Then, for a long time, there was silence.

When he could bear it no longer, Eddieasked the old caretaker how much of the tale he believed.

“All of it,” John said without hesitation.“You gut to take care of that rose in New York, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Roland said.

“Because that’s what’s kep’ one of thoseBeams safe while most of the others has been broken down by thesewhat-do-you-call-em telepathics, the Breakers.”

Eddie was amazed at how quickly and easilyCullum had grasped that, but perhaps there was no reason to be. Fresh eyessee clear, Susannah liked to say. And Cullum was very much what the graysof Lud would have called “a trig cove.”

“Yes,” Roland said. “You say true.”

“The rose is takin care of one Beam.Stephen King’s in charge of the other ‘un. Least, that’s what you think.”

Eddie said, “He’d bear watching,John—all else aside, he’s got some lousy habits—but once we leavethis world’s 1977, we can never come back and check on him.”

“King doesn’t exist in any of these otherworlds?” John asked.

“Almost surely not,” Roland said.

“Even if he does,” Eddie put in, “what hedoes in them doesn’t matter. This is the key world. This, and the one Rolandcame from. This world and that one are twins.”

He looked at Roland for confirmation.Roland nodded and lit the last of the cigarettes John had given him earlier.

“I might be able to keep an eye on StephenKing,” John said. “He don’t need to know I’m doin it, either. That is, if I getback from doin your cussed business in New York. I gut me a pretty good idearwhat it is, but maybe you’d better spell it out.” From his back pocket he tooka battered notepad with the words Mead Memo written on the green cover. Hepaged most of the way through it, found a blank sheet, produced a pencil fromhis breast pocket, licked the tip (Eddie restrained a shudder), and then lookedat them as expectantly as any freshman on the first day of high school.

“Now, dearies,” he said, “why don’t youtell your Uncle John the rest.”

Five

This time Roland did most of the talking,and although he had less to say than Eddie, it still took him half an hour, forhe spoke with great caution, every now and then turning to Eddie for help witha word or phrase. Eddie had already seen the killer and the diplomat who livedinside Roland of Gilead, but this was his first clear look at the envoy, amessenger who meant to get every word right. Outside, the storm still refusedto break or to go away.

At last the gunslinger sat back. In theyellow glow of the candles, his face appeared both ancient and strangelylovely. Looking at him, Eddie for the first time suspected there might be morewrong with him than what Rosalita Munoz had called “the dry twist.” Roland hadlost weight, and the dark circles beneath his eyes whispered of illness. Hedrank off a whole glass of the red tea at a single draught, and asked: “Do youunderstand the things I’ve told you?”

“Ayuh.” No more than that.

“Ken it very well, do ya?” Roland pressed.“No questions?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Tell it back to us, then.”

John had filled two pages with notes in hislooping scrawl. Now he paged back and forth between them, nodding to himself acouple of times. Then he grunted and returned the pad to his hip pocket. Hemay be a country cousin, but he’s a long way from stupid, Eddie thought. Andmeeting him was a long way from just luck; that was ka having a very good day.

“Go to New York,” John said. “Find thisfella Aaron Deepneau. Keep his buddy out of it. Convince Deepneau that takincare of the rose in that vacant lot is just about the most important job in theworld.”

“You can cut the just-about,” Eddie said.

John nodded as if that went without saying.He picked up the piece of notepaper with the cartoon beaver on top and tuckedit into his voluminous wallet. Passing the bill of sale to him had been one ofthe harder things Eddie Dean had had to do since being sucked through theunfound door and into East Stoneham, and he came close to snatching it backbefore it could disappear into the caretaker’s battered old Lord Buxton. Hethought he understood much better now about how Calvin Tower had felt.

“Because you boys now own the lot, you ownthe rose,” John said.

“The Tet Corporation now owns the rose,”Eddie said. “A corporation of which you’re about to become executivevice-president.”

John Cullum looked unimpressed with hisputative new title. He said, “Deepneau’s supposed to draw up articles ofincorporation and make sure Tet’s legal. Then we go to see this fella MosesCarver and make sure he gets on board. That’s apt to be the hardpart—” Haa-aad paa-aat “—but we’ll give it our best go.”

“Put Auntie’s cross around your neck,”Roland said, “and when you meet with sai Carver, show it to him. It may go along way toward convincing him you’re on the straight. But first you must blowon it, like this.”

On their ride from Bridgton, Roland hadasked Eddie if he could think of any secret—no matter how trivial orgreat—which Susannah and her godfather might have shared in common. As amatter of fact Eddie did know such a secret, and he was now astounded to hearSusannah speak it from the cross which lay on Dick Beckhardt’s pine table.

“We buried Pimsy under the apple tree,where he could watch the blossoms fall in the spring,” her voice said. “AndDaddy Mose told me not to cry anymore, because God thinks to mourn a pet toolong…”

Here the words faded away, first to amutter and then to nothing at all. But Eddie remembered the rest and repeatedit now: “ ‘… to mourn a pet too long’s a sin.’ She said Daddy Mose told her shecould go to Pimsy’s grave once in awhile and whisper ‘Be happy in heaven’ butnever to tell anyone else, because preachers don’t hold much with the idea ofanimals going to heaven. And she kept the secret. I was the only one she evertold.” Eddie, perhaps remembering that post-coital confidence in the dark ofnight, was smiling painfully.

John Cullum looked at the cross, then up atRoland, wide-eyed. “What is it? Some kind of tape recorder? It ain’t, is it?”

“It’s a sigul,” Roland said patiently. “Onethat may help you with this fellow Carver, if he turns out to be what Eddiecalls ‘a hardass.’” The gunslinger smiled a little. Hardass was a termhe liked. One he understood. “Put it on.”

But Cullum didn’t, at least not at once.For the first time since the old fellow had come into theiracquaintance—including that period when they’d been under fire in theGeneral Store—he looked genuinely discomposed. “Is it magic?” he asked.

Roland shrugged impatiently, as if to tellJohn that the word had no useful meaning in this context, and merely repeated:“Put it on.”

Gingerly, as if he thought Aunt Talitha’scross might glow redhot at any moment and give him a serious burn, John Cullumdid as bid. He bent his head to look down at it (momentarily giving his longYankee face an amusing burgher’s double chin), then tucked it into his shirt.

“Gorry,” he said again, very softly.

Six

Aware that he was speaking now as once he’dbeen spoken to, Eddie Dean said: “Tell the rest of your lesson, John of EastStoneham, and be true.”

Cullum had gotten out of bed that morningno more than a country caretaker, one of the world’s unknown and unseen. He’dgo to bed tonight with the potential of becoming one of the world’s mostimportant people, a true prince of the Earth. If he was afraid of the idea, itdidn’t show. Perhaps he hadn’t grasped it yet.

But Eddie didn’t believe that. This was theman ka had put in their road, and he was both trig and brave. If Eddie had beenWalter at this moment (or Flagg, as Walter sometimes called himself), hebelieved he would have trembled.

“Well,” John said, “it don’t mind a mite toya who runs the company, but you want Tet to swallow up Holmes, because fromnow on the job doesn’t have anything to do with makin toothpaste and cappinteeth, although it may go on lookin that way yet awhile.”