“Youlie! ” Tower said. He drew in breath as he said it, turning the words into an inhaled scream.

“God,” Eddie replied, “if only I did. I saw two innocent women die, Cal. In the general store, this was. Andolini set an ambush, and if you were a praying man—I suppose you’re not, unless there’s some first edition you feel in danger of losing, but if you were—you might want to get down on your knees and pray to the god of selfish, obsessed, greedy, uncaring dishonest bookstore owners that it was a woman namedMia who told Balazar’s dinh where we were probably going to end up,her, not you. Because if they followedyou, Calvin, those two women’s blood is onyour hands! ”

His voice was rising steadily, and although Eddie was still looking steadfastly down, his whole body had begun to tremble. He could feel his eyes bulging in their sockets and the cords of strain standing out on his neck. He could feel his balls drawn all the way up, as small and as hard as peach-pits. Most of all he could feel the desire to spring across the room, as effortless as a ballet dancer, and bury his hands in Calvin Tower’s fat white throat. He was waiting for Roland to intervene—hopingfor Roland to intervene—but the gunslinger did not, and Eddie’s voice continued to rise toward the inevitable scream of fury.

“One of those women went right down but the other…she stayed up for a couple of seconds. A bullet took off the top of her head. I think it was a machine-gun bullet, and for the couple of seconds she stayed on her feet, she looked like a volcano. Only she was blowing blood instead of lava. Well, but it was probably Mia who ratted. I’ve got a feeling about that. It’s not entirely logical, but luckily for you, it’sstrong. Mia using what Susannah knew and protecting her chap.”

“Mia? Young man—Mr. Dean—I know no—”

“Shut up!” Eddie cried. “Shut up, you rat! You lying, reneging weasel! You greedy, grasping, piggy excuse for a man! Why didn’t you take out a few billboards? H I, I’M CAL TOWER ! I’ M STAYING ON THE ROCKET ROAD IN EAST STONEHAM! W HY DON ’ T YOU COME SEE ME AND MY FRIEND, AARON! B RING GUNS! ”

Slowly, Eddie looked up. Tears of rage were rolling down his face. Tower had backed up against the wall to one side of the door, his eyes huge and moist in his round face. Sweat stood out on his brow. He held his bag of freshly acquired books against his chest like a shield.

Eddie looked at him steadily. Blood dripped from between his tightly clasped hands; the spot of blood on the arm of his shirt had begun to spread again; now a trickle of blood ran from the left side of his mouth, as well. And he supposed he understood Roland’s silence. This was Eddie Dean’s job. Because he knew Tower inside as well as out, didn’t he? Knew him very well. Once upon a time not so long ago hadn’t he himself thought everything in the world but heroin pale and unimportant? Hadn’t he believed everything in the world that wasn’t heroin up for barter or sale? Had he not come to a point when he would literally have pimped his own mother in order to get the next fix? Wasn’t that why he was so angry?

“That lot on the corner of Second Avenue and Forty-sixth Street was never yours,” Eddie said. “Not your father’s, or his father’s, all the way back to Stefan Toren. You were only custodians, the same way I’m custodian of the gun I wear.”

“I deny that!”

“Do you?” Aaron asked. “How strange. I’ve heard you speak of that piece of land in almost those exact words—”

“Aaron, shut up!”

“—many times,” Deepneau finished calmly.

There was a pop. Eddie jumped, sending a fresh throb of pain up his leg from the hole in his shin. It was a match. Roland was lighting another cigarette. The filter lay on the oilcloth covering the table with two others. They looked like little pills.

“Here is what you said to me,” Eddie said, and all at once he was calm. The rage was out of him, like poison drawn from a snakebite. Roland had let him do that much, and despite his bleeding tongue and bleeding palms, he was grateful.

“Anything I said…I was under stress…I was afraid you might kill me yourself!”

“You said you had an envelope from March of 1846. You said there was a sheet of paper in the envelope, and a name written on the paper. You said—”

“I deny—”

“You said that if I could tell you the name written on that piece of paper, you’d sell me the lot. For one dollar. And with the understanding that you’d be getting a great deal more—millions—between now and…1985, let’s say.”

Tower barked a laugh. “Why not offer me the Brooklyn Bridge while you’re at it?”

“You made a promise. And now your father watches you attempt to break it.”

Calvin Tower shrieked:“I DENY EVERY WORD YOU SAY!”

“Deny and be damned,” Eddie said. “And now I’m going to tell you something, Cal, something I know from my own beat-up but still beating heart. You’re eating a bitter meal. You don’t know that because someone told you it was sweet and your own tastebuds are numb.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about! You’re crazy!”

“No,” Aaron said. “He’s not. You’re the one who’s crazy if you don’t listen to him. I think…I think he’s giving you a chance to redeem the purpose of your life.”

“Give it up,” Eddie said. “Just once listen to the better angel instead of to the other one. That other one hates you, Cal. It only wants to kill you. Believe me, I know.”

Silence in the cabin. From the pond came the cry of a loon. From across it came the less lovely sound of sirens.

Calvin Tower licked his lips and said, “Are you telling the truth about Andolini? Is he really in this town?”

“Yes,” Eddie said. Now he could hear thewhuppa-whuppa-whup of an approaching helicopter. A TV news chopper? Wasn’t this still about five years too early for such things, especially up here in the boondocks?

The bookstore owner’s eyes shifted to Roland. Tower had been surprised, and he’d been guilt-tripped with a vengeance, but the man was already regaining some of his composure. Eddie could see it, and he reflected (not for the first time) on how much simpler life would be if people would stay in the pigeonholes where you originally put them. He did not want to waste time thinking of Calvin Tower as a brave man, or as even second cousin to the good guys, but maybe he was both those things. Damn him.

“You’re truly Roland of Gilead?”

Roland regarded him through rising membranes of cigarette smoke. “You say true, I say thank ya.”

“Roland of the Eld?”

“Yes.”

“Son of Steven?”

“Yes.”

“Grandson of Alaric?”

Roland’s eyes flickered with what was probably surprise. Eddie himself was surprised, but what he mostly felt was a kind of tired relief. The questions Tower was asking could mean only two things. First, more had been passed down to him than just Roland’s name and trade of hand. Second, he was coming around.

“Of Alaric, aye,” Roland said, “him of the red hair.”

“I don’t know anything about his hair, but I know why he went to Garlan. Do you?”

“To slay a dragon.”

“And did he?”

“No, he was too late. The last in that part of the world had been slain by another king, one who was later murdered.”

Now, to Eddie’s even greater surprise, Tower haltingly addressed Roland in a language that was a second cousin to English at best. What Eddie heard was something likeHad heet Rol-uh, fa heet gun, fa heet hak, fa-had gun?

Roland nodded and replied in the same tongue, speaking slowly and carefully. When he was finished, Tower sagged against the wall and dropped his bag of books unheeded to the floor. “I’ve been a fool,” he said.

No one contradicted him.

“Roland, would you step outside with me? I need…I…need…” Tower began to cry. He said something else in that not-English language, once more ending on a rising inflection, as if asking a question.