Wolves of the Calla

They said don't walk. Although, Roland saw, people were crossing the street in spite of the sign. They would take a quick look in the direction of the flowing traffic, and then go for it. One fellow crossed in spite of an oncoming yellow tack-see. The tack-see swerved and blared its horn. The walking man yelled fearlessly at it, then shot up the middle finger of his right hand and shook it after the departing vehicle. Roland had an idea that this gesture probably did not mean long days and pleasant nights.

It was night in New York City, and although there were people moving everywhere, none were of his ka-tet. Here, Roland admitted to himself, was one contingency he had hardly expected: that the one person to show up would be him. Not Eddie, but him. Where in the name of all the gods was he supposed to go? And what was he supposed to do when he got there?

Remember your own advice, he thought. 'If you show up alone,' you told them, 'stay where you are. '

But did that mean to just roost on… he looked up at the green street-sign… on the corner of Second Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street, doing nothing but watching a sign change from don't walk in red to walk in white?

While he was pondering this, a voice called out from behind him, high and delirious with joy. 'Roland! Sugarbunch! Turn around and see me! See me very well!'

Roland turned, already knowing what he would see, but smiling all the same. How terrible to relive that day at Jericho Hill, but what an antidote was this-Susannah Dean, flying down Fifty-fourth Street toward him, laughing and weeping with joy, her arms held out.

'My legs!' She was screaming it at the top of her voice. 'My legs! I have my legs back! Oh Roland, honeydoll, praise the Man Jesus, I HAVE MY LEGS BACK!'

SIX

She threw herself into his embrace, kissing his cheek, his neck, his brow, his nose, his lips, saying it over and over again: 'My legs, oh Roland do you see, I can walk, I can run, I have my legs, praise God and all the saints, I have my legs back.'

'Give you every joy of them, dear heart,' Roland said. Falling into the patois of the place in which he had lately found himself was an old trick of his-or perhaps it was habit. For now it was the patois of the Calla. He supposed if he spent much time here in New York, he'd soon find himself waving his middle finger at tack-sees.

But I'd always be an outsider, he thought. Why, I can't even say aspirin. Every time I try, the word comes out wrong.

She took his right hand, dragged it down with surprising force, and placed it on her shin. 'Do you feel it?' she demanded. 'I mean, I'm not just imagining it, am I?'

Roland laughed. 'Did you not run to me as if with wings on em like Raf? Yes, Susannah.' He put his left hand, the one with all the fingers, on her left leg. 'One leg and two legs, each with a foot below them.' He frowned. 'We ought to get you some shoes, though.'

'Why? This is a dream. It has to be.'

He looked at her steadily, and slowly her smile faded.

'Not? Really not?'

'We've gone todash. We are really here. If you cut your foot, Mia, you'll have a cut foot tomorrow, when you wake up aside the campfire.'

The other name had come out almost-but not quite-on its own. Now he waited, all his muscles wire-tight, to see if she would notice. If she did, he'd apologize and tell her he'd gone todash directly from a dream of someone he'd known long ago (although there had only been one woman of any importance after Susan Delgado, and her name had not been Mia).

But she didn't notice, and Roland wasn't much surprised.

Because she was getting ready to go on another of her hunting expeditions -as Mia - when the kammen rang. And unlike Susannah, Mia has legs. She banquets on rich foods in a great hall, she talks with all her friends, she didn't go to Morehouse or to no house, and she has legs. So this one has legs. This one is both women, although she doesn't know it.

Suddenly Roland found himself hoping that they wouldn't meet Eddie. He might sense the difference even if Susannah herself didn't. And that could be bad. If Roland had had three wishes, like the foundling prince in a child's bedtime story, right now all three would have been for the same thing: to get through this business in Calla Bryn Sturgis before Susannah's pregnancy-Mia's pregnancy-became obvious. Having to deal with both things at the same time would be hard.

Perhaps impossible.

She was looking at him with wide, questioning eyes. Not because he'd called her by a name that wasn't hers, but because she wanted to know what they should do next.

'It's your city,' he said. 'I would see the bookstore. And the vacant lot.' He paused. 'And the rose. Can you take me?'

'Well,' she said, looking around, 'it's my city, no doubt about that, but Second Avenue sure doesn't look like it did back in the days when Detta got her kicks shoplifting in Macy's.'

'So you can't find the bookstore and the vacant lot?' Roland was disappointed but far from desolate. There would be a way. There was always a-

'Oh, no problem there,' she said. 'The streets are the same. New York's just a grid, Roland, with the avenues running one way and the streets the other. Easy as pie. Come on.'

The sign had gone back to don't walk, but after a quick glance uptown, Susannah took his arm and they crossed Fifty-fourth to the other side. Susannah strode fearlessly in spite of her bare feet. The blocks were short but crowded with exotic shops. Roland couldn't help goggling, but his lack of attention seemed safe enough; although the sidewalks were crowded, no one crashed into them. Roland could hear his bootheels clopping on the sidewalk, however, and could see the shadows they were casting in the light of the display windows.

Almost here, he thought. Were the force that brought us any more powerful, we would be here.

And, he realized, the force might indeed grow stronger, assuming that Callahan was right about what was hidden under the floor of his church. As they drew closer to the town and to the source of the thing doing this…

Susannah twitched his arm. Roland stopped immediately. 'Is it your feet?' he asked.

'No,' she said, and Roland saw she was frightened. 'Why is it so dark?'

'Susannah, it's night.'

She gave his arm an impatient shake. 'I know that, I'm not blind. Can't you…' She hesitated. 'Can't you feel it?'

Roland realized he could. For one thing, the darkness on Second Avenue really wasn't dark at all. The gunslinger still couldn't comprehend the prodigal way in which these people of New York squandered the things those of Gilead had held most rare and precious. Paper; water; refined oil; artificial light. This last was everywhere. There was the glow from the store windows (although most were closed, the displays were still lit), the even harsher glow from a popkin-selling place called Blimpie's, and over all this, peculiar orange electric lamps that seemed to drench the very air with light. Yet Susannah was right. There was a black feel to the air in spite of the orange lamps. It seemed to surround the people who walked this street. It made him think about what Eddie had said earlier: This whole deal has gone nineteen.

But this darkness, more felt than seen, had nothing to do with nineteen. You had to subtract six in order to understand what was going on here. And for the first time, Roland really believed Callahan was right.

'Black Thirteen,' he said.

'What?'

'It's brought us here, sent us todash, and we feel it all around us. It's not the same as when I flew inside the grapefruit, but it's like that.'

'It feels bad,' she said, speaking low.

'It is bad,' he said. 'Black Thirteen's very likely the most terrible object from the days of Eld still remaining on the face of the earth. Not that the Wizard's Rainbow was from then; I'm sure it existed even before-'

'Roland! Hey, Roland! Suze!'

They looked up and in spite of his earlier misgivings, Roland was immensely relieved to see not only Eddie, but Jake and Oy, as well. They were about a block and a half farther along. Eddie was waving. Susannah waved back exuberantly. Roland grabbed her arm before she started to run, which was clearly her intention.

'Mind your feet,' he said. 'You don't need to pick up some sort of infection and carry it back to the other side.'

They compromised at a rapid walk. Eddie and Jake, both shod, ran to meet them. Pedestrians moved out of their way without looking, or even breaking their conversations, Roland saw, and then observed that wasn't quite true. There was a little boy, surely no older than three, walking sturdily along next to his mother. The woman seemed to notice nothing, but as Eddie and Jake swung around them, the toddler watched with wide, wondering eyes… and then actually stretched out a hand, as if to stroke the briskly trotting Oy.

Eddie pulled ahead of Jake and arrived first. He held Susannah out at arm's length, looking at her. His expression, Roland saw, was really quite similar to that of the tot.

'Well? What do you think, sugar?' Susannah spoke nervously, like a woman who has come home to her husband with some radical new hairdo.

'A definite improvement,' Eddie said. 'I don't need em to love you, but they're way beyond good and into the land of excellent. Christ, now you're an inch taller than I am!'

Susannah saw this was true and laughed. Oy sniffed at the ankle that hadn't been there the last time he'd seen this woman, and then he laughed, too. It was an odd barky-bark of a sound, but quite clearly a laugh for all that.

'Like your legs, Suze,' Jake said, and the perfunctory quality of this compliment made Susannah laugh again. The boy didn't notice; he had already