The Dark Tower - Stephen King [144]
The Rod, meanwhile, continued his high, almost falsetto chant. The only words she could pick out of the gibberish were Hile, Roland, Gilead, and Eld.
“Somebody shut him up!” Dinky cried, and Oy began barking.
“Never mind the Rod, get Sheemie’s feet!” Ted snapped. “Hold him still!”
Dinky dropped to his knees and grabbed Sheemie’s feet, one now bare, the other still wearing its absurd rubber moc.
“Oy, hush!” Jake said, and Oy did. But he was standing with his short legs spread and his belly low to the ground, his fur bushed out so he seemed nearly double his normal size.
Roland crouched by Sheemie’s head, forearms on the dirt floor of the cave, mouth by one of Sheemie’s ears. He began to murmur. Susannah could make out very little of it because of the Rod’s falsetto babbling, but she did hear Will Dearborn that was and All’s well and—she thought—rest.
Whatever it was, it seemed to get through. Little by little Sheemie relaxed. She could see Dinky easing his hold on the former tavern-boy’s ankles, ready to grab hard again if Sheemie renewed his kicking. The muscles around Sheemie’s mouth also relaxed, and his teeth unlocked. The piece of wood, still nailed lightly to his mouth by his upper incisors, seemed to levitate. Susannah pulled it gently free, looking with amazement at the blood-rimmed holes, some almost half an inch deep, that had been driven into the soft wood. Sheemie’s tongue lolled from the side of his mouth, reminding her of how Oy looked at siesta time, sleeping on his back with his legs spread to the four points of the compass.
Now there was only the rapid auctioneer’s babble of the Rod, and the low growl deep in Oy’s chest as he stood protectively at Jake’s side, looking at the newcomer with narrowed eyes.
“Shut your mouth and be still,” Roland told the Rod, then added something else in another language.
The Rod froze halfway into another salaam, hands still raised above his head, staring at Roland. Eddie saw the side of his nose had been eaten away by a juicy sore, red as a strawberry. The Rod put his scabbed, dirty palms over his eyes, as if the gunslinger were a thing too bright to look at, and fell on his side. He drew his knees up to his chest, producing a loud fart as he did so.
“Harpo speaks,” Eddie said, a joke snappy enough to make Susannah laugh. Then there was silence except for the whine of the wind outside the cave, the faint sound of recorded music from the Devar-Toi, and the distant rumble of thunder, that sound of rolling bones.
Five minutes later Sheemie opened his eyes, sat up, and looked around with the bewildered air of one who knows not where he is, how he got there, or why. Then his eyes fixed on Roland, and his poor, tired face lit in a smile.
Roland returned it, and held out his arms. “Can’ee come to me, Sheemie? If not, I’ll come to you, sure.”
Sheemie crawled to Roland of Gilead on his hands and knees, his dark and dirty hair hanging in his eyes, and laid his head on Roland’s shoulder. Susannah felt tears stinging her eyes and looked away.
Two
Some short time later Sheemie sat propped against the wall of the cave with the mover’s pad that had been over Suzie’s Cruisin Trike cushioning his head and back. Eddie had offered him a soda, but Ted suggested water might be better. Sheemie drank the first bottle of Perrier at a single go, and now sat sipping another. The rest of them had instant coffee, except for Ted; he was drinking a can of Nozz-A-La.
“Don’t know how you stand that stuff,” Eddie said.
“Each to his own taste, said the old maid as she kissed the cow,” Ted replied.
Only the Child of Roderick had nothing. He lay where he was, at the mouth of the cave, with his hands pressed firmly over his eyes. He was trembling lightly.
Ted had checked Sheemie over between Sheemie’s first