The Dark Tower - Stephen King [113]
Jake showed it to Roland. “This one’s SET and the other one’s WAIT. Do you think so? I think so.”
Roland nodded. He’d never seen such a weapon before—not close up, at any rate—but, coupled with the windows, he thought the use of the buttons was obvious. And he thought the sneetches might be useful in a way the long-shooters with their atom-shells would not be. SET and WAIT.
SET…and WAIT.
“Did Ted and his two pals leave all this stuff for us here?” Susannah asked.
Roland hardly thought it mattered who’d left it—it was here and that was enough—but he nodded.
“How? And where’d they get it?”
Roland didn’t know. What he did know was that the cave was a ma’sun—a war-chest. Below them, men were making war on the Tower which the line of Eld was sworn to protect. He and his tet would fall upon them by surprise, and with these tools they would smite and smite until their enemies lay with their boots pointed to the sky.
Or until theirs did.
“Maybe he explains on one of the tapes he left us,” Jake said. He had engaged the safety of his new Cobra automatic and tucked it away in the shoulder-bag with the remaining Orizas. Susannah had also helped herself to one of the Cobras, after twirling it around her finger a time or two, like Annie Oakley.
“Maybe he does,” she said, and gave Jake a smile. It had been a long time since Susannah had felt so physically well. So not-preg. Yet her mind was troubled. Or perhaps it was her spirit.
Eddie was holding up a piece of cloth that had been rolled into a tube and tied with three hanks of string. “That guy Ted said he was leaving us a map of the prison-camp. Bet this is it. Anyone ’sides me want a look?”
They all did. Jake helped Eddie to unroll the map. Brautigan had warned them it was rough, and it surely was: really no more than a series of circles and squares. Susannah saw the name of the little town—Pleasantville—and thought again of Ray Bradbury. Jake was tickled by the crude compass, where the map-maker had added a question mark beside the letter N.
While they were studying this hastily rendered example of cartography, a long and wavering cry rose in the murk outside. Eddie, Susannah, and Jake looked around nervously. Oy raised his head from his paws, gave a low, brief growl, then put his head back down again and appeared to go to sleep: Hell wit’choo, bad boy, I’m wit’ my homies and I ain’t ascairt.
“What is it?” Eddie asked. “A coyote? A jackal?”
“Some kind of desert dog,” Roland agreed absently. He was squatted on his hunkers (which suggested his hip was better, at least temporarily) with his arms wrapped around his shins. He never took his eyes from the crude circles and squares drawn on the cloth. “Can-toi-tete.”
“Is that like Dan-Tete?” Jake asked.
Roland ignored him. He scooped up the map and left the cave with it, not looking back. The others shared a glance and then followed him, once more wrapping their blankets about them like shawls.
Three
Roland returned to where Sheemie (with a little help from his friends) had brought them through. This time the gunslinger used the binoculars, looking down at Blue Heaven long and long. Somewhere behind them, the desert dog howled again, a lonely sound in the gloom.
And, Jake thought, the gloom was gloomier now. Your eyes adjusted as the day dialed itself down, but that brilliant spotlight of sun seemed brighter than ever by contrast. He was pretty sure the deal with the sun-machine was that you got your full-on, your full-off, and nothing in between. Maybe they even let it shine all night, but Jake doubted it. People’s nervous systems were set up for an orderly progression of dark and day, he’d learned that in science class. You could make do