"The problem," Eddie said, "is what we're going to tie to the end of the rope. I suppose one of Roland's old saddlebags might--"
"What's that, honeybee?" Susannah was pointing at a patch of high grass and brambles on the left side of the well.
"I don't see . . ." But then he did. A gleam of rusty metal. Taking care to be scratched by the thorns as little as possible, Eddie reached into the tangle and, with a grunt of effort, pulled out a rusty bucket with a coil of dead ivy inside. There was even a handle.
"Let me see that," Susannah said.
He dumped out the ivy and handed it over. She tested the handle and it broke immediately, not with a snap but a soft, punky sigh. Susannah looked at him apologetically and shrugged.
"'S okay," Eddie said. "Better to know now than when it's down in the well." He tossed the handle aside, cut off a chunk of their rope, untwisted the outer strands to thin it, and threaded what was left through the holes that had held the old handle.
"Not bad," Susannah said. "You mighty handy for a white boy." She peered over the lip of the well. "I can see the water. Not even ten feet down. Ooo, it looks cold."
"Chimney sweeps can't be choosers," Eddie said.
The bucket splashed down, tilted, and began to fill. When it sank below the surface of the water, Eddie hauled it back up. It had sprung several leaks at spots where the rust had eaten through, but they were small ones. He took off his shirt, dipped it in the water, and began to wash her face.
"Oh my goodness!" he said. "I see a girl!"
She took the balled-up shirt, rinsed it, wrung it out, and began to do her arms. "At least I got the dang flue open. You can draw some more water once I get the worst of this mess cleaned off me, and when we get a fire going, I can wash in warm--"
Far to the northwest, they heard a low, thudding crump. There was a pause, then a second one. It was followed by several more, then a perfect fusillade. Coming in their direction like marching feet. Their startled eyes met.
Eddie, bare to the waist, went to the back of her wheelchair. "I think we better speed this up."
In the distance--but definitely moving closer--came sounds that could have been armies at war.
"I think you're right," Susannah said.
13
When they got back, they saw Roland and Jake running toward the meeting hall with armloads of decaying lumber and splintered chunks of wood. Still well across the river but definitely closer, came those low, crumping explosions as trees in the path of the starkblast yanked themselves inward toward their tender cores. Oy was in the middle of the overgrown high street, turning and turning.
Susannah tipped herself out of her wheelchair, landed neatly on her hands, and began crawling toward the meetinghouse.
"What the hell are you doing?" Eddie asked.
"You can carry more wood in the chair. Pile it high. I'll get Roland to give me his flint and steel, get a fire going."
"But--"
"Mind me, Eddie. Let me do what I can. And put your shirt back on. I know it's wet, but it'll keep you from getting scratched up."
He did so, then turned the chair, tilted it on its big back wheels, and pushed it toward the nearest likely source of fuel. As he passed Roland, he gave the gunslinger Susannah's message. Roland nodded and kept running, peering over his armload of wood.
The three of them went back and forth without speaking, gathering wood against the cold on this weirdly warm afternoon. The Path of the Beam in the sky was temporarily gone, because all the clouds were in motion, roiling away to the southeast. Susannah had gotten a fire going, and it roared beastily up the chimney. The big downstairs room had a huge jumble of wood in the center, some with rusty nails poking out. So far none of them had been cut or punctured, but Eddie thought it was just a matter of time. He tried to remember when he'd last had a tetanus shot and couldn't.
As for Roland, he thought, his blood would probably kill any germ the second it dared show its head inside of that leather bag he calls skin.
"What are you smiling about?" Jake asked. The words came out in little out-of-breath gasps. The arms of his shirt were filthy and covered with splinters; there was a long smutch of dirt on his forehead.
"Nothing much, little hero. Watch out for rusty nails. One more load each and we'd better call it good. It's close."
"Okay."
The thuds were on their side of the river now, and the air, although still warm, had taken on a queer thick quality. Eddie loaded up Susannah's wheelchair a final time and trundled it back toward the meetinghouse. Jake and Roland were ahead of him. He could feel heat baking out of the open door. It better get cold, he thought, or we're going to fucking roast in there.
Then, as he waited for the two ahead of him to turn sideways so they could get their loads of lumber inside, a thin and pervasive screaming joined the pops and thuds of contracting wood. It made the hair bristle on the nape of Eddie's neck. The wind coming toward them sounded alive, and in agony.
The air began to move again. First it was warm, then cool enough to dry the sweat on his face, then cold. This happened in a matter of seconds. The creepy screech of the wind was joined by a fluttering sound that made Eddie think of the plastic pennants you sometimes saw strung around used-car lots. It ramped up to a whir, and leaves began to blow off the trees, first in bundles and then in sheets. The branches thrashed against clouds that were lensing darker even as he looked at them, mouth agape.
"Oh, shit," he said, and ran the wheelchair straight at the door. For the first time in ten trips, it stuck. The planks he'd stacked across the chair's arms were too wide. With any other load, the ends would have snapped off with the same soft, almost apologetic sound the bucket handle had made, but not this time. Oh no, not now that the storm was almost here. Was nothing in Mid-World ever easy? He reached over the back of the chair to shove the longest boards aside, and that was when Jake shouted.
"Oy! Oy's still out there! Oy! To me!"
Oy took no notice. He had stopped his turning. Now he only sat with his snout raised toward the coming storm, his gold-ringed eyes fixed and dreamy.
14
Jake didn't think, and he didn't look for the nails that were protruding from Eddie's last load of lumber. He simply scrambled up the splintery pile and jumped. He struck Eddie, sending him staggering back. Eddie tried to keep his balance but tripped on his own feet and fell on his butt. Jake went to one knee, then scrambled up, eyes wide, long hair blowing back from his head in a tangle of licks and ringlets.
"Jake, no!"
Eddie grabbed for him and got nothing but the cuff of the kid's shirt. It had been thinned by many washings in many streams, and tore away.
Roland was in the doorway. He batted the too-long boards to the right and left, as heedless of the protruding nails as Jake had been. The gunslinger yanked the wheelchair through the doorway and grunted, "Get in here."
"Jake--"
"Jake will either be all right or he won't." Roland seized Eddie by the arm and hauled him to his feet. Their old bluejeans were making machine-gun noises around their legs as the wind whipped them. "He's on his own. Get in here."
"No! Fuck you!"
Roland didn't argue, simply yanked Eddie through the door. Eddie went sprawling. Susannah knelt in front of the fire, staring at him. Her face was streaming with sweat, and the front of her deerskin shirt was soaked.
Roland stood in the doorway, face grim, watching Jake run to his friend.
15
Jake felt the temperature of the air around him plummet. A branch broke off with a dry snap and he ducked as it whistled over his head. Oy never stirred until Jake snatched him up. Then the bumbler looked around wildly, baring his teeth.
"Bite if you have to," Jake said, "but I won't put you down."
Oy didn't bite and Jake might not have felt it if he had. His face was numb. He turned back toward the meetinghouse and the wind became a huge cold hand planted in the middle of his back. He began running again, aware that now he w
as doing so in absurd leaps, like an astronaut running on the surface of the moon in a science fiction movie. One leap . . . two . . . three . . .
But on the third one he didn't come down. He was blown straight forward with Oy cradled in his arms. There was a gutteral, garumphing explosion as one of the old houses gave in to the wind and went flying southeast in a hail of shrapnel. He saw a flight of stairs, the crude plank banister still attached, spinning up toward the racing clouds. We'll be next, he thought, and then a hand, minus two fingers but still strong, gripped him above the elbow.
Roland turned him toward the door. For a moment the issue was in doubt as the wind bullied them away from safety. Then Roland lunged forward into the doorway with his remaining fingers sinking deep into Jake's flesh. The pressure of the wind abruptly left them, and they both landed on their backs.
"Thank God!" Susannah cried.
"Thank him later!" Roland was shouting to be heard over the pervasive bellow of the gale. "Push! All of you push on this damned door! Susannah, you at the bottom! All your strength! You bar it, Jake! Do you understand me? Drop the bar into the clamps! Don't hesitate!"
"Don't worry about me," Jake snapped. Something had gashed him at one temple and a thin ribbon of blood ran down the side of his face, but his eyes were clear and sure.
"Now! Push! Push for your lives!"
The door swung slowly shut. They could not have held it for long--mere seconds--but they didn't have to. Jake dropped the thick wooden bar, and when they moved cautiously back, the rusty clamps held. They looked at each other, gasping for breath, then down at Oy. Who gave a single cheerful yap, and went to toast himself by the fire. The spell that the oncoming storm had cast on him seemed to be broken.
Away from the hearth, the big room was already growing cold.
"You should have let me grab the kid, Roland," Eddie said. "He could have been killed out there."
"Oy was Jake's responsibility. He should have gotten him inside sooner. Tied him to something, if he had to. Or don't you think so, Jake?"
"Yeah, I do." Jake sat down beside Oy, stroking the bumbler's thick fur with one hand and rubbing blood from his face with the other.
"Roland," Susannah said, "he's just a boy."
"No more," Roland said. "Cry your pardon, but . . . no more."
16
For the first two hours of the starkblast, they were in some doubt if even the stone meetinghouse would hold. The wind screamed and trees snapped. One slammed down on the roof and smashed it. Cold air jetted through the boards above them. Susannah and Eddie put their arms around each other. Jake shielded Oy--now lying placidly on his back with his stubby legs splayed to all points of the compass--and looked up at the swirling cloud of birdshit that had sifted through the cracks in the ceiling. Roland went on calmly laying out their little supper.
"What do you think, Roland?" Eddie asked.
"I think that if this building stands one more hour, we'll be fine. The cold will intensify, but the wind will drop a little when dark comes. It will drop still more come tomorrowlight, and by the day after tomorrow, the air will be still and much warmer. Not like it was before the coming of the storm, but that warmth was unnatural and we all knew it."
He regarded them with a half-smile. It looked strange on his face, which was usually so still and grave.
"In the meantime, we have a good fire--not enough to heat the whole room, but fine enough if we stay close to it. And a little time to rest. We've been through much, have we not?"
"Yeah," Jake said. "Too much."
"And more ahead, I have no doubt. Danger, hard work, sorrow. Death, mayhap. So now we sit by the fire, as in the old days, and take what comfort we can." He surveyed them, still with that little smile. The firelight cast him in strange profile, making him young on one side of his face and ancient on the other. "We are ka-tet. We are one from many. Be grateful for warmth, shelter, and companionship against the storm. Others may not be so lucky."
"We'll hope they are," Susannah said. She was thinking of Bix.
"Come," Roland said. "Eat."
They came, and settled themselves around their dinh, and ate what he had set out for them.
17
Susannah slept for an hour or two early that night, but her dreams--of nasty, maggoty foods she was somehow compelled to eat--woke her. Outside, the wind continued to howl, although its sound was not quite so steady now. Sometimes it seemed to drop away entirely, then rose again, uttering long, icy shrieks as it ran under the eaves in cold currents and made the stone building tremble in its old bones. The door thudded rhythmically against the bar holding it shut, but like the ceiling above them, both the bar and the rusty clamps seemed to be holding. She wondered what would have become of them if the wooden bar had been as punky and rotted as the handle of the bucket they'd found near the gook.
Roland was awake and sitting by the fire. Jake was with him. Between them, Oy was asleep with one paw over his snout. Susannah joined them. The fire had burned down a little, but this close it threw a comforting heat on her face and arms. She took a board, thought about snapping it in two, decided it might wake Eddie, and tossed it onto the fire as it was. Sparks gushed up the chimney, swirling as the draft caught them.
She could have spared the consideration, because while the sparks were still swirling, a hand caressed the back of her neck just below the hairline. She didn't have to look; she would have known that touch anywhere. Without turning, she took the hand, brought it to her mouth, and kissed the cup of the palm. The white palm. Even after all this time together and all the lovemaking, she could sometimes hardly believe that. Yet there it was.
At least I won't have to bring him home to meet my parents, she thought.
"Can't sleep, sugar?"
"A little. Not much. I had funny dreams."
"The wind brings them," Roland said. "Anyone in Gilead would tell you the same. But I love the sound of the wind. I always have. It soothes my heart and makes me think of old times."
He looked away, as if embarrassed to have said so much.
"None of us can sleep," Jake said. "So tell us a story."
Roland looked into the fire for a while, then at Jake. The gunslinger was once more smiling, but his eyes were distant. A knot popped in the fireplace. Outside the stone walls, the wind screamed as if furious at its inability to get in. Eddie put an arm around Susannah's waist and she laid her head on his shoulder.
"What story would you hear, Jake, son of Elmer?"
"Any." He paused. "About the old days."
Roland looked at Eddie and Susannah. "And you? Would you hear?"
"Yes, please," Susannah said.
Eddie nodded. "Yeah. If you want to, that is."
Roland considered. "Mayhap I'll tell you two, since it's long until dawn and we can sleep tomorrow away, if we like. These tales nest inside each other. Yet the wind blows through both, which is a good thing. There's nothing like stories on a windy night when folks have found a warm place in a cold world."
He took a broken piece of wood paneling, poked the glowing embers with it, then fed it to the flames. "One I know is a true story, for I lived it along with my old ka-mate, Jamie DeCurry. The other, 'The Wind Through the Keyhole,' is one my mother read to me when I was still sma'. Old stories can be useful, you know, and I should have thought of this one as soon as I saw Oy scenting the air as he did, but that was long ago." He sighed. "Gone days."
In the dark beyond the firelight, the wind rose to a howl. Roland waited for it to die a little, then began. Eddie, Susannah, and Jake listened, rapt, all through that long and contentious night. Lud, the Tick-Tock Man, Blaine the Mono, the Green Palace--all were forgotten. Even the Dark Tower itself was forgotten for a bit. There was only Roland's voice, rising and falling.
Rising and falling like the wind.
"Not long after the death of my mother, which as you know came by my own hand . . ."
THE SKIN-MAN
(Part 1)
Not lon
g after the death of my mother, which as you know came by my own hand, my father--Steven, son of Henry the Tall--summoned me to his study in the north wing of the palace. It was a small, cold room. I remember the wind whining around the slit windows. I remember the high, frowning shelves of books--worth a fortune, they were, but never read. Not by him, anyway. And I remember the black collar of mourning he wore. It was the same as my own. Every man in Gilead wore the same collar, or a band around his shirtsleeve. The women wore black nets on their hair. This would go on until Gabrielle Deschain was six months in her tomb.
I saluted him, fist to forehead. He didn't look up from the papers on his desk, but I knew he saw it. My father saw everything, and very well. I waited. He signed his name several times while the wind whistled and the rooks cawed in the courtyard. The fireplace was a dead socket. He rarely called for it to be lit, even on the coldest days.
At last he looked up.
"How is Cort, Roland? How goes it with your teacher that was? You must know, because I've been given to understand that you spend most of your time in his hut, feeding him and such."
"He has days when he knows me," I said. "Many days he doesn't. He still sees a little from one eye. The other . . ." I didn't need to finish. The other was gone. My hawk, David, had taken it from him in my test of manhood. Cort, in turn, had taken David's life, but that was to be his last kill.
"I know what happened to his other peep. Do you truly feed him?"
"Aye, Father, I do."
"Do you clean him when he messes?"
I stood there before his desk like a chastened schoolboy called before the master, and that is how I felt. Only how many chastened schoolboys have killed their own mothers?
"Answer me, Roland. I am your dinh as well as your father and I'd have you answer."
"Sometimes." Which was not really a lie. Sometimes I changed his dirty clouts three and four times a day, sometimes, on the good days, only once or not at all. He could get to the jakes if I helped him. And if he remembered he had to go.
"Does he not have the white ammies who come in?"