Wolves of the Calla

Overholser had once more flushed dark red. 'Cry your pardon,' he said.

Benny, meanwhile, continued to stare at Jake with wide eyes, and Roland felt a minor pang of regret for both boys. They might still manage some sort of friendship, but what had just happened would change it in fundamental ways, turn it into something quite unlike the usual lighthearted khef boys shared. Which was a shame, because when Jake wasn't being called upon to be a gunslinger, he was still only a child. Close to the age Roland himself had been when the test of manhood had been thrust on him. But he would not be young much longer, very likely. And it was a shame.

'Listen to me now,' Roland said, 'and hear me very well. We leave you shortly to go back to our own camp and take our own counsel. Tomorrow, when we come to your town, we'll put up with one of you-'

'Come to Seven-Mile,' Overholser said. 'We'll have you and say thankee, Roland.'

'Our place is much smaller,' Tian said, 'but Zalia and I-'

'We'd be so pleased to have'ee,' Zalia said. She had flushed as deeply as Overholser. 'Aye, we would.'

Roland said, 'Do you have a house as well as a church, sai Callahan?'

Callahan smiled. 'I do, and tell God thankya.'

'We might stay with you on our first night in Calla Bryn Sturgis,' Roland said. 'Could we do that?'

'Sure, and welcome.'

'You could show us your church. Introduce us to its mysteries.'

Callahan's gaze was steady. 'I'd welcome the chance to do that.'

'In the days after,' Roland said, smiling, 'we shall throw ourselves on the hospitality of the town.'

'You'll not find it wanting,' Tian said. 'That I promise ye.' Overholser and Slightman were nodding.

'If the meal we've just eaten is any sign, I'm sure that's true. We say thankee, sai Jaffords; thankee one and all. For a week we four will go about your town, poking our noses here and there. Mayhap a bit longer, but likely a week. We'll look at the lay of the land and the way the buildings are set on it. Look with an eye to the coming of these Wolves. We'll talk to folk, and folk will talk to us-those of you here now will see to that, aye?'

Callahan was nodding. 'I can't speak for the Manni, but I'm sure the rest will be more than willing to talk to you about the Wolves. God and Man Jesus knows they're no secret. And those of the Crescent are frightened to death of them. If they see a chance you might be able to help us, they'll do all you ask.'

'The Manni will speak to me as well,' Roland said. 'I've held palaver with them before.'

'Don't be carried away with the Old Fella's enthusiasm, Roland,' Overholser said. He raised his plump hands in the air, a gesture of caution. 'There are others in town you'll have to convince-'

'Vaughn Eisenhart, for one,' said Slightman.

'Aye, and Eben Took, do ya,' Overholser said. 'The General Store's the only thing his name's on, ye ken, but he owns the boarding house and the restaurant out front of it… as well's a half-interest in the livery… and loan-paper on most of the smallholds hereabouts.

'When it comes to the smallholds, 'ee mustn't neglect Bucky Javier,' Overholser rumbled. 'He ain't the biggest of em, but only because he gave away half of what he had to his young sister when she married.' Overholser leaned toward Roland, his face alight with a bit of town history about to be passed on. 'Roberta Javier, Bucky's sissa, she's lucky,' he said. 'When the Wolves came last time, she and her twin brother were but a year old. So they were passed over.'

'Bucky's own twin brother was took the time before,' Slight-man said. 'Bully's dead now almost four year. Of the sickness. Since then, there ain't enough Bucky can do for those younger two. But you should talk to him, aye. Bucky's not got but eighty acre, yet he's trig.'

Roland thought, They still don't see.

'Thank you,' he said. 'What lies directly ahead for us comes down to looking and listening, mostly. When it's done, we'll ask that whoever is in charge of the feather take it around so that a meeting can be called. At that meeting, we'll tell you if the town can be defended and how many men we'll want to help us, if it can be done.'

Roland saw Overholser puffing up to speak and shook his head at him.

'It won't be many we'd want, in any case,' he said. 'We're gunslingers, not an army. We think differently, act differently, than armies do. We might ask for as many as five to stand with us. Probably fewer-only two or three. But we might need more to help us prepare.'

'Why?' Benny asked.

Roland smiled. 'That I can't say yet, son, because I haven't seen how things are in your Calla. But in cases like this, surprise is always the most potent weapon, and it usually takes many people to prepare a good surprise.'

'The greatest surprise to the Wolves,' Tian said, 'would be if we fought at all.'

'Suppose you decide the Calla can't be defended?' Over-holser asked. 'Tell me that, I beg.'

'Then I and my friends will thank you for your hospitality and ride on,' Roland said, 'for we have our own business farther along the Path of the Beam.' He observed Tian's and Zalia's crestfallen faces for a moment, then said: 'I don't think that's likely, you know. There's usually a way.'

'May the meeting receive your judgment favorably,' Over-holser said.

Roland hesitated. This was the point where he could hammer the truth home, should he want to. If these people still believed a tet of gunslingers would be bound by what farmers and ranchers decided in a public meeting, they really had lost the shape of the world as it once was. But was that so bad? In the end, matters would play out and become part of his long history. Or not. If not, he would finish his history and his quest in Calla Bryn Sturgis, moldering beneath a stone. Perhaps not even that; perhaps he'd finish in a dead heap somewhere east of town, he and his friends with him, so much rotting meat to be picked over by the crows and the rusties. Ka would tell. It always did.

Meanwhile, they were looking at him.

Roland stood up, wincing at a hard flare of pain in his right hip as he did so. Taking their cues from him, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake also got to their feet.

'We're well-met,' Roland said. 'As for what lies ahead, there will be water if God wills it.'

Callahan said, 'Amen.'

Chapter VII: Todash

ONE

'Gray horses,' Eddie said.

'Aye,' Roland agreed.

'Fifty or sixty of them, all on gray horses.'

'Aye, so they did say.'

'And didn't think it the least bit strange,' Eddie mused.

'No. They didn't seem to.'

'Is it?'

'Fifty or sixty horses, all the same color? I'd say so, yes.'

'These Calla-folk raise horses themselves.'

'Aye.'

'Brought some for us to ride.' Eddie, who had never ridden a horse in his life, was grateful that at least had been put off, but didn't say so.

'Aye, tethered over the hill.'

'You know that for a fact?'

'Smelled em. I imagine the robot had the keeping of them.'

'Why would these folks take fifty or sixty horses, all the same shade, as a matter of course?'

'Because they don't really think about the Wolves or anything to do with them,' Roland said. 'They're too busy being afraid, I think.'

Eddie whistled five notes that didn't quite make a melody. Then he said, 'Gray horses.'

Roland nodded. 'Gray horses.'

They looked at each other for a moment, then laughed. Eddie loved it when Roland laughed. The sound was dry, as ugly as the calls of those giant blackbirds he called rusties… but he loved it. Maybe it was just that Roland laughed so seldom.

It was late afternoon. Overhead, the clouds had thinned enough to turn a pallid blue that was almost the color of sky. The Overholser party had returned to their camp. Susannah and Jake had gone back along the forest road to pick more muffin-balls. After the big meal they'd packed away, none of them wanted anything heavier. Eddie sat on a log, whittling. Beside him sat Roland, with all their guns broken down and spread out before him on a piece of deerskin. He oiled the pieces one by one, holding each bolt and cylinder and barrel up to the daylight for a final look before setting it aside for reassembly.

'You told them it was out of their hands,' Eddie said, 'but they didn't ken that any more than they did the business about all those gray horses. And you didn't press it.'

'Only would have distressed them,' Roland said. 'There was a saying in Gilead: Let evil wait for the day on which it must fall.'

'Uh-huh,' Eddie said. 'There was a saying in Brooklyn: You can't get snot off a suede jacket.' He held up the object he was making. It would be a top, Roland thought, a toy for a baby. And again he wondered how much Eddie might know about the woman he lay down with each night. The women. Not on the top of his mind, but underneath. 'If you decide we can help them, then we have to help them. That's what Eld's Way really boils down to, doesn't it?'