Wolves of the Calla

him.

'Moon,' Oy said, much more quietly. Now he was looking out the window. 'Moon, moon. Moon.'

FOUR

Jake would have ridden bareback, but he needed Oy with him, and that made bareback difficult, maybe impossible. Luckily, the little border-pony sai Overholser had loaned him was as tame as a tabby-cat, and there was a scuffy old practice saddle in the barn's tackroom that even a kid could handle with ease.

Jake saddled the horse, then tied his bedroll behind, to the part Calla cowboys called the boat. He could feel the weight of the Ruger inside the roll—and, if he squeezed, the shape of it, as well. The duster with the commodious pocket in the front was hanging on a nail in the tackroom. Jake took it, whipped it into something like a fat belt, and cinched it around his middle. Kids in his school had sometimes worn their outer shirts that way on warm days. Like those of his room, this memory seemed far away, part of a circus parade that had marched through town… and then left.

That life was richer , a voice deep in his mind whispered.

This one is truer , whispered another, even deeper.

He believed that second voice, but his heart was still heavy with sadness and worry as he led the border-pony out through the back of the barn and away from the house. Oy padded along at his heel, occasionally looking up at the sky and muttering 'Moon, moon,' but mostly sniffing the crisscrossing scents on the ground. This trip was dangerous. Just crossing Devar-Tete Whye—going from the Calla side of things to the Thunderclap side— was dangerous, and Jake knew it. Yet what really troubled him was the sense of looming heartache. He thought of Benny, saying it had been great to have Jake at the Rocking B to chum around with. He wondered if Benny would feel the same way a week from now.

'Doesn't matter,' he sighed. 'It's ka.'

'Ka,' Oy said, then looked up. 'Moon. Ka, moon. Moon, ka.'

'Shut up,' Jake said, not unkindly.

'Shut up ka,' Oy said amiably. 'Shut up moon. Shut up Ake. Shut up Oy.' It was the most he'd said in months, and once it was out he fell silent. Jake walked his horse another ten minutes, past the bunkhouse and its mixed music of snores, grunts, and farts, then over the next hill. At that point, with the East Road in sight, he judged it safe to ride. He unrolled the duster, put it on, then deposited Oy in the pouch and mounted up.

FIVE

He was pretty sure he could go right to the place where Andy and Slightman had crossed the river, but reckoned he'd only have one good shot at this, and Roland would've said pretty sure wasn't good enough in such a case. So he went back to the place where he and Benny had tented instead, and from there to the jut of granite which had reminded him of a partially buried ship. Once again Oy stood panting into his ear. Jake had no problem sighting on the round rock with the shiny surface. The dead log that had washed up against it was still there, too, because the river hadn't done anything but fall over the last weeks. There had been no rain whatever, and this was something Jake was counting on to help him.

He scrambled back up to the flat place where he and Benny had tented out. Here he'd left his pony tethered to a bush. He led it down to the river, then scooped up Oy and rode across. The pony wasn't big, but the water still didn't come up much higher than his fetlocks. In less than a minute, they were on the far bank.

It looked the same on this side, but wasn't Jake knew it right away. Moonlight or no moonlight, it was darker somehow. Not exactly the way todash—New York had been dark, and there were no chimes, but there was a similarity, just the same. A sense of something waiting, and eyes that could turn in his direction if he was foolish enough to alert their owners to his presence. He had come to the edge of End-World. Jake's flesh broke out in goosebumps and he shivered. Oy looked up at him.

'S'all right,' Jake whispered. 'Just had to get it out of my system.'

He dismounted, put Oy down, and stowed the duster in the shadow of the round rock. He didn't think he'd need a coat for this part of his excursion; he was sweating, nervous. The babble of the river was loud, and he kept shooting glances across to the other side, wanting to make sure no one was coming. He didn't want to be surprised. That sense of presence, of others , was both strong and unpleasant. There was nothing good about what lived on this side of the Devar-Tete Whye; of that much Jake was sure. He felt better when he'd taken the docker's clutch out of the bedroll, cinched it in place, and then added the Ruger. The Ruger made him into a different person, one he didn't always like. But here, on the far side of the Whye, he was delighted to feel gunweight against his ribs, and delighted to be that person; that gunslinger .

Something farther off to the east screamed like a woman in life-ending agony. Jake knew it was only a rock-cat—he'd heard them before, when he'd been at the river with Benny, either fishing or swimming—but he still put his hand on the butt of the Ruger until it stopped. Oy had assumed the bowing position, front paws apart, head lowered, rump pointed skyward. Usually this meant he wanted to play, but there was nothing playful about his bared teeth.

'S'okay,' Jake said. He rummaged in his bedroll again (he hadn't bothered to bring a saddlebag) until he found a red-checked cloth. This was Slightman the Elder's neckerchief, stolen four days previous from beneath the bunkhouse table, where the foreman had dropped it during a game of Watch Me and then forgotten it.

Quite the little thief I am , Jake thought. My Dad's gun, now Benny's Dad's snotrag. I can't tell if I'm working my way up or down .

It was Roland's voice that replied. You're doing what you were called here to do. Why don't you stop beating your breast and get started ?

Jake held the neckerchief between his hands and looked down at Oy. 'This always works in the movies,' he said to the bumbler. 'I have no idea if it works in real life… especially after weeks have gone by.' He lowered the neckerchief to Oy, who stretched out his long neck and sniffed it delicately. 'Find this smell, Oy. Find it and follow it.'

'Oy!' But he just sat there, looking up at Jake.

'This, Dumbo,' Jake said, letting him smell it again. 'Find it! Go on!'

Oy got up, turned around twice, then began to saunter north along the bank of the river. He lowered his nose occasionally to the rocky ground, but seemed a lot more interested in the occasional dying-woman howl of the rock-cat. Jake watched his friend with steadily diminishing hope. Well, he'd seen which way Slightman had gone. He could go in that direction himself, course around a little, see what there was to see.

Oy turned around, came back toward Jake, then stopped. He sniffed a patch of ground more closely. The place where Slightman had come out of the water? It could have been. Oy made a thoughtful hoofing sound far back in his throat and then turned to his right—east. He slipped sinuously between two rocks. Jake, now feeling at least a tickle of hope, mounted up and followed.

SIX

They hadn't gone far before Jake realized Oy was following an actual path that wound through the hilly, rocky, arid land on this side of the river. He began to see signs of technology: a cast-off, rusty electrical coil, something that looked like an ancient circuit-board poking out of the sand, tiny shards and shatters of glass. In the black moonlight-created shadow of a large boulder, he spied what looked like a whole bottle. He dismounted, picked it up, poured out God knew how many decades (or centuries) of accumulated sand, and looked at it. Written on the side in raised letters was a word he recognized: Nozz-A-La.

'The drink of finer bumhugs everywhere,' Jake murmured, and put the bottle down again. Beside it was a crumpled-up cigarette pack. He smoothed it out, revealing a picture of a red-lipped woman wearing a jaunty red hat. She was holding a cigarette between two glamorously long fingers, PARTI appeared to be the brand name.