Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (58 page)

In
The Dark Tower,
we find out that the roses, which grow in such profusion at the heart of END-WORLD, are a light pink shade on the outside but darken to a fierce red on the inside, a shade which Roland believes is the exact color of heart’s desire. Their centers, which are called GAN’S GATEWAYS, burn such a fierce yellow that they are almost too bright to look upon. However, this yellow is the yellow of light and love, not destruction. What Roland comes to realize as he travels through their midst is that the roses feed the BEAMS with their songs and their perfume, and that the Beams, in turn, feed them. Roses and Beams are actually a living force field, a giving and taking, all of which spins out of the Tower. Interestingly enough, the roses (when mixed with Roland’s blood) are the exact color of the Crimson King’s eyes. Though in the case of the Red King, the red becomes the color of evil and greed, not pure, living energy.

In
Wolves of the Calla
and
Song of Susannah,
Eddie Dean discovers a way to save our world’s Rose from the evil machinations of the Crimson King’s many destructive companies, collectively known as the SOMBRA GROUP. Under the name of the TET CORPORATION, Eddie and his friends buy the magic Lot from CALVIN TOWER, thus saving the Rose from being bulldozed by Sombra.
When Roland visits New York 1999, in the final book of the Dark Tower series, he sees that Eddie’s idea has worked. The Tet Corporation—founded by JOHN CULLUM, AARON DEEPNEAU, and SUSANNAH DEAN’s godfather, MOSES CARVER—has erected a great black building around the Rose and has protected that most important of flowers in a small indoor garden called the GARDEN OF THE BEAM. Roland believes that the people who work in that building live long, happy, and productive lives.

III:49
(Eddie’s vision in the jawbone fire),
III:50, III:51, III:52–53
(field of),
III:54–55, III:56
(field of),
III:98, III:124–29, III:130, III:132, III:155, III:158, III:177, III:205, III:262, III:264–65, III:267, III:280
(fire like roses),
IV:48
(hope compared to it),
IV:83
(Jake’s reflections upon it),
IV:86–87
(Reinisch Rose Garden, Topeka),
IV:100–101
(Eddie’s bulldozer dream),
IV:102, IV:103, IV:429–30
(Thorin mausoleum),
IV:447
(field of roses and Dark Tower),
IV:552
(Rhea dreams of it),
IV:572
(and Roland’s vision),
IV:667, E:165, E:175, V:51, V:58, V:59, V:97–106
(how to save),
V:174, V:177, V:179, V:181
(begin to feel pull of it),
V:182–85
(183 effect described),
V:187–89
(effect described),
V:190, V:191–94
(Tower and rose),
V:196, V:197, V:198, V:201
(red as roses),
V:249, V:291
(Topeka roses),
V:302
(and lost worlds),
V:314, V:315, V:317, V:335, V:377, V:389, V:393, V:513, V:528, V:531, V:539, V:555, V:594–95, V:598, V:706, VI:32
(on knob),
VI:35, VI:39, VI:40, VI:55–56, VI:73, VI:102, VI:171, VI:257, VI:265, VI:266, VI:267, VI:268, VI:270, VI:296, VI:308, VI:318
(indirect),
VI:319
(still it sings),
VI:324, VI:398–99
(delivery to Stephen King),
VII:121, VII:123, VII:125, VII:127, VII:143, VII:301, VII:409–10, VII:475, VII:483, VII:488, VII:491–95
(Garden of the Beam),
VII:497, VII:499, VII:520, VII:524, VII:535, VII:550
(roses),
VII:609, VII:616
(roses),
VII:663
(field),
VII:666
(field),
VII:713
(field),
VII:721
(field),
VII:756–60
(first they come across; twin of rose in Vacant Lot),
VII:795–800
(a rose from Can’-Ka No Rey used to paint the Red King’s eyes). For additional rose references, see
CAN’-KA NO REY,
in
PORTALS

HIPPIE WITH ACNE:
PERE CALLAHAN meets this long-haired young man near the Vacant LOT on FORTY-SIXTH STREET and SECOND AVENUE in 1977 NEW YORK. This hippie-in-a-cowboy-hat believes that the Rose’s emanations have cleared up his acne. In 1999, TRUDY DAMASCUS meets the same hippie outside 2 HAMMARSKJÖLD PLAZA. V:594–95, VI:55–56

DERMATOLOGIST:
V:594

FATHER:
V:594

IMMORTAL TIGER:
VII:609

UR-DOG ROVER:
VII:609

ROSEANNA

See
SERENITY, SISTERS OF
: EVERLYNNE OF SERENITY

ROSIE (ROSIE & MOSIE)

See
DEBARIA CHARACTERS
: JEFFERSON RANCH CHARACTERS

ROSITA

See
ORIZA, SISTERS OF
: MUNOZ, ROSALITA

ROSS, BIG JACK

The burly, good-tempered woodsman Big Jack Ross was the father of TIM ROSS (later, Tim Stoutheart), one of the few boys to become a gunslinger despite the fact that he was not born to the line of ELD. The story entitled “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” which Roland recounts to YOUNG BILL STREETER in the days following the SKIN-MAN’s massacre at the JEFFERSON RANCH in DEBARIA, tells the tale of Big Ross’s betrayal and murder, and of his son Tim’s struggle not only to bring his murderous stepfather to justice, but to undo the wrongs that had been done to himself and his mother. Not only does Tim’s triumph over his father’s murderer give Young Bill the courage to identify the shape-shifting monster that killed his own da, but Tim’s luck at reversing his mother’s blindness, and at eventually becoming a gunslinger despite his low birth, gives us all hope that the evils of the past can be transformed, and that
ka,
however subtly, can be shifted.

Like all folktales, “The Wind Through the Keyhole” begins in the land of “Once upon a bye.” In this particular story, that land is the unexplored wilderness of the ENDLESS FOREST, and the little village of TREE which exists on its edge. At the outset of the tale, Big Jack Ross is alive and well, and is living in his cottage with his son, Tim, and his wife, NELL. Big Ross is proud of the fact that, though he doesn’t have much in the world, he has four possessions to pass on to his son. Those are his sharp ax, his lucky coin (a rhodite double which hangs around his neck on a fine silver chain), his wood plot along the IRONWOOD TRAIL, and his home place, GOODVIEW COTTAGE, which is as good as the place of any king or gunslinger in Mid-World.

But, as so often happens in tales and in life, those good days aren’t destined to last. When Tim is eleven, Big Ross and his partner, BIG KELLS, set off as usual for a day of cutting ironwood. However, only Kells returns, sooty and charred, and slumped on the seat of his wagon as if he were too weary to sit up straight. According to Kells, he and Ross had been set upon by a DRAGON, and Big Ross had been incinerated.

Although Nell, now widowed, accepts Kells’s offer of marriage (though more out of fear of the tax-collecting COVENANT MAN than out of love for her deceased husband’s partner), life soon goes tragically wrong. Soon after his wedding, Kells—who in his youth had been a drunken carouser—takes up the bottle again and begins to beat both his new wife and stepson. He even forces Tim to give up his lessons at the WIDOW SMACK’S COTTAGE, so that he can earn a little in scrip from the TREE SAWMILL. To make matters worse, after Big Ross’s accident, the other woodsmen distrust Big Kells and refuse to partner him in the forest. In their eyes, without Big Ross’s positive influence, Kells is little more than a drunken, raging lout.

Into this terrible situation comes the Barony tax collector, or Covenant Man. While collecting taxes at Goodview Cottage, the Covenanter slips Tim a key which will open any lock. Using it to open his steppa’s trunk, Tim finds his father’s lucky coin, proof that Jack Ross had been murdered, not incinerated by a dragon. Enraged, Tim sets off to find the Barony Covenanter. Later that night, in a stream running through the COSINGTON-MARCHLY STAKE, the Covenant Man shows Tim his father’s corpse. The body lies six or eight inches below the water and is perfectly preserved. (According to Tree’s old wives, neither the flesh-eating
bugs of forest streams nor the hungry POOKIES of the woods will dare to eat the flesh of a virtuous man. In the case of Tim’s father, the old tales are true.)

Upon returning home with his father’s ax (Kells had tossed it as far across the stream as he was able, but the Covenant Man had fetched it back again), Tim informs PETER COSINGTON, ERNIE MARCHLY, and BALDY ANDERSON about his stepfather’s crimes. The men not only fetch Big Ross’s body home, but gather a posse to hunt down Kells. Tim’s last sight of his father is in DUSTIN STOKES’s burial parlor. There, in a little room painted with forest scenes, in an ironwood bier meant to represent the clearing at the end of life’s path, Big Ross lies dressed in a fine white shroud. Holding his father’s cold hand as he had when he was a sma’ one, Tim bids his father goodbye.

W:106, W:109–10, W:111, W:112, W:113, W:114, W:115
(indirect),
W:116
(indirect),
W:117, W:118–19, W:126, W:127, W:129, W:131–32, W:133
(death described),
W:134, W:139, W:140, W:142–43, W:144, W:145, W:146, W:147, W:154, W:158, W:159–63
(Tim finds body; 161 skull riven from behind; 162 body; 163 hand ax),
W:166, W:167, W:168, W:171
(ax),
W:172, W:174, W:175, W:176, W:177–78, W:179, W:181
(son of Jack),
W:182, W:188
(indirect),
W:190, W:191
(dead father’s sign),
W:201, W:202
(da),
W: 206, W:214
(indirect, in dream),
W:222, W:229, W:239, W:241, W:246, W:249, W:251
(ax)
, W:252, W:254
(son of),
W:260
(indirect),
W:261
(indirect),
W:262
(murdered),
W:263

FLESH-EATING BUGS:
These fat white bugs live in the sluggish stream that runs through the COSINGTON-MARCHLY STAKE. Their oversized black heads have eyes which sprout from stalks. These waterborne maggots are constantly at war, eating each other. However, like all flesh-eaters, they cannot eat the flesh of a virtuous man. Hence, when TIM ROSS finds his father’s body, it is perfectly preserved. W:151–153, W:158, W:159, W:160–61
(will not eat the flesh of a virtuous man)

MULES:
Big Jack Ross had two mules, MISTY and BITSY, which he had raised from guffins. They were both mollies—unsterilized females theoretically capable of bearing offspring—but Ross kept them for their sweetness of temper rather than for breeding. According to Big Ross, such mollies rarely gave birth to true-threaded offspring.

MISTY:
Unlike Bitsy, Misty liked to stop and nibble at every bush on the forest floor. Hence, Tim chose BITSY to share his adventures in the ENDLESS FOREST. W:126, W:127, W:145–64, W:173, W:255

BITSY:
Bitsy was Tim’s favorite mule. After discovering his father’s lucky coin in BIG KELLS’s trunk, Tim rode Bitsy into the ENDLESS FOREST to meet the COVENANT MAN. Later in the story he rode Bitsy to the IRONWOOD TRAIL again, this time to find the magician MAERLYN. Rather than risk Bitsy on this dangerous venture, Tim tied her to a bush at the side of the trail and scattered oats in front of her, confident that
sai
COSINGTON would come for her in the morning. W:126, W:127, W:145, W:173, W:184, W:189, W:190, W:255

ROSS, NELL (NELL ROBERTSON, NELL KELLS)

Nell Ross was a character in the folktale “The Wind Through the Keyhole,” which Roland shared with YOUNG BILL STREETER in DEBARIA’s JAIL. (Neither of them had done anything wrong. Young Bill was the sole survivor of
the JEFFERSON RANCH massacre and the only person who could identify the SKIN-MAN responsible for the attack. Hence, Roland wanted to keep him safe.)

Nell Ross (born Nell Robertson) was mother of TIM ROSS and the wife of the burly, good-tempered woodsman BIG JACK ROSS. After being widowed, she became the wife of Ross’s former pard, BIG BERN KELLS. According to Roland’s story, Nell Robertson, Jack Ross, and Bern Kells had been childhood friends. Both boys had fallen in love with the chestnut-haired Nell, but Nell chose Ross, who had the sweeter disposition and better temperament. Although Kells had stood by Ross at the wedding and had slipped the silk around the new couple, in his secret heart he was eaten alive by jealousy. After Nell and Big Ross’s wedding, Kells’s habit of drunken violence worsened. In fact, it was not until Kells met and married MILLICENT REDHOUSE that he reformed his behavior. Unfortunately, Millicent died giving birth six seasons after her marriage. After this, Kells’s jealousy of Ross and his lust for Nell grew into a secret but murderous rage.

One day in Tim’s eleventh year, Big Ross and Big Kells traveled into the wood together as they always did, but only Kells returned. Sooty, blistered, and charred, Kells claimed that he and his partner had been attacked by a she-DRAGON deep in the forest, and that Ross had been incinerated. A few months after Big Ross’s death, Kells began courting Nell. Reluctantly—and for the most part out of fear of the Barony’s tax-collecting COVENANT MAN—Nell agreed to slip the rope with her deceased husband’s partner.

Although Kells managed to remain teetotal for a brief period, soon his temper and his simmering resentment of Nell got the better of him. Blaming his new wife for all the ills of his life (after all, if she hadn’t tempted him with her good looks he wouldn’t have killed his friend), he turned to drink. Kells—whose beard was now streaked with gray—began beating his wife on a regular basis, and even made Tim give up his lessons at the WIDOW SMACK’S COTTAGE so that he could earn money at the TREE SAWMILL. Hating Kells for his abusive behavior, Tim took a magic key from the evil Covenant Man, one that would open any lock. He used this to open his steppa’s beloved trunk and to spy on what he kept there. Within the trunk, a horrified Tim discovered his father’s lucky coin—the one Big Ross always wore around his neck on a fine silver chain. Now certain that Kells had murdered his da, Tim went in search of the wicked Covenanter. Unfortunately, while he was gone, drunken Kells blamed Nell for opening his trunk and smashed a ceramic jug against her forehead. He then beat her into unconsciousness. Nell was permanently blinded.