“I will,” he murmured.

“You will what?” Roland asked.

“Tell,” Eddie said. “If anything comes up that seems, you know, really important, I’ll tell you. Both of you. Right now there isn’t. So if we’re going somewhere, Shane, old buddy, let’s saddle up.”

“Shane? Who is this Shane?”

“I’ll tell you that some other time, too. Meantime, let’s go.”

They packed the gear they had brought with them from the old campsite and headed back, Susannah riding in her wheelchair again. Eddie had an idea she wouldn’t be riding in it for long.

21

ONCE, BEFORE EDDIE HAD become too interested in the subject of heroin to be interested in much else, he and a couple of friends had driven over to New Jersey to see a couple of speed-metal groups- Anthrax and Megadeth-in concert at the Meadowlands. He believed that Anthrax had been slightly louder than the repeating announcement coming from the fallen bear, but he wasn’t a hundred per cent sure. Roland stopped them while they were still half a mile from the clearing in the woods and tore six small scaps of cloth from his old shirt. They stuffed them in their ears and then went on. Even the cloth didn’t do much to deaden the steady blast of sound.

“THIS DEVICE IS SHUTTING DOWN!” the bear blared as they stepped into the clearing again. It lay as it had lain, at the foot of the tree Eddie had climbed, a fallen Colossus with its legs apart and its knees in the air, like a furry female giant who had died trying to give birth. “SHUTDOWN WILL BE COMPLETE IN FORTY-SEVEN MINUTES! THERE IS NO DANGER-”

Yes, there is, Eddie thought, picking up the scattered hides which had not been shredded in either the bear’s attack or its flailing death-throes. Plenty of danger. To my fucking ears. He picked up Roland’s gunbelt and silently handed it over. The chunk of wood he had been working on lay nearby; he grabbed it and tucked it into the pocket in the hack of Susannah’s wheelchair as the gunslinger slowly buckled the wide leather belt around his waist and cinched the rawhide tiedown.

“-IN SHUTDOWN PHASE, ONE SUBNUCLEAR CELL OPERATING AT ONE PER CENT CAPACITY. THESE CELLS-”

Susannah followed Eddie, holding in her lap a carry-all bag she had sewn herself. As Eddie handed her the hides, she stuffed them into the bag. When all of them were stored away, Roland tapped Eddie on the arm and handed him a shoulderpack. What it contained mostly was deer-meat, heavily salted from a natural lick Roland had found about three miles up the little creek. The gunslinger had already donned a similar pack. His purse-restocked and once again bulging with all sorts of odds and ends-hung from his other shoulder.

A strange, home-made harness with a seat of stitched deerskin dangled from a nearby branch. Roland plucked it off, studied it for a moment, and then draped it over his back and knotted the straps below his chest. Susannah made a sour face at diis, and Roland saw it. He did not try to speak-this close to the bear, he couldn’t have made himself heard even by shouting at the top of his voice-but he shrugged sympathetically and spread his hands: You know well need it.

She shrugged back. / know… but that doesn’t mean I like it.

The gunslinger pointed across the clearing. A pair of leaning, splintered spruce trees marked the place where Shardik, who had once been known as Mir in these parts, had entered the clearing.

Eddie leaned toward Susannah, made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, then raised his eyebrows interrogatively. Okay?

She nodded, then pressed the heels of her palms against her ears. Okay-but let’s get out of here before I go deaf.

The three of them moved across the clearing, Eddie pushing Susannah, who held the bag of hides in her lap. The pocket in the back of her wheelchair was stuffed with other items; die piece of wood with the slingshot still mostly hidden inside it was only one of them.

From behind them the bear continued to roar out its final communication to the world, telling them shutdown would be complete in forty minutes. Eddie couldn’t wait. The broken spruces leaned in toward each other, forming a rude gate, and Eddie thought: This is where the quest for Roland’s Dark Tower really begins, at least for us.

He thought of his dream again-the spiraling windows issuing their unfurling flags of darkness, flags which spread over the field of roses like a stain-and as they passed beneath the leaning trees, a deep shudder gripped him.

22

THEY WERE ABLE TO use the wheelchair longer than Roland had expected. The firs of this forest were very old, and their spreading branches had created a deep carpet of needles which discouraged most undergrowth. Susannah’s arms were strong-stronger than Eddie’s, although Roland did not think that would be true much longer-and she wheeled herself along easily over the level, shady forest floor. When they came to one of the trees the bear had pushed over, Roland lifted her out of the chair and Eddie boosted it over the obstacle.

From behind them, only a little deadened by distance, the bear told them, at the top of its mechanical voice, that the capacity of its last operating nuclear subcell was now negligible.

“I hope you keep that damn harness lying empty over your shoulders all day!” Susannah shouted at the gunslinger.

Roland agreed, but less than fifteen minutes later the land began to slope downward and this old section of the forest began to be invaded with smaller, younger trees: birch, alder, and a few stunted maples scrabbling grimly in the soil for purchase. The carpet of needles thinned and the wheels of Susannah’s chair began to catch in the low, tough bushes which grew in the alleys between the trees. Their thin branches boinged and rattled in the stainless steel spokes. Eddie threw his weight against the handles and they were able to go on for another quarter of a mile that way. Then the slope began to grow more steep, and the ground underfoot became mushy.

“Time for a pig-back, lady,” Roland said.

“Let’s try the chair a little longer, what do you say? Going might get easier-”

Roland shook his head. “If you try that hill, you’ll… what did you call it, Eddie?… do a dugout?”

Eddie shook his head, grinning. “It’s called doing a doughnut, Roland. A term from my misspent sidewalk-surfing days.”

“Whatever you call it, it means landing on your head. Come on, Susannah. Up you come.”

“I hate being a cripple,” Susannah said crossly, but allowed Eddie to hoist her out of the chair and worked with him to seat herself firmly in the harness Roland wore on his back. Once she was in place, she touched the butt of Roland’s pistol. “Y’all want this baby?” she asked Eddie.

He shook his head. “You’re faster. And you know it, too.”

She grunted and adjusted the belt, settling the gunbutt so it was easily accessible to her right hand. “I’m slowing you boys down and I know that… but if we ever make it to some good old two-lane blacktop, I’ll leave the both of you kneelin in the blocks.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Roland said… and then cocked his head. The woods had fallen silent.

“Br’er Bear has finally given up,” Susannah said. “Praise God.”

“I thought it still had seven minutes to go,” Eddie said.

Roland adjusted the straps of the harness. “Its clock must have started running a little slow during the last five or six hundred years.”

“You really think it was that old, Roland?”

Roland nodded. “At least. And now it’s passed… the last of the Twelve Guardians, for all we know.”

“Yeah, ask me if I give a shit,” Eddie replied, and Susannah laughed.

“Are you comfortable?” Roland asked her.

“No. My butt hurts already, but go on. Just try not to drop me.”

Roland nodded and started down the slope. Eddie followed, pushing the empty chair and trying not to bang it too badly on the rocks which had begun to jut out of the ground like big white knuckles. Now that the bear had finally shut up, he thought the forest seemed much too quiet-it almost made him feel like a character in one of those hokey old jungle movies about cannibals and giant apes.