Wolves of the Calla

the sun out of his eyes, and his father's gun. He rode on the seat of the eleventh waggon, with one of the Estrada men. He guessed that Slightman had a good boy, too, which had gone far toward making this the mess that it was.

'Jake was at the Dogan one night when you and Andy were there, passing on news of your neighbors,' Roland said. On the seat beside him, Slightman winced like a man who has just been punched in the belly.

'There,' he said. 'Yes, I could almost sense… or thought I could…' A longer pause, and then: 'Fuck.'

Roland looked east. A little brighter over there now, but still no dust. Which was good. Once the dust appeared, the Wolves would come in a rush. Their gray horses would be fast. Continuing on, speaking almost idly, Roland asked the other question. If Slightman answered in the negative, he wouldn't live to see the coming of the Wolves no matter how fast their gray horses rode.

'If you'd found him, Slightman—if you'd found my boy— would you have killed him?'

Slightman put his spectacles back on as he struggled with it. Roland couldn't tell if he understood the importance of the question or not. He waited to see if the father of Jake's friend would live or die. He'd have to decide quickly; they were approaching the place where the waggons would stop and the children would get down.

The man at last raised his head and met Roland's eyes again. He opened his mouth to speak and couldn't. The fact of the matter was clear enough: he could answer the gunslinger's question, or he could look into the gunslinger's face, but he could not do both at the same time.

Dropping his gaze back to the splintery wood between his feet, Slightman said: 'Yes, I reckon we would have killed him.' A pause. A nod. When he moved his head a tear fell from one eye and splashed on the wood of the peak-seat's floor. 'Yar, what else?' Now he looked up; now he could meet Roland's eyes again, and when he did he saw his fate had been decided. 'Make it quick,' said he, 'and don't let me boy see it happen. Beg ya please.'

Roland flapped the reins over the mules' backs again. Then he said: 'I won't be the one to stop your miserable breath.'

Slightman's breathdid stop. Telling the gunslinger that yes, he would have killed a twelve-year-old boy to protect his secret, his face had had a kind of strained nobility. Now it wore hope instead, and hope made it ugly. Nearly grotesque. Then he let his breath out in a ragged sigh and said, 'You're fooling with me. A-teasing me. You're going to kill me, all right. Why would you not?'

'A coward judges all he sees by what he is,' Roland remarked. 'I'd not kill you unless I had to, Slightman, because I love my own boy. You must understand that much, don't you? To love a boy?'

'Yar.' Slightman lowered his head again and began to rub the back of his sunburned neck. The neck he must have thought would end this day packed in dirt.

'But you have to understand something. For your own good and Benny's as much as ours. If the Wolves win, you will die. That much you can be sure of. 'Take it to the bank,' Eddie and Susannah say.'

Slightman was looking at him again, eyes narrowed behind his specs.

'Hear me well, Slightman, and take understanding from what I say. We're not going to be where the Wolves think we're going to be, and neither are the kiddies. Win or lose, this time they're going to leave some bodies behind. And win or lose, they'll know they were misled. Who was there in Calla Bryn Sturgis to mislead them? Only two. Andy and Ben Slightman. Andy's shut down, gone beyond the reach of their vengeance.' He gave Slightman a smile that was as cold as the earth's north end. 'But you're not. Nor the only one you care for in your poor excuse for a heart.'

Slightman sat considering this. It was clearly a new idea to him, but once he saw the logic of it, it was undeniable.

'They'll likely think you switched sides a-purpose,' Roland said, 'but even if you could convince them it was an accident, they'd kill you just the same. And your son, as well. For vengeance.'

A red stain had seeped into the man's cheeks as the gunslinger spoke —roses of shame, Roland supposed—but as he considered the probability of his son's murder at the hands of the Wolves, he grew white once more. Or perhaps it was the thought of Benny being taken east that did it—being taken east and roont. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'Sorry for what I've done.'

'Balls to your sorry,' Roland said. 'Ka works and the world moves on.'

Slightman made no reply.

'I'm disposed to send you with the kids, just as I said I would,' Roland told him. 'If things go as I hope, you won't see a single moment's action. If things don't go as I hope, you want to remember Sarey Adams is boss of that shooting match, and if I talk to her after, you want to hope that she says you did everything you were told to do.' When this met with only more silence from Slightman, the gunslinger spoke sharply. 'Tell me you understand, gods damn you. I want to hear 'Yes, Roland, I ken.''

'Yes, Roland, I ken very well.' There was a pause. 'If we do win, will the folken find out, do'ee reckon? Find out about… me?'

'Not from Andy, they won't,' Roland said. 'His blabber's done. And not from me, if you do as you now promise. Not from my ka-tet, either. Not out of respect for you, but out of respect for Jake Chambers. And if the Wolves fall into the trap I've laid them, why would the folken ever suspect another traitor?' He measured Slightman with his cool eyes. 'They're innocent folk. Trusting. As ye know. Certainly ye used it.'

The flush came back. Slightman looked down at the floor of the peak-seat again. Roland looked up and saw the place he was looking for now less than a quarter of a mile ahead. Good. There was still no dust-cloud on the eastern horizon, but he could feel it gathering in his mind. The Wolves were coming, oh yes. Somewhere across the river they had dismounted their train and mounted their horses and were riding like hell. And from it, he had no doubt.

'I did it for my son,' Slightman said. 'Andy came to me and said they would surely take him. Somewhere over there, Roland—' He pointed east, toward Thunderclap. 'Somewhere over there are poor creatures called Breakers. Prisoners. Andy says they're telepaths and psychokinetics, and although I ken neither word, I know they're to do with the mind. The Breakers are human, and they eat what we eat to nourish their bodies, but they need other food, special food , to nourish whatever it is that makes them special.'

'Brain-food,' Roland said. He remembered that his mother had called fish brain-food. And then, for no reason he could tell, he found himself thinking of Susannah's nocturnal prowls. Only it wasn't Susannah who visited that midnight banquet hall; it was Mia. Daughter of none.

'Yar, I reckon,' Slightman agreed. 'Anyway, it's something only twins have, something that links them mind-to-mind. And these fellows—not the Wolves, but they who send the Wolves— take it out. When it's gone, the kids're idiots. Roont. It's food , Roland, do ya kennit? That's why they take em! To feed their goddamned Breakers ! Not their bellies or their bodies, but their minds! And I don't even know what it is they've been set to break!'

'The two Beams that still hold the Tower,' Roland said.

Slightman was thunderstruck. And fearful. 'The Dark Tower?' He whispered the words. 'Do ya say so?'

'I do,' Roland said. 'Who's Finli? Finli o' Tego.'

'I don't know. A voice that takes my reports, is all. A taheen, I think—do you know what that is?'

'Do you?'

Slightman shook his head.

'Then we'll leave it. Mayhap I'll meet him in time and he'll answer to hand for this business.'

Slightman did not reply, but Roland sensed his doubt. That was all right. They'd almost made it now, and the gunslinger felt an invisible band which had been cinched about his middle begin to loosen. He turned fully to the foreman for the first time. 'There's always been someone like you for Andy to cozen, Slightman; I have no doubt it's mostly what he was left here for, just as I have no doubt that your daughter, Benny's sister, didn't die an accidental death. They always need one left-over twin, and one weak parent.'

'You can't—'