One

In the final days of their long journey,after Bill—just Bill now, no longer Stuttering Bill—dropped themoff at the Federal, on the edge of the White Lands, Susannah Dean began tosuffer frequent bouts of weeping. She would feel these impending cloudburstsand would excuse herself from the others, saying she had to go into the bushesand do her necessary. And there she would sit on a fallen tree or perhaps justthe cold ground, put her hands over her face, and let her tears flow. If Rolandknew this was happening—and surely he must have noted her red eyes whenshe returned to the road—he made no comment. She supposed he knew whatshe did.

Her time in Mid-World—andEnd-World—was almost at an end.

Two

Bill took them in his fine orange plow to alonely Quonset hut with a faded sign out front reading

FEDERAL OUTPOST 19

TOWER WATCH

TRAVEL BEYOND THISPOINT IS FORBIDDEN!

She supposed Federal Outpost 19 was stilltechnically in the White Lands of Empathica, but the air had warmedconsiderably as Tower Road descended, and the snow on the ground was littlemore than a scrim. Groves of trees dotted the ground ahead, but Susannahthought the land would soon be almost entirely open, like the prairies of theAmerican Midwest. There were bushes that probably supported berries in warmweather—perhaps even pokeberries—but now they were bare andclattering in the nearly constant wind. Mostly what they saw on either side ofTower Road—which had once been paved but had now been reduced to littlemore than a pair of broken ruts—were tall grasses poking out of the thinsnow-cover. They whispered in the wind and Susannah knew their song: Commala-come-come,journey’s almost done.

“I may go no further,” Bill said, shuttingdown the plow and cutting off Little Richard in mid-rave. “Tell ya sorry, asthey say in the Arc o’ the Borderlands.”

Their trip had taken one full day and halfof another, and during that time he had entertained them with a constant streamof what he called “golden oldies.” Some of these were not old at all toSusannah; songs like “Sugar Shack” and “Heat Wave” had been current hits on theradio when she’d returned from her little vacation in Mississippi. Others shehad never heard at all. The music was stored not on records or tapes but onbeautiful silver discs Bill called “ceedees.” He pushed them into a slot in theplow’s instrument-cluttered dashboard and the music played from at least eightdifferent speakers. Any music would have sounded fine to her, she supposed, butshe was especially taken by two songs she had never heard before. One was adeliriously happy little rocker called “She Loves You.” The other, sad andreflective, was called “Hey Jude.” Roland actually seemed to know the latterone; he sang along with it, although the words he knew were different from theones coming out of the plow’s multiple speakers. When she asked, Bill told herthe group was called The Beetles.

“Funny name for a rock-and-roll band,”Susannah said.

Patrick, sitting with Oy in the plow’s tinyrear seat, tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and he held up the padthrough which he was currently working his way. Beneath a picture of Roland inprofile, he had printed: BEATLES, not Beetles.

“It’s a funny name for a rock-and-roll bandno matter which way you spell it,” Susannah said, and that gave her an idea.“Patrick, do you have the touch?” When he frowned and raised his hands—Idon’t understand, the gesture said—she rephrased the question. “Canyou read my mind?”

He shrugged and smiled. This gesture said Idon’t know, but she thought Patrick did know. She thought he knew verywell.

Three

They reached “the Federal” near noon, andthere Bill served them a fine meal. Patrick wolfed his and then sat off to oneside with Oy curled at his feet, sketching the others as they sat around thetable in what had once been the common room. The walls of this room werecovered with TV screens—Susannah guessed there were three hundred ormore. They must have been built to last, too, because some were still operating.A few showed the rolling hills surrounding the Quonset, but most broadcast onlysnow, and one showed a series of rolling lines that made her feel queasy in herstomach if she looked at it too long. The snow-screens, Bill said, had onceshown pictures from satellites in orbit around the Earth, but the cameras inthose had gone dead long ago. The one with the rolling lines was moreinteresting. Bill told them that, until only a few months ago, that one hadshown the Dark Tower. Then, suddenly, the picture had dissolved into nothingbut those lines.

“I don’t think the Red King liked being ontelevision,” Bill told them. “Especially if he knew company might be coming.Won’t you have another sandwich? There are plenty, I assure you. No? Soup,then? What about you, Patrick? You’re too thin, you know—far, fartoo thin.”

Patrick turned his pad around and showedthem a picture of Bill bowing in front of Susannah, a tray of neatly cutsandwiches in one metal hand, a carafe of iced tea in the other. Like all of Patrick’spictures, it went far beyond caricature, yet had been produced with a speed ofhand that was eerie. Susannah applauded. Roland smiled and nodded. Patrickgrinned, holding his teeth together so that the others wouldn’t have to look atthe empty hole behind them. Then he tossed the sheet back and began somethingnew.

“There’s a fleet of vehicles out back,”Bill said, “and while many of them no longer run, some still do. I can give youa truck with four-wheel drive, and while I cannot assure you it will runsmoothly, I believe you can count on it to take you as far as the Dark Tower,which is no more than one hundred and twenty wheels from here.”

Susannah felt a great and flutterylift-drop in her stomach. One hundred and twenty wheels was a hundred miles,perhaps even a bit less. They were close. So close it was scary.

“You would not want to come upon the Towerafter dark,” Bill said. “At least I shouldn’t think so, considering the newresident. But what’s one more night camped at the side of the road to suchgreat travelers as yourselves? Not much, I should say! But even with one lastnight on the road (and barring breakdowns, which the gods know are alwayspossible), you’d have your goal in sight by mid-morning of tomorrowday.”

Roland considered this long and carefully.Susannah had to tell herself to breathe while he did so, because part of herdidn’t want to.

I’m not ready, that part thought.And there was a deeper part—a part that remembered every nuance of whathad become a recurring (and evolving) dream—that thought something else: I’mnot meant to go at all. Not all the way.

At last Roland said: “I thank you,Bill—we all say thank you, I’m sure—but I think we’ll pass on yourkind offer. Were you to ask me why, I couldn’t say. Only that part of me thinksthat tomorrowday’s too soon. That part of me thinks we should go the rest ofthe way on foot, just as we’ve already traveled so far.” He took a deep breath,let it out. “I’m not ready to be there yet. Not quite ready.”

You too, Susannah marveled. Youtoo.

“I need a little more time to prepare mymind and my heart. Mayhap even my soul.” He reached into his back pocket andbrought out the photocopy of the Robert Browning poem that had been left forthem in Dandelo’s medicine chest. “There’s something writ in here aboutremembering the old times before coming to the last battle… or the last stand.It’s well-said. And perhaps, really, all I need is what this poet speaksof—a draught of earlier, happier sights. I don’t know. But unlessSusannah objects, I believe we’ll go on foot.”

“Susannah doesn’t object,” she saidquietly. “Susannah thinks it’s just what the doctor ordered. Susannah onlyobjects to being dragged along behind like a busted tailpipe.”