He found he didn’t mind. He could not remember when he had felt so calm, so at peace with himself, so utterly drained. This mad adventure wasn’t over yet—he suspected, in fact, that it had barely begun— but today they had won a big one.

“Suze?” He pushed her hair away from her face and looked into her dark eyes. “Are you okay? Did it hurt you?”

“Hurt me a little, but I’m okay. I think that bitch Detta Walker is still the undefeated Roadhouse Champeen, demon or no demon.”

“What’s that mean?”

She grinned impishly. “Not much, not anymore... thank God. How about you, Eddie? All right?”

Eddie listened for Henry’s voice and didn’t hear it. He had an idea that Henry’s voice might be gone for good. “Even better than that,” he said, and, laughing, folded her into his arms again. Over her shoulder he could see what was left of the door: only a few faint lines and angles. Soon the rain would wash those away, too.

44

“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?” JAKE asked the woman whose legs stopped just above the knee. He was suddenly aware that he had lost his pants in his struggle to escape the doorkeeper, and he pulled the tail of his shirt down over his underwear. There wasn’t very much left of her dress, either, as far as that went.

“Susannah Dean,” she said. “I already know your name.”

“Susannah,” Jake said thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose your father owns a railroad company, does he?”

She looked astonished for a moment, then threw her head back and laughed. “Why, no, sugar! He was a dentist who went and invented a few things and got rich. What makes you ask a thing like that?”

Jake didn’t answer. He had turned his attention to Eddie. The terror had already left his face, and his eyes had regained that cool, assessing look which Roland remembered so well from the way station.

“Hi, Jake,” Eddie said. “Good to see you, man.”

“Hi,” Jake said. “I met you earlier today, but you were a lot younger then.”

“I was a lot younger ten minutes ago. Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Jake said. “Some scratches, that’s all.” He looked around. “You haven’t found the train yet.” This was not a question.

Eddie and Susannah exchanged puzzled looks, but Roland only shook his head. “No train.”

“Are your voices gone?”

Roland nodded. “All gone. Yours?”

“Gone. I’m all together again. We both are.”

They looked at the same instant, with the same impulse. As Roland swept Jake into his arms, the boy’s unnatural self-possession broke and he began to cry—it was the exhausted, relieved weeping of a child who has been lost long, suffered much, and is finally safe again. As Roland’s arms closed about his waist, Jake’s own arms slipped about the gunslinger’s neck and gripped like hoops of steel.

“I’ll never leave you again,” Roland said, and now his own tears came. “I swear to you on the names of all my fathers: I’ll never leave you again.”