10

As SOON AS HE stepped onto the walkway, fear filled up Eddie’s hollow places like cold water and he began to wonder if he hadn’t made a very dangerous mistake. From solid ground, the bridge seemed to be swaying only a little, but once he was actually on it, he felt as if he were standing on the pendulum of the world’s biggest grandfather clock. The movement was very slow, but it was regular, and the length of the swings was much longer than he had anticipated. The walkway’s surface was badly cracked and canted at least ten degrees to the left. His feet gritted in loose piles of powdery concrete, and the low squealing sound of the box-segments grinding together was constant. Beyond the bridge, the city skyline tilted slowly back and forth like the artificial horizon of the world’s slowest-moving video game.

Overhead, the wind hummed constantly in the taut hangers. Below, the ground fell away sharply to the muddy northwest bank of the river. He was thirty feet up… then sixty… then a hundred and ten. Soon he would be over the water. The wheelchair banged against his left leg with every step.

Something furry brushed between his feet and he clutched madly for the rusty handrail with his right hand, barely holding in a scream. Oy went trotting past him with a brief upward glance, as if to say Excuse me-just passing.

“Fucking dumb animal,” Eddie said through gritted teeth.

He discovered that, although he didn’t like looking down, he had an even greater aversion to looking at the hangers which were still managing to hold the deck and the overhead cables together. They were sleeved with rust and Eddie could see snarls of metal thread poking out of most-these snarls looked like metallic puffs of cotton. He knew from his Uncle Reg, who had worked on both the George Washington and Triborough bridges as a painter, that the hangers and overhead cables were “spun” from thousands of steel threads. On this bridge, the spin was finally letting go. The hangers were quite literally becoming unravelled, and as they did, the threads were snapping, one interwoven strand at a time.

It’s held this long, it’ll hold a little longer. You think this thing’s going to fall into the river just because you’re crossing it? Don’t flatter yourself.

He wasn’t comforted, however. For all Eddie knew, they might be the first people to attempt the crossing in decades. And the bridge, after all, would have to collapse sometime, and from the look of things, it was going to be soon. Their combined weight might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

His moccasin struck a chunk of concrete and Eddie watched, sickened but helpless to look away, as the chunk fell down and down and down, turning over as it went. There was a small-very small-splash when it hit the river. The freshening wind gusted and stuck his shirt against his sweaty skin. The bridge groaned and swayed. Eddie tried to remove his hands from the side-rail, but they seemed frozen to the pitted metal in a deathgrip.

He closed his eyes for a moment. You’re not going to freeze. You’re not. I… I forbid it. If you need something to look at, make it long tall and ugly. Eddie opened his eyes again, fixed them on the gunslinger, forced his hands to open, and began to move forward again.

11

ROLAND REACHED THE GAP and looked back. Jake was five feet behind him. Oy was at his heels. The bumbler was crouched down with his neck stretched forward. The wind was much stronger over the river-cut, and Roland could see it rippling Oy’s silky fur. Eddie was about twenty-five feet behind Jake. His face was tightly drawn, but he was still shuffling grimly along with Susannah’s collapsed wheelchair in his left hand. His right was clutching the rail like grim death.

“Susannah?”

“Yes,” she responded at once. “Fine.”

“Jake?”

Jake looked up. He was still grinning, and the gunslinger saw there was going to be no problem there. The boy was having the time of his life. His hair blew back from his finely made brow in waves, and his eyes sparkled. He jerked one thumb up. Roland smiled and returned the gesture.

“Eddie?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Eddie appeared to be looking at Roland, but the gunslinger decided he was really looking past him, at the windowless brick buildings which crowded the riverbank at the far end of the bridge. That was all right; given his obvious fear of heights, it was probably the best thing he could do to keep his head.

“All right, I won’t,” Roland murmured. “We’re going to cross the hole now, Susannah. Sit easy. No quick movements. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“If you want to adjust your position, do it now.”

“I’m fine, Roland,” she said calmly. “I just hope Eddie will be all right.”

“Eddie’s a gunslinger now. He’ll behave like one.”

Roland turned to the right, so he was facing directly downriver, and grasped the handrail. Then he began to edge out across the hole, shuffling his boots along the rusty cable.

12

JAKE WAITED UNTIL ROLAND and Susannah were part of the way across the gap and then started himself. The wind gusted and the bridge swayed back and forth, but he felt no alarm at all. He was, in fact, totally buzzed. Unlike Eddie, he’d never had any fear of heights; he liked being up here where he could see the river spread out like a steel ribbon under a sky which was beginning to cloud over.

Halfway across the hole in the bridge (Roland and Susannah had reached the place where the uneven walkway resumed and were watching the others), Jake looked back and his heart sank. They had forgotten one member of the party when they were discussing how to cross. Oy was crouched, frozen and clearly terrified, on the far side of the hole in the walkway. He was sniffing at the place where the concrete ended and the rusty, curved support took over.

“Come on, Oy!” Jake called.

“Oy!” the bumbler called back, and the tremble in his hoarse voice was almost human. He stretched his long neck forward toward Jake but didn’t move. His gold-ringed eyes were huge and dismayed.

Another gust of wind struck the bridge, making it sway and squall. Something twanged beside Jake’s head-the sound of a guitar string which has been tightened until it snaps. A steel thread had popped out of the nearest vertical hanger, almost scratching his cheek. Ten feet away, Oy crouched miserably with his eyes fixed on Jake.

“Come on!” Roland shouted. “Wind’s freshening! Come on, Jake!”

“Not without Oy!”

Jake began to shuffle back the way he had come. Before he had gone more than two steps, Oy stepped gingerly onto the support rod. The claws at the ends of his stiffly braced legs scratched at the rounded metal surface. Eddie stood behind the bumbler now, feeling helpless and scared to death.

“That’s it, Oy!” Jake encouraged. “Come to me!”

“Oy-Oy! Ake-Ake!” the bumbler cried, and trotted rapidly along the rod. He had almost reached Jake when the traitorous wind gusted again. The bridge swung. Oy’s claws scratched madly at the support rod for purchase, but there was none. His hindquarters slued off the edge and into space. He tried to cling with his forepaws, but there was nothing to cling to. His rear legs ran wildly in midair.

Jake let go of the rail and dived for him, aware of nothing but Oy’s gold-ringed eyes.

“No, Jake!” Roland and Eddie bellowed together, each from his own side of the gap, each too far away to do anything but watch.

Jake hit the cable on his chest and belly. His pack bounced against his shoulderblades and he heard his teeth click together in his head with the sound of a cueball breaking a tight rack. The wind gusted again. He went with it, looping his right hand around the support rod and reaching for Oy with his left as he swayed out into space. The bumbler began to fall, and clamped his jaws on Jake’s reaching hand as he did. The pain was immediate and excruciating. Jake screamed but held on, head down, right arm clasping the rod, knees pressing hard against its wretchedly smooth surface. Oy dangled from his left hand like a circus acrobat, staring up with his gold-ringed eyes, and Jake could now see his own blood flowing along the sides of the bumbler’s head in thin streams.