The Dark Tower - Stephen King [198]
Jake knew that, too.
Fourteen
An old saying—one taught to him by his father—came to Roland then: If ka will say so, let it be so. Yes; all right; let it be so.
During the long years he had spent on the trail of the man in black, the gunslinger would have sworn nothing in the universe could have caused him to renounce the Tower; had he not literally killed his own mother in pursuit of it, back at the start of his terrible career? But in those years he had been friendless, childless, and (he didn’t like to admit it, but it was true) heartless. He had been bewitched by that cold romance the loveless mistake for love. Now he had a son and he had been given a second chance and he had changed. Knowing that one of them must die in order to save the writer—that their fellowship must be reduced again, and so soon—would not make him cry off. But he would make sure that Roland of Gilead, not Jake of New York, provided the sacrifice this time.
Did the boy know that he’d penetrated his secret? No time to worry about that now.
Roland slammed the truckomobile’s door shut and looked at the woman. “Is your name Irene?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Drive, Irene. Do it as if Lord High Splitfoot were on your trail with rape on his mind, do ya I beg. Out Warrington’s Road. If we don’t see him there, out the Seven-Road. Will you?”
“You’re fucking right,” said Mrs. Tassenbaum, and shoved the gearshift into First with real authority.
The engine screamed, but the truck began to roll backward, as if so frightened by the job ahead that it would rather finish up in the lake. Then she engaged the clutch and the old International Harvester leaped ahead, charging up the steep incline of the driveway and leaving a trail of blue smoke and burnt rubber behind.
Garrett McKeen’s great-grandson watched them go with his mouth hanging open. He had no idea what had just happened, but he felt sure that a great deal depended on what would happen next.
Maybe everything.
Fifteen
Needing to piss that bad was weird, because pissing was the last thing Bryan Smith had done before leaving the Million Dollar Campground. And once he’d clambered over the fucking rock wall, he hadn’t been able to manage more than a few drops, even though it had felt like a real bladder-buster at the time. Bryan hopes he’s not going to have trouble with his prostrate; trouble with the old prostrate is the last thing he needs. He’s got enough other problems, by the hairy old Jesus.
Oh well, now that he’s stopped he might as well try to fix the Styrofoam cooler behind the seat—the dogs are still staring at it with their tongues hanging out. He tries to wedge it underneath the seat, but it won’t go—there’s not quite enough clearance. What he does instead is to point a dirty finger at his rotties and tell them again to ne’mine the cooler and the meat inside, that’s his, that’s gonna be his suppah. This time he even thinks to add a promise that later on he’ll mix a little of the hamburger in with their Purina, if they’re good. This is fairly deep thinking for Bryan Smith, but the simple expedient of swinging the cooler up front and putting it in the unoccupied passenger seat never occurs to him.
“You leave it alone!” he tells them again, and hops back behind the wheel. He slams the door, takes a brief glance in the rearview mirror, sees two old ladies back there (he didn’t notice them before because he wasn’t exactly looking at the road when he passed them), gives them a wave they never see through the Caravan’s filthy rear window, and then pulls back onto Route 7. Now the radio is playing “Gangsta Dream 19,” by Owt-Ray-Juss, and