The gunslinger considered this carefully, and discovered something which was wonderful and awful at the same time: that idea had never occurred to him. Not once in his whole life. That he was a captive of ka- this he had known since earliest childhood. But his nature… his very nature…
“Thank you, Eddie. I think-”
Before Roland could say what he thought, Blaine the Mono crashed to a final bitter halt. All four of them were thrown violently up Barony Coach’s central aisle, Oy in Jake’s arms and barking. The cabin’s front wall buckled and Roland struck it shoulder-first. Even with the padding (the wall was carpeted and, from the feel, undercoated with some resilient stuff), the blow was hard enough to numb him. The chandelier swung forward and tore loose from the ceiling, pelting them with glass pendants. Jake rolled aside, vacating its landing-zone just in time. The harpsichord-piano flew off its podium, struck one of the sofas, and overturned, coming to rest with a discordant brrrannnggg sound. The mono tilted to the right and the gunslinger braced himself, meaning to cover both Jake and Susannah with his own body if it overturned completely. Then it settled back, the floor still a little canted, but at rest.
The trip was over.
The gunslinger raised himself up. His shoulder was still numb, but the arm below it supported him, and that was a good sign. On his left, Jake was sitting up and picking glass beads out of his lap with a dazed expression. On his right, Susannah was dabbing a cut under Eddie’s left eye. “All right,” Roland said. “Who’s hur-”
There was an explosion from above them, a hollow Pow! that reminded Roland of the big-bangers Cuthbert and Alain had sometimes lit and tossed down drains, or into the privies behind the scullery for a prank. And once Cuthbert had shot some big-bangers with his sling. That had been no prank, no childish folly. That had been-
Susannah uttered a short cry-more of surprise than fear, the gunslinger thought-and then hazy daylight was shining down on his face. It felt good. The taste of the air coming in through the blown emergency exit was even better-sweet with the smell of rain and damp earth.
There was a bony rattle, and a ladder-it appeared to be equipped with rungs made of twisted steel wire-dropped out of a slot up there.
“First they throw the chandelier at you, then they show you the door,” Eddie said. He struggled to his feet, then got Susannah up. “Okay, I know when I’m not wanted. Let’s make like bees and buzz off.”
“Sounds good to me.” She reached toward the cut on Eddie’s face again. Eddie took her fingers, kissed them, and told her to stop poking the moichandise.
“Jake?” the gunslinger asked. “Okay?”
“Yes,” Jake said. “What about you, Oy?”
“Oy!”
“Guess he is,” Jake said. He raised his wounded hand and looked at it ruefully.
“Hurting again, is it?” the gunslinger asked.
“Yeah. Whatever Blaine did to it is wearing off. I don’t care, though-I 'm just glad to still be alive.”
“Yes. Life is good. So is astin. There’s some of it left.”
“Aspirin, you mean.”
Roland nodded. A pill of magical properties, but one of the words from Jake’s world he would never be able to say correctly.
“Nine out of ten doctors recommend Anacin, honey,” Susannah said, and when Jake only looked at her quizzically: “Guess they don’t use that one anymore in your when, huh? Doesn’t matter. We’re here, sugarpie, right here and just fine, and that’s what matters.” She pulled Jake into her arms and gave him a kiss between the eyes, on the nose, and then flush on the mouth. Jake laughed and blushed bright red. “That’s what matters, and right now that’s the only thing in the world that does.”
6
“First aid can wait,” Eddie said. He put his arm around Jake’s shoulders and led the boy to the ladder. “Can you use that hand to climb with?”
“Yes. But I can’t bring Oy. Roland, will you?”
“Yes.” Roland picked Oy up and tucked him into his shirt as he had while descending a shaft under the city in pursuit of Jake and Gasher. Oy peeked out at Jake with his bright, gold-ringed eyes. “Up you go.”
Jake climbed. Roland followed close enough so that Oy could sniff the kid’s heels by stretching out his long neck.
“Suze?” Eddie asked. “Need a boost?”
“And get your nasty hands all over my well-turned fanny? Not likely, white boy!” Then she dropped him a wink and began to climb, pulling herself up easily with her muscular arms and balancing with the stumps of her legs. She went fast, but not too fast for Eddie; he reached up and gave her a soft pinch where the pinching was good. “Oh, my purity!” Susannah cried, laughing and rolling her eyes. Then she was gone. Only Eddie was left, standing by the foot of the ladder and looking around at the luxury coach which he had believed might well be their ka-tet’s coffin.
You did it, kiddo. Henry said. Made him set himself on fire. I knew you could, fuckin-A. Remember when I said that to those scag-bags behind Dahlie’s? Jimmie Polio and those guys? And how they laughed? But you did it. Sent him home with a fuckin rupture.
Well, it worked, anyway, Eddie thought, and touched the butt of Roland’s gun without even being aware of it. Well enough for us to walk away one more time.
He climbed two rungs, then looked back down. The Barony Coach already felt dead. Long dead, in fact, just another artifact of a world that had moved on.
“Adios, Blaine,” Eddie said. “So long, partner.”
And he followed his friends out through the emergency exit in the roof.
Chapter IV
TOPEKA
1
Jake stood on the slightly tilted roof of Blame the Mono, looking southeast along the Path of the Beam. The wind riffled his hair (now quite long and decidedly un-Piperish) back from his temples and forehead in waves. His eyes were wide with surprise.
He didn’t know what he had expected to see-a smaller and more provincial version of Lud, perhaps-but what he had not expected was what loomed above the trees of a nearby park. It was a green roadsign (against the dull gray autumn sky, it almost screamed with color) with a blue shield mounted on it:
Roland joined him, lifted Oy gently out of his shirt, and put him down. The humbler sniffed the pink surface of Blaine’s roof, then looked toward the front of the mono. Here the train’s smooth bullet shape was broken by crumpled metal which had peeled back in jagged wings. Two dark slashes-they began at the mono’s tip and extended to a point about ten yards from where Jake and Roland stood-gored the roof in parallel lines. At the end of each was a wide, flat metal pole painted in stripes of yellow and black. These seemed to jut from the top of the mono at a point just forward of the Barony Coach. To Jake they looked a little like football goalposts.
“Those are the piers he talked about hitting,” Susannah murmured.
Roland nodded.
“We got off lucky, big boy, you know it? If this thing had been going much faster…”
“Ka,” Eddie said from behind them. He sounded as if he might be smiling.
Roland nodded. “Just so. Ka.”
Jake dismissed the transteel goalposts and turned back toward the sign. He was half convinced it would be gone, or that it would say something else (mid-world toll road, perhaps, or beware of demons), but it was still there and still said the same thing.
“Eddie? Susannah? Do you see that?”
They looked along his pointing finger. For a moment-one long enough for Jake to fear he was having a hallucination-neither of them said anything. Then, softly, Eddie said: “Holy shit. Are we back home? If we are, where are all the people? And if something like Blaine has been stopping off in Topeka-our Topeka, Topeka, Kansas-how come I haven’t seen anything about it on Sixty Minutes?”