He agrees, faintly, to serve in an advisory capacity ( Read more... )

He does not take part in the conversations around the fires at night as a general rule. When asked for his opinion, he will offer it; when asked for a tale, he'll dredge one from his childhood, always about someone else ( Read more... )

They walk a lot. Roland doesn't walk at the head. He thinks to himself without any malice that it's like traveling with a herd of locusts. Ghosts these people may be -- probably are; he doesn't feel the need to question what happened -- but they eat. They're hungry. And he has nothing for them ( Read more... )

Once upon a time.

It doesn't look so different from where he went to earth. In the half-light of the morning -- facing west, he is, true west, the world is still covered in indigo at this hour of the morning, with traceries of brighter things at the edges ( Read more... )

Spring means little in southern Wyoming -- on the high plains, in the intermountain West -- when compared to the rest of the country. Snow is still piled along the weathered slatted fences designed to make the snow drift before it can get to the roads -- more than four feet deep, in some places. Wind sweeps along the drifts on the side of the road ( Read more... )

Wyoming is full of ghostsCheyenne and Arapaho, by plague and John Chivington's men at Sand Creek. Victims of the Johnson County War, after the Indian Wars were over. Mining accidents. People in wrecks -- planes, trains, and automobiles. Snowmobiles. Some people freeze to death; some people get drunk and do things they shouldn't. Some people get ( Read more... )

Stealing a horse proves to be simple -- simpler, mayhap, than he expected. Roland looks the part of someone who belongs at the National Western Stock Show. It's easy enough to approach a stall, projecting stock hand with every step, and remove a likely-looking workhorse meant for the rodeo ( Read more... )

"Can I give you some advice?" the young woman asks as they prepare to get off the plane ( Read more... )

Roland used to think of flight attendants as army women. Eddie Dean clarified that for him, on one of the nights they shared stories after Jake joined them -- stewardesses, he said, or flight attendants ( Read more... )

Being dim gets him past the guards. They're not paying real attention anyway. When he gets to the concourse, he stops short. Roland has never been able to pick up the knack of reading the letters of what is supposed to be the real world, no matter how hard he tries ( Read more... )