“Maybe we should just pass it by,” shesaid, aware that she had dropped her voice to a near-whisper, even though theywere still on the high snowbank created by the plow. “Give it a miss and saythank ya.” She gestured to the sign reading TOWER ROAD. “We’ve got aclear way, Roland—maybe we ought to take it.”

“And if we should, do you think thatMordred will?” Roland asked. “Do you think he’ll simply pass by and leavewhoever lives there in peace?”

Here was a question that hadn’t evenoccurred to her, and of course the answer was no. If Mordred decided he couldkill whoever was in the cottage, he’d do it. For food if the inhabitants wereedible, but food would only be a secondary consideration. The woods behind themhad been teeming with game, and even if Mordred hadn’t been able to catch hisown supper (and in his spider form, Susannah was sure he would have been perfectlycapable of doing that), they had left the remains of their own meals at a goodmany camps. No, he would come out of the snowy uplands fed… but not happy. Nothappy at all. And so woe to whoever happened to be in his path.

On the other hand, she thought… onlythere was no other hand, and all at once it was too late, anyway. Thefront door of the cottage opened, and an old man came out onto the stoop. Hewas wearing boots, jeans, and a heavy parka with a fur-lined hood. To Susannahthis latter garment looked like something that might have been purchased at theArmy-Navy Surplus Store in Greenwich Village.

The old man was rosy-cheeked, the pictureof wintry good health, but he limped heavily, depending on the stout stick inhis left hand. From behind his quaint little cottage with its fairy-tale plumeof smoke came the piercing whinny of a horse.

“Sure, Lippy, I see em!” the old man cried,turning in that direction. “I got a’least one good eye left, ain’t I?” Then heturned back to where Roland stood on the snowbank with Susannah and Oy flankinghim. He raised his stick in a salute that seemed both merry and unafraid.Roland raised his own hand in return.

“Looks like we’re in for some palaverwhether we want it or not,” said Roland.

“I know,” she replied. Then, to thebumbler: “Oy, mind your manners now, you hear?”

Oy looked at her and then back at the oldman without making a sound. On the subject of minding his manners he’d keep hisown counsel awhile, it seemed.

The old man’s bad leg was clearly verybad—“Next door to nuthin,” Daddy Mose Carver would have said—but hegot on well enough with his stick, moving in a sideways hopping gait thatSusannah found both amusing and admirable. “Spry as a cricket” was another ofDaddy Mose’s many sayings, and perhaps this one fit yonder old man better.Certainly she saw no harm or danger in a white-haired fellow (the hair was longand baby-fine, hanging to the shoulders of his anorak) who had to hop along ona stick. And, as he drew closer, she saw that one of his eyes was filmed whitewith a cataract. The pupil, which was faintly visible, seemed to look dully offto their left. The other, however, regarded the newcomers with lively interestas the inhabitant of the cottage hopped down Odd’s Lane toward them.

The horse whinnied again and the old manwaved his stick wildly against the white, low-lying sky. “Shut up ya haybox, yaturd-factory, y’old clap-cunt gammer-gurt, ain’t you ever seen cump’ny before?Was ya born in a barn, hee-hee? (For if y’wasn’t, I’m a blue-eyed baboon, whichthere ain’t no such thing!)”

Roland snorted with genuine laughter, andthe last of Susannah’s watchful apprehension departed. The horse whinnied againfrom the outbuilding behind the cottage—it was nowhere near grand enoughto be called a barn—and the old man waved his stick at it once more,almost falling to the snowpack in the process. His awkward but nonethelessrapid gait had now brought him halfway to their location. He saved himself fromwhat would have been a nasty tumble, took a large sidle-hop using the stick fora prop, then waved it cheerily in their direction.

“Hile, gunslingers!” the old man shouted.His lungs, at least, were admirable. “Gunslingers on pilgrimage to the DarkTower, so y’are, so ya must be, for don’t I see the big irons with the yallergrips? And the Beam be back, fair and strong, for I feel it and Lippy do, too!Spry as a colt she’s been ever since Christmas, or what I call Christmas, nothaving a calendar nor seen Sainty Claus, which I wouldn’t expect, for have Ibeen a good boy? Never! Never! Good boys go to heaven, and all my friends be int’other place, toastin marshmallows and drinkin Nozzy spiked with whiskey inthe devil’s den! Arrr, ne’mine, my tongue’s caught in the middle and runs onboth ends! Hile to one, hile to t’other, and hile to the little furry gobbinsin between! Billy-bumbler as I live and breathe! Yow, ain’t it good tosee ya! Joe Collins is my name, Joe Collins of Odd’s Lane, plenty odd m’self,one-eyed and lame I am, but otherwise at your service!”

He had now reached the snowbank marking thespot where Tower Road ended… or where it began, depending on your point of viewand the direction you were traveling, Susannah supposed. He looked up at them,one eye bright as a bird’s, the other looking off into the white wastes withdull fascination.

“Long days and pleasant nights, yar, so sayI, and anyone who’d say different, they ain’t here anyway, so who gives a goodgoddam what they say?” From his pocket he took what could only be a gumdrop andtossed it up. Oy grabbed it out of the air easily: Snap! and gone.

At this both Roland and Susannahlaughed. It felt strange to laugh, but it was a good feeling, like findingsomething of value long after you were sure it was lost forever. Even Oyappeared to be grinning, and if the horse bothered him (it trumpeted again asthey looked down on sai Collins from their snowbank perch), it didn’t show.

“I got a million questions for yer,”Collins said, “but I’ll start with just one: how in the hell are yers gonna getdown offa that snowbank?”

Four

As it turned out, Susannah slid down, usingtheir travois as a sled. She chose the place where the northwestern end ofOdd’s Lane disappeared beneath the snow, because the embankment was a littleshallower there. Her trip was short but not smooth. She hit a large and crustedsnow-boulder three quarters of the way down, fell off the travois, and made therest of her descent in a pair of gaudy somersaults, laughing wildly as shefell. The travois turned over—turned turtle, may it do ya—andspilled their gunna every whichway and hell to breakfast.

Roland and Oy came leaping down behind.Roland bent over her at once, clearly concerned, and Oy sniffed anxiously ather face, but Susannah was still laughing. So was the codger. Daddy Mose wouldhave called his laughter “gay as old Dad’s hatband.”

“I’m fine, Roland—took worse tumblesoff my Flexible Flyer when I was a kid, tell ya true.”

“All’s well that ends well,” Joe Collinsagreed. He gave her a look with his good eye to make sure she was indeed allright, then began to pick up some of the scattered goods, leaning laboriouslyover on his stick, his fine white hair blowing around his rosy face.

“Nah, nah,” Roland said, reaching out tograsp his arm. “I’ll do that, thee’ll fall on thy thiddles.”

At this the old man roared with laughter,and Roland joined him willingly enough. From behind the cottage, the horse gaveanother loud whinny, as if protesting all this good humor.

“ ‘Fall on thy thiddles’! Man, that’s agood one! I don’t have the veriest clue under heaven what my thiddles are, yetit’s a good one! Ain’t it just!” He brushed the snow off Susannah’s hide coatwhile Roland quickly picked up the spilled goods and stacked them back on theirmakeshift sled. Oy helped, bringing several wrapped packages of meat in hisjaws and dropping them on the back of the travois.