Eleven

The plow pulled up in front of Dandelo’shut, and although the engine continued to run, the music cut off. Down from thedriver’s seat there galumphed a tall (eight feet at the very least),shiny-headed robot who looked quite a lot like Nigel from the Arc 16Experimental Station and Andy from Calla Bryn Sturgis. He cocked his metal armsand put his metal hands on his hips in a way that would likely have remindedEddie of George Lucas’s C3P0, had Eddie been there. The robot spoke in anamplified voice that rolled away across the snowfields:

“HELLO, J-JOE! WHAT DO YOU NUH-NUH-KNOW?HOW ARE TRICKS IN KUH-KUH-KOKOMO?”

Roland stepped out of the late Lippy’squarters. “Hile, Bill,” he said mildly. “Long days and pleasant nights.”

The robot turned. His eyes flashed brightblue. That looked like surprise to Susannah. He showed no alarm that she couldsee, however, and didn’t appear to be armed, but she had already marked theantenna rising from the center of his head—twirling and twirling in thebright morning light—and she felt confident she could clip it with anOriza if she needed to. Easy-peasy-Japaneezy, Eddie would have said.

“Ah!” said the robot. “A gudda-gah,gunna-gah, g-g-g—” He raised an arm that had not oneelbow-joint

but two and smacked his head with it. Frominside came a little whistling noise—Wheeep!—and then hefinished: “A gunslinger!”

Susannah laughed. She couldn’t help it.They had come all this way to meet an oversized electronic version of PorkyPig. T’beya-t’beya-t’beya, that’s all, folks!

“I had heard rumors of such on the l-l-l-land,”the robot said, ignoring her laughter. “Are you Ruh-Ruh-Roland of G-Gilead?”

“So I am,” Roland said. “And you?”

“William, D-746541-M, Maintenance Robot,Many Other Functions. Joe Collins calls me Stuh-huttering B-Bill. I’ve got af-f-fried sir-hirkit somewhere inside. I could fix it, but he fuh-fuh-forbademe. And since he’s the only h-human around… or was…” He stopped. Susannah couldquite clearly hear the clitter-clack of relays somewhere inside and what shethought of wasn’t C3P0, who she’d of course never seen, but Robby the Robotfrom Forbidden Planet.

Then Stuttering Bill quite touched herheart by putting one metal hand to his forehead and bowing… but not to eitherher or to Roland. He said, “Hile, Patrick D-Danville, son of S-S-Sonia! It’sgood to see you out and in the c-c-clear, so it is!” And Susannah could hearthe emotion in Stuttering Bill’s voice. It was genuine gladness, and she feltmore than okay about lowering her plate.

Twelve

They palavered in the yard. Bill would havebeen quite willing to go into the hut, for he had but rudimentary olfactoryequipment. The humes were better equipped and knew that the hut stank and hadnot even warmth to recommend it, for the furnace and the fire were both out. Inany case, the palaver didn’t take long. William the Maintenance Robot (ManyOther Functions) had counted the being that sometimes called itself Joe Collinsas his master, for there was no longer anyone else to lay claim to the job.Besides, Collins/Dandelo had the necessary code-words.

“I w-was nuh-not able to g-give him thec-code wuh-wuh-hurds when he a-asked,” said Stuttering Bill, “but myp-programming did not pruh-prohibit bringing him cer-hertain m-manuals that hadthe ih-information he needed.”

“Bureaucracy is so wonderful,” Susannahsaid.

Bill said he had stayed away from “J-J-Joe”as often (and as long) as he could, although he had to come when Tower Roadneeded plowing—that was also in his programming—and once a month tobring provisions (canned goods, mostly) from what he called “the Federal.” Healso liked to see Patrick, who had once given Bill a wonderful picture ofhimself that he looked at often (and of which he had made many copies). Yetevery time he came, he confided, he was sure he would find Patrickgone—killed and thrown casually into the woods somewhere back toward whatBill called “the Buh-Buh-Bads,” like an old piece of trash. But now here hewas, alive and free, and Bill was delighted.

“For I do have r-r-rudimentaryem-m-motions,” he said, sounding to Susannah like someone owning up to a badhabit.

“Do you need the code-words from us, inorder to accept our orders?” Roland asked.

“Yes, sai,” Stuttering Bill said.

“Shit,” Susannah muttered. They hadhad similar problems with Andy, back in Calla Bryn Sturgis.

“H-H-However,” said Stuttering Bill, “ifyou were to c-c-couch your orders as suh-huh-hugestions, I’m sure I’d behuh-huh-huh-huh—” He raised his arm and smacked his head again. The Wheep!sound came once more, not from his mouth but from the region of his chest,Susannah thought. “—happy to oblige,” he finished.

“My first suggestion is that you fix thatfucking stutter,” Roland said, and then turned around, amazed. Patrick hadcollapsed to the snow, holding his belly and voicing great, blurry cries oflaughter. Oy danced around him, barking, but Oy was harmless; this time therewas no one to steal Patrick’s joy. It belonged only to him. And to those luckyenough to hear it.

Thirteen

In the woods beyond the plowedintersection, back toward what Bill would have called “the Bads,” a shiveringadolescent boy wrapped in stinking, half-scraped hides watched the quartetstanding in front of Dandelo’s hut. Die, he thought at them. Die, whydon’t you all do me a favor and just die? But they didn’t die, and thecheerful sound of their laughter cut him like knives.

Later, after they had all piled into thecab of Bill’s plow and driven away, Mordred crept down to the hut. There hewould stay for at least two days, eating his fill from the cans in Dandelo’spantry—and eating something else as well, something he would live toregret. He spent those days regaining his strength, for the big storm hadcome close to killing him. He believed it was his hate that had kept him alive,that and no more.

Or perhaps it was the Tower.

For he felt it, too—that pulse, thatsinging. But what Roland and Susannah and Patrick heard in a major key, Mordredheard in a minor. And where they heard many voices, he heard only one. It wasthe voice of his Red Father, telling him to come. Telling him to kill the muteboy, and the blackbird bitch, and especially the gunslinger out of Gilead, theuncaring White Daddy who had left him behind. (Of course his Red Daddy had alsoleft him behind, but this never crossed Mordred’s mind.)

And when the killing was done, thewhispering voice promised, they would destroy the Dark Tower and rule todashtogether for eternity.

So Mordred ate, for Mordred was a-hungry.And Mordred slept, for Mordred was a-weary. And when Mordred dressed himself inDandelo’s warm clothes and set out along the freshly plowed Tower Road, pullinga rich sack of gunna on a sled behind him—canned goods, mostly—hehad become a young man who looked to be perhaps twenty years old, tall andstraight and as fair as a summer sunrise, his human form marked only by thescar on his side where Susannah’s bullet had winged him, and the blood-mark onhis heel. That heel, he had promised himself, would rest on Roland’s throat,and soon.

PART FIVE

THE SCARLET FIELD OF CAN’-KA NO REY

Chapter I:

The Sore and the Door(Goodbye, My Dear)