The Dark Tower - Stephen King [177]
The litter-bearing party Ted Brautigan had organized had borne the young gunslinger to Corbett Hall, where he was laid in the spacious bedroom of the first-floor proctor’s suite. The litter-bearers lingered in the dormitory’s courtyard, and as the afternoon wore on, the rest of the Breakers joined them. When Roland and Jake arrived, a pudgy red-haired woman stepped into Roland’s way.
Lady, I wouldn’t do that, Jake had thought. Not this afternoon.
In spite of the day’s alarums and excursions, this woman—who’d looked to Jake like the Lifetime President of his mother’s garden club—had found time to put on a fairly heavy coat of makeup: powder, rouge, and lipstick as red as the side of a Devar fire engine. She introduced herself as Grace Rumbelow (formerly of Aldershot, Hampshire, England) and demanded to know what was going to happen next—where they would go, what they would do, who would take care of them. The same questions the rooster-headed taheen had asked, in other words.
“For we have been taken care of,” said Grace Rumbelow in ringing tones (Jake had been fascinated with how she said “been,” so it rhymed with “seen”), “and are in no position, at least for the time being, to care for ourselves.”
There were calls of agreement at this.
Roland looked her up and down, and something in his face had robbed the lady of her measured indignation. “Get out of my road,” said the gunslinger, “or I’ll push you down.”
She grew pale beneath her powder and did as he said without uttering another word. A birdlike clatter of disapproval followed Jake and Roland into Corbett Hall, but it didn’t start until the gunslinger was out of their view and they no longer had to fear falling beneath the unsettling gaze of his blue eyes. The Breakers reminded Jake of some kids with whom he’d gone to school at Piper, classroom nitwits willing to shout out stuff like this test sucks or bite my bag…but only when the teacher was out of the room.
The first-floor hallway of Corbett was bright with fluorescent lights and smelled strongly of smoke from Damli House and Feveral Hall. Dinky Earnshaw was seated in a folding chair to the right of the door marked PROCTOR’S SUITE, smoking a cigarette. He looked up as Roland and Jake approached, Oy trotting along in his usual position just behind Jake’s heel.
“How is he?” Roland asked.
“Dying, man,” Dinky said, and shrugged.
“And Susannah?”
“Strong. Once he’s gone—” Dinky shrugged again, as if to say it could go either way, any way.
Roland knocked quietly on the door.
“Who is it?” Susannah’s voice, muffled.
“Roland and Jake,” the gunslinger said. “Will you have us?”
The question was met with what seemed to Jake an unusually long pause. Roland, however, didn’t seem surprised. Neither did Dinky, for that matter.
At last Susannah said: “Come in.”
They did.
Five
Sitting with Oy in the soothing dark, waiting for Roland’s call, Jake reflected on the scene that had met his eyes in the darkened room. That, and the endless three-quarters of an hour before Roland had seen his discomfort and let him go, saying he’d call Jake back when it was “time.”
Jake had seen a lot of death since being drawn to Mid-World; had dealt it; had even experienced his own, although he remembered very little of that. But this was the death of a ka-mate, and what had been going on in the bedroom of the proctor’s suite just seemed pointless. And endless. Jake wished with all his heart that he’d stayed outside with Dinky; he didn’t want to remember his wisecracking, occasionally hot-tempered friend this way.
For one thing, Eddie looked worse than frail as he lay in the proctor’s bed with his hand in Susannah’s; he looked old and (Jake hated to think of it) stupid. Or maybe the word was senile. His mouth had folded in at the corners, making deep dimples. Susannah had washed his face,