Wolves of the Calla

'Aye. And would you rub me with that magic oil of yours again?'

'Is it rubbed ye'd be?'

'Aye.'

'Rubbed hard, or rubbed soft?'

'I've heard a little of both best eases an aching joint.'

She considered this, then burst into laughter and took his hand. 'Come. While the sun shines and this little corner of the world sleeps.'

He came with her willingly, and went where she took him. She kept a secret spring surrounded by sweet moss, and there he was refreshed.

FIVE

Callahan finally returned around five-thirty, just as Eddie, Susannah, and Jake were turning out. At six, Rosalita and Sarey Adams served out a dinner of greens and cold chicken on the screened-in porch behind the rectory. Roland and his friends ate hungrily, the gunslinger taking not just seconds but thirds. Callahan, on the other hand, did little but move his food from place to place on his plate. The tan on his face gave him a certain look of health, but didn't hide the dark circles under his eyes. When Sarey—a cheery, jolly woman, fat but light on her feet—brought out a spice cake, Callahan only shook his head.

When there was nothing left on the table but cups and the coffee pot, Roland brought out his tobacco and raised his eyebrows.

'Do ya,' Callahan said, then raised his voice. 'Rosie, bring this guy something to tap into!'

'Big man, I could listen to you all day,' Eddie said.

'So could I,' Jake agreed.

Callahan smiled. 'I feel the same way about you boys, at least a little.' He poured himself half a cup of coffee. Rosalita brought Roland a pottery cup for his ashes. When she had gone, the Old Fella said, 'I should have finished this story yesterday. I spent most of last night tossing and turning, thinking about how to tell the rest.'

'Would it help if I told you I already know some of it?' Roland asked.

'Probably not. You went up to the Doorway Cave with Henchick, didn't you?'

'Yes. He said there was a song on the speaking machine that sent them up there to find you, and that you wept when you heard it. Was it the one you spoke of?'

' 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' yes. And I can't tell you how strange it was to be sitting in a Manni cabin in Calla Bryn Sturgis, looking toward the darkness of Thunderclap and listening to Elton John.'

'Whoa, whoa,' Susannah said. 'You're way ahead of us, Pere. Last we knew, you were in Sacramento, it was 1981, and you'd just found out your friend got cut up by these so-called Hitler Brothers.' She looked sternly from Callahan to Jake and finally to Eddie. 'I have to say, gendemen, that you don't seem to have made much progress in the matter of peaceful living since the days when I left America.'

'Don't blame it on me,' Jake said. 'I was in school.'

'And I was stoned,' Eddie said.

'All right, I'll take the blame,' Callahan said, and they all laughed.

'Finish your story,' Roland said. 'Maybe you'll sleep better tonight.'

'Maybe I will,' Callahan said. He thought for a minute, then said: 'What I remember about the hospital —what I guess everyone remembers—is the smell of the disinfectant and the sound of the machines. Mostly the machines. The way they beep. The only other stuff that sounds like that is the equipment in airplane cockpits. I asked a pilot once, and he said the navigational gear makes that sound. I remember thinking that night that there must be a hell of a lot of navigating going on in hospital ICUs.

'Rowan Magruder wasn't married when I worked at Home, but I guessed that must have changed, because there was a woman sitting in the chair by his bed, reading a paperback. Well-dressed, nice green suit, hose, low-heeled shoes. At least I felt okay about facing her; I'd cleaned up and combed up as well as I could, and I hadn't had a drink since Sacramento. But once we were actually face-to-face, I wasn't okay at all. She was sitting with her back to the door, you see. I knocked on the jamb, she turned toward me, and my so-called self-possession took a hike. I took a step back and crossed myself. First time since the night Rowan and I visited Lupe in that same joint. Can you guess why?'

'Of course,' Susannah said. 'Because the pieces fit together. The pieces always fit together. We've seen it again and again and again. We just don't know what the picture is.'

'Or can't grasp it,' Eddie said.

Callahan nodded. 'It was like looking at Rowan, only with long blond hair and breasts. His twin sister. And she laughed. She asked me if I thought I'd seen a ghost. I felt… surreal. As if I'd slipped into another of those other worlds, like the real one—if there is such a thing—but not quite the same. I felt this mad urge to drag out my wallet and see who was on the bills. It wasn't just the resemblance; it was her laughing. Sitting there beside a man who had her face, assuming he had any face left at all under the bandages, and laughing.'

'Welcome to Room 19 of the Todash Hospital,' Eddie said.

'Beg pardon?'

'I only meant I know the feeling, Don. We all do. Go on.'

'I introduced myself and asked if I could come in. And when I asked it, I was thinking back to Barlow, the vampire. Thinking, You have to invite them in the first time. After that, they can come and go as they please . She told me of course I could come in. She said she'd come from Chicago to be with him in what she called 'his closing hours.' Then, in that same pleasant voice, she said, 'I knew who you were right away. It's the scar on your hand. In his letters, Rowan said he was quite sure you were a religious man in your other life. He used to talk about people's other lives all the time, meaning before they started drinking or taking drugs or went insane or all three. This one was a carpenter in his other life. That one was a model in her other life. Was he right about you?' All in that pleasant voice. Like a woman making conversation at a cocktail party. And Rowan lying there with his head covered in bandages. If he'd been wearing sunglasses, he would have looked like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man .

'I came in. I said I'd once been a religious man, yes, but that was all in the past. She put out her hand. I put out mine. Because, you see, I thought…'

SIX

He puts out his hand because he has made the assumption that she wants to shake with him. The pleasant voice has fooled him. He doesn't realize that what Rowena Magruder Rawlings is actually doing is raising her hand, not putting it out. At first he doesn't even realize he has been slapped, and hard enough to make his left ear ring and his left eye water; he has a confused idea that the sudden warmth rising in his left cheek must be some sort of cockamamie allergy thing, perhaps a stress reaction. Then she is advancing on him with tears streaming down her weirdly Rowan-like face .

'Go on and look at him ,' she says. 'Because guess what ? This is my brother's other life! The only one he has left! Get right up close and get a good look at it. They poked out his eyes, they took off one of his cheeks —you can see the teeth in there, peekaboo! The police showed me photographs. They didn't want to, but I made them. They poked a hole in his heart, but I guess the doctors plugged that. It's his liver that's killing him. They poked a hole in that, too, and it's dying .'

'Miss Magruder, I — '

'It's Mrs. Rawlings,' she tells him, 'not that it's anything to you, one way or the other. Go on. Get a good look. See what you've done to him.'