Stephen King – The Dark Tower

From Those of

MOSES ISAAC CARVER

MARIAN ODETTA CARVER

NANCY REBECCA DEEPNEAU

With Our Gratitude

White Over Red, Thus GOD Wills Ever

“Thankee-sai,” Roland said in a hoarse and trembling voice. “I thank you, and so would

my friends, were they here to speak.”

“In our hearts theydo speak, Roland,” Marian said. “And in your face we see them very

well.”

Moses Carver was smiling. “In our world, Roland, giving a man a gold watch has a special

significance.”

“What would that be?” Roland asked. He held the watch—easily the finest timepiece he’d

ever had in his life—up to his ear and listened to the precise and delicate ticking of its

machinery.

“That his work is done and it’s time for him to go fishing or play with his grandchildren,”

Nancy Deepneau said. “But we gave it to you for a different reason. May it count the hours

to your goal and tell you when you near it.”

“How can it do that?”

“We have one exceptional good-mind fellow in New Mexico,” Marian said. “His name is

Fred Towne. He sees a great deal and is rarely if ever mistaken. This watch is a Patek

Philippe, Roland. It cost nineteen thousand dollars, and the makers guarantee a full refund

of the price if it’s ever fast or slow. It needs no winding, for it runs on a battery—notmade by North Central Positronics or any subsidiary thereof, I can assure you—that will last a

hundred years. According to Fred, when you near the Dark Tower, the watch may

nevertheless stop.”

“Or begin to run backward,” Nancy said. “Watch for it.”

Moses Carver said, “I believe you will, won’t you?”

“Aye,” Roland agreed. He put the watch carefully in one pocket (after another long look at

the carvings on the golden cover) and the box in another. “I will watch this watch very

well.”

“You must watch for something else, too,” Marian said. “Mordred.”

Roland waited.

“We have reason to believe that he’s murdered the one you called Walter.” She paused.

“And I see that does not surprise you. May I ask why?”

“Walter’s finally left my dreams, just as the ache has left my hip and my head,” Roland

said. “The last time he visited them was in Calla Bryn Sturgis, the night of the

Beamquake.” He would not tell them how terrible those dreams had been, dreams in which

he wandered, lost and alone, down a dank castle corridor with cobwebs brushing his face;

the scuttering sound of something approaching from the darkness behind him (or perhaps

above him), and, just before waking up, the gleam of red eyes and a whispered, inhuman

voice: “Father.”

They were looking at him grimly. At last Marian said: “Beware him, Roland. Fred Towne,

the fellow I mentioned, says ‘Mordred be a-hungry.’ He says that’s a literal hunger. Fred’s

a brave man, but he’s afraid of your…your enemy.”

My son, why don’t you say it?Roland thought, but believed he knew. She withheld out of

care for his feelings.

Moses Carver stood and set his cane beside his daughter’s desk. “I have one more thing for

you,” he said, “on’y it was yours all along—yours to carry and lay down when you get to

where you’re bound.”

Roland was honestly perplexed, and more perplexed still when the old man began to

slowly unbutton his shirt down the front. Marian made as if to help him and he motioned

her away brusquely. Beneath his dress-shirt was an old man’s strap-style undershirt, what

the gunslinger thought of as a slinkum. Beneath it was a shape that Roland recognized at

once, and his heart seemed to stop in his chest. For a moment he was cast back to the cabin

on the lake—Beckhardt’s cabin, Eddie by his side—and heard his own words:Put Auntie’s

cross around your neck, and when you meet with sai Carver, show it to him. It may go a

long way toward convincing him you’re on the straight. But first…

The cross was now on a chain of fine gold links. Moses Carver pulled it free of his slinkum

by this, looked at it for a moment, looked up at Roland with a little smile on his lips, then down at the cross again. He blew upon it. Faint and faint, raising the hair on the

gunslinger’s arms, came Susannah’s voice:

“We buried Pimsey under the apple tree…”

Then it was gone. For a moment there was nothing, and Carver, frowning now, drew in

breath to blow again. There was no need. Before he could, John Cullum’s Yankee drawl

arose, not from the cross itself, but seemingly from the air just above it.

“We done our best, partner”—paaa’t-nuh—“and I hope ’twas good enough. Now, I

always knew this was on loan to me, and here it is, back where it belongs. You know where

it finishes up, I…” Here the words, which had been fading ever sincehere it is, became

inaudible even to Roland’s keen ears. Yet he had heard enough. He took Aunt Talitha’s

cross, which he had promised to lay at the foot of the Dark Tower, and donned it once more.

It had come back to him, and why would it not have done? Was ka not a wheel?

“I thank you, sai Carver,” he said. “For myself, for my ka-tet that was, and on behalf of the woman who gave it to me.”

“Don’t thank me,” Moses Carver said. “Thank Johnny Cullum. He give it to me on his

deathbed. That man had some hard bark on him.”

“I—” Roland began, and for a moment could say no more. His heart was too full. “I thank

you all,” he said at last. He bowed his head to them with the palm of his right fist against his brow and his eyes closed.

When he opened them again, Moses Carver was holding out his thin old arms. “Now it’s

time for us to go our way and you to go yours,” he said. “Put your arms around me, Roland,

and kiss my cheek in farewell if you would, and think of my girl as you do, for I’d say

goodbye to her if I may.”

Roland did as he was bid, and in another world, as she dozed aboard a train bound for

Fedic, Susannah put a hand to her cheek, for it seemed to her that Daddy Mose had come to

her, and put an arm around her, and bid her goodbye, good luck, good journey.

Thirteen

When Roland stepped out of the ele-vaydor in the lobby, he wasn’t surprised to see a

woman in a gray-green pullover and slacks the color of moss standing in front of the garden

with a few other quietly respectfulfolken . An animal which was not quite a dog sat by her

left shoe. Roland crossed to her and touched her elbow. Irene Tassenbaum turned to him,

her eyes wide with wonder.

“Do you hear it?” she asked. “It’s like the singing we heard in Lovell, only a hundred times

sweeter.”

“I hear it,” he said. Then he bent and picked up Oy. He looked into the bumbler’s bright

gold-ringed eyes as the voices sang. “Friend of Jake,” he said, “what message did he give?”

Oy tried, but the best he could manage was something that sounded likeDandy-o, a word Roland vaguely remembered from an old drinking song, where it rimed withAdelina says

she’s randy-o .

Roland put his forehead down against Oy’s forehead and closed his eyes. He smelled the

bumbler’s warm breath. And more: a scent deep in his fur that was the hay into which Jake

and Benny Slightman had taken turns jumping not so long before. In his mind, mingled

with the sweet singing of those voices, he heard the voice of Jake Chambers for the last

time:

Tell him Eddie says, “Watch for Dandelo.” Don’t forget!

And Oy had not.

Fourteen

Outside, as they descended the steps of 2 Hammarskjöld Plaza, a deferential voice said,

“Sir? Madam?”

It was a man in a black suit and a soft black cap. He stood by the longest, blackest car

Roland had ever seen. Looking at it made the gunslinger uneasy.

“Who’s sent us a funeral bucka?” he asked.

Irene Tassenbaum smiled. The rose had refreshed her—excited and exhilarated her, as

well—but she was still tired. And concerned to get in touch with David, who would likely

be out of his mind with worry by this time.

“It’s not a hearse,” she said. “It’s a limousine. A car for special people…or people who

think they’re special.” Then, to the driver: “While we’re riding, can you have someone in

your office check some airline info for me?”

“Of course, madam. May I ask your carrier of choice and your destination?”

“My destination’s Portland, Maine. My carrier of choice is Rubberband Airlines, if they’re

going there this afternoon.”

The limousine’s windows were smoked glass, the interior dim and ringed with colored

lights. Oy jumped up on one of the seats and watched with interest as the city rolled past.