He’s a living remnant of a past they only know from stories, Susannah thought. They look at him the way religious people would look at one of the saints—Peter or Paul or Matthew—if he decided to drop by the Saturday night bean supper and tell them stories of how it was, traipsing around the Sea of Galilee with Jesus the Carpenter.
The ritual which had ended the meal was now repeated, only this time everyone left in River Crossing participated. They shuffled forward in a line, shaking hands with Eddie and Susannah, kissing Jake on the cheek or forehead, then kneeling in front of Roland for his touch and his blessing. Mercy threw her arms about him and pressed her blind face against his stomach. Roland hugged her back and thanked her for her news.
“Will ye not stay the night with us, gunslinger? Sunset comes on apace, and it’s been long since you and yours spent the night beneath a roof, I’ll warrant.”
“It has been, but it’s best we go on. Thankee-sai.”
“Will ye come again if ye may, gunslinger?”
“Yes,” Roland said, but Eddie did not need to look into his strange friend’s face to know the chances were small. “If we can.”
“Ay.” She hugged him a final time, then passed on with her hand resting on Si’s sunburned shoulder. “Fare ye well.”
Aunt Talitha came last. When she began to kneel, Roland caught her by the shoulders. “No, sai. You shall not do.” And before Eddie’s amazed eyes, Roland knelt before her in the dust of the town square. “Will you bless me, Old Mother? Will you bless all of us as we go our course?”
“Ay,” she said. There was no surprise in her voice, no tears in her eyes, but her voice throbbed with deep feeling, all the same. “I see your heart is true, gunslinger, and that you hold to the old ways of your kind; ay, you hold to them very well. I bless you and yours and will pray that no harm will come to you. Now take this, if you will.” She reached into the bodice of her faded dress and removed a silver cross at the end of a fine-link silver chain. She took it off.
Now was Roland’s turn to be surprised. “Are you sure? I did not come to take what belongs to you and yours, Old Mother.”
“I’m sure as sure can be. I’ve worn this day and night for over a hundred years, gunslinger. Now you shall wear it, and lay it at the foot of the Dark Tower, and speak the name of Talitha Unwin at the far end of the earth.” She slipped the chain over his head. The cross dropped into the open neck of his deerskin shirt as if it belonged there. “Go now. We have broken bread, we have held palaver, we have your blessing, and you have ours. Go your course in safety. Stand and be true.” Her voice trembled and broke on the last word.
Roland rose to his feet, then bowed and tapped his throat three times. “Thankee-sai.”
She bowed back, but did not speak. Now there were tears coursing down her cheeks.
“Ready?” Roland asked.
Eddie nodded. He did not trust himself to speak.
“All right,” Roland said. “Let’s go.”
They walked down what remained of the town’s high street, Jake pushing Susannah’s wheelchair. As they passed the last building (TRADE & CHANGE, the faded sign read), he looked back. The old people were still gathered about the stone marker, a forlorn cluster of humanity in the middle of this wide, empty plain. Jake raised his hand. Up to this point he had managed to hold himself in, but when several of the old folks—Si, Bill, and Till among them—raised their own hands in return, Jake burst into tears himself.
Eddie put an arm around his shoulders. “Just keep walking, sport,” he said in an uneasy voice. “That’s the only way to do it.”
“They’re so old!” Jake sobbed. “How can we just leave them like this? It’s not right!”
“It’s ka,” Eddie said without thinking.
“Is it? Well ka suh-suh-sucks!”
“Yeah, hard,” Eddie agreed . . . but he kept walking. So did Jake, and he didn’t look back again. He was afraid they would still be there, standing at the center of their forgotten town, watching until Roland and his friends were out of view. And he would have been right.
14
THEY HAD MADE LESS than seven miles before the sky began to darken and sunset colored the western horizon blaze orange. There was a