Still, he realized that the gunslinger had been right.

“Do you want to rest?” he asked Odetta. “There’s more food. A little.”

“Not yet,” she answered, although her voice sounded tired. “Soon.”

“All right, but at least stop pumping. You’re weak. Your . . . your stomach, you know.”

“All right.” She turned, her face gleaming with sweat, and favored him with a smile that both weakened and strengthened him. He could have died for such a smile . . . and thought he would, if circumstances demanded.

He hoped to Christ circumstances wouldn’t, but it surely wasn’t out of the question. Time had become something so crucial it screamed.

She put her hands in her lap and he went on pushing. The tracks the chair left behind were now dimmer; the beach had become steadily firmer, but it was also littered with rubble that could cause an accident. You wouldn’t have to help one happen at the speed they were going. A really bad accident might hurt Odetta and that would be bad; such an accident could also wreck the chair, and that would be bad for them and probably worse for the gunslinger, who would almost surely die alone. And if Roland died, they would be trapped in this world forever.

With Roland too sick and weak to walk, Eddie had been forced to face one simple fact: there were three people here, and two of them were cripples.

So what hope, what chance was there?

The chair.

The chair was the hope, the whole hope, and nothing but the hope.

So help them God.

2

The gunslinger had regained consciousness shortly after Eddie dragged him into the shade of a rock outcropping. His face, where it was not ashy, was a hectic red. His chest rose and fell rapidly. His right arm was a network of twisting red lines.

“Feed her,” he croaked at Eddie.

“You—”

“Never mind me. I’ll be all right. Feed her. She’ll eat now, I think. And you’ll need her strength.”

“Roland, what if she’s just pretending to be—”

The gunslinger gestured impatiently.

“She’s not pretending to be anything, except alone in her body. I know it and you do, too. It’s in her face. Feed her, for the sake of your father, and while she eats, come back to me. Every minute counts now. Every second.”

Eddie got up, and the gunslinger pulled him back with his left hand. Sick or not, his strength was still there.

“And say nothing about the other. Whatever she tells you, however she explains, don’t contradict her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just know it’s wrong. Now do as I say and don’t waste any more time!”

Odetta had been sitting in her chair, looking out at the sea with an expression of mild and bemused amazement. When Eddie offered her the chunks of lobster left over from the previous night, she smiled ruefully. “I would if I could,” she said, “but you know what happens.”