Wolves of the Calla

over.

'Hey, don't run!' Jake shouted. 'He said not to run and mind your f—'

That was when Frank Tavery stepped into the hole. Jake heard the grinding, snapping sound his ankle made when it broke, knew from the horrified wince on Benny's face that he had, too. Then Frank let out a low, screaming moan and pitched sideways. Francine grabbed for him and got a hand on his upper arm, but the boy was too heavy. He fell through her grip like a sashweight. The thud of his skull colliding with the granite outcrop beside him was far louder than the sound his ankle had made. The blood which immediately began to flow from the wound in his scalp was brilliant in the early morning light.

Trouble , Jake thought. And in our road .

Benny was gaping, his cheeks the color of cottage cheese. Francine was already kneeling beside her brother, who lay at a twisted, ugly angle with his foot still caught in the hole. She was making high, breathless keening sounds. Then, all at once, the keening stopped. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets and she pitched forward over her unconscious twin brother in a dead faint.

'Come on,' Jake said, and when Benny only stood there, gawping, Jake punched him in the shoulder. 'For your father's sake!'

That got Benny moving.

SEVEN

Jake saw everything with a gunslinger's cold, clear vision. The blood splashed on the rock. The clump of hair stuck in it. The foot in the hole. The spittle on Frank Tavery's lips. The swell of his sister's new breast as she lay awkwardly across him. The Wolves were coming now. It wasn't Roland's whistle that told him this, but the touch. Eddie , he uiought Eddie wants to come over here .

Jake had never tried using the touch to send, but he did now: Stay where you are! If we can't get back in time we'll try to hide while they go past BUT DON'T YOU COME DOWN HERE! DON'T YOU SPOIL THINGS !

He had no idea if the message got through, but he did know it was all he had time for. Meanwhile, Benny was… what? What was le mot juste? Ms. Avery back at Piper had been very big on le mot juste . And it came to him. Gibbering. Benny was gibbering.

'What are we gonna do, Jake? Man Jesus, both of them! They were fine! Just running, and then… what if the Wolves come? What if they come while we're still here? We better leave em, don't you think?'

'We're not leaving them,' Jake said. He leaned down and grabbed Francine Tavery by the shoulders. He yanked her into a sitting position, moslyy to get her off her brother so Frank could breathe. Her head lolled back, her hair streaming like dark silk.

Her eyelids fluttered, showing glabrous white beneath. Without thinking, Jake slapped her. And hard.

'Ow! Ow!' Her eyes flew open, blue and beautiful and shocked.

'Get up!' Jake shouted. 'Get off him!'

How much time had passed? How still everything was, now that the children had gone back to the road! Not a single bird cried out, not even a rustic. He waited for Roland to whistle again, but Roland didn't. And really, why would he? They were on their own now.

Francine rolled aside, then staggered to her feet. 'Help him… please, sai, I beg…'

'Benny. We have to get his foot out of the hole.' Benny dropped to one knee on the other side of the awkwardly sprawled boy. His face was still pale, but his lips were pressed together in a tight straight line that Jake found encouraging. 'Take his shoulder.'

Benny grasped Frank Tavery's right shoulder. Jake took the left. Their eyes met across die unconscious boy's body. Jake nodded.

'Now.'

They pulled together. Frank Tavery's eyes flew open—they were as blue and as beautiful as his sister's —and he uttered a scream so high it was soundless. But his foot did not come free.

It was stuck deep.

EIGHT

Now a gray-green shape was resolving itself out of the dust-cloud and they could hear the drumming of many hooves on hardpan. The three Calla women were in the hide. Only Roland, Eddie, and Susannah still remained in the ditch, the men standing, Susannah kneeling with her strong thighs spread. They stared across the road and up the arroyo path. The path was still empty.

'I heard something,' Susannah said. 'I think one of em's hurt.'

'Fuck it, Roland, I'm going after them,' Eddie said.

'Is that what Jake wants or what you want?' Roland asked.

Eddie flushed. He had heard Jake in his head—not the exact words, but the gist—and he supposed Roland had, too.

'There's a hundred kids down there and only four over there,' Roland said. 'Get under cover, Eddie. You too, Susannah.'

'What about you?' Eddie asked.

Roland pulled in a deep breath, let it out. 'I'll help if I can.'

'You're not going after him, are you?' Eddie looked at Roland with mounting disbelief. 'You're really not.'

Roland glanced toward the dust-cloud and the gray-green cluster beneath it, which would resolve itself into individual horses and riders in less than a minute. Riders with snarling wolf faces framed in green hoods. They weren't riding toward the river so much as they were swooping down on it.

'No,' Roland said. 'Can't. Get under cover.'

Eddie stood where he was a moment longer, hand on the butt of the big revolver, pale face working. Then, without a word, he turned from Roland and grasped Susannah's arm. He knelt beside her, then slid into the hole. Now there was only Roland, the big revolver slung low on his left hip, looking across the road at the empty arroyo path.

NINE

Benny Slightman was a well-built lad, but he couldn't move the chunk of rock holding the Tavery boy's foot. Jake saw that on the first pull. His mind (his cold, cold mind) tried to judge the weight of the imprisoned boy against the weight of the imprisoning stone. He guessed the stone weighed more.

'Francine.'

She looked at him from eyes which were now wet and a little blinded by shock.

'You love him?' Jake asked.

'Aye, with all my heart!'

He is your heart , Jake thought. Good . 'Then help us. Pull him as hard as you can when I say. Never mind if he screams, pull him anyway.'

She nodded as if she understood. Jake hoped she did.

'If we can't get him out this time, we'll have to leave him.'

'I'll never !' she shouted.

It was no time for argument. Jake joined Benny beside the flat white rock. Beyond its jagged edge,