But perhaps he could do something aboutthat. His right hand began its slow and painful journey up toward the docker’sclutch, and the Peacemaker holstered there.
Eddie, meanwhile, had put the barrel of theGilead revolver with the sandalwood grips against the side of Weasel-boy’shead. His finger was tightening on the trigger when he saw that Weasel-boy,although shot in the chest, bleeding heavily, and clearly dying fast, waslooking at him with complete awareness. And something else, something Eddie didnot much care for. He thought it was contempt. He looked up, saw Susannah andJake checking bodies at the eastern end of the killzone, saw Roland on the farsidewalk, speaking with Dinky and Ted as he knotted a makeshift bandage aroundthe latter’s arm. The two former Breakers were listening carefully, andalthough both of them looked dubious, they were nodding their heads.
Eddie returned his attention to the dyingtaheen. “You’re at the end of the path, my friend,” he said. “Plugged in thepump, it looks like to me. Do you have something you want to say before youstep into the clearing?”
Finli nodded.
“Say it, then, chum. But I’d keep it shortif you want to get it all out.”
“Thee and thine are a pack of yellowbackdogs,” Finli managed. He probably was shot in the heart—so itfelt, anyway—but he would say this; it needed to be said, and he willedhis damaged heart to beat until it was out. Then he’d die and welcome the dark.“Piss-stinking yellowback dogs, killing men from ambush. That’s what I’d say.”
Eddie smiled humorlessly. “And what aboutyellowback dogs who’d use children to kill the whole world from ambush, myfriend? The whole universe?”
The Weasel blinked at that, as if he’d expectedno such reply. Perhaps any reply at all. “I had… my orders.”
“I have no doubt of that,” Eddie said. “Andfollowed them to the end. Enjoy hell or Na’ar or whatever you call it.” He putthe barrel of his gun against Finli’s temple and pulled the trigger. The Weasejerked a single time and was still. Grimacing, Eddie got to his feet.
He caught movement from the corner of hiseye as he did so and saw another one—the boss of the show—hadstruggled up onto one elbow. His gun, the Peacemaker .40 that had once executeda rapist, was leveled. Eddie’s reflexes were quick, but there was no time touse them. The Peacemaker roared a single time, fire licking from the end of itsbarrel, and blood flew from Eddie Dean’s brow. A lock of hair flipped on theback of his head as the slug exited. He slapped his hand to the hole that hadappeared over his right eye, like a man who has remembered something of vitalimportance just a little too late.
Roland whirled on the rundown heels of hisboots, pulling his own gun in a dip too quick to see. Jake and Susannah alsoturned. Susannah saw her husband standing in the street with the heel of hishand pressed to his brow.
“Eddie? Sugar?”
Pimli was struggling to cock the Peacemakeragain, his upper lip curled back from his teeth in a doglike snarl of effort.Roland shot him in the throat and Algul Siento’s Master snap-rolled to hisleft, the still-uncocked pistol flying out of his hand and clattering to a stopbeside the body of his friend the Weasel. It finished almost at Eddie’s feet.
“Eddie!” Susannah screamed, andbegan a loping crawl toward him, thrusting herself on her hands. He’s nothurt bad, she told herself, not hurt bad, dear God don’t let my man behurt bad—
Then she saw the blood running from beneathhis pressing hand, pattering down into the street, and knew it was bad.
“Suze?” he asked. His voice was perfectlyclear. “Suzie, where are you? I can’t see.”
He took one step, a second, a third… andthen fell facedown in the street, just as Gran-pere Jaffords had known he would,aye, from the first moment he’d laid eyes on him. For the boy was a gunslinger,say true, and it was the only end that one such as he could expect.
![The Dark Tower _36.jpg](https://litlife.club/books/230696/read/images/_36.jpg)
Chapter XII:
The Tet Breaks
One
That night found Jake Chambers sittingdisconsolately outside the Clover Tavern at the east end of Main Street inPleasantville. The bodies of the guards had been carted away by a robotmaintenance crew, and that was at least something of a relief. Oy had been inthe boy’s lap for an hour or more. Ordinarily he would never have stayed soclose for so long, but he seemed to understand that Jake needed him. On severaloccasions, Jake wept into the bumbler’s fur.
For most of that endless day Jake foundhimself thinking in two different voices. This had happened to him before, butnot for years; not since the time when, as a very young child, he suspected hemight have suffered some sort of weird, below-the-parental-radar breakdown.
Eddie’s dying, said the first voice(the one that used to assure him there were monsters in his closet, and soonthey would emerge to eat him alive). He’s in a room in Corbett Hall andSusannah’s with him and he won’t shut up, but he’s dying.
No, denied the second voice (the onethat used to assure him—feebly—that there were no such things asmonsters). No, that can’t be. Eddie’s… Eddie! And besides, he’ska-tet. He might die when we reach the Dark Tower, we might all die whenwe get there, but not now, not here, that’s crazy.
Eddie’s dying, replied the firstvoice. It was implacable. He’s got a hole in his head almost big enough tostick your fist in, and he’s dying.
To this the second voice could offer onlymore denials, each weaker than the last.
Not even the knowledge that they had likelysaved the Beam (Sheemie certainly seemed to think they had; he’d crisscrossedthe weirdly silent campus of the Devar-Toi, shouting the news—BEAMSAYS ALL MAY BE WELL! BEAM SAYS THANKYA!—at the top of his lungs)could make Jake feel better. The loss of Eddie was too great a price to payeven for such an outcome. And the breaking of the tet was an even greaterprice. Every time Jake thought of it, he felt sick to his stomach and sent upinarticulate prayers to God, to Gan, to the Man Jesus, to any or all of them todo a miracle and save Eddie’s life.
He even prayed to the writer.
Save my friend’s life and we’ll saveyours, he prayed to Stephen King, a man he had never seen. Save Eddieand we won’t let that van hit you. I swear it.
Then again he’d think of Susannah screamingEddie’s name, of trying to turn him over, and Roland wrapping his arms aroundher and saying You mustn’t do that, Susannah, you mustn’t disturb him,and how she’d fought him, her face crazy, her face changing as differentpersonalities seemed to inhabit it for a moment or two and then flee. I haveto help him! she’d sob in the Susannah-voice Jake knew, and then inanother, harsher voice she’d shout Let me go, mahfah! Let me do mah voodooon him, make mah houngun, he goan git up an walk, you see! Sho! And Rolandholding her through all of it, holding her and rocking her while Eddie lay inthe street, but not dead, it would have been better, almost, if he’d been dead(even if being dead meant the end of talking about miracles, the end of hope),but Jake could see his dusty fingers twitching and could hear him mutteringincoherently, like a man who talks in his sleep.
Then Ted had come, and Dinky just behindhim, and two or three of the other Breakers trailing along hesitantly behindthem. Ted had gotten on his knees beside the struggling, screaming woman andmotioned for Dinky to get kneebound on the other side of her. Ted had taken oneof her hands, then nodded for Dink to take the other. And something had flowedout of them—something deep and soothing. It wasn’t meant for Jake, no,not at all, but he caught some of it, anyway, and felt his wildly gallopingheart slow. He looked into Ted Brautigan’s face and saw that Ted’s eyes weredoing their trick, the pupils swelling and shrinking, swelling and shrinking.