“With Walter,” Susannah said.

“Yes. We held palaver, he and I... long palaver. I fell asleep at some point, and when I woke up, Walter was dead. A hundred years dead at least, and probably more. There was nothing left of him but bones, which was fitting enough, since we were in a place of bones.”

“Yeah, it must have been a pretty long palaver, all right,” Eddie said dryly.

Susannah frowned slightly at this, but Roland only nodded. “Long and long,” he said, looking into the fire.

“You came to in the morning and reached the Western Sea that very evening,” Eddie said. “That night the lobstrosities came, right?”

Roland nodded again. “Yes. But before I left the place where Walter and I had spoken... or dreamed... or whatever it was we did... I took this from the skull of his skeleton.” He lifted the bone and the orange light again skated off the teeth.

Walter’s jawbone, Eddie thought, and felt a little chill work through him. The jawbone of the man in black. Remember this, Eddie my boy, the next time you get to thinking Roland’s maybe just another one of the guys. He’s been carrying it around with him all this time like some kind of a... a cannibal’s trophy. Jee-sus.

“I remember what I thought when I took it,” Roland said. “I remember very well; it is the only memory I have of that time which hasn’t doubled on me. I thought, ‘It was bad luck to throw away what I found when I found the boy. This will replace it.’ Only then I heard Walter’s laughter—his mean, tittery laughter. I heard his voice, too.”

“What did he say?” Susannah asked.

“‘Too late, gunslinger,’” Roland said. “That’s what he said. ‘Too late—your luck will be bad from now until the end of eternity—that is your ka.’”

16

“ALL RIGHT,” EDDIE SAID at last. “I understand the basic paradox. Your memory is divided—”

“Not divided. Doubled.”

“All right; it’s almost the same thing, isn’t it?” Eddie grasped a twig and made his own little drawing in the sand:

He tapped the line on the left. “This is your memory of the time before you got to the way station—a single track.”

“Yes.”

He tapped the line on the right. “And after you came out on the far side of the mountains in the place of bones... the place where Walter was waiting for you. Also a single track.”

“Yes.”

Now Eddie first indicated the middle area and then drew a rough circle around it.

“That’s what you’ve got to do, Roland—close this double track off. Build a stockade around it in your mind and then forget it. Because it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t change anything, it’s gone, it’s done—”

“But it isn’t.” Roland held up the bone. “If my memories of the boy Jake are false—and I know they are—how can I have this? I took it to replace the one I threw away... but the one I threw away came from the cellar of the way station, and along the track I know is true, I never went down cellar! I never spoke with the demon! I moved on alone, with fresh water and nothing else!”