The Dark Tower - Stephen King [151]
Roland tarried a moment longer, looking at them—more than looking, seeming to savor their faces—and then he led them back inside.
“Sheemie,” he said.
“Yes, sai! Yes, Roland, Will Dearborn that was!”
“We’re going to save the boy you told us about. We’re going to make the bad folk stop hurting him.”
Sheemie smiled, but it was a puzzled smile. He didn’t remember the boy in his dream, not anymore. “Good, sai, that’s good!”
Roland turned his attention to Ted. “Once Sheemie gets you back this time, put him to bed. Or, if that would attract the wrong sort of attention, just make sure he takes it easy.”
“We can write him down for the sniffles and keep him out of The Study,” Ted agreed. “There are a lot of colds Thunder-side. But you folks need to understand that there are no guarantees. He could get us back inside this time, and then—” He snapped his fingers in the air.
Laughing, Sheemie imitated him, only snapping both sets of fingers. Susannah looked away, sick to her stomach.
“I know that,” Roland said, and although his tone did not change very much, each member of his ka-tet knew it was a good thing this palaver was almost over. Roland had reached the rim of his patience. “Keep him quiet even if he’s well and feeling fine. We won’t need him for what I have in mind, and thanks to the weapons you’ve left us.”
“They’re good weapons,” Ted agreed, “but are they good enough to wipe out sixty men, can-toi, and taheen?”
“Will the two of you stand with us, once the fight begins?” Roland asked.
“With the greatest pleasure,” Dinky said, baring his teeth in a remarkably nasty grin.
“Yes,” Ted said. “And it might be that I have another weapon. Did you listen to the tapes I left you?”
“Yes,” Jake replied.
“So you know the story about the guy who stole my wallet.”
This time they all nodded.
“What about that young woman?” Susannah asked. “One tough cookie, you said. What about Tanya and her boyfriend? Or her husband, if that’s what he is?”
Ted and Dinky exchanged a brief, doubtful look, then shook their heads simultaneously.
“Once, maybe,” Ted said. “Not now. Now she’s married. All she wants to do is cuddle with her fella.”
“And Break,” Dinky added.
“But don’t they understand…” She found she couldn’t finish. She was haunted not so much by the remnants of her own dream as by Sheemie’s. Now you scar me with nails, the dream-boy had told Sheemie. The dream-boy who had once been fair.
“They don’t want to understand,” Ted told her kindly. He caught a glimpse of Eddie’s dark face and shook his head. “But I won’t let you hate them for it. You—we—may have to kill some of them, but I won’t let you hate them. They did not put understanding away from them out of greed or fear, but from despair.”
“And because to Break is divine,” Dinky said. He was also looking at Eddie. “The way the half an hour after you shoot up can be divine. If you know what I’m talking about.”
Eddie sighed, stuck his hands in his pockets, said nothing.
Sheemie surprised them all by picking up one of the Coyote machine-pistols and swinging it in an arc. Had it been loaded, the great quest for the Dark Tower would have ended right there. “I’ll fight, too!” he cried. “Pow, pow, pow! Bam-bam-bam-ba-dam!”
Eddie and Susannah ducked; Jake threw himself instinctively in front of Oy; Ted and Dinky raised their hands in front of their faces, as if that could possibly have saved them from a burst of a hundred high-caliber, steel-jacketed slugs. Roland plucked the machine-pistol calmly from Sheemie’s hands.
“Your time to help will come,” he said, “but after this first battle’s fought and won. Do you see Jake’s bumbler, Sheemie?”
“Aye, he’s with the Rod.”
“He talks. See if you can get him to talk to you.”
Sheemie obediently went to where Chucky/Haylis was still stroking Oy’s head, dropped to one knee, and commenced trying to get Oy to say his name. The bumbler did almost at once, and with remarkable clarity. Sheemie laughed, and Haylis joined in. They sounded like a couple of kids from the Calla. The roont kind, perhaps.