The drawing of the three - Stephen King [120]
That worried him, but Roland’s condition worried him more.
This time the gunslinger seemed not so much to be burning as fading, losing himself, becoming transparent.
The red lines had appeared again, marching relentlessly up the underside of his right arm toward the elbow.
For the last two days Eddie had looked constantly ahead, squinting into the distance, hoping to see the door, the door, the magic door. For the last two days he had waited for Odetta to reappear.
Neither had appeared.
Before falling asleep that night two terrible thoughts came to him, like some joke with a double punchline:
What if there was no door?
What if Odetta Holmes was dead?
18
“Rise and shine, mahfah!” Detta screeched him out of unconsciousness. “I think it jes be you and me now, honeychile. Think yo frien done finally passed on. I think yo frien be pokin the devil down in hell.”
Eddie looked at the rolled huddled shape of Roland and for one terrible moment he thought the bitch was right. Then the gunslinger stirred, moaned furrily, and pawed himself into a sitting position.
“Well looky yere!” Detta had screamed so much that now there were moments when her voice disappeared almost entirely, becoming no more than a weird whisper, like winter wind under a door. “I thought you was dead, Mister Man!”
Roland was getting slowly to his feet. He still looked to Eddie like a man using the rungs of an invisible ladder to make it. Eddie felt an angry sort of pity, and this was a familiar emotion, oddly nostalgic. After a moment he understood. It was like when he and Henry used to watch the fights on TV, and one fighter would hurt the other, hurt him terribly, again and again, and the crowd would be screaming for blood, and Henry would be screaming for blood, but Eddie only sat there, feeling that angry pity, that dumb disgust; he’d sat there sending thought-waves at the referee: Stop it, man, are you fucking blind? He’s dying out there! DYING! Stop the fucking fight!
There was no way to stop this one.
Roland looked at her from his haunted feverish eyes. “A lot of people have thought that, Detta.” He looked at Eddie. “You ready?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
They went on.
Around ten o’clock Detta began rubbing her temples with her fingers.
“Stop,” she said. “I feel sick. Feel like I goan throw up.”
“Probably that big meal you ate last night,” Eddie said, and went on pushing. “You should have skipped dessert. I told you that chocolate layer cake was heavy.”
“I goan throw up! I—”
“Stop, Eddie!” the gunslinger said.
Eddie stopped.
The woman in the chair suddenly twisted galvanically, as if an electric shock had run through her. Her eyes popped wide open, glaring at nothing.
“I BROKE YO PLATE YOU STINKIN OLE BLUE LADY!” she screamed. “I BROKE IT AND I’M FUCKIN GLAD I D—”
She suddenly slumped forward in her chair. If not for the ropes, she would have fallen out of it.
Christ, she’s dead, she’s had a stroke and she’s dead, Eddie thought. He started around the chair, remembered how sly and tricksy she could be, and stopped as suddenly as he had started. He looked at Roland. Roland looked back at him evenly, his eyes giving away not a thing.
Then she moaned. Her eyes opened.
Her eyes.
Odetta’s eyes.
“Dear God, I’ve fainted again, haven’t I?” she said. “I’m sorry you had to tie me in. My stupid legs! I think I could sit up a little if you—”
That was when Roland’s own legs slowly came unhinged and he swooned some thirty miles south of the place where the Western Sea’s beach came to an end.
RESHUFFLE
reshuffle
1
To Eddie Dean, he and the Lady no longer seemed to be trudging or even walking up what remained of the beach. They seemed to be flying.
Odetta Holmes still neither liked nor trusted Roland; that was clear. But she recognized how desperate his condition had become,