Para o fundo, aqui está a cena:
Obviamente, toda a cena é descrita, com Charles, filho de Charles, trazendo Hax até a forca, enforcando-o, e saindo imediatamente depois que a ação é feita - não há tempo para Robeson (que é nunca mencionado depois de sua conversa traição com Hax) para ser enforcado nesta cena.A gunslinger whom the boy did not know well (he was glad his father had not drawn the black stone) led the fat cook carefully up the steps. Two Guards of the Watch had gone ahead and stood on either side of the trap. When Hax and the gunslinger reached the top, the gunslinger threw the noosed rope over the crosstree and then put it over the cook’s head, dropping the knot until it lay just below the left ear. The birds had all flown, but Roland knew they were waiting.
“Do you wish to make confession?” the gunslinger asked.
“I have nothing to confess,” Hax said. His words carried well, and his voice was oddly dignified in spite of the muffle of cloth which hung over his lips. The cloth ruffled slightly in the faint, pleasant breeze that had blown up. “I have not forgotten my father’s face; it has been with me through all.”
Roland glanced sharply at the crowd and was disturbed by what he saw there— a sense of sympathy? Perhaps admiration? He would ask his father. When traitors are called heroes (or heroes traitors, he supposed in his frowning way), dark times must have fallen. Dark times, indeed. He wished he understood better. His mind flashed to Cort and the bread Cort had given them. He felt contempt; the day was coming when Cort would serve him. Perhaps not Cuthbert; perhaps Bert would buckle under Cort’s steady fire and remain a page or a horseboy (or infinitely worse, a perfumed diplomat, dallying in receiving chambers or looking into bogus crystal balls with doddering kings and princes), but he would not. He knew it. He was for the open lands and long rides. That this seemed a good fate was something he would marvel over later, in his solitude.
“Roland?”
“I’m here.” He took Cuthbert’s hand, and their fingers locked together like iron.
“Charge be capital murder and sedition,” the gunslinger said.
“You have crossed the white, and I, Charles son of Charles , consign you ever to the black.”
The crowd murmured, some in protest.
“I never—”
“Tell your tale in the underworld, maggot,” said Charles of Charles, and yanked the lever with both yellow-gauntleted hands.
The trap dropped. Hax plummeted through, still trying to talk. Roland never forgot that. The cook went still trying to talk. And where did he finish the last sentence he would ever begin on earth? His words were ended by the sound an exploding pineknot makes on the hearth in the cold heart of a winter night.
But on the whole he thought it not so much. The cook’s legs kicked out once in a wide Y; the crowd made a satisfied whistling noise; the Guards of the Watch dropped their military pose and began to gather things up negligently. Charles son of Charles walked back down the steps slowly, mounted his horse, and rode off, cutting roughly through one gaggle of picnickers, quirting a few of the slowcoaches, making them scurry."
- The Dark Tower: Book I: The Gunslinger, Stephen King
O companheiro oficial de Robin Furth na série (que o próprio King usou como ferramenta de referência enquanto escrevia os últimos volumes) não ajuda aqui; a entrada em Robeson diz apenas:
- A Torre Negra de Stephen King: A Concordância Completa (Revisada e Atualizada) , Robin Furth