“You heard it too, didn’t you?”

“If you mean something yowling in the hills, yes. If you mean the Bugger-Man, as your eyes say, no. I heard a wildcat in the brakes, that’s all, maybe with a voice four times the size of its body. It may be nothing you can’t drive off with a stick. But there’s her to think about. If her other comes back, you may have to—”

“I won’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

“You may have to wing her. You understand?”

Eddie gave a reluctant nod. Goddam shells probably wouldn’t fire anyway, so there was no sense getting his panties in a bunch about it.

“When you get to the door, leave her. Shelter her as well as you can, and come back to me with the chair.”

“And the gun?”

The gunslinger’s eyes blazed so brightly that Eddie snapped his head back, as if Roland had thrust a flaming torch in his face. “Gods, yes! Leave her with a loaded gun, when her other might come back at any time? Are you insane?”

“The shells—”

“Fuck the shells!” the gunslinger cried, and a freak drop in the wind allowed the words to carry. Odetta turned her head, looked at them for a long moment, then looked back toward the sea. “Leave it with her not!”

Eddie kept his voice low in case the wind should drop again. “What if something comes down from the brakes while I’m on my way back here? Some kind of cat four times bigger than its voice, instead of the other way around? Something you can’t drive off with a stick?”

“Give her a pile of stones,” the gunslinger said.

“Stones! Jesus wept! Man, you are such a fucking shit!”

“I am thinking,” the gunslinger said. “Something you seem unable to do. I gave you the gun so you could protect her from the sort of danger you’re talking about for half of the trip you must make. Would it please you if I took the gun back? Then perhaps you could die for her. Would that please you? Very romantic . . . except then, instead of just her, all three of us would go down.”

“Very logical. You’re still a fucking shit, however.”

“Go or stay. Stop calling me names.”

“You forgot something,” Eddie said furiously.

“What was that?”

“You forgot to tell me to grow up. That’s what Henry always used to say. ‘Oh grow up, kid.’ ”

The gunslinger had smiled, a weary, oddly beautiful smile. “I think you have grown up. Will you go or stay?”

“I’ll go,” Eddie said. “What are you going to eat? She scarfed the left-overs.”

“The fucking shit will find a way. The fucking shit has been finding one for years.”

Eddie looked away. “I . . . I guess I’m sorry I called you that, Roland. It’s been—” He laughed suddenly, shrilly. “It’s been a very trying day.”

Roland smiled again. “Yes,” he said. “It has.”