Wolves of the Calla

with'ee because she's decided she wants to hunt. This is what all such things as the dish-throwing comes to in the end, a woman telling her man what'll be and what won't. It ain't the natural way. A man's meant to rule his woman. Except in the matter of the babbies, o'course.'

'She gave up everything she was raised to when she took you to husband,' Roland said. 'Now it's your turn to give a little.'

'Don't ye think I know that? But if you get her killed, Roland, you'll take my curse with you when ye leave the Calla. If'ee do. No matter how many children ye save.'

Roland, who had been cursed before, nodded. 'If ka wills, Vaughn, she'll come back to you.'

'Aye. But remember what I said.'

'I will.'

Eisenhart slapped the reins on the horse's back and the fly began to roll.

EIGHT

Each woman halved a sharproot head at forty yards, fifty yards, and sixty.

'Hit the head as high up into the hood as you can get,' Roland said. 'Hitting them low will do no good.'

'Armor, I suppose?' Rosalita asked.

'Aye,' Roland said, although that was not the entire truth. He wouldn't tell them what he now understood to be the entire truth until they needed to know it.

Next came the taters. Sarey Adams got hers at forty yards, clipped it at fifty, and missed entirely at sixty; her dish sailed high. She uttered a curse that was far from ladylike, then walked head-down to the side of the privy. Here she sat to watch the rest of the competition. Roland went over and sat beside her. He saw a tear trickling from the corner of her left eye and down her wind-roughened cheek.

'I've let ye down, stranger. Say sorry.'

Roland took her hand and squeezed it. 'Nay, lady, nay. There'll be work for you. Just not in the same place as these others. And you may yet throw the dish.'

She gave him a wan smile and nodded her thanks.

Eddie put more sharproot 'heads' on the stuffy-guys, then a radish on top of each. The latter were all but concealed in the shadows thrown by the gunnysack hoods. 'Good luck, girls,' he said. 'Better you than me.' Then he stepped away.

'Start from ten yards this time!' Roland called.

At ten, they all hit. And at twenty. At thirty yards, Susannah threw her plate high, as Roland had instructed her to do. He wanted one of the Calla women to win this round. At forty yards, Zalia Jaffords hesitated too long, and the dish she flung chopped the sharproot head in two rather than the radish sitting on top.

'Fuck-commala !' she cried, then clapped her hands to her mouth and looked at Callahan, who was sitting on the back steps. That fellow only smiled and waved cheerfully, affecting deafness.

She stamped over to Eddie and Jake, blushing to the tips of her ears and furious. 'Ye must tell him to give me another chance, say will ya please,' she told Eddie. 'I can do it, I know I can do it—'

Eddie put a hand on her arm, stemming the flood. 'He knows it, too, Zee. You're in.'

She looked at him with burning eyes, lips pressed so tightly together they were almost gone. 'Are you sure?'

'Yeah,' Eddie said. 'You could pitch for the Mets, darlin.'

Now it was down to Margaret and Rosalita. They both hit the radishes at fifty yards. To Jake, Eddie murmured: 'Buddy, I would have told you that was impossible if I hadn't just seen it.'

At sixty yards, Margaret Eisenhart missed cleanly. Rosalita raised her plate over her right shoulder—she was a lefty—hesitated, then screamed 'Riza !' and threw. Sharp-eyed though he was, Roland wasn't entirely sure if the plate's edge clipped the side of the radish or if the wind toppled it over. In either case, Rosalita raised her fists over her head and shook them, laughing.

'Fair-day goose! Fair-day goose!' Margaret began calling. The others joined in. Soon even Callahan was chanting.

Roland went to Rosa and gave her a hug, brief but strong. As he did so he whispered in her ear that while he had no goose, he might be able to find a certain long-necked gander for her, come evening.

'Well,' she said, smiling, 'when we get older, we take our prizes where we find them. Don't we?'

Zalia glanced at Margaret. 'What did he say to her? Did'ee kennit?'

Margaret Eisenhart was smiling. 'Nothing you haven't heard yourself, I'm sure,' she said.

NINE

Then the ladies were gone. So was the Pere, on some errand or other. Roland of Gilead sat on the bottom porch step, looking downhill toward the site of the competition so lately completed. When Susannah asked him if he was satisfied, he nodded. 'Yes, I think all's well there. We have to hope it is, because time's closing now. Things will happen fast.' The truth was that he had never experienced such a confluence of events… but since Susannah had admitted her pregnancy, he had calmed nevertheless.

You've recalled the truth of ka to your truant mind , he thought. And it happened because this woman showed a kind of bravery the rest of us couldn't quite muster up .

'Roland, will I be going back out to the Rocking B?' Jake asked.

Roland considered, then shrugged. 'Do you want to?'

'Yes, but this time I want to take the Ruger.' Jake's face pinked a little, but his voice remained steady. He had awakened with this idea, as if the dreamgod Roland called Nis had brought it to him in his sleep. 'I'll put it at the bottom of my bedroll and wrap it in my extra shirt. No one needs to know it's there.' He paused. 'I don't want to show it off to Benny, if that's what you're thinking.'

The idea had never crossed Roland's mind. But what was in Jake's mind? He posed the question, and Jake's answer was the sort one gives when one has charted the likely course of a discussion well in advance.

'Do you ask as my dinh?'

Roland opened his mouth to say yes, saw how closely Eddie and Susannah were watching him, and reconsidered. There was a difference between keeping secrets (as each of them had in his own way kept the secret of Susannah's pregnancy) and following what Eddie called 'a hunch.' The request under Jake's request was to be on a longer rope. Simple as that. And surely Jake had earned the right to a little more rope. This was not the same boy who had come into Mid-World shivering and terrified and nearly naked.

'Not as your dinh,' he said. 'As for the Ruger, you may take it anywhere, and at any time. Did you not bring it to the tet in the first place?'

'Stole it,' Jake said in a low voice. He was staring at his knees.

'You took what you needed to survive,' Susannah said. 'There's a big difference. Listen, sugar—you're not planning to shoot anyone, are you?'

'Not planning to, no.'

'Be careful,' she said. 'I don't know what you've got in your head, but you be careful.'

'And whatever it is, you better get it settled in the next week or so,' Eddie told him.

Jake nodded, then looked at Roland. 'When are you planning to call the town meeting?'

'According to the robot, we have ten days left before the Wolves come. So…' Roland calculated briefly. 'Town gathering in six days. Will that suit you?'

Jake nodded again.

'Are you sure you don't want to tell us what's on your mind?'

'Not unless you ask as dinh,' Jake said. 'It's probably nothing, Roland. Really.'

Roland nodded dubiously and began rolling another smoke. Having fresh tobacco was wonderful. 'Is