“’Fraid,” Oy agreed, but he was quiet enough as Roland and Eddie lowered Jake down the side of the Barony Coach. The rope wasn’t quite long enough to take him all the way down, but Jake had no trouble twisting his foot free and dropping the last four feet. He set Oy down. The bumbler trotted off, sniffing, and lifted his leg against the side of the terminal building. This was nowhere near as grand as the Cradle of Lud, but it had an old-fashioned look that Roland liked—white boards, overhanging eaves, high, narrow windows, what looked like slate shingles. It was a Western look. Written in gold gilt on a sign which stretched above the terminal’s line of doors was this message:

ATCHISON, TOPEKA, AND SANTA FE

Towns, Roland supposed, and that last one sounded familiar to him; had there not been a Santa Fe in the Barony of Mejis? But that led back toward Susan, lovely Susan at the window with her hair unbraided and all down her back, the smell of her like jasmine and rose and honeysuckle and old sweet hay, smells of which the oracle in the mountains had been able to make only the palest mimicry. Susan lying back and looking solemnly up at him, then smiling and putting her hands behind her head so that her breasts rose, as if aching for his hands.

If you love me, Roland, then love me... bird and bear and hare and fish...

“... next?”

He looked around at Eddie, having to use all of his will to pull himself back from Susan Delgado’s when. There were thinnies here in Topeka, all right, and of many sorts. “My mind was wandering, Eddie. Cry your pardon.”

“Susannah next? That’s what I asked.”

Roland shook his head. “You next, then Susannah. I’ll go last.”

“Will you be okay? With your hand and all?”

“I’ll be fine.”

Eddie nodded and stuck his foot into the loop. When Eddie had first come into Mid-World, Roland could have lowered him easily by himself, two fingers short the full complement or no, but Eddie had been without his drug for months now, and had put on ten or fifteen pounds of muscle. Roland accepted Susannah’s help gladly enough, and together they lowered him down.

“Now you, lady,” Roland said, and smiled at her. It felt more natural to smile these days.

“Yes.” But for the nonce she only stood there, biting her lower lip.

“What is it?”

Her hand went to her stomach and rubbed there, as if it ached or griped her. He thought she would speak, but she shook her head and said, “Nothing.”

“I don’t believe that. Why do you rub your belly? Are you hurt? Were you hurt when we stopped?”

She took her hand off her tunic as if the flesh just south of her navel had grown hot. “No. I’m fine.”

“Are you?”