Wolves of the Calla

carried inside her.

The chap, she called it.

Then, with a suddenness that still startled him (although he had seen this before, as well), she began to hunt, slipping in eerie splashless silence first along the edge of the pond and then a little way out into it. Roland watched her with an expression that contained both horror and lust as she knitted and wove her way in and out of the reeds, between and over the tussocks. Now, instead of picking the leeches off her skin and throwing them away, she tossed them into her mouth like pieces of candy. The muscles in her thighs rippled. Her brown skin gleamed like wet silk. When she turned (Roland had by this time stepped behind a tree and become one of the shadows), he could clearly see the way her breasts had ripened.

The problem, of course, extended beyond 'the chap.' There was Eddie to consider, as well. What the hell's wrong with you, Roland ? Roland could hear him saying. That might be our kid. I mean, you can't know for sure that it isn't. Yeah, yeah, I know something had her while we were yanking Jake through, but that doesn't necessarily mean …

On and on and on, blah-blah-blah as Eddie himself might say, and why? Because he loved her and would want the child of their union. And because arguing came as naturally to Eddie Dean as breathing. Cuthbert had been the same.

In the reeds, the naked woman's hand pistoned forward and seized a good-sized frog. She squeezed and the frog popped, squirting guts and a shiny load of eggs between her fingers. Its head burst. She lifted it to her mouth and ate it greedily down while its greenish-white rear legs still twitched, licking the blood and shiny ropes of tissue from her knuckles. Then she mimed throwing something down and cried out 'How you like that, you stinkin Blue Lady ?' in a low, guttural voice that made Roland shiver. It was Detta Walker's voice. Detta at her meanest and craziest.

With hardly a pause she moved on again, questing. Next it was a small fish… then another frog… and then a real prize: a water-rat that squeaked and writhed and tried to bite. She crushed the life out of it and stuffed it into her mouth, paws and all. A moment later she bent her head down and regurgitated the waste—a twisted mass of fur and splintered bones.

Show him this, then —always assuming that he and Jake get back from whatever adventure they're on, that is. And say, 'I know that women are supposed to have strange cravings when they carry a child, Eddie, but doesn't this seem a little too strange?Look at her, questing through the reeds and ooze like some sort of human alligator. Look at her and tell me she's doing that in order to feed your child . Any human child .'

Still he would argue. Roland knew it. What he didn't know was what Susannah herself might do when Roland told her she was growing something that craved raw meat in the middle of the night. And as if this business wasn't worrisome enough, now there was todash. And strangers who had come looking for them. Yet the strangers were the least of his problems. In fact, he found their presence almost comforting. He didn't know what they wanted, and yet he did know. He had met them before, many times. At bottom, they always wanted the same thing.

EIGHT

Now the woman who called herself Mia began to talk as she hunted. Roland was familiar with this part of her ritual as well, but it chilled him nevertheless. He was looking right at her and it was still hard to believe all those different voices could be coming from the same throat. She asked herself how she was. She told herself she was doing fine, thank you so vereh much. She spoke of someone named Bill, or perhaps it was Bull. She asked after someone's mother. She asked someone about a place called Morehouse, and then in a deep, gravelly voice—a man's voice, beyond doubt—she told herself that she didn't go to Morehouse or no house. She laughed raucously at this, so it must have been some sort of joke. She introduced herself several times (as she had on other nights) as Mia, a name Roland knew well from his early life in Gilead. It was almost a holy name. Twice she curtsied, lifting invisible skirts in a way that tugged at the gunslinger's heart—he had first seen that sort of curtsy in Mejis, when he and his friends Alain and Cuthbert had been sent there by their fathers.

She worked her way back to the edge of the

(hall)

pond, glistening and wet. She stayed there without moving for five minutes, then ten. The owl uttered its derisive salute again—hool !—and as if in response, the moon came out of the clouds for a brief look around. When it did, some small animal's bit of shady concealment disappeared. It tried to dart past the woman. She snared it faultlessly and plunged her face into its writhing belly. There was a wet crunching noise, followed by several smacking bites. She held the remains up in the moonlight, her dark hands and wrists darker with its blood. Then she tore it in half and bolted down the remains. She gave a resounding belch and rolled herself back into the water. This time she made a great splash, and Roland knew tonight's banqueting was done. She had even eaten some of the binnie-bugs, snatching them effortlessly out of the air. He could only hope nothing she'd taken in would sicken her. So far, nothing had.

While she made her rough toilet, washing off the mud and blood, Roland retreated back the way he'd come, ignoring the more frequent pains in his hip and moving with all his guile. He had watched her go through this three times before, and once had been enough to see how gruesomely sharp her senses were while in this state.

He paused at her wheelchair, looking around to make sure he'd left no trace of himself. He saw a bootprint, smoothed it away, then tossed a few leaves over it for good measure. Not too many; too many might be worse than none at all. With that done, he headed back toward the road and their camp, not hurrying anymore. She would pause for a little housekeeping of her own before going on. What would Mia see as she was cleaning Susannah's wheelchair, he wondered? Some sort of small, motorized cart? It didn't matter. What did was how clever she was. If he hadn't awakened with a need to make water just as she left on one of her earlier expeditions, he quite likely still wouldn't know about her hunting trips, and he was supposed to be clever about such things.

Not as clever as she, maggot . Now, as if the ghost of Vannay were not enough, here was Cort to lecture him. She's shown you before, hasn't she ?

Yes. She had shown him cleverness as three women. Now there was this fourth.

NINE

When Roland saw the break in the trees ahead—the road they'd been following, and the place where they'd camped for the night—he took two long, deep breaths. These were meant to steady him and didn't succeed very well.

Water if God wills it , he reminded himself. About the great matters, Roland, you have no say .

Not a comfortable truth, especially for a man on a quest such as his, but one he'd learned to live with.

He took another breath, then stepped out. He released the air in a long, relieved sigh as he saw Eddie and Jake lying deeply asleep beside the dead fire. Jake's right hand, which had been linked with Eddie's left when the gunslinger had followed Susannah out of camp, now circled Oy's body.

The bumbler opened one eye and regarded Roland. Then he closed it again.

Roland couldn't hear her coming, but sensed her just the same. He lay down quickly, rolled over onto his side, and put his face in the crook of his elbow. And from this position he watched as the wheelchair rolled out of the trees. She had cleaned it quickly but well. Roland couldn't see a single spot of mud. The spokes gleamed in the moonlight.