Song of Susannah by Stephen King Read Free Book Online

had been Suze, and the moment it opened, he intended to dart through. If it opened a second time on the little Maine town where Calvin Tower and his friend, Aaron Deepneau, had gone to earth, fineand dandy. If the rest of them wound up there, trying to protect Tower and gain ownership of a certain vacant lot and a certain wild pink rose, also fine and dandy. Eddie’s priority was Susannah. Everything else was secondary to that.
    Even the tower.
SIX
    Henchick said: “Who would’ee send the first time the door opens?”
    Roland thought about this, absently running his hand over the bookcase Calvin Tower had insisted on sending through. The case containing the book which had so upset the Pere. He did not much want to send Eddie, a man who was impulsive to begin with and now all but blinded by his concern and his love, after his wife. Yet would Eddie obey him if Roland ordered him after Tower and Deepneau instead? Roland didn’t think so. Which meant—
    “Gunslinger?” Henchick prodded.
    “The first time the door opens, Eddie and I will go through,” Roland said. “The door will shut on its own?”
    “Indeed it will,” Henchick said. “You must be as quick as the devil’s bite, or you’ll likely be cut in two, half of you on the floor of this cave and the rest wherever the brown-skinned woman took herself off to.”
    “We’ll be as quick as we can, sure,” Roland said.
    “Aye, that’s best,” Henchick said, and put his teeth on display once more. This was a smile
    ( what’s he not telling? something he knows or only thinks he knows? )
    Roland would have occasion to think of not long hence.
    “I’d leave your guns here,” Henchick said. “If you try to carry them through, you may lose them.”
    “I’m going to try and keep mine,” Jake said. “It came from the other side, so it should be all right. If it’s not, I’ll get another one. Somehow.”
    “I expect mine may travel, as well,” Roland said. He’d thought about this carefully, and had decided to try and keep the big revolvers. Henchick shrugged, as if to say As you will.
    “What about Oy, Jake?” Eddie asked.
    Jake’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Roland realized the boy hadn’t considered his bumbler friend until this moment. The gunslinger reflected (not for the first time) how easy it was to forget the most basic truth about John “Jake” Chambers: he was just a kid.
    “When we went todash, Oy—” Jake began.
    “This ain’t that, sugar,” Eddie said, and when he heard Susannah’s endearment coming out of his mouth, his heart gave a sad cramp. For the first time he admitted to himself that he might never see her again, any more than Jake might see Oy once they left this stinking cave.
    “But . . .” Jake began, and then Oy gave a reproachful little bark. Jake had been squeezing him too tightly.
    “We’ll keep him for you, Jake,” Cantab said gently. “Keep him very well, say true. There’ll befolk posted here until thee comes back for thy friend and all the rest of thy goods.” If you ever do was the part he was too kind to state. Roland read it in his eyes, however.
    “Roland, are you sure I can’t . . . that he can’t . . . no. I see. Not todash this time. Okay. No.”
    Jake reached into the front pocket of the poncho, lifted Oy out, set him on the powdery floor of the cave. He bent down, hands planted just above his knees. Oy looked up, stretching his neck so that their faces almost touched. And Roland now saw something extraordinary: not the tears in Jake’s eyes, but those that had begun to well up in Oy’s. A billy-bumbler crying. It was the sort of story you might hear in a saloon as the night grew late and drunk—the faithful bumbler who wept for his departing master. You didn’t believe such stories but never said so, in order to save brawling (perhaps even shooting). Yet here it was, he was seeing it, and it made Roland feel a bit like crying himself. Was it just more bumbler imitation, or did Oy