By the time they were halfway along the path leading to the Doorway Cave ( It’s upsy,Henchick had said, and so it had been, and so it was), it was easily ten o’ the clock and remarkably warm. Eddie stopped, wiped the back of his neck with his bandanna, and looked out over the twisting arroyos to the north. Here and there he could see black, gaping holes and asked Roland if they were the garnet mines. The gunslinger told him they were.

“And which one have you got in mind for the kiddies? Can we see it from here?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Roland drew the single gun he was wearing and pointed it. “Look over the sight.”

Eddie did and saw a deep draw which made the shape of a jagged double S . It was filled to the top with velvety shadows; he guessed there might be only half an hour or so at midday when the sun reached the bottom. Farther to the north, it appeared to dead-end against a massive rock-face. He supposed the mine entrance was there, but it was too dark to make out. To the southeast this arroyo opened on a dirt track that wound its way back to East Road. Beyond East Road were fields sloping down to fading but still green plots of rice. Beyond the rice was the river.

“Makes me think of the story you told us,” Eddie said. “Eyebolt Canyon.”

“Of course it does.”

“No thinny to do the dirty work, though.”

“No,” Roland agreed. “No thinny.”

“Tell me the truth: Are you really going to stick this town’s kids in a mine at the end of a dead-end arroyo?”

“No.”

“The folken think you…that we mean to do that. Even the dish-throwing ladies think that.”

“I know they do,” Roland said. “I want them to.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t believe there’s anything supernatural about the way the Wolves find the children. After hearing Gran-pere Jaffords’s story, I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about the Wolves, for that matter. No, there’s a rat in this particular corn-crib. Someone who goes squealing to the powers that be in Thunderclap.”

“Someone different each time, you mean. Each twenty-three or twenty-four years.”

“Yes.”

“Who’d do that?” Eddie asked. “Who could do that?”

“I’m not sure, but I have an idea.”

“Took? Kind of a handed-down thing, from father to son?”

“If you’re rested, Eddie, I think we’d better press on.”

“Overholser? Maybe that guy Telford, the one who looks like a TV cowboy?”

Roland walked past him without speaking, his new shor’boots gritting on the scattered pebbles and rock-splinters. From his good left hand, the pink bag swung back and forth. The thing inside was still whispering its unpleasant secrets.

“Chatty as ever, good for you,” Eddie said, and followed him.

Three