“Leave ‘at alone!” he shouts at Bulletas his minivan drifts first toward the righthand shoulder and then onto it.“Din’ you hear me, Bullet? Are you foolish? Leave ‘at alone!” Heactually succeeds in shoving the dog’s head up for a moment, but there’s no furfor his fingers to grasp and Bullet, while no genius, is smart enough to knowhe has at least one more chance to grab the stuff in the white paper, the stuffradiating that entrancing red smell. He dips beneath Bryan’s hand and seizesthe wrapped package of hamburger in his jaws.

“Drop it!” Bryan screams. “You dropit right… NOW!”

In order to gain the purchase necessaryto twist further in the driver’s bucket, he presses down firmly with both feet.One of them, unfortunately, is on the accelerator. The van puts on a burst ofspeed as it rushes toward the top of the hill. At this moment, in hisexcitement and outrage, Bryan has completely forgotten where he is (Route 7)and what he’s supposed to be doing (driving a van). All he cares about isgetting the package of meat out of Bullet’s jaws.

“Gimme it!” he shouts, tugging. Tailwagging more furiously than ever (to him it’s now a game as well as a meal),Bullet tugs back. There’s the sound of ripping butcher’s paper. The van is nowall the way off the road. Beyond it is a grove of old pines lit by lovelyafternoon light: a haze of green and gold. Bryan thinks only of the meat. He’snot going to eat hamburg with dog-drool on it, and you best believe it.

“Gimme it!” he says, not seeing the manin the path of his van, not seeing the truck that has now pulled up just behindthe man, not seeing the truck’s passenger door open or the lanky cowboy-type wholeaps out, a revolver with big yellow grips spilling from the holster on hiship and onto the ground as he does; Bryan Smith’s world has narrowed to onevery bad dog and one package of meat. In the struggle for the meat, blood-rosesare blooming on the butcher’s paper like tattoos.

Nineteen

“There he is!” the boy named Jake shouted,but Irene Tassenbaum didn’t need him to tell her. Stephen King was wearingjeans, a chambray workshirt, and a baseball cap. He was well beyond the placewhere the road to Warrington’s intersected with Route 7, about a quarter of theway up the slope.

She punched the clutch, downshifted toSecond like a NASCAR driver with the checkered flag in view, then turned hardleft, hauling on the wheel with both hands. Chip McAvoy’s pickup truck teeteredbut did not roll. She saw the twinkle of sun on metal as a vehicle coming theother way reached the top of the hill King was climbing. She heard the mansitting by the door shout, “Pull in behind him!”

She did as he told her, even though shecould now see that the oncoming vehicle was off the road and thus apt tobroadside them. Not to mention crushing Stephen King in a metal sandwichbetween them.

The door popped open and the one namedRoland half-rolled, half-jumped out of the truck.

After that, things happened very, veryfast.

Chapter II:

Ves’-Ka Gan

One

What happened was lethally simple: Roland’sbad hip betrayed him. He went to his knees with a cry of mingled rage, pain,and dismay. Then the sunlight was blotted out as Jake leaped over him withoutso much as breaking stride. Oy was barking crazily from the cab of the truck: “Ake-Ake!Ake-Ake!”

“Jake, no!” Roland shouted. He sawit all with a terrible clarity. The boy seized the writer around the waist asthe blue vehicle—neither a truck nor a car but seemingly a cross betweenthe two—bore down upon them in a roar of dissonant music. Jake turnedKing to the left, shielding him with his body, and so it was Jake the vehiclestruck. Behind the gunslinger, who was now on his knees with his bleeding handsburied in the dirt, the woman from the store screamed.

“JAKE, NO!” Roland bellowed again,but it was too late. The boy he thought of as his son disappeared beneath theblue vehicle. The gunslinger saw one small upraised hand—would neverforget it—and then that was gone, too. King, struck first by Jake andthen by the weight of the van behind Jake, was thrown to the edge of the littlegrove of trees, ten feet from the point of impact. He landed on his right side,hitting his head on a stone hard enough to send the cap flying from his head.Then he rolled over, perhaps intending to try for his feet. Or perhapsintending nothing at all; his eyes were shocked zeroes.

The driver hauled on his vehicle’s steeringwheel and it slipped past on Roland’s left, missing him by inches, merelythrowing dust into his face instead of running him down. By then it wasslowing, the driver perhaps applying the machine’s brake now that it was toolate. The side squalled across the hood of the pickup truck, slowing the vanfurther, but it was not done doing damage even so. Before coming to a completestop it struck King again, this time as he lay on the ground. Roland heard thesnap of a breaking bone. It was followed by the writer’s cry of pain. And nowRoland knew for sure about the pain in his own hip, didn’t he? It had neverbeen dry twist at all.

He scrambled to his feet, only peripherallyaware that his pain was entirely gone. He looked at Stephen King’s unnaturallytwisted body beneath the left front wheel of the blue vehicle and thought Good!with unthinking savagery. Good! If someone has to die here, let it be you!To hell with Gan’s navel, to hell with the stories that come out of it, to hellwith the Tower, let it be you and not my boy!

The bumbler raced past Roland to where Jakelay on his back at the rear of the van with blue exhaust blowing into his openeyes. Oy did not hesitate; he seized the Oriza pouch that was still slung overJake’s shoulder and used it to pull the boy away from the van, doing it inch byinch, his short strong legs digging up puffs of dust. Blood was pouring fromJake’s ears and the corners of his mouth. The heels of his shor’boots left adouble line of tracks in the dirt and crisp brown pine needles.

Roland staggered to Jake and fell on hisknees beside him. His first thought was that Jake was all right after all. Theboy’s limbs were straight, thank all the gods, and the mark running across thebridge of his nose and down one beardless cheek was oil flecked with rust, notblood as Roland had first assumed. There was blood coming out of hisears, yes, and his mouth, too, but the latter stream might only be flowing froma cut in the lining of his cheek, or—

“Go and see to the writer,” Jake said. Hisvoice was calm, not at all constricted by pain. They might have been sittingaround a little cookfire after a day on the trail, waiting for what Eddie likedto call vittles… or, if he happened to be feeling particularly humorous (as heoften was), “wittles.”

“The writer can wait,” Roland said curtly,thinking: I’ve been given a miracle. One made by the combination of a boy’syielding, not-quite-finished body, and the soft earth that gave beneath himwhen that bastard’s truckomobile ran over him.

“No,” Jake said. “He can’t.” And when hemoved, trying to sit up, his shirt pulled a little tighter against the top halfof his body and Roland saw the dreadful concavity of the boy’s chest. Moreblood poured from Jake’s mouth, and when he tried to speak again he began tocough, instead. Roland’s heart seemed to twist like a rag inside his chest, andthere was a moment to wonder how it could possibly go on beating in the face ofthis.

Oy voiced a moaning cry, Jake’s nameexpressed in a half-howl that made Roland’s arms burst out in gooseflesh.

“Don’t try to talk,” Roland said.“Something may be sprung inside of you. A rib, mayhap two.”