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 Bryan turns it up (once more swerving across the white line and into the northbound lane as he does so-this is the sort of person who simply cannot fix the radio without looking at it). Rap rules!
And metal rules, too! All he needs now to make his day complete is a tune by Ozzy-"Crazy Train "would be good.
And some of those Marses bars.
SIXTEEN
Mrs. Tassenbaum came bolting out of the Cara Laughs driveway and onto Turtleback Lane in second gear, the old pickup truck's engine overcranking (if there'd been an RPM gauge on the dashboard, the needle would undoubtedly have been redlining),
the few tools in the back tapdancing crazily in the rusty bed.
Roland had only a bit of the touch-hardly any at all, compared to Jake-but he had met Stephen King, and taken him down into the false sleep of hypnosis. That was a powerful bond to share, and so he wasn't entirely surprised when he touched the mind Jake hadn't been able to reach. It probably didn't hurt that King was thinking about them.
He often does on his walks, Roland thought. When he's alone, he hears the Song of the Turtle and knows that he has a job to do. One he's shirking. Well, my friend, that ends today.
If, that was, they could save him.
He leaned past Jake and looked at the woman. "Can't you make this gods-cursed thing go faster?"
"Yes," she said. "I believe I can." And then, to Jake: "Can you really read minds, son, or is that only a game you and your friend play?"
"I can't read them, exactly, but I can touch them," Jake said.
"I hope to hell that's the truth," she said, "because