Wolves of the Calla

'Shut up,' Susannah said, and pointed a finger at him.

Jake seemed not to have heard. His eyes never left Roland's. The boy's right hand lay on his upper chest, the fingers spread. 'He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind. I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.'

Jake paused. Drew in breath. And let it out speaking.

'I kill with my heart.'

'Kill these,' Roland remarked, and with no more warning than that, slung all four of the plates high into the air. They rose, spinning and separating, black shapes against the white sky.

Jake's hand, the one resting on his chest, became a blur. It pulled the Ruger from the docker's clutch, swung it up, and began pulling the trigger while Roland's hand was still in the air. The plates did not seem to explode one after the other but rather all at once. The pieces rained down on the clearing. A few fell into the fire, puffing up ash and sparks. One or two clanged off Andy's steel head.

Roland snatched upward, open hands moving in a blur. Although he had given them no command, Eddie and Susannah did the same, did it even while the visitors from Calla Bryn Sturgis cringed, shocked by the loudness of the gunfire. And the speed of the shots.

'Look here at us, do ya, and say thankee,' Roland said. He held out his hands. Eddie and Susannah did the same. Eddie had caught three pottery shards. Susannah had five (and a shallow cut on the pad of one finger). Roland had snatched a full dozen pieces of falling shrapnel. It looked like almost enough to make a whole plate, were the pieces glued back together.

The six from the Calla stared, unbelieving. Benny the Kid still had his hands over his ears; now he lowered them slowly. He was looking at Jake as one might look at a ghost or an apparition from the sky.

'My… God ,' Callahan said. 'It's like a trick in some old Wild West show.'

'It's no trick,' Roland said, 'never think it. It's the Way of the Eld. We are of that an-tet, khef and ka, watch and warrant. Gunslingers, do ya. And now I'll tell you what we will do.' His eyes sought Overholser's. 'What we will do, I say, for no man bids us. Yet I think nothing I say will discomfort you too badly. If mayhap it does—' Roland shrugged. If it does, too bad , that shrug said.

He dropped the pottery shards between his boots and dusted his hands.

'If those had been Wolves,' he said, 'there would have been fifty-six left to trouble you instead of sixty. Four of them lying dead on the ground before you could draw a breath. Killed by a boy.' He gazed at Jake. 'What you would call a boy, mayhap.' Roland paused. 'We're used to long odds.'

'The young fella's a breathtaking shot, I'd grant ye,' said Slightman the Elder. 'But there's a difference between clay dishes and Wolves on horseback.'

'For you, sai, perhaps. Not for us. Not once the shooting starts. When the shooting starts, we kill what moves. Isn't that why you sought us?'

'Suppose they can't be shot?' Overholser asked. 'Can't be laid low by even the hardest of hard calibers?'

'Why do you waste time when time is short?' Roland asked evenly. 'You know they can be killed or you never would have come out here to us in the first place. I didn't ask, because the answer is self-evident.'

Overholser had once more flushed dark red. 'Cry your pardon,' he said.

Benny, meanwhile, continued to stare at Jake with wide eyes, and Roland felt a minor pang of regret for both boys. They might still manage some sort of friendship, but what had just happened would change it in fundamental ways, turn it into something quite unlike the usual lighthearted khef boys shared. Which was a shame, because when Jake wasn't being called upon to be a gunslinger, he was still only a child. Close to the age Roland himself had been when the test of manhood had been thrust on him. But he would not be young much longer, very likely. And it was a shame.

'Listen to me now,' Roland said, 'and hear me very well. We leave you shortly to go back to our own camp and take our own counsel. Tomorrow, when we come to your town, we'll put up with one of you—'

'Come to Seven-Mile,' Overholser said. 'We'll have you and say thankee, Roland.'

'Our place is much smaller,' Tian said, 'but Zalia and I—'

'We'd be so pleased to have'ee,' Zalia said. She had flushed as deeply as Overholser. 'Aye, we would.'

Roland said, 'Do you have a house as well as a church, sai Callahan?'

Callahan smiled. 'I do, and tell God thankya.'

'We might stay with you on our first night in Calla Bryn Sturgis,' Roland said. 'Could we do that?'

'Sure, and welcome.'

'You could show us your church. Introduce us to its mysteries.'

Callahan's gaze was steady. 'I'd welcome the chance to do that.'

'In the days after,' Roland said, smiling, 'we shall throw ourselves on the hospitality of the town.'

'You'll not find it wanting,' Tian said. 'That I promise ye.' Overholser and Slightman were nodding.

'If the meal we've just eaten is any sign, I'm sure that's true. We say thankee, sai Jaffords; thankee one and all. For a week we four will go about your town, poking our noses here and there. Mayhap a bit longer, but likely a week. We'll look at the lay of the land and the way the buildings are set on it. Look with an eye to the coming of these Wolves. We'll talk to folk, and folk will talk to us—those of you here now will see to that, aye?'

Callahan was nodding. 'I can't speak for the Manni, but I'm sure the rest will be more than willing to talk to you about the Wolves. God and Man Jesus knows they're no secret. And those of the Crescent are frightened to death of them. If they see a chance you might be able to help us, they'll do all you ask.'

'The Manni will speak to me as well,' Roland said. 'I've held palaver with them before.'

'Don't be carried away with the Old Fella's enthusiasm, Roland,' Overholser said. He raised his plump hands in the air, a gesture of caution. 'There are others in town you'll have to convince—'

'Vaughn Eisenhart, for one,' said Slightman.

'Aye, and Eben Took, do ya,' Overholser said. 'The General Store's the only thing his name's on, ye ken, but he owns the boarding house and the restaurant out front of it… as well's a half-interest in the livery… and loan-paper on most of the smallholds hereabouts.

'When it comes to the smallholds, 'ee mustn't neglect Bucky Javier,' Overholser rumbled. 'He ain't the biggest of em, but only because he gave away half of what he had to his young sister when she married.' Overholser leaned toward Roland, his face alight with a bit of town history about to be passed on. 'Roberta Javier, Bucky's sissa, she's lucky,' he said. 'When the Wolves came last time, she and her twin brother were but a year old. So they were passed over.'

'Bucky's own twin brother was took the time before,' Slight-man said. 'Bully's dead now almost four year. Of the sickness. Since then, there ain't enough Bucky can do for those younger two. But you should talk to him, aye. Bucky's not got but eighty acre, yet he's trig.'

Roland thought, They still don't see .

'Thank you,' he said. 'What lies directly ahead for us comes down to looking and listening, mostly. When it's done, we'll ask that whoever is in charge of the feather take it around so that a meeting can be called. At that meeting, we'll tell you if the town can be defended and how many men we'll want to help us, if it can be done.'

Roland saw Overholser puffing up to speak and shook his head at him.

'It won't be many we'd want, in any case,' he said. 'We're gunslingers, not an army. We think differently, act differently, than armies do. We might ask for as many as five to stand with us. Probably fewer—only two or three. But we might need more to help us prepare.'

'Why?' Benny asked.

Roland smiled. 'That I can't say yet, son, because I haven't seen how things are in your Calla. But in cases like this, surprise is always the most potent weapon, and it usually takes many people to prepare a good surprise.'

'The greatest surprise to the Wolves,' Tian said, 'would be if we fought at all.'

'Suppose you decide the Calla can't be defended?' Over-holser asked. 'Tell me that, I beg.'

'Then I and my friends will thank you for your hospitality and ride on,' Roland said, 'for we have our own