Roland looked east. A little brighter over there now, but still no dust. Which was good. Once the dust appeared, the Wolves would come in a rush. Their gray horses would be fast. Continuing on, speaking almost idly, Roland asked the other question. If Slightman answered in the negative, he wouldn’t live to see the coming of the Wolves no matter how fast their gray horses rode.

“If you’d found him, Slightman—if you’d found my boy—would you have killed him?”

Slightman put his spectacles back on as he struggled with it. Roland couldn’t tell if he understood the importance of the question or not. He waited to see if the father of Jake’s friend would live or die. He’d have to decide quickly; they were approaching the place where the waggons would stop and the children would get down.

The man at last raised his head and met Roland’s eyes again. He opened his mouth to speak and couldn’t. The fact of the matter was clear enough: he could answer the gunslinger’s question, or he could look into the gunslinger’s face, but he could not do both at the same time.

Dropping his gaze back to the splintery wood between his feet, Slightman said: “Yes, I reckon we would have killed him.” A pause. A nod. When he moved his head a tear fell from one eye and splashed on the wood of the peak-seat’s floor. “Yar, what else?” Now he looked up; now he could meet Roland’s eyes again, and when he did he saw his fate had been decided. “Make it quick,” said he, “and don’t let me boy see it happen. Beg ya please.”

Roland flapped the reins over the mules’ backs again. Then he said: “I won’t be the one to stop your miserable breath.”

Slightman’s breath did stop. Telling the gunslinger that yes, he would have killed a twelve-year-old boy to protect his secret, his face had had a kind of strained nobility. Now it wore hope instead, and hope made it ugly. Nearly grotesque. Then he let his breath out in a ragged sigh and said, “You’re fooling with me. A-teasing me. You’re going to kill me, all right. Why would you not?”

“A coward judges all he sees by what he is,” Roland remarked. “I’d not kill you unless I had to, Slightman, because I love my own boy. You must understand that much, don’t you? To love a boy?”

“Yar.” Slightman lowered his head again and began to rub the back of his sunburned neck. The neck he must have thought would end this day packed in dirt.

“But you have to understand something. For your own good and Benny’s as much as ours. If the Wolves win, you will die. That much you can be sure of. ‘Take it to the bank,’ Eddie and Susannah say.”