“That’s a smart little beastie!” JoeCollins said admiringly.
“He’s been a good trailmate,” Susannahagreed. She was now very glad they had stopped; would not have deprived herselfof this good-natured old man’s acquaintance for worlds. She offered him herclumsily clad right hand. “I’m Susannah Dean—Susannah of New York.Daughter of Dan.”
He took her hand and shook it. His own handwas ungloved, and although the fingers were gnarled with arthritis, his gripwas strong. “New York, is it! Why, I once hailed from there, myself. AlsoAkron, Omaha, and San Francisco. Son of Henry and Flora, if it matters to you.”
“You’re from America-side?” Susannah asked.
“Oh God yes, but long ago and long,” hesaid. “What’chee might call delah.” His good eye sparkled; his bad eye went onregarding the snowy wastes with that same dead lack of interest. He turned toRoland. “And who might you be, my friend? For I’ll call you my friend same as Iwould anyone, unless they prove different, in which case I’d belt em withBessie, which is what I call my stick.”
Roland was grinning. Was helpless not to,Susannah thought. “Roland Deschain, of Gilead. Son of Steven.”
“Gilead! Gilead!” Collins’s good eyewent round with amazement. “There’s a name out of the past, ain’t it? One forthe books! Holy Pete, you must be older’n God!”
“Some would say so,” Roland agreed, nowonly smiling… but warmly.
“And the little fella?” he asked, bendingforward. From his pocket, Collins produced two more gumdrops, one red and onegreen. Christmas colors, and Susannah felt a faint touch of déjàvu. It brushed her mind like a wing and then was gone. “What’s your name,little fella? What do they holler when they want you to come home?”
“He doesn’t—”
—talk anymore, although he didonce was how Susannah meant to finish, but before she could, the bumblersaid: “Oy!” And he said it as brightly and firmly as ever in his time withJake.
“Good fella!” Collins said, and tumbled thegumdrops into Oy’s mouth. Then he reached out with that same gnarled hand, andOy raised his paw to meet it. They shook, well-met near the intersection ofOdd’s Lane and Tower Road.
“I’ll be damned,” Roland said mildly.
“So won’t we all in the end, I reckon, Beamor no Beam,” Joe Collins remarked, letting go of Oy’s paw. “But not today. Nowwhat I say is that we ort to get in where it’s warm and we can palaver over acup of coffee—for I have some, so I do—or a pot of ale. I even havesumpin I call eggnog, if it does ya. It does me pretty fine, especially with ateensy piss o’ rum in it, but who knows? I ain’t really tasted nuffinkin five years or more. Air outta the Discordia’s done for my taste-buds and formy nose, too. Anyro’, what do you say?” He regarded them brightly.
“I’d say that sounds pretty damned fine,”Susannah told him. Rarely had she said anything she meant more.
He slapped her companionably on theshoulder. “A good woman is a pearl beyond price! Don’t know if that’sShakespeare, the Bible, or a combination of the t—
“Arrr, Lippy, goddam what used to be yereyes, where do you think you’re going? Did yer want to meet these folks,was that it?”
His voice had fallen into the outrageouscroon that seems the exclusive property of people who live alone except for apet or two. His horse had blundered its way to them and Collins grabbed heraround the neck, petting her with rough affection, but Susannah thought thebeast was the ugliest quadruped she’d seen in her whole life. Some of her goodcheer melted away at the sight of the thing. Lippy was blind—not in oneeye but in both—and scrawny as a scarecrow. As she walked, the rack ofher bones shifted back and forth so clearly beneath her mangy coat thatSusannah almost expected some of them to poke through. For a moment sheremembered the black corridor under Castle Discordia with a kind of nightmarishtotal recall: the slithering sound of the thing that had followed them, and thebones. All those bones.
Collins might have seen some of this on herface, for when he spoke again he sounded almost defensive. “Her an ugly oldthing, I know, but when you get as old as she is, I don’t reckon you’ll bewinnin many beauty contests yourself!” He patted the horse’s chafed andsore-looking neck, then seized her scant mane as if to pull the hair out by theroots (although Lippy showed no pain) and turned her in the road so she wasfacing the cottage again. As he did this, the first flakes of the coming stormskirled down.
“Come on, Lippy, y’old ki’-box andgammer-gurt, ye sway-back nag and lost four-legged leper! Can’t ye smell thesnow in the air? Because I can, and my nose went south years ago!”
He turned back to Roland and Susannah andsaid, “I hope y’prove partial to my cookin, so I do, because I think this isgonna be a three-day blow. Aye, three at least before Demon Moon shows er faceagain! But we’re well-met, so we are, and I set my watch and warrant on it! Yejust don’t want to judge my hospitality by my horse-pitality! Hee!”
I should hope not, Susannah thought,and gave a little shiver. The old man had turned away, but Roland gave her acurious look. She smiled and shook her head as if to say It’s nothing—which,of course, it was. She wasn’t about to tell the gunslinger that a spavined nagwith cataracts on her eyes and her ribs showing had given her a case of thewhim-whams. Roland had never called her a silly goose, and by God she didn’tmean to give him cause to do so n—
As if hearing her thoughts, the old naglooked back and bared her few remaining teeth at Susannah. The eyes in Lippy’sbony wedge of a head were pus-rimmed plugs of blindness above her somehowgruesome grin. She whinnied at Susannah as if to say Think what you will,blackbird; I’ll be here long after thee’s gone thy course and died thy death.At the same time the wind gusted, swirling snow in their faces, soughing in thesnow-laden firs, and hooting beneath the eaves of Collins’s little house. Itbegan to die away and then strengthened again for a moment, making a brief,grieving cry that sounded almost human.
Five
The outbuilding consisted of a chicken-coopon one side, Lippy’s stall on the other, and a little loft stuffed with hay. “Ican get up there and fork it down,” Collins said, “but I take my life in myhands ever time I do, thanks to this bust hip of mine. Now, I can’t make youhelp an old man, sai Deschain, but if you would…?”
Roland climbed the ladder resting a-tiltagainst the edge of the loft floor and tossed down hay until Collins told himit was good, plenty enough to last Lippy through even four days’ worth of blow.(“For she don’t eat worth what’chee might call a Polish fuck, as you can seelookin at her,” he said.) Then the gunslinger came back down and Collins ledthem along the short back walk to his cottage. The snow piled on either sidewas as high as Roland’s head.
“Be it ever so humble, et cet’ra,” Joesaid, and ushered them into his kitchen. It was paneled in knotty pine whichwas actually plastic, Susannah saw when she got closer. And it was delightfullywarm. The name on the electric stove was Rossco, a brand she’d never heard of.The fridge was an Amana and had a special little door set into the front, abovethe handle. She leaned closer and saw the words MAGIC ICE. “This thing makesice cubes?” she asked, delighted.
“Well, no, not exactly,” Joe said. “It’sthe freezer that makes em, beauty; that thing on the front just drops eminto your drink.”
This struck her funny, and she laughed. Shelooked down, saw Oy looking up at her with his old fiendish grin, and that madeher laugh harder than ever. Mod cons aside, the smell of the kitchen waswonderfully nostalgic: sugar and spice and everything nice.
Roland was looking up at the fluorescentlights and Collins nodded. “Yar, yar, I got all the ‘lectric,” he said.“Hot-air furnace, too, ain’t it nice? And nobody ever sends me a bill! Thegenny’s in a shed round to t’other side. It’s a Honda, and quiet as Sundaymorning! Even when you get right up on top of its little shed, you don’t hearnuffink but mmmmmm. Stuttering Bill changes the propane tank and doesthe maintenance when it needs maintaining, which hasn’t been but twice in allthe time I’ve been here. Nawp, Joey’s lyin, he’ll soon be dyin. Three times,it’s been. Three in all.”