handed him a shoulderpack. What it contained mostly was deermeat, heavily salted from a natural lick Roland had found about three miles up the little creek. The gunslinger had already donned a similar pack. His purse—restocked and once again bulging with all sorts of odds and ends—hung from his other shoulder.
A strange, home-made harness with a seat of stitched deerskin dangled from a nearby branch. Roland plucked it off, studied it for a moment, and then draped it over his back and knotted the straps below his chest. Susannah made a sour face at this, and Roland saw it. He did not try to speak—this close to the bear, he couldn’t have made himself heard even by shouting at the top of his voice—but he shrugged sympathetically and spread his hands: You know we’ll need it.
She shrugged back. I know . . . but that doesn’t mean I like it.
The gunslinger pointed across the clearing. A pair of leaning, splintered spruce trees marked the place where Shardik, who had once been known as Mir in these parts, had entered the clearing.
Eddie leaned toward Susannah, made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, then raised his eyebrows interrogatively. Okay?
She nodded, then pressed the heels of her palms against her ears. Okay—but let’s get out of here before I go deaf.
The three of them moved across the clearing, Eddie pushing Susannah, who held the bag of hides in her lap. The pocket in the back of her wheelchair was stuffed with other items; the piece of wood with the slingshot still mostly hidden inside it was only one of them.
From behind them the bear continued to roar out its final communication to the world, telling them shutdown would be complete in forty minutes. Eddie couldn’t wait. The broken spruces leaned in toward each other, forming a rude gate, and Eddie thought: This is where the quest for Roland’s Dark Tower really begins, at least for us.
He thought of his dream again—the spiraling windows issuing their unfurling flags of darkness, flags which spread over the field of roses like a stain—and as they passed beneath the leaning trees, a deep shudder gripped him.
22
THEY WERE ABLE TO use the wheelchair longer than Roland had expected. The firs of this forest were very old, and their spreading branches had created a deep carpet of needles which discouraged most undergrowth. Susannah’s arms were strong—stronger than Eddie’s, although Roland did not think that would be true much longer—and she wheeled herself along easily over the level, shady forest floor. When they came to one of the trees the bear had pushed over, Roland lifted her out of the chair and Eddie boosted it over the obstacle.
From behind them, only a little deadened by distance, the bear told them, at the top of its mechanical voice, that the capacity of its last operating nuclear subcell was now negligible.
“I hope you keep that damn harness lying empty over your shoulders all day!” Susannah shouted at the gunslinger.
Roland agreed, but less than fifteen minutes later the land began to slope downward and this old section of the forest began to be invaded with smaller, younger trees: birch, alder, and a few stunted maples scrabbling grimly in the soil for purchase. The carpet of needles thinned and the wheels of Susannah’s chair began to catch in the low, tough bushes which grew in the alleys between the trees. Their thin branches boinged and rattled in the stainless steel spokes. Eddie threw his weight against the handles and they were able to go on for another quarter of a mile that way. Then the slope began to grow more steep, and the ground underfoot became mushy.
“Time for a pig-back, lady,” Roland said.
“Let’s try the chair a little longer, what do you say? Going might get easier—”
Roland shook his head. “If you try that hill, you’ll . . . what did you call it, Eddie? . . . do a dugout?”
Eddie shook his head, grinning. “It’s called doing a doughnut, Roland. A term from my misspent sidewalk-surfing days.”
“Whatever you call it, it means landing on your head. Come on, Susannah. Up you come.”
“I hate being a cripple,” Susannah said crossly, but allowed Eddie to hoist her out of the chair and worked with him to seat herself firmly in the harness Roland wore on his back. Once she was in place, she touched the butt of Roland’s pistol. “Y’all want this baby?” she asked Eddie.