“No,” Eddie said. His hands wandered out and took hold of Roland’s shirt. Around them, the folken stood silently, watching. “Roland, say no.”

“We’ll go after her and hope we’re not too late,” Roland said.

But in his heart, he knew they already were.

Epilogue

The Door Way Cave

One

They moved fast, but Mia moved faster. A mile beyond the place where the arroyo path divided, they found her wheelchair. She had pushed it hard, using her strong arms to give it a savage beating against the unforgiving terrain. Finally it had struck a jutting rock hard enough to bend the lefthand wheel out of true and render the chair useless. It was a wonder, really, that she had gotten as far in it as she had.

“Fuck-commala,” Eddie murmured, looking at the chair. At the dents and dings and scratches. Then he raised his head, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted. “Fight her, Susannah! Fight her! We’re coming!” He pushed past the chair and headed on up the path, not looking to see if the others were following.

“She can’t make it up the path to the cave, can she?” Jake asked. “I mean, her legs are gone.”

“Wouldn’t think so, would you?” Roland asked, but his face was dark. And he was limping. Jake started to say something about this, then thought better of it.

“What would she want up there, anyway?” Callahan asked.

Roland turned a singularly cold eye on him. “To go somewhere else,” he said. “Surely you see that much. Come on.”

Two

As they neared the place where the path began to climb, Roland caught up to Eddie. The first time he put his hand on the younger man’s shoulder, Eddie shook it off. The second time he turned—reluctantly—to look at his dinh. Roland saw there was blood spattered across the front of Eddie’s shirt. He wondered if it was Benny’s, Margaret’s, or both.

“Mayhap it’d be better to let her alone awhile, if it’s Mia,” Roland said.

“Are you crazy? Did fighting the Wolves loosen your screws ?”

“If we let her alone, she may finish her business and be gone.” Even as he spoke the words, Roland doubted them.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, studying him with burning eyes, “she’ll finish her business, all right. First piece, have the kid. Second piece, kill my wife.”

“That would be suicide.”

“But she might do it. We have to go after her.”

Surrender was an art Roland practiced rarely but with some skill on the few occasions in his life when it had been necessary. He took another look at Eddie Dean’s pale, set face and practiced it now. “All right,” he said, “but we’ll have to be careful. She’ll fight to keep from being taken. She’ll kill, if it comes to that. You before any of us, mayhap.”