Wolves of the Calla

'What about Tian Jaffords?' Callahan asked. 'In a very real sense it was Tian who started this. There ought to be a place for him at the finish.'

Roland nodded. 'I have a job for him. One he and Eddie will do together. Pere, that's a fine privy down below Rosalita's cottage. Tall. Strong.'

Callahan raised his eyebrows. 'Aye, say thankya. 'Twas Tian and his neighbor, Hugh Anselm, who built it.'

'Could you put a lock on the outside of it in the next few days?'

'I could but-'

'If things go well no lock will be necessary, but one can never be sure.'

'No,' Callahan said. 'I suppose one can't. But I can do as you ask.'

'What's your plan, sugar?' Susannah asked. She spoke in a quiet, oddly gentle voice.

'There's precious little plan in it. Most times that's all to the good. The most important thing I can tell you is not to believe anything I say once we get up from here, dust off our bottoms, and rejoin the folken. Especially nothing I say when I stand up at the meeting with the feather in my hand. Most of it will be lies.' He gave them a smile. Above it, his faded blue eyes were as hard as rocks. 'My Da' and Cuthbert's Da' used to have a rule between em: first the smiles, then the lies. Last comes gunfire.'

'We're almost there, aren't we?' Susannah asked. 'Almost to the shooting.'

Roland nodded. 'And the shooting will happen so fast and be over so quick that you'll wonder what all the planning and palaver was for, when in the end it always comes down to the same five minutes' worth of blood, pain, and stupidity.' He paused, then said: 'I always feel sick afterward. Like I did when Bert and I went to see the hanged man.'

'I have a question,' Jake said.

'Ask it,' Roland told him.

'Will we win?'

Roland was quiet for such a long time that Susannah began to be afraid. Then he said: 'We know more than they think we know, Far more. They've grown complacent. If Andy and Slightman are the only rats in the woodpile, and if there aren't too many in the Wolfpack-if we don't run out of plates and cartridges-then yes, Jake, son of Elmer. We'll win.'

'How many is too many?'

Roland considered, his faded blue eyes looking east. 'More than you'd believe,' he said at last. 'And, I hope, many more than they would.'

FIVE

Late that afternoon, Donald Callahan stood in front of the unfound door, trying to concentrate on Second Avenue in the year 1977. What he fixed upon was Chew Chew Mama's, and how sometimes he and George and Lupe Delgado would go there for lunch.

'I ate the beef brisket whenever I could get it,' Callahan said, and tried to ignore the shrieking voice of his mother, rising from the cave's dark belly. When he'd first come in with Roland, his eyes had been drawn to the books Calvin Tower had sent through. So many books! Callahan's mostly generous heart grew greedy (and a bit smaller) at the sight of them. His interest didn't last, however-just long enough to pull one at random and see it was The Virginian, by Owen Wister. It was hard to browse when your dead friends and loved ones were shrieking at you and calling you names.

His mother was currendy asking him why he had allowed a vampire, a filthy bloodsucker, to break the cross she had given him. 'You was always weak in faith,' she said dolorously. 'Weak in the faith and strong for the drink. I bet you'd like one right now, wouldn't you?'

Dear God, would he ever. Whiskey. Ancient Age. Callahan felt sweat break on his forehead. His heart was beating double-time. No, triple-time.

'The brisket,' he muttered. 'With some of that brown mustard splashed on top of it.' He could even see the plastic squeeze-botde the mustard came in, and remember the brand name. Plochman's.

'What?' Roland asked from behind him.

'I said I'm ready,' Callahan said. 'If you're going to do it, for God's love do it now.'

Roland cracked open the box. The chimes at once bolted through Callahan's ears, making him remember the low men in their loud cars. His stomach shriveled inside his belly and outraged tears burst from his eyes.

But the door clicked open, and a wedge of bright sunshine slanted through, dispelling the gloom of the cave's mouth.

Callahan took a deep breath and thought, Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee. And stepped into the summer of '77.

SIX

It was noon, of course. Lunch time. And of course he was standing in front of Chew Chew Mama's. No one seemed to notice his arrival. The chalked specials on the easel just outside the restaurant door read:

HEY YOU, WELCOME TO CHEW-CHEW!

SPECIALS FOR JUNE 24

Beef stroganoff

Beef Brisket (W/Cabbage)

Rancho Grande Tacos

Chicken Soup

TRY OUR DUTCH APPLE PIE!

All right, one question was answered. It was the day after Eddie had come here. As for the next one…

Callahan put Forty-sixth Street at his back for the time being, and walked up Second Avenue. Once he looked behind him and saw the doorway to the cave following him as faithfully as the billy-bumbler followed the boy. He could see Roland sitting there, putting something in his ears to block the maddening tinkle of the chimes.

He got exactly two blocks before stopping, his eyes growing wide with shock, his mouth dropping open. They had said to expect this, both Roland and Eddie, but in his heart Callahan hadn't believed it. He'd thought he would find The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind perfecdy intact on this perfect summer's day, which was so different from the overcast Calla autumn he'd left. Oh, there might be a sign in the window reading gone on vacation, closed until august-something like that-but it would be there. Oh yes.

It wasn't, though. At least not much of it. The storefront was a burnt-out husk surrounded by yellow tape reading police investigation. When he stepped a little closer, he could smell charred lumber, burnt paper, and… very faint… the odor of gasoline.

An elderly shoeshine-boy had set up shop in front of Station Shoes amp; Boots, nearby. Now he said to Callahan, 'Shame, ain't it? Thank God the place was empty.'

'Aye, say thankya. When did it happen?'

'Middle of the night, when else? You think them goombars is gonna come 'trow their Molly Coh'tails in broad daylight? They ain't geniuses, but they're smarter than that.'

'Couldn't it have been faulty wiring? Or maybe spontaneous combustion?'

The elderly shine-boy gave Callahan a cynical look. Oh, please, it said. He cocked a polish-smeared thumb at the smoldering ruin. 'You see that yella tape? You think they put yella tape says perlice investigation around a place that spontaneously combust-you-lated? No way, my friend. No way Jose. Cal Tower was in hock to the bad boys. Up to his eyebrows. Everybody on the block knew it.' The shine-boy waggled his own eyebrows, which were lush and white and tangled. 'I hate to think about his loss. He had some very vallable books in the back, there. Ver-ry vallable.'

Callahan thanked the shine-boy for his insights, then turned and started back down Second Avenue. He kept touching himself furtively, trying to convince himself that this was really happening. He kept taking deep breaths of the city air with its tang of hydrocarbons, and relished every city sound, from the snore of the buses (there were ads for Charlie's Angels on some of them) to the pounding of the jackhammers and the incessant honking of horns. As he approached Tower of Power Records, he paused for a moment, transfixed by the music pouring from the speakers over the doors. It was an oldie he hadn't heard in years, one that had been popular way back in his Lowell days. Something about following the Pied Piper.

'Crispin St. Peters,' he murmured. 'That was his name. Good God, say Man Jesus, I'm really here. I'm really in New York!'

As if to confirm this, a harried-sounding woman said, 'Maybe some people can stand around all day, but some of us are walking here. Think yez could move it along, or at least get over to the side?'

Callahan spoke an apology which he doubted was heard (or appreciated if it was), and moved along. That sense of being in a dream-an extraordinarily vivid dream-persisted until he neared Forty-sixth Street. Then he began to hear the rose, and everything in his life changed.