The Final confrontation with Leland Gaunt is the decisive contest between Alan Pangborn and the force behind Castle Rock’s violence. Alan exposes Gaunt’s deception, takes possession of the hyena-hide valise, and refuses to let him reclaim it. With Polly Chalmers beside him, Alan expels Gaunt from town; the valise opens, its trapped voices are released, and the people of Castle Rock stop fighting. The victory is won not by conventional force but by Alan’s resolve and by the transformed meaning of ordinary tricks associated with his family.

Causes and Stakes

The confrontation reaches its turning point when Alan recalls a detail from the tape concerning Annie Pangborn: her seat belt was still buckled. That fact makes him understand that the account he had been given of her death was false and that Gaunt’s deception has exploited his grief. Alan turns toward Gaunt, who is standing beneath the green canopy, and takes the Tastee-Munch can containing Todd Pangborn’s last joke. The recognition shifts the encounter from a struggle over money and Polly to a direct challenge to Gaunt’s control.

Alan’s claim against Gaunt is grounded in the valise’s contents. He says he intends to keep it as evidence, while Gaunt insists that it remains his property and threatens to take it back. Alan does not retreat, despite feeling afraid. The bag therefore becomes the immediate object of the struggle and, more importantly, the means by which the confrontation connects Gaunt’s private bargains to the harm spreading across Castle Rock.

The Tricks Turn Real

Alan opens the can, and its spring-and-paper snake briefly becomes real. Its attack distracts Gaunt long enough for Alan to take the hyena-hide valise. When the snake lands on the pavement, it becomes a cheap novelty again: the child’s trick has served as a real weapon, but only for a moment. The reversal makes Todd’s toy more than a keepsake. It gives Alan an opening at the instant Gaunt’s attention is diverted.

The struggle remains precarious. Gaunt reaches for the bag, while Ace Merrill, who has been holding Polly, is distracted by Gaunt’s transformation. Polly breaks free by biting Ace’s wrist, and he shoves her into the street and turns his gun toward her. Gaunt nevertheless remains focused on recovering the valise. Alan keeps it, and when Gaunt briefly appears to accept defeat, his apparent withdrawal proves to be a feint: he turns back and lunges for the bag.

Alan answers with another of his tricks, the Folding Flower Trick, using the last small paper packet concealed in his watchband. Instead of paper flowers, a brilliant burst of light blooms in his hand. Gaunt is driven back, but still reaches for the valise. Polly stamps on his hand, and Alan presses the light against Gaunt’s face before stamping on the reaching fingers himself. Their actions work together: Polly interrupts Gaunt’s grasp, while Alan uses the light to keep him from reclaiming the bag.

Expulsion and Release

With the valise in his possession, Alan backs into the street with Polly beside him and raises the light so it illuminates Gaunt and his Tucker Talisman. He commands Gaunt to leave Castle Rock. The command is followed by the destruction of the green awning and the shop window, as radiance bursts outward from Alan’s hand. The confrontation has crossed from a struggle over an object into an expulsion: Gaunt is forced away, while the thing he has used to contain the voices is opened.

The hyena-hide valise bursts open, releasing the trapped, wailing voices. The effect reaches beyond the people gathered on Main Street. Polly feels the poison-like pressure in her arms and chest disappear, and the heat gathering around Norris Ridgewick’s heart dissipates. Across Castle Rock, people cast down their guns and clubs and look at one another as if waking from a terrible dream. The rain stops as well. The return of ordinary awareness is the clearest measure of what the release accomplishes: the town’s violence ends not through negotiation between its combatants, but as Gaunt’s hold is broken.

Gaunt’s Flight and the Aftermath

Gaunt escapes rather than remaining to fight. Still screaming, he scrambles to his car and gets behind the wheel. Its departure is marked as supernatural, not an ordinary retreat: the engine and vehicle signal that the familiar businessman has given way to something monstrous. The car passes out of Castle Rock in a scene of fire and smoke; after smoke from the burning Municipal Building crosses Main Street and clears, Gaunt and his vehicle are gone.

Alan walks Polly to the cruiser that had brought Norris and Seaton Thomas upstreet. Norris is still in the vehicle, too weak to climb down without falling. Gaunt’s expulsion has ended the immediate confrontation and loosened the forces that were driving the town’s violence, but it has not instantly repaired the damage already done. The ruined Municipal Building and destroyed bridge remain part of the scene through which Gaunt escapes, while the people left behind must confront the consequences of the upheaval.

Significance of the Reversal

The scene brings Alan’s personal grief and the town’s crisis into the same contest. The seat-belt detail lets him recognize Gaunt’s lie, but recognition alone is not enough: Alan must act while Gaunt threatens him and while Polly remains in danger. His refusal to give up the valise turns the burden of evidence into a choice to resist. Polly’s intervention matters just as concretely; she acts at the moment Gaunt reaches for the bag and helps make Alan’s refusal effective.

The toys sharpen the event’s reversal of power. Todd’s paper snake and Alan’s paper flowers are familiar tricks, objects associated with play rather than authority. Against Gaunt, they become briefly real and powerful, then return to their ordinary forms. Their transformation does not erase the danger or undo the town’s losses, but it gives Alan a means to expose Gaunt’s vulnerability and carry out the expulsion. The confrontation closes the immediate contest by freeing the voices in the valise and ending the townwide attack, while leaving the physical ruins as evidence of the price Castle Rock has already paid.