his voice sent gooseflesh racmg up Eddie's arms. He had heard Roland speak so once or twice before, but in between it was easy to forget that the blood of a King ran in his veins.
He spoke several phrases Eddie could not understand, then one he could: "So come forth, ye Child of Roderick, ye spoiled, ye lost, and make your bow before me, Roland, son of Steven, of the Line of Eld!"
For a moment there was nothing. Eddie opened the Ford's trunk and brought Roland his gun. Roland strapped it on without so much as a glance at Eddie, let alone a word of thanks.
Perhaps diirty seconds went by. Eddie opened his mouth to speak. Before he could, the dusty roadside foliage began to shake. A moment or two later, the misbegotten thing reappeared.
It staggered with its head lowered. On the front of its robe was a large wet patch. Eddie could smell the reek of a sick thing's urine, wild and strong.
Yet it made a knee and raised one misshapen hand to its forehead, a doomed gesture of fealty that made Eddie feel like weeping. "Hile, Roland of Gilead, Roland of Eld! Will you show me some sigul, dear?"
In a town called River Crossing, an old woman who called herself Aunt Talitha had given Roland a silver cross on a finelink silver chain. He'd worn it around his neck ever since. Now he reached into his shirt and showed it to the kneeling creature-a slow mutie dying of radiation sickness, Eddie was quite sure-and the thing gave a cracked cry of wonder.
"Would'ee have peace at the end of your course, thou Child of Roderick? Would'ee have the peace of the clearing?"
"Aye, my dear," it said, sobbing, then added a great deal more in some gibberish tongue Eddie couldn't understand.
Eddie looked both ways along Route 7, expecting to see traffic-this was the height of the summer season, after all-but spied nothing in either direction. For the moment, at least, their luck still held.
"How many of you are there in these parts?" Roland asked, interrupting the walk-in. As he spoke, he drew his revolver and raised that old engine of death until it lay against his shirt.
The Child of Roderick tossed its hand at the horizon without looking up. "Delah, gunslinger," he said, "for here the worlds are thin, say anro con fa; sey-sey desenefanno billet cobair can. I Chevin devardan do. Because I felt sat for dem. Can-toi, can-tah, canDiscordia, aven la cam mah can. May-mi?Iffin lah vainen, eth-"
"How many dan devar?"
It thought about Roland's question, then spread its fingers
(there were ten, Eddie noted) five times. Fifty. Although fifty of what, Eddie didn't know.
"And Discordia?" Roland asked sharply. "Do you truly say so?"
"Oh aye, so says me, Chevin of Chayven, son of Hamil, minstrel of the South Plains that were once my home."
"Say the name of the town that stands near Castle Discordia and I'll release you."