Wolves of the Calla

'Then here are the two things I say to you dan-dinh. First, I say that the three of us-you, me, Eddie-will speak an-tet to Susannah before the Wolves come, and tell her everything we know. That she's pregnant, that her baby is almost surely a demon's child, and that she's created a woman named Mia to mother that child. Second, I say that we discuss this no more until the time to tell her has come.'

Jake considered these things. As he did, his face gradually brightened with relief. 'Do you mean it?'

'Yes.' Roland tried not to show how much this question hurt and angered him. He understood, after all, why the boy would ask. 'I promise and swear to my promise. Does it do ya?'

'Yes! It does me fine!'

Roland nodded. 'I'm not doing this because I'm convinced it's the right thing but because you are, Jake. I-'

'Wait a second, whoa, wait,' Jake said. His smile was fading. 'Don't try to put all this on me. I never-'

'Spare me such nonsense.' Roland used a dry and distant tone Jake had seldom heard. 'You ask part of a man's decision. I allow it- must allow it-because ka has decreed you take a man's part in great matters. You opened this door when you questioned my judgment. Do you deny that?'

Jake had gone from pale to flushed to pale once more. He looked badly frightened, and shook his head without speaking a single word. Ah, gods, Roland thought, I hate every part of this. It stinks like a dying man's shit.

In a quieter tone he said, 'No, you didn't ask to be brought here. Nor did I wish to rob you of your childhood. Yet here we are, and ka stands to one side and laughs. We must do as it wills or pay the price.'

Jake lowered his head and spoke two words in a trembling whisper: 'I know.'

'You believe Susannah should be told. I, on the other hand, don't know what to do-in this matter I've lost my compass. When one knows and one does not, the one who does not must bow his head and the one who does must take responsibility. Do you understand me, Jake?'

'Yes,' Jake whispered, and touched his curled hand to his brow.

'Good. We'll leave that part and say thankya. You're strong in the touch.'

'I wish I wasn't!' Jake burst out.

'Nevertheless. Can you touch her?'

'Yes. I don't pry-not into her or any of you-but sometimes I do touch her. I get little snatches of songs she's thinking of, or thoughts of her apartment in New York. She misses it. Once she thought, 'I wish I'd gotten a chance to read that new Allen Drury novel that came from the book club.' I think Allen Drury must be a famous writer from her when.'

'Surface things, in other words.'

'Yes.'

'But you could go deeper.'

'I could probably watch her undress, too,' Jake said glumly, 'but it wouldn't be right.'

'Under these circumstances, it is right, Jake. Think of her as a well where you must go every day and draw a single dipperful to make sure the water's still sweet. I want to know if she changes. In particular I want to know if she's planning alleyo.'

Jake looked at him, round-eyed. 'To run away? Run away where?'

Roland shook his head. 'I don't know. Where does a cat go to drop her litter? In a closet? Under the barn?'

'What if we tell her and the other one gets the upper hand?

What if Mia goes alleyo, Roland, and drags Susannah along with her?'

Roland didn't reply. This, of course, was exactly what he was afraid of, and Jake was smart enough to know it.

Jake was looking at him with a certain understandable resentment… but also with acceptance. 'Once a day. No more than that.'

'More if you sense a change.'

'All right,' Jake said. 'I hate it, but I asked you dan-dinh. Guess you got me.'

'It's not an arm-wrestle, Jake. Nor a game.'

'I know.' Jake shook his head. 'It feels like you turned it around on me somehow, but okay.'

I did turn it around on you, Roland thought. He supposed it was good none of them knew how lost he was just now, how absent the intuition that had carried him through so many difficult situations. I did… but only because I had to.

'We keep quiet now, but we tell her before the Wolves come,' Jake said. 'Before we have to fight. That's the deal?'

Roland nodded.

'If we have to fight Balazar first-in the other world-we still have to tell her before we do. Okay?'

'Yes,' Roland said. 'All right.'

'I hate this,' Jake said morosely.

Roland said, 'So do I.'

THREE

Eddie was sittin and whittlin on the Jaffordses' porch, listening to some confused story of Gran-pere's and nodding in what he hoped were the right places, when Roland and Jake rode up. Eddie put away his knife and sauntered down the steps to meet them, calling back over his shoulder for Suze.

He felt extraordinarily good this morning. His fears of the night before had blown away, as our most extravagant night-fears often do; like the Pere's Type One and Type Two vampires, those fears seemed especially allergic to daylight. For one thing, all the Jaffords children had been present and accounted for at breakfast. For another, there was indeed a shoat missing from the barn. Tian had asked Eddie and Susannah if they'd heard anything in the night, and nodded with gloomy satisfaction when both of them shook their heads.

'Aye. The mutie strains've mostly run out in our part of the world, but not in the north. There are packs of wild dogs that come down every fall. Two weeks ago they was likely in Calla Amity; next week we'll be shed of em and they'll be Calla Lockwood's problem. Silent, they are. It's not quiet I mean, but mute. Nothin in here.' Tian patted a hand against his throat. 'Sides, it ain't like they didn't do me at least some good. I found a hell of a big barn-rat out there. Dead as a roek. One of em tore its head almost clean off.'

'Nasty,' Hedda had said, pushing her bowl away with a theatrical grimace.

'You eat that porridge, miss,' Zalia said. 'It'll warm'ee while you're hanging out the clothes.'

'Maw-Maw, why-y-yy?'

Eddie had caught Susannah's eye and tipped her a wink. She winked back, and everything was all right. Okay, so she'd done a little wandering in the night. Had a little midnight snack. Buried the leavings. And yes, this business of her being pregnant had to be addressed. Of course it did. But it would come out all right, Eddie felt sure of it. And by daylight, the idea that Susannah could ever hurt a child seemed flat-out ridiculous.

'Hile, Roland. Jake.' Eddie turned to where Zalia had come out onto the porch. She dropped a curtsy. Roland took off his hat, held it out to her, and then put it back on.

'Sai,' he asked her, 'you stand with your husband in the matter of fighting the Wolves, aye?'

She sighed, but her gaze was steady enough. 'I do, gunslinger.'

'Do you ask aid and succor?'

The question was spoken without ostentation-almost conversationally, in fact-but Eddie felt his heart gave a lurch, and when Susannah's hand crept into his, he squeezed it. Here was the third question, the key question, and it hadn't been asked of the Calla's big farmer, big rancher, or big businessman. It had been asked of a sodbuster's wife with her mousy brown hair pulled back in a bun, a smallhold farmer's wife whose skin, although naturally dark, had even so cracked and coarsened from too much sun, whose housedress had been faded by many washings. And it was right that it should be so, perfectly right. Because the soul of Calla Bryn Sturgis was in four dozen smallhold farms just like this, Eddie reckoned. Let Zalia Jaffords speak for all of them. Why the hell not?

'I seek it and say thankya,' she told him simply. 'Lord God and Man Jesus bless you and yours.'

Roland nodded as if he'd been doing no more than passing the time of day. 'Margaret Eisenhart showed me something.'

'Did she?' Zalia asked, and smiled slightly. Tian came plodding around the corner, looking tired and sweaty, although it was only nine in the morning. Over one shoulder was a busted piece of harness. He wished Roland and Jake a good day, then stood by his wife, a hand around her waist and resting on her hip.

'Aye, and told us the tale of Lady Oriza and Gray Dick.'

' Tis a fine tale,' she said.

'It is,' Roland said. 'I'll not fence, lady-sai. Will'ee come out on the line with your dish when the time comes?'

Tian's eyes widened. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He looked at his wife like a man who has suddenly been visited by a great revelation.

'Aye,' Zalia said.

Tian dropped the harness and hugged her. She hugged him back, briefly and hard, then turned to Roland and his friends once more.

Roland was smiling. Eddie was visited by a faint sense of unreality, as he always was when he observed this phenomenon. 'Good. And will you show Susannah how to throw it?'

Zalia looked thoughtfully at Susannah. 'Would she learn?'

'I don't know,' Susannah said. 'Is it something I'm supposed to learn, Roland?'

'Yes.'

'When, gunslinger?' Zalia asked.

Roland calculated. 'Three or four days from now, if all goes well. If she shows no aptitude, send her back to me and we'll try Jake.'

Jake started visibly.