Characters in The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

“I’ve no intention of standing out here and making palaver with ye,” Lengyll said. He glanced over Roland’s shoulder. “Alvarez! Get his horse! Boys as trig as this bunch should have no problem riding with their hands behind their—” “No, tell me,” Roland interposed.

My friend Amy and I used to leave messages there for each other when we were little girls. I’ll look there when I can. Ye do the same.” “Aye.” Sheemie would work for awhile, if they were careful. The red rock might also work for awhile, if they were careful.

“ ‘Dr. April Montoya of the Stormont-Vail Regional Medical Center points out that the death-toll, horrifying as it is, constitutes only part of this terrible story.

Or perhaps he was only processing the information. “I’d do it, boy,” Barkie Callahan said from what he hoped was a safe place behind Sheb’s piano. “If you want to see the sun come up, I’d surely do it.”

It was David Quick’s grandson. It was the Tick-Tock Man. 7 Jake stared at him, horrified. The coiled, dangerous creature who had lived beneath Lud with his mates—Gasher and Hoots and Brandon and Tilly—was gone. This might have been that monster’s ruined father . . . or grandfather.

But of making shoes she knew nothing, nor wished to. Brian Hookey made them at the forge behind his barn and hostelry, however; Susan easily picked out four new ones of the right size, enjoying the smell of horseflesh and fresh hay as she did. Fresh paint, too.

Twenty minutes later, Rusher unloaded and rubbed down and set to forage with Buckskin and Glue Boy (Cuthbert could not even name his horse as a normal person would), Roland lay on his back in his bedroll, looking up at the late stars overhead.

“You don’t have to—” “It’s also no big deal. A bunch of us would get together—me, my brother Henry, Bum O’Hara, usually, ’cause he had a car, Sandra Corbitt, and maybe this friend of Henry’s we called Jimmie Polio—and we’d stick all our names in a hat.

“Aye, truey-true, so it is.” Coral put Caprichoso’s rope halter into Sheemie’s palm and closed the fingers over it. “Have a nice trip, lad. Be polite to the old crow, bow yer best bow . . . and make sure ye’re back down the hill before dark.”

The train was parked fifty feet up, by a toy station that mimicked the one across the street. Hanging from its eaves was a sign which read TOPEKA. The train was Charlie the Choo-Choo, cowcatcher and all; a 402 Big Boy Steam Locomotive.

“Tonight, your friend said? They arrived tonight, these brats?” “Yep.” “They’ll be in to see Avery tomorrow, then, I reckon.” This was Herk Avery, High Sheriff of Mejis and Chief Constable of Hambry, a large man who was as loose as a trundle of laundry. “Reckon so,” Clay Reynolds said.

“Can it not be saved?” she asked, rather timidly. “No,” Conchetta said curtly. “Get out of those trousers, girl. Shirt, too.”

A small table stood by itself near the batwing doors which gave upon the Hambry High Street; it was here that Coral Thorin, owner of the Travellers’ Rest (and the Mayor’s sister), sat on the nights when she descended from her suite “to be a part of the company.”

She had a crazy notion that maybe they were diamond chips. “Cappies. After four years of gettin along in what my friend Cynthia calls ‘circumstances of reduced leg-room,’ I finally got myself a pair of cappies. Think of that.” “Cappies,” Eddie mused. “Is that what they call em?”

3 The moment the Affliation brats mounted on their fathers’ expensive horseflesh were around the corner and headed downhill to the High Street, the sheriff and the deputies stopped waving. Avery turned to Dave Hollis, whose expression of slightly stupid awe had been replaced by one marginally more intelligent.

“We’ll go as best we can.” Roland thought of standing between the tangled green hedges behind the Great Hall, David the hawk on his arm and a sweat of terror trickling down his back. I think you die today, he had told the hawk, and he had told it true.

… Born of HENRIETTA, (2) foals both well Stillborn of DELIA, a roan (MUTANT) Born of YOLANDA, a THOROUGHBRED, a GOOD MALE COLT …

The voices faded. She kissed Ermot between his lidless eyes (time o’ the Kissing Moon, all right, she thought) and then set him aside. The snake slipped beneath her bed, curled itself in a circle, and watched as she passed her palms over the top of the ironwood box.

For one moment Jonas thought it was Fardo, Cort’s father, in this room with him—that it was the man who had sent him west all those years ago—and he reached for his gun again.

He was leading a beautiful chestnut mare by a hack’. It was the second of the three promised horses, and Susan recognized Felicia at once. The mare had been one of her childhood’s favorites. Susan embraced Miguel and covered his bearded cheeks with kisses.

… named Robert and Francesca, and had happened in the old days, before the world had moved on. The site of the supposed murder-suicide was the Hambry cemetery, the stone with which Francesca’s brains had been dashed out was a slate marker, and the granite wall against which Robert had been …

“I’m surprised you haven’t found use for the oil,” Roland said. “No generators in town, Sheriff?” “Aye, there be four or five,” Avery said. “The biggest is out at Francis Lengyll’s Rocking B ranch, and I recall when it useter run. It’s HONDA. Do ye kennit that name, boys? HONDA?”

“I understand ye’ve taken on an additional responsibility in our undeserving town, sai Jonas.” “Aye, I’m helping out Sheriff Avery,” he agreed. His voice had a reedy little tremble which Cordelia found quite endearing, somehow. “One of his deputies—Claypool, his name is—” “Frank Claypool, aye.”

Frank Duganelli nominated Larry McCain, even though Larry was in Juvenile Detention; Larry fuckin ruled, Frank said. By then it was around to Henry Dean. He gave the question the weighty consideration it deserved, then put his arm around his surprised brother’s shoulders. Eddie, he said. My little bro.

It was Arthur’s father’s idea. I think Arthur’s da has always been a bit appalled by Arthur. Certainly Arthur’s ructions didn’t come from George Heath’s side.” Susan smiled to herself, thinking of Aunt Cordelia saying, “She certainly doesn’t get it from our side of the family.”

Jonas had never spoken to the Good Man himself (and never wanted to; Farson was reputed to be whimsically, dangerously insane), but he had had dealings with George Latigo, who would probably be leading the troop of Farson’s men that would arrive any day now.

10 Sheriff Avery, Deputy Dave, and Deputy George Riggins were sitting on the porch in front of the Sheriff’s office and jail when Mr. Stockworth and Mr. Heath (the latter with that idiotic bird’s skull still mounted on the horn of his saddle) went past at a steady walk.

Tommy Fredericks opted for John Parelli. Georgie Pratt went for Csaba Drabnik, also known around the nabe as The Mad Fuckin Hungarian. Frank Duganelli nominated Larry McCain, even though Larry was in Juvenile Detention; Larry fuckin ruled, Frank said. By then it was around to Henry Dean.

Depape might have done so if Her Nibs had been available, but that young beauty (actual name: Gert Moggins) had a ranch-job and wouldn’t be back until two nights hence. “And it’ll be a week if there’s hard cash on offer,” Depape said morosely.

Twenty minutes later, Rusher unloaded and rubbed down and set to forage with Buckskin and Glue Boy (Cuthbert could not even name his horse as a normal person would), Roland lay on his back in his bedroll, looking up at the late stars overhead.

To Mayor Hartwell Thorin, Chancellor Kimba Rimer, and High Sheriff Herkimer Avery, it sent greetings and recommended to their notice the three young men who delivered this document, Masters Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath.

There’s Francis Lengyll of the Rocking B . . . John Croydon of the Piano Ranch . . . Henry Wertner, who’s the Barony’s stockliner as well as a horsebreeder in his own right . . . Hash Renfrew, who owns the Lazy Susan, the biggest horse-ranch in Mejis (not …

Born of HENRIETTA, (2) foals both well Stillborn of DELIA, a roan (MUTANT) Born of YOLANDA, a THOROUGHBRED, a GOOD MALE COLT And, following each, the date. So neat, he had been. So thorough.

There’s Francis Lengyll of the Rocking B . . . John Croydon of the Piano Ranch . . . Henry Wertner, who’s the Barony’s stockliner as well as a horsebreeder in his own right . . . Hash Renfrew, who owns the Lazy Susan, the biggest horse-ranch in Mejis (not …

To Mayor Hartwell Thorin, Chancellor Kimba Rimer, and High Sheriff Herkimer Avery, it sent greetings and recommended to their notice the three young men who delivered this document, Masters Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath.

“You’re dying.” Rhea wheezed laughter and a trickle of yellowish drool. “Dying? Nay! Just done up and in need of a refreshment. Now listen to me, Cordelia daughter of Hiram and sister of Pat!” She hooked a bony (and surprisingly strong) arm around Cordelia’s neck and drew her close.

he called. “Come on out here, pard, and let’s have some palaver.” For a moment there was no response; then Hiram Quint of the Piano Ranch and Barkie Callahan of the Travellers’ Rest came ducking their way out through the trees. Holy shit, Reynolds thought, somewhere between awe and amusement.

It was David Quick’s grandson. It was the Tick-Tock Man. 7 Jake stared at him, horrified. The coiled, dangerous creature who had lived beneath Lud with his mates—Gasher and Hoots and Brandon and Tilly—was gone. This might have been that monster’s ruined father . . . or grandfather.

“Anything us in Mejis can do to help, lad, just ask—me, John Croydon, Hash Renfrew, Jake White, Hank Wertner, any or all. Ye’ll meet em tonight, aye, their wives and sons and daughters as well, and ye need only ask.

William Dearborn. Drover’s son. Richard Stockworth. Rancher’s son. Arthur Heath. Stockline breeder’s son. The identification document belonging to each was signed by an attestor—James Reed (of Hemphill) in the case of Dearborn, Piet Ravenhead (of Pennilton) in the case of Stockworth, Lucas Rivers (of Gilead) in the case of Heath.

(This year’s Lad was Jamie McCann, a pallid and whey-faced stand-in for Hart Thorin, who was approximately forty years too old and gray for the job.) Even more happily would she have worn the sixth—a silvery shift with wisp-thin straps and a hem that stopped high on her thighs.

5 “The byline says John Corcoran, plus staff and AP reports. That means a lot of different people worked on it, Roland. Okay. Here goes. ‘America’s greatest crisis—and the world’s, perhaps—deepened overnight as the so-called superflu, known as Tube-Neck in the Midwest and Captain Trips in California, continues to spread.

There’s Francis Lengyll of the Rocking B . . . John Croydon of the Piano Ranch . . . Henry Wertner, who’s the Barony’s stockliner as well as a horsebreeder in his own right . . . Hash Renfrew, who owns the Lazy Susan, the biggest horse-ranch in Mejis (not …

It would be even longer if the girl kindled slowly. And what was the silliest, most humilating thing of all? That she, John Haverty’s daughter Olive, still loved her husband. Hart was an overweening, vainglorious, prancing loon of a man, but she still loved him.

Tommy Fredericks opted for John Parelli. Georgie Pratt went for Csaba Drabnik, also known around the nabe as The Mad Fuckin Hungarian. Frank Duganelli nominated Larry McCain, even though Larry was in Juvenile Detention; Larry fuckin ruled, Frank said. By then it was around to Henry Dean.

“I know, all right,” he said. “I’ve forgot more than you’ll ever learn, so I have. One of them at least came from the Eld line, for I saw his father in his face . . . just as clear as I see your saggy tits, Jolene.”

Even Dave’s wife, Judy, had given up on that score, and Judy Hollis—Judy Wertner that was—was a fair engine when it came to getting her own way. “Soft,” Dave said. “Soft as eggs just dropped out of a chicken’s ass.”

To Mayor Hartwell Thorin, Chancellor Kimba Rimer, and High Sheriff Herkimer Avery, it sent greetings and recommended to their notice the three young men who delivered this document, Masters Dearborn, Stockworth, and Heath.

Frank Duganelli nominated Larry McCain, even though Larry was in Juvenile Detention; Larry fuckin ruled, Frank said. By then it was around to Henry Dean. He gave the question the weighty consideration it deserved, then put his arm around his surprised brother’s shoulders. Eddie, he said. My little bro.

“There are no oxen in Hambry. Ye must be mistaken about that.” “No mistake.” “Where?” “The Rocking H.” Now her eyebrows drew back down, and knitted in a thoughtful frown. “That’s Laslo Rimer’s place.” “Aye—Kimba’s brother. Nor are those the only treasures hidden away in Hambry these days.

“So fell Lord Perth,” murmured Roland. “And the countryside did shake with that thunder,” Jake finished. Roland looked down at him with surprise, like a man awakening from a deep sleep, then smiled and put an arm around Jake’s shoulders. “I have played Lord Perth in my time,” he said.

William Dearborn. Drover’s son. Richard Stockworth. Rancher’s son. Arthur Heath. Stockline breeder’s son. The identification document belonging to each was signed by an attestor—James Reed (of Hemphill) in the case of Dearborn, Piet Ravenhead (of Pennilton) in the case of Stockworth, Lucas Rivers (of Gilead) in the case of Heath.

The doors burst open. It was the Mayor’s widow again, this time accompanied by a maid. The vaqs knew her well—Maria Tomas, the daughter of an old compadre from the Piano Ranch. “The thieving bastards have set the place on fire!” Maria cried, speaking to them in crunk.

She saw Millicent Ortega, for one, looking out of Ann’s Dresses with a satisfying O of surprise on her stupid cow’s puss. “I hope you don’t mind me calling you Cordelia.” Jonas shifted the box, which she’d needed two hands to carry, casually under one arm.

Several of them slapped her (it didn’t matter; her bruised and puffy face seemed to have gone numb), and one—it was Misha Alvarez, whose daughter Susan had taught to ride—spat into her eyes and then leaped prankishly away, shaking her hands at the sky and laughing.

“ ‘Although the death-toll can only be estimated, medical experts say the total at this point is horrible beyond comprehension: twenty to thirty million dead in the continental U.S. alone is the estimate given by Dr. Morris Hackford of Topeka’s St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center.

The way mixers and vacuum cleaners make static on the radio or TV, or the way that cyclotron gadget made the hair on my arms stand up when Mr. Kingery brought it to class and then asked for volunteers to come up and stand next to it.

So they are. She waited until the hoofbeats of her visitors’ horses had faded, sitting quietly by the window in the hut’s large room (there was only one other, a bedroom little bigger than a closet). Musty, the six-legged cat, was on her shoulder. Her lap was full of moonlight.

We ought to get a move-on.” “Do you know the huts in the Bad Grass?” “Aye, most. Why—” “Do you know one with a red door?” Renfrew nodded and pointed northish. “Old Soony’s place. He had some sort of religious conversion—a dream or a vision or something.

“I am Olive Thorin,” the plump woman said, “the Mayor’s wife. This is my sister-in-law, Coral.” Coral Thorin, still with that narrow smile (it barely creased her lips and touched her eyes not at all), dipped them a token curtsey. Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain bowed again over their outstretched legs.

The last ones in Hambry (they had been called “spark-lights” in this part of the world, but she felt sure they were the same) had burned out two generations ago. “You said your father managed the Mayor’s horses until his death,” Will Dearborn said. “Was his name Patrick Delgado?

I don’t like the way it feels anymore. Not at all.” 9 The woman, Theresa Maria Dolores O’Shyven, was forty years old, plump, pretty, mother of four, husband of Peter, a vaquero of laughing temperament.

Lying on the bar itself and directly beneath The Romp’s disapproving gaze was Pettie the Trotter, one of the Travellers’ dancers and gilly-girls . . . although Pettie’s actual girlhood was well behind her now, and soon she would be reduced to doing her business on her knees behind the …

William Dearborn. Drover’s son. Richard Stockworth. Rancher’s son. Arthur Heath. Stockline breeder’s son. The identification document belonging to each was signed by an attestor—James Reed (of Hemphill) in the case of Dearborn, Piet Ravenhead (of Pennilton) in the case of Stockworth, Lucas Rivers (of Gilead) in the case of Heath.

Vice-President Bush and key members of the Reagan cabinet have not been seen during the last forty-eight hours. Reagan himself has not been seen since Sunday morning, when he attended prayer services at Green Valley Methodist Church in San Simeon.

The days were bright and warm; even the oldtimers admitted it was one of the most beautiful summers in memory. On a mid-morning as beautiful as any that summer, Susan Delgado galloped a two-year-old rosillo named Pylon north along the Drop.

He swept an arm at the standing men, whose doltish attention had been diverted from the burning tankers to their dead comrade. “Pull in as many others as you can. Do you have a bugler?” “Yes, sir, Raines, sir!” Hendricks looked around, beckoned, and a pimply, scared-looking boy rode forward.

… stone with which Francesca’s brains had been dashed out was a slate marker, and the granite wall against which Robert had been leaning when he clipped his blowpipe had been the Thorin mausoleum. (It was doubtful there had been any Thorins in Hambry or Mejis five generations back, but folk-tales …

“I love you,” Roland said. Steven nodded. “Thankee-sai—I love you, too. My blessings, boys.” He said this last in a loud voice, and the other two men—Robert Allgood and Christopher Johns, who had been known in the days of his savage youth as Burning Chris—added their own blessings.

Latigo ignored all of this. His eyes were bright blue flecks of ice. Under his mustache was a small, greedy smile. “Rodney,” he said, speaking Hendricks’s first name almost with the caress of a lover. “Sir?” “I think they’re going in, Rodney. Yes . . . look.

Lengyll had planted Brian Hookey’s son Rufus three rows back. Now, exactly on time, Rufus Hookey shouted out: “Has they confessed?” “Aye,” Lengyll said. “Confessed both murders, and spoke it most proud, so they did.” A louder murmur at this, almost a rumble.

“Pretty speech and lovely sentiments,” he answered with a grin, “but it’s late, you’re alone, and I think we may as well pass on together. Do you ride, sai?” “Yes, but really—” “Step over and meet my friend Rusher, then. He shall carry you the last two miles.

“You don’t have to—” “It’s also no big deal. A bunch of us would get together—me, my brother Henry, Bum O’Hara, usually, ’cause he had a car, Sandra Corbitt, and maybe this friend of Henry’s we called Jimmie Polio—and we’d stick all our names in a hat.

Depape, more morose than ever now that he had thought of Her Nibs gobbling cowboy spareribs out there at the Piano Ranch, downed his drink, winced at the stench of pine-gum on his hand, then held his glass out in Stanley Ruiz’s direction. “Fill this up, you dog!” he shouted.

Steve Sloan. When asked if he had any objection to being quoted by name, Kansas’s first-term representative, a Republican, laughed and said: “Why should I? I’ve got a real fine case myself.

She was also a seller of rugs and draperies in the Upper Market; many of the prettier and more delicate appointments at Seafront had passed through Theresa O’Shyven’s hands, and her family was quite well-to-do.

It was David Quick’s grandson. It was the Tick-Tock Man. 7 Jake stared at him, horrified. The coiled, dangerous creature who had lived beneath Lud with his mates—Gasher and Hoots and Brandon and Tilly—was gone. This might have been that monster’s ruined father . . . or grandfather.

“Do you know? Does Avery?” “Avery’s dead. The deputy who was with him, too. ’Twas another deputy found em, Todd Bridger . . . Eldred, what’s going on out there? What happened?” “Oh, that’s your boys,” Coral said. “Didn’t take em long to start their own Reaping party, did it?”

“Go on.” “No more to say, Mum,” Maria told her, as if all else were too obvious for conversation. “The maids eat their cakes and leave the crumbs. I reckon Wolf smelled em and this time the door was left open. When the crumbs was gone, he tried the dress.

Born of HENRIETTA, (2) foals both well Stillborn of DELIA, a roan (MUTANT) Born of YOLANDA, a THOROUGHBRED, a GOOD MALE COLT And, following each, the date. So neat, he had been. So thorough.