“I want you to whop this goddam thing off,” she said.
Roland shook his head. “We’ll give it a little longer to heal on its own.”
“Why?”
“Cutting on a sore’s a bad idea unless you absolutely have to do it. Especially out here, in what Jake would have called ‘the boondogs.’”
She agreed (without bothering to correct his pronunciation), but unpleasant images crept into her head when she lay down: visions of the pimple beginning to spread, erasing her face inch by inch, turning her entire head into a black, crusted, bleeding tumor. In the dark, such visions had a horrible persuasiveness, but luckily she was too tired for them to keep her awake long.
On their second day in what Susannah was coming to think of as the Hide Camp, Roland built a large and rickety frame over a new fire, one that was low and slow. They smoked the hides two by two and then laid them aside. The smell of the finished product was surprisingly pleasant. It smells like leather, she thought, holding one to her face, and then had to laugh. That was, after all, exactly what it was.
The third day they spent “making,” and here Susannah finally outdid the gunslinger. Roland sewed a wide and barely serviceable stitch. She thought that the vests and leggings he made would hold together for a month, two at the most, then begin to pull apart. She was far more adept. Sewing was a skill she’d learned from her mother and both grandmothers. At first she found Roland’s bone needles maddeningly clumsy, and she paused long enough to cover both the thumb and forefinger of her right hand with little deerskin caps which she tied in place. After that it went faster, and by mid-afternoon of making-day she was taking garments from Roland’s pile and oversewing his stitches with her own, which were finer and closer. She thought he might object to this—men were proud—but he didn’t, which was probably wise. It quite likely would have been Detta who replied to any whines and queasies.
By the time their third night in Hide Camp had come, they each had a vest, a pair of leggings, and a coat. They also had a pair of mittens each. These were large and laughable, but would keep their hands warm. And, speaking of hands, Susannah was once more barely able to bend hers. She looked doubtfully at the remaining hides and asked Roland if they would spend another making-day here.
He considered the idea, then shook his head. “We’ll load the ones that are left into the Ho Fat Tack-see, I think, along with some of the meat and chunks of ice from the stream to keep it cool and good.”
“The Taxi won’t be any good when we come to the snow, will it?”
“No,” he admitted, “but by then the rest of the hides will be clothing and the meat will be eaten.”
“You just can’t stay here any longer, that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? You hear it calling. The Tower.”
Roland looked into the snapping fire and said nothing. Nor had to.
“What’ll we do about hauling our gunna when we come to the white lands?”
“Make a travois. And there’ll be plenty of game.”
She nodded and started to lie down. He took her shoulders and turned her toward the fire, instead. His face came close to hers, and for a moment Susannah thought he meant to kiss her goodnight. He looked long and hard at the crusted sore beside her mouth, instead.
“Well?” she finally asked. She could have said more, but he would have heard the tremor in her voice.
“I think it’s a little smaller. Once we leave the Badlands behind, it may heal on its own.”
“Do you really say so?”
The gunslinger shook his head at once. “I say may. Now lie over, Susannah. Take your rest.”
“All right, but don’t you let me sleep late this time. I want to watch my share.”
“Yes. Now lie over.”
She did as he said, and was asleep even before her eyes closed.
Ten
She’s in Central Park and it’s cold enough to see her breath. The sky overhead is white from side to side, a snow-sky, but she’s not cold. No, not in her new deerskin coat, leggings, vest, and funny deerskin mittens. There’s something on her head, too, pulled down over her ears and keeping them as toasty as the rest of her. She takes the cap off, curious, and sees it’s not deerskin like the rest of her new clothing, but a red-and-green stocking cap. Written across the front is MERRY CHRISTMAS.
She looks at it, startled. Can you have déjà vu in a dream? Apparently so. She looks around and there are Eddie and Jake, grinning at her. Their heads are bare and she realizes she has in her hands a combination of the caps they were wearing in some other dream. She feels a great, soaring burst of joy, as if she has just solved some supposedly insoluble problem: squaring the circle, let us say, or finding the Ultimate Prime Number (take that, Blaine, may it bust ya brain, ya crazy choochoo train).
Eddie is wearing a sweatshirt that says I DRINK NOZZ-A-LA!
Jake is wearing one that says I DRIVE THE TAKURO SPIRIT!
Both have cups of hot chocolate, the perfect kind mit schlag on top and little sprinkles of nutmeg dotting the cream.
“What world is this?” she asks them, and realizes that somewhere nearby carolers are singing “What Child Is This.”
“You must let him go his course alone,” says Eddie.
“Yar, and you must beware of Dandelo,” says Jake.
“I don’t understand,” Susannah says, and holds out her stocking cap to them. “Wasn’t this yours? Didn’t you share it?”
“It could be your hat, if you want it,” says Eddie, and then holds out his cup. “Here, I brought you hot chocolate.”
“No more twins,” says Jake. “There’s only one hat, do ya not see.”
Before she can reply, a voice speaks out of the air and the dream begins to unravel. “NINETEEN,” says the voice. “This is NINETEEN, this is CHASSIT.”
With each word the world becomes more unreal. She can see through Eddie and Jake. The good smell of hot chocolate is fading, being replaced by the smell of ash
(wednesday)
and leather. She sees Eddie’s lips moving and she thinks he’s saying a name, and then
Eleven
“Time to get up, Susannah,” Roland said. “It’s your watch.”
She sat up, looking around. The campfire had burned low.
“I heard him moving out there,” Roland said, “but that was some time ago. Susannah, are you all right? Were you dreaming?”
“Yes,” she said. “There was only one hat in this dream, and I was wearing it.”
“I don’t understand you.”
Nor did she understand herself. The dream was already fading, as dreams do. All she knew for sure was that the name on Eddie’s lips just before he faded away for good had been that of Patrick Danville.