Wolves of the Calla

Roland held up his hand. 'I know how many other matters there are. I know how pressing they are. I also know that if we become distracted, we're apt to die here in Calla Bryn Sturgis, and dead gunslingers can help no one. Nor do they go their course. Do you agree?' His eyes swept them. No one replied. Somewhere in the distance was the sound of many children singing. The sound was high and gleeful and innocent. Something about commala.

'There is one other bit of business that we must address,' Roland said. 'It involves you, Pere. And what's now called the Doorway Cave. Will you go through that door, and back to your country?'

'Are you kidding?' Callahan's eyes were bright. 'A chance to go back, even for a little while? You just say the word.'

Roland nodded. 'Later today, mayhap you and I will take a little pasear on up there, and I'll see you through the door. You know where the vacant lot is, don't you?'

'Sure. I must have been past it a thousand times, back in my other life.'

'And you understand about the zip code?' Eddie asked.

'If Mr. Tower did as you requested, it'll be written at the end of the board fence, Forty-sixth Street side. That was brilliant, by the way.'

'Get the number… and get the date, too,' Roland said. 'We have to keep track of the time over there if we can, Eddie's right about that. Get it and come back. Then, after the meeting in the Pavilion, we'll need you to go through the door again.'

'This time to wherever Tower and Deepneau are in New England,' Callahan guessed.

'Yes,' Roland said.

'If you find them, you'll want to talk mostly to Mr. Deepneau,' Jake said. He flushed when they all turned to him, but kept his eyes trained on Callahan's. 'Mr. Tower might be stubborn—'

'That's the understatement of the century,' Eddie said. 'By the time you get there, he'll probably have found twelve used bookstores and God knows how many first editions of Indiana Jones's Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown.''

'—but Mr. Deepneau will listen,' Jake went on.

'Issen, Ake,' Oy said, and rolled over onto his back. 'Issen kiyet!'

Scratching Oy's belly, Jake said: 'If anyone can convince Mr. Tower to do something, it'll be Mr. Deepneau.'

'Okay,' Callahan replied, nodding. 'I hear you well.'

The singing children were closer now. Susannah turned but couldn't see them yet; she assumed they were coming up River Street. If so, they'd be in view once they cleared the livery and turned down the high street at Took's General Store. Some of the folken on the porch over there were already getting up to look.

Roland, meanwhile, was studying Eddie with a small smile. 'Once when I used the word assume , you told me a saying about it from your world. I'd hear it again, if you remember.'

Eddie grinned. 'Assume makes an ass out of u and me—is that the one you mean?'

Roland nodded. 'It's a good saying. All the same, I'm going to make an assumption now—pound it like a nail—then hang all our hopes of coming out of this alive on it. I don't like it but see no choice. The assumption is that only Ben Slightman and Andy are working against us. That if we take care of them when the time comes, we can move in secrecy.'

'Don't kill him,' Jake said in a voice almost too low to hear. He had drawn Oy close and was petting the top of his head and his long neck with a kind of compulsive, darting speed. Oy bore this patiently.

'Cry pardon, Jake,' Susannah said, leaning forward and tipping a hand behind one ear. 'I didn't—'

'Don't kill him!' This time his voice was hoarse and wavering and close to tears. 'Don't kill Benny's Da'. Please .'

Eddie reached out and cupped the nape of the boy's neck gently. 'Jake, Benny Slightman's Da' is willing to send a hundred kids off into Thunderclap with the Wolves, just to spare his own. And you know how they'd come back.'

'Yeah, but in his eyes he doesn't have any choice because—'

'His choice could have been to stand with us,' Roland said. His voice was dull and dreadful. Almost dead.

'But—'

But what? Jake didn't know. He had been over this and over this and he still didn't know. Sudden tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. Callahan reached out to touch him. Jake pushed his hand away.

Roland sighed. 'We'll do what we can to spare him. That much I promise you. I don't know if it will be a mercy or not— the Slightmans are going to be through in this town, if there's a town left after the end of next week—but perhaps they'll go north or south along the Crescent and start some sort of new life. And Jake, listen: there's no need for Ben Slightman to ever know you overheard Andy and his father last night.'

Jake was looking at him with an expression that didn't quite dare to be hope. He didn't care a hill of beans about Slightman the Elder, but he didn't want Benny to know it was him. He supposed that made him a coward, but he didn't want Benny to know. 'Really? For sure?'

'Nothing about this is for sure, but—'

Before he could finish, the singing children swept around the corner. Leading them, silver limbs and golden body gleaming mellowly in the day's subdued light, was Andy the Messenger Robot. He was walking backward. In one hand was a bah-bolt wrapped in banners of bright silk. To Susannah he looked like a parade- marshal on the Fourth of July. He waved his baton extravagantly from side to side, leading the children in their song while a reedy bagpipe accompaniment issued from the speakers in his chest and head.

'Holy shit,' Eddie said. 'It's the Pied Piper of Hamelin.'

'Commala-come-one!
Mamma had a son!
Dass-a time 'at Daddy
Had d 'mos 'fun!'

Andy sang this part alone, then pointed his baton at the crowd of children. They joined in boisterously.

'Commala-come-come!
Daddy had one!