Wolves of the Calla

'All I mean to say is that if you want to come with us, you have to roll with us. Do you ken?'

'Yes, Roland, Very well.'

Overholser thanked him again for the chance to die north of town and then hurried off with his hat still in his hands. Before Roland could change his mind, perhaps.

Eddie came over. 'Overholser's coming to the dance?'

'Looks like it. How much trouble did you have with Andy?'

'It went all right,' Eddie said, not wanting to admit that he, Tian, and Rosalita had probably all come within a second of being toast. In the distance, they could still hear him bellowing. But probably not for much longer; the amplified voice was claiming shutdown was seventy-nine per cent complete.

'I think you did very well.'

A compliment from Roland always made Eddie feel like king of the world, but he tried not to show it. 'As long as we do well tomorrow.'

'Susannah?'

'Seems fine.'

'No…?' Roland rubbed above his left eyebrow.

'No, not that I've seen.'

'And no talking short and sharp?'

'No, she's good for it. Practiced with her plates all the time you guys were digging.' Eddie tipped his chin toward Jake, who was sitting by himself on a swing with Oy at his feet. 'That's the one I'm worried about. I'll be glad to get him out of here. This has been hard for him.'

'It'll be harder on the other boy,' Roland said, and stood up. 'I'm going back to Pere's. Going to get some sleep.'

'Can you sleep?'

'Oh, yes,' Roland said. 'With the help of Rosa's cat-oil, I'll sleep like a rock. You and Susannah and Jake should also try.'

'Okay.'

Roland nodded somberly. 'I'll wake you tomorrow morning. We'll ride down here together.'

'And we'll fight.'

'Yes,' Roland said. He looked at Eddie. His blue eyes gleamed in the glow of the torches. 'We'll fight. Until they're dead, or we are.'

Chapter VII: The Wolves

ONE

See this now, see it very well:

Here is a road as wide and as well-maintained as any secondary road in America, but of the smooth packed dirt the Calla-folk call oggan. Ditches for runoff border both sides; here and there neat and well-maintained wooden culverts run beneath the oggan. In the faint, unearthly light that comes before dawn, a dozen bucka waggons-they are the kind driven by the Manni, with rounded canvas tops-roll along the road. The canvas is bright clean white, to reflect the sun and keep the interiors cool on hot summer days, and they look like strange, low-floating clouds. The cumulus kind, may it do ya. Each waggon is drawn by a team of six mules or four horses. On the seat of each, driving, are either a pair of fighters or of designated child-minders. Overholser is driving the lead waggon, with Margaret Eisenhart beside him. Next in line comes Roland of Gilead, mated with Ben Slightman. Fifth is Tian and Zalia Jaffords. Seventh is Eddie and Susannah Dean. Susannah's wheelchair is folded up in the waggon behind her. Bucky and Annabelle Javier are in charge of the tenth. On the peak-seat of the last waggon are Father Donald Callahan and Rosalita Munoz.

Inside the buckas are ninety-nine children. The left-over twin-the one that makes for an odd number-is Benny Slightman, of course. He is riding in the last waggon. (He felt uncomfortable about going with his father.) The children don't speak. Some of the younger ones have gone back to sleep; they will have to be awakened shortly, when the waggons reach their destination. Ahead, now less than a mile, is the place where the path into the arroyo country splits off to the left. On the right, the land runs down a mild slope to the river. All the drivers keep looking to the east, toward the constant darkness that is Thunderclap. They are watching for an approaching dust-cloud. There is none. Not yet. Even the seminon winds have fallen still. Callahan's prayers seem to have been answered, at least in that regard.

TWO

Ben Slightman, sitting next to Roland on the bucka's peak-seat, spoke in a voice so low the gunslinger could barely hear him. 'What will'ee do to me, then?'

If asked, when the waggons set out from Calla Bryn Sturgis, to give odds on Slightman's surviving this day, Roland might have put them at five in a hundred. Surely no better. There were two crucial questions that needed to be asked and then answered correctly. The first had to come from Slightman himself. Roland hadn't really expected the man to ask it, but here it was, out of his mouth. Roland turned his head and looked at him.

Vaughn Eisenhart's foreman was very pale, but he took off his spectacles and met Roland's gaze. The gunslinger ascribed no special courage to this. Surely Slightman the Elder had had time to take Roland's measure and knew that he must look the gunslinger in the eye if he was to have any hope at all, little as he might like to do it.

'Yar, I know,' Slightman said. His voice was steady, at least so far. 'Know what? That you know.'

'Have since we took your pard, I suppose,' Roland said. The word was deliberately sarcastic (sarcasm was the only form of humor Roland truly understood), and Slightman winced at it: pard. Your pard. But he nodded, eyes still steady on Roland's.

'I had to figure that if you knew about Andy, you knew about me. Although he'd never have peached on me. Such wasn't in his programming.' At last it was too much and he could bear the eye-contact no longer. He looked down, biting his lip. 'Mostly I knew because of Jake.'

Roland wasn't able to keep the surprise out of his face.

'He changed. He didn't mean to, not as trig as he is-and as brave-but he did. Not toward me, toward my boy. Over the last week, week and a half. Benny was only… well, puzzled, I guess you'd say. He felt something but didn't know what it was. I did. It was like your boy didn't want to be around him anymore. I asked myself what could do that. The answer seemed pretty clear. Clear as short beer, do ya.'

Roland was falling behind Overholser's waggon. He flicked the reins over the backs of his own team. They moved a little faster. From behind them came the quiet sound of the children, some talking now but most snoring, and the muted jingle of trace. He'd asked Jake to collect up a small box of children's possessions, and had seen the boy doing it. He was a good boy who never put off a chore. This morning he wore a dayrider hat to keep the sun out of his eyes, and his father's gun. He rode on the seat of the eleventh waggon, with one of the Estrada men. He guessed that Slightman had a good boy, too, which had gone far toward making this the mess that it was.

'Jake was at the Dogan one night when you and Andy were there, passing on news of your neighbors,' Roland said. On the seat beside him, Slightman winced like a man who has just been punched in the belly.

'There,' he said. 'Yes, I could almost sense… or thought I could…' A longer pause, and then: 'Fuck.'

Roland looked east. A little brighter over there now, but still no dust. Which was good. Once the dust appeared, the Wolves would come in a rush. Their gray horses would be fast. Continuing on, speaking almost idly, Roland asked the other question. If Slightman answered in the negative, he wouldn't live to see the coming of the Wolves no matter how fast their gray horses rode.

'If you'd found him, Slightman-if you'd found my boy- would you have killed him?'

Slightman put his spectacles back on as he struggled with it. Roland couldn't tell if he understood the importance of the question or not. He waited to see if the father of Jake's friend would live or die. He'd have to decide quickly; they were approaching the place where the waggons would stop and the children would get down.

The man at last raised his head and met Roland's eyes again. He opened his mouth to speak and couldn't. The fact of the matter was clear enough: he could answer the gunslinger's question, or he could look into the gunslinger's face, but he could not do both at the same time.

Dropping his gaze back to the splintery wood between his feet, Slightman said: 'Yes, I reckon we would have killed him.' A pause. A nod. When he moved his head a tear fell from one eye and splashed on the wood of the peak-seat's floor. 'Yar, what else?' Now he looked up; now he could meet Roland's eyes again, and when he did he saw his fate had been decided. 'Make it quick,' said he, 'and don't let me boy see it happen. Beg ya please.'

Roland flapped the reins over the mules' backs again. Then he said: 'I won't be the one to stop your miserable breath.'

Slightman's breathdid stop. Telling the gunslinger that yes, he would have killed a twelve-year-old boy to protect his secret, his face had had a kind of strained nobility. Now it wore hope instead, and hope made it ugly. Nearly grotesque. Then he let his breath out in a ragged sigh and said, 'You're fooling with me. A-teasing me. You're going to kill me, all right. Why would you not?'

'A coward judges all he sees by what he is,' Roland remarked. 'I'd not kill you unless I had to, Slightman, because I love my own boy. You must understand that much, don't you? To love a boy?'

'Yar.' Slightman lowered his head again and began to rub the back of his sunburned neck. The neck he must have thought would end this day packed in dirt.

'But you have to understand something. For your own good and Benny's as much as ours. If the Wolves win, you will die.