In Stephen King’s novel The Dark Tower, the gunslinger pursuing the Man in Black is Roland Deschain.
Roland is the last surviving member of an ancient order of gunslingers. He crosses a desolate landscape while tracking the mysterious Man in Black, who is connected to the novel’s supernatural forces and to the larger mythology of the Dark Tower. Roland’s pursuit begins the central quest that continues throughout the series.
The Gunslinger was first published in book form in 1982, after earlier sections had appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It introduces Roland’s disciplined, often severe personality and establishes the series’ mixture of fantasy, horror, Western imagery, and science fiction.
Roland is not the same character as Eddie Dean or Jake Chambers. Those figures become important companions later in the series, while Roland is the central gunslinger from the opening novel.