The chapter opens with a nursery rhyme that has been stuck in the gunslinger’s head. His mother used to sing it to him, although “She did not sing it at bedtimes because all small boys born to the High Speech must face the dark alone, but she sang to him at naptimes and he could remember the heavy gray rainlight that shivered into rainbows on the counterpane” (80).

It’s been sixteen days since the gunslinger left Tull, and he considers himself a dead man as he walks through the desert because his water is all gone. Just when he is about to collapse, he comes upon a building surrounded by a fallen fence and a way station for an old coach line. Someone is leaning against the building and he assumes it’s the Man in Black. However, as he gets closer, he realizes it’s not the Man in Black but rather a young boy with “sun-bleached hair” (83). The gunslinger can’t believe his eyes and heads for a stable that is “silent and dark and exploding with heat” (83). Once inside, he passes out.