Wolves of the Calla

Another blow slammed against the side of the privy, and this time two of the stout boards bowed outward. The next one broke them. Andy's arm flashed through, gleaming red in the light, the four jointed fingers at the end opening and closing spasmodically. In the distance, Eddie could hear the crazy barking of dogs.

'He's going to get out, Eddie!' Tian shouted, grabbing Eddie's shoulder. 'He's going to get out!'

Eddie shook the hand off and stepped to the door. There was another crashing blow. More broken boards popped off the side of the privy. The lawn was scattered with them now. But he couldn't shout against the wail of the siren, it was just too loud. He waited, and before Andy hammered the side of the privy again, it cut off.

'BASTARDS!' Andy screamed. 'I'LL KILL YOU! DIRECTIVE 20, CODE 7! I'M BLIND, ZERO VISION, YOU COWARDLY-'

'Andy, Messenger Robot!' Eddie shouted. He had jotted the serial number on one of Callahan's precious scraps of paper, with Callahan's stub of pencil, and now he read it off. 'DNF-44821-V-63! Password!'

The frenzied blows and amplified shouting ceased as soon as Eddie finished giving the serial number, yet even the silence wasn't silent; his ears still rang with the hellish shriek of the siren. There was a clank of metal and the click of relays. Then: 'This is DNF-44821-V-63. Please give password.' A pause, and then, tonelessly: 'You ambushing bastard Eddie Dean of New York. You have ten seconds. Nine…'

'Nineteen,' Eddie said through the door.

'Incorrect password.' And, tin man or not, there was no mistaking the furious pleasure in Andy's voice. 'Eight… seven…'

'Ninety-nine.'

'Incorrect password.' Now what Eddie heard was triumph. He had time to regret his insane cockiness out on the road. Time to see the look of terror which passed between Rosa and Tian. Time to realize the dogs were still barking.

'Five… four…'

Not nineteen; not ninety-nine. What else was there? What in the name of Christ turned the bastard off?

'… three…'

What flashed into his mind, as bright as Andy's eyes had been before Roland's big revolver turned them dark, was the verse scrawled on the fence around the vacant lot, spray-painted in dusty rose-pink letters: Oh SUSANNAH-MIO, divided girl of mine, Done parked her RIG in the DIXIE PIG, in the year of-

'… two…'

Not one or the other; both. Which was why the damned robot hadn't cut him off after a single incorrect try. He hadn't been incorrect, not exactly.

'Nineteen-ninety-nine!''Eddie screamed through the door.

From behind it, utter silence. Eddie waited for the siren to start up again, waited for Andy to resume bashing his way out of the privy. He'd tell Tian and Rosa to run, try to cover them-

The voice that spoke from inside the battered building was colorless and flat: the voice of a machine. Both the fake smarminess and the genuine fury were gone. Andy as generations of Calla-folken had known him was gone, and for good.

'Thank you,' the voice said. 'I am Andy, a messenger robot, many other functions. Serial number DNF-44821-V-63. How may I help?'

'By shutting yourself down.'

Silence from the privy.

'Do you understand what I'm asking?'

A small, horrified voice said, 'Please don't make me. You bad man. Oh, you bad man.'

'Shut yourself down now.'

A longer silence. Rosa stood with her hand pressed against her throat. Several men appeared around the side of the Pere's house, armed with various homely weapons. Rosa waved them back.

'DNF-44821-V-63, comply!'

'Yes, Eddie of New York. I will shut myself down.' A horrible self-pitying sadness had crept into Andy's new small voice. It made Eddie's skin crawl. 'Andy is blind and will shut down. Are you aware that with my main power cells ninety-eight per cent depleted, I may never be able to power up again?'

Eddie remembered the vast roont twins out at the Jaffords smallhold-Tia and Zalman-and then thought of all the others like them this unlucky town had known over the years. He dwelled particularly on the Tavery twins, so bright and quick and eager to please. And so beautiful. 'Never won't be long enough,' he said, 'but I guess it'll have to do. Palaver's done, Andy. Shut down.'

Another silence from within the half-busted privy. Tian and Rosa crept up to either side of Eddie and the three of them stood together in front of the locked door. Rosa gripped Eddie's forearm. He shook her off immediately. He wanted his hand free in case he had to draw. Although where he would shoot now that Andy's eyes were gone, he didn't know.

When Andy spoke again, it was in a toneless amplified voice that made Tian and Rosa gasp and step back. Eddie stayed where he was. He had heard a voice like this and words like this once before, in the clearing of the great bear. Andy's rap wasn't quite the same, but close enough for government work.

'DNF-44821-V-63 IS SHUTTING DOWN! ALL SUBNUCLEAR CELLS AND MEMORY CIRCUITS ARE IN SHUTDOWN PHASE! SHUTDOWN IS 13 PER CENT COMPLETE! I AM ANDY, MESSENGER ROBOT, MANY OTHER FUNCTIONS! PLEASE REPORT MY LOCATION TO LAMERK INDUSTRIES OR NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS, LTD! CALL 1-900 -54! REWARD IS OFFERED! REPEAT, REWARD IS OFFERED!' There was a click as the message recycled. 'DNF-44821-V-63 IS SHUTTING DOWN! ALL SUBNUCLEAR CELLS AND MEMORY CIRCUITS ARE IN SHUTDOWN PHASE! SHUTDOWN IS 19 PER CENT COMPLETE! I AM ANDY-'

'You were Andy,' Eddie said softly. He turned to Tian and Rosa, and had to smile at their scared-children's faces. 'It's all right,' he said. 'It's over. He'll go on blaring like that for awhile, and then he'll be done. You can turn him into a… I don't know… a planter, or something.'

'I think we'll tear up the floor and bury him right there,' Rosa said, nodding at the privy.

Eddie's smile widened and became a grin. He liked the idea of burying Andy in shit. He liked that idea very well.

SEVENTEEN

As dusk ended and night deepened, Roland sat on the edge of the bandstand and watched the Calla-folken tuck into their great dinner. Every one of them knew it might be the last meal they'd ever eat together, that tomorrow night at ths time their nice little town might lie in smoking ruins all about them, but still they were cheerful. And not, Roland thought, entirely for the sake of the children. There was great relief in finally deciding to do the right tiling. Even when folk knew the price was apt to be high, that relief came. A kind of giddiness. Most of these people would sleep on the Green tonight with their children and grandchildren in the tent nearby, and here they would stay, their faces turned to the northeast of town, waiting for the outcome of the battle. There would be gunshots, they reckoned (it was a sound many of them had never heard), and then the dust-cloud that marked the Wolves would either dissipate, turn back the way it had come, or roll on toward town. If the last, the folken would scatter and wait for the burning to commence.

When it was over, they would be refugees in their own place. Would they rebuild, if that was how the cards fell? Roland doubted it. With no children to build for-because the Wolves would take them all this time if they won, the gunslinger did not doubt it-there would be no reason. At the end of the next cycle, this place would be a ghost town.

'Cry your pardon, sai.'

Roland looked around. There stood Wayne Overholser, with his hat in his hands. Standing thus, he looked more like a wandering saddle-tramp down on his luck than the Calla's big farmer. His eyes were large and somehow mournful.

'No need to cry my pardon when I'm still wearing the dayrider hat you gave me,' Roland said mildly.

'Yar, but…' Overholser trailed off, thought of how he wanted to go on, and then seemed to decide to fly straight at it. 'Reuben Caverra was one of the fellas you meant to take to guard the children during the fight, wasn't he?'

'Aye?'

'His gut busted this morning.' Overholser touched his own swelling belly about where his appendix might have been. 'He lays home feverish and raving. He'll likely die of the bloodmuck. Some get better, aye, but not many.'

'I'm sorry to hear it,' Roland said, trying to think who would be best to replace Caverra, a hulk of a man who had impressed Roland as not knowing much about fear and probably nothing at all about cowardice.

'Take me instea', would ye?'

Roland eyed him.

'Please, gunslinger. I can't stand aside. I thought I could- that I must-but I can't. It's making me sick.' And yes, Roland thought, he did look sick.

'Does your wife know, Wayne?'

'Aye.'

'And says aye?'

'She does.'

Roland nodded. 'Be here half an hour before dawn.'

A look of intense, almost painful gratitude filled Overholser's face and made him look weirdly young. 'Thankee, Roland! Say thankee! Big-big!'

'Glad to have you. Now listen to me a minute.'

'Aye?'

'Things won't be just the way I told them at the big meeting.'

'Because of Andy, y'mean.'

'Yes, partly that.'

'What else? You don't mean to say there's another traitor, do'ee? You don't mean to say that?'