away with all but the most primitive seeing, but for now he saw all, and all he saw was exactly as he wanted it to be. And why not? What good did visualizing plans gone astray ever do anyone?
He saw the twins of the Calla lying sprawled like corpses in the thickest, wettest part of the rice, with the muck oozing through their shirts and pants. He saw the adults beyond them, almost to the place where rice became riverbank. He saw Sarey Adams with her plates, and Ara of the Manni-Cantab's wife- with a few of her own, for Ara also threw (although as one of the Manni-folk, she could never be at fellowship with the other women). He saw a couple of the men-Estrada, Anselm, Overholser-with their bahs hugged to their chests. Instead of a bah, Vaughn Eisenhart was hugging the rifle Roland had cleaned for him. In the road, approaching from the east, he saw rank upon rank of green-cloaked riders on gray horses. They were slowing now. The sun was finally up and gleaming on the metal of their masks. The joke of those masks, of course, was that there was more metal beneath them. Roland let the eye of his imagining rise, looking for other riders-a party coming into the undefended town from the south, for instance. He saw none. In his own mind, at least, the entire raiding party was here. And if they'd swallowed the line Roland and the Ka-Tet of the Ninety and Nine had paid out with such care, it
There was a loud
He had told them the formation to expect when they burst out of the hide: about a quarter of the Wolves on one side of the path, looking toward the river, a quarter of their number turned toward the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Or perhaps a few more in that direction, since if there was trouble, the town was where the Wolves-or the Wolves' programmers-would reasonably expect it to come from. And the rest? Thirty or more? Already up the path. Hemmed in, do ya.
Roland began counting to twenty, but when he got to nineteen decided he'd counted enough. He gathered his legs beneath him-there was no dry twist now, not so much as a twinge-and then pistoned upward with his father's gun held high in his hand.
'
FIFTEEN
They burst up and out of the earth like dragon's teeth. Boards flew away to either side of them, along with dry flurries of weeds and leaves. Roland and Eddie each had one of the big revolvers with the sandalwood grips. Jake had his father's Ruger. Margaret, Rosa, and Zalia each held a Riza. Susannah had two, her arms crossed over her breasts as though she were cold.
The Wolves were deployed exactly as Roland had seen them with the cool killer's eye of his imagination, and he felt a moment of triumph before all lesser thought and emotion was swept away beneath the red curtain. As always, he was never so happy to be alive as when he was preparing to deal death.
'
And, as if to demonstrate his point, the green hoods of three riders to the right of the path twitched as if plucked by invisible fingers. Each of the three beneath pitched bonelessly out of their saddles and struck the ground. In Gran-pere's story of the Wolf Molly Doolin had brought down, there had been a good deal of twitching afterward, but these three lay under the feet of their prancing horses as still as stones. Molly might not have hit the hidden 'thinking-cap' cleanly, but Eddie knew what he was shooting for, and had.
Roland also began to fire, shooting from the hip, shooting almost casually, but each bullet found its mark. He was after the ones on the path, wanting to pile up bodies there, to make a barricade if he could.
'
'
'
'
Bright rods of fire now glowed in the morning light as the jostling, struggling riders on either side of the path unsheathed their energy weapons. Jake shot the thinking-cap of the first one to unsheathe and it fell on its own bitterly sizzling sword, catching its cloak afire. Its horse shied sideways, into the descending light-stick of the rider to the direct left. Its head came off, disclosing a nest of sparks and wires. Now the sirens began to blat steadily, burglar alarms in hell.
Roland had thought the Wolves closest to town might try to break off and flee toward the Calla. Instead the nine on that side still left-Eddie had taken six with his first six shots-spurred past the buckas and directly toward them. Two or three hurled humming silvery balls.
'Eddie! Jake! Sneetches! Your right!'
They swung in that direction immediately, leaving the women, who were hurling plates as fast as they could pull them from their silk-lined bags. Jake was standing with his legs spread and the Ruger held out in his right hand, his left bracing his right wrist. His hair was blowing back from his brow. He was wide-eyed and handsome, smiling. He squeezed off three quick shots, each one a whipcrack in the morning air. He had a vague, distant memory of the day in the woods when he had shot pottery out of the sky. Now he was shooting at something far more dangerous, and he was glad.
Before it could, Susannah swiveled and fired a plate at it. The plate flew straight to the mark, howling. When it struck, both it and the sneetch exploded. Sharpnel rained down in the corn-plants, setting some of them alight.
Roland reloaded, the smoking barrel of his revolver momentarily pointed down between his feet. Beyond Jake, Eddie was doing the same.
A Wolf jumped the tangled heap of bodies at the head of the arroyo path, its green cloak floating out behind it, and one of Rosa's plates tore back its hood, for a moment revealing the radar dish beneath. The thinking caps of the bear's retinue had been moving slowly and jerkily; this one was spinning so fast its shape was only a metallic blur. Then it was gone and the Wolf went tumbling to the side and onto the team which had drawn Overholser's lead waggon. The horses flinched backward, shoving the bucka into the one behind, mashing four whinnying, rearing animals between. These tried to bolt but had nowhere to go. Overholser's bucka teetered, then overturned. The downed Wolf's horse gained the road, stumbled over the body of another Wolf lying there, and went sprawling in the dust, one of its legs jutting off crookedly to the side.
Roland's mind was gone; his eye saw everything. He was reloaded. The Wolves who had gone up the path were pinned behind a tangled heap of bodies, just as he had hoped. The group of fifteen on the town side had been decimated, only two left. Those on the right were trying to flank the end of the ditch, where the three Sisters of Oriza and Susannah anchored their line. Roland left the remaining two Wolves on his side to Eddie and Jake, sprinted down the trench to stand behind Susannah, and began firing at the ten remaining Wolves bearing down on them. One raised a sneetch to throw, then dropped it as Roland's bullet snapped off its thinking-cap. Rosa took another one, Margaret Eisenhart a third.
Margaret dipped to get another plate. When she stood up again, a light-stick swept off her head, setting her hair on fire as it tumbled into the ditch. And Benny's reaction was understandable; she had been almost a second mother to him. When the burning head landed beside him, he batted it aside and scrambled out of the ditch, blind with panic, howling in terror.
'
Two of the remaining Wolves threw their silver deathballs at the crawling, screaming boy. Jake shot one out of the air. He never had a chance at the other. It struck Benny Slightman in the chest and the boy simply exploded outward, one arm tearing free of his body and landing palm-up in the road.
Susannah cut the thinking-cap off the Wolf which had killed Margaret with one plate, then did for the one who had killed Jake's friend with another. She pulled two fresh Rizas from her sacks and turned back to the oncoming Wolves just as the first one leaped into the ditch, its horse's chest knocking Roland asprawl. It brandished its sword over the gunslinger. To Susannah it looked like a brilliant red-orange tube of neon.
'
Shrieking Benny's name, Jake walked across the East Road, reloading the Ruger as he went, tracking through his dead friend's blood without realizing it. To his left, Roland, Susannah, and Rosa were putting paid to the five remaining Wolves in what had been the raiding party's north wing. The raiders whirled their horses in jerky, useless circles, seeming unsure what to do in circumstances such as these.
'Want some company, kid?' Eddie asked him. On their right, the group of Wolves who had been stationed on the town side of the arroyo path all lay dead. Only one of them had actually made it as far as the ditch; that one lay with its hooded head plowed into the freshly turned earth of the hide and its booted feet in the road. The rest of its body was wrapped in its green cloak. It looked like a bug that has died in its cocoon.