In light of this new perception, Susannah could see how cleverly the gunslinger had managed them since that awful morning in the speaking ring. Each time they had begun a line of conversation which would lead to the comparing of notes—and what could be more natural, given the cataclysmic and inexplicable “drawing” each of them had experienced?— Roland had been there, stepping in quickly and turning the conversation into other channels so smoothly that none of them (even she, who had spent almost four years up to her neck in the civil-rights movement) had noticed what he was doing.

Susannah thought she understood why—he had done it in order to give Jake time to heal. But understanding his motives didn’t change her own feelings—astonishment, amusement, chagrin—about how neatly he had handled them. She remembered something Andrew, her chauffeur, had said shortly before Roland had drawn her into this world. Something about President Kennedy being the last gunslinger of the western world. She had scoffed then, but now she thought she understood. There was a lot more JFK than Matt Dillon in Roland. She suspected that Roland possessed little of Kennedy’s imagination, but when it came to romance... dedication... charisma...

And guile, she thought. Don’t forget guile.

She surprised herself by suddenly bursting into laughter.

Roland had seated himself cross-legged. Now he turned toward her, raising his eyebrows. “Something funny?”

“Very. Tell me something—how many languages can you speak?”

The gunslinger thought it over. “Five,” he said at last. “I used to speak the Sellian dialects fairly well, but I believe I’ve forgotten everything but the curses.”

Susannah laughed again. It was a cheerful, delighted sound. “You a fox, Roland,” she said. “Indeed you are.”

Jake looked interested. “Say a swear in Strelleran,” he said.

“Sellian,” Roland corrected. He thought a minute, then said something very fast and greasy—to Eddie it sounded a little as if he was gargling with some very thick liquid. Week-old coffee, say. Roland grinned as he said it.

Jake grinned back. “What does it mean?”

Roland put an arm around the boy’s shoulders for a moment. “That we have a lot of things to talk about.”

19

“WE ARE KA -TET ,” ROLAND began, “which means a group of people bound together by fate. The philosophers of my land said a ka-tet could only be broken by death or treachery. My great teacher, Cort, said that since death and treachery are also spokes on the wheel of ka, such a binding can never be broken. As the years pass and I see more, I come more and more to Cort’s way of looking at it.

“Each member of a ka-tet is like a piece in a puzzle. Taken by itself, each piece is a mystery, but when they are put together, they make a picture... or part of a picture. It may take a great many ka-tets to finish one picture. You mustn’t be surprised if you discover your lives have been touching in ways you haven’t seen until now. For one thing, each of you three is capable of knowing each other’s thoughts—”