Wolves of the Calla

him inside by his fire on rainy days. This was something worse. It was arthritis, the bad kind, the dry kind. It wouldn't be long before it reached his hands. Roland would gladly have fed his right one to the disease, if that would have satisfied it; he had taught it to do a good many things since the lobstrosities had taken the first two fingers, but it was never going to be what it was. Only ailments didn't work that way, did they? You couldn't placate them with sacrifices. The arthritis would come when it came and go where it wanted to go.

I might have a year , he thought, lying in bed beside the sleeping religious from Eddie and Susannah and Jake's world. I might even have two .

No, not two. Probably not even one. What was it Eddie sometimes said? Quit kidding yourself . Eddie had a lot of sayings from his world, but that was a particularly good one. A particularly apt one.

Not that he would cry off the Tower if Old Bone-Twist Man took his ability to shoot, saddle a horse, cut a strip of rawhide, even to chop wood for a campfire, so simple a thing as that; no, he was in it until the end. But he didn't relish the picture of riding along behind the others, dependent upon them, perhaps tied to his saddle with the reins because he could no longer hold the pommel. Nothing but a drag-anchor. One they wouldn't be able to pull up if and when fast sailing was required.

If it gets to that, I'll kill myself.

But he wouldn't. That was the truth. Quit kidding yourself .

Which brought Eddie to mind again. He needed to talk to Eddie about Susannah, and right away. This was the knowledge with which he had awakened, and perhaps worth the pain. It wouldn't be a pleasant talk, but it had to be done. It was time Eddie knew about Mia. She would find it more difficult to slip away now that they were in a town—in a house—but she would have to, just the same. She could argue with her baby's needs and her own cravings no more than Roland could argue with the bright rings of pain which circled his right hip and knee and both ankles but had so far spared his talented hands. If Eddie wasn't warned, there might be terrible trouble. More trouble was something they didn't need now; it might sink them.

Roland lay in the bed, and throbbed, and watched the sky lighten. He was dismayed to see that brightness no longer bloomed dead east; it was a little off to the south, now.

Sunrise was also in drift.

TWO

The housekeeper was good-looking, about forty. Her name was Rosalita Munoz, and when she saw the way Roland walked to the table, she said: 'One cup coffee, then you come with me.'

Callahan cocked his head at Roland when she went to the stove to get the pot. Eddie and Susannah weren't up yet. The two of them had the kitchen to themselves. 'How bad is it with you, sir?'

'It's only the rheumatiz,' Roland said. 'Goes through all my family on my father's side. It'll work out by noon, given bright sunshine and dry air.'

'I know about the rheumatiz,' Callahan said. 'Tell God thankya it's no worse.'

'I do.' And to Rosalita, who brought heavy mugs of steaming coffee. 'I tell you thankya, as well.'

She put down the cups, curtsied, and then regarded him shyly and gravely. 'I never saw the rice-dance kicked better, sai.'

Roland smiled crookedly. 'I'm paying for it this morning.'

'I'll fix you,' she said. 'I've a cat-oil, special to me. It'll first take the pain and then the limp. Ask Pere.'

Roland looked at Callahan, who nodded.

'Then I'll take you up on it. Thankee-sai.'

She curtsied again, and left them.

'I need a map of the Calla,' Roland said when she was gone. 'It doesn't have to be great art, but it has to be accurate, and true as to distance. Can you draw one for me?'

'Not at all,' Callahan said composedly. 'I cartoon a little, but I couldn't draw you a map that would take you as far as the river, not even if you put a gun to my head. It's just not a talent I have. But I know two that could help you there.' He raised his voice. 'Rosalita! Rosie! Come to me a minute, do ya!'

THREE

Twenty minutes later, Rosalita took Roland by the hand, her grip firm and dry. She led him into the pantry and closed the door. 'Drop yer britches, I beg,' she said. 'Be not shy, for I doubt you've anything I haven't seen before, unless men are built summat different in Gilead and the Inners.'

'I don't believe they are,' Roland said, and let his pants fall.

The sun was now up but Eddie and Susannah were still down. Roland was in no hurry to wake them. There would be plenty of early days ahead—and late evenings, too, likely—but this morning let them enjoy the peace of a roof over their heads, the comfort of a feather mattress beneath their bodies, and the exquisite privacy afforded by a door between their secret selves and the rest of the world.

Rosalita, a bottle of pale, oily liquid in one hand, drew in a hiss over her full lower lip. She looked at Roland's right knee, then touched his right hip with her left hand. He flinched away a bit from the touch, although it was gentleness itself.

She raised her eyes to him. They were so dark a brown they were almost black. 'This isn't rheumatiz. It's arthritis. The kind that spreads fast.'

'Aye, where I come from some call it dry twist,' he said. 'Not a word of it to the Pere, or to my friends.'

Those dark eyes regarded him steadily. 'You won't be able to keep this a secret for long.'

'I hear you very well. Yet while I can keep the secret, I will keep the secret. And you'll help me.'

'Aye,' she said. 'No fear. I'll bide'ee.'

'Say thankya. Now, will that help me?'

She looked at the bottle and smiled. 'Aye. It's mint and spriggum from the swamp. But the secret's the cat's bile that's in it—not but three drops in each bottle, ye ken. They're the rock-cats that come in out of the desert, from the direction of the great darkness.' She tipped up the bottle and poured a little of the oily stuff into her palm. The smell of the mint struck Roland's nose at once, followed by some other smell, a lower smell, which was far less pleasant. Yes, he reckoned that could be the bile of a puma or a cougar or whatever they meant by a rock-cat in these parts.

When she bent and rubbed it into his kneecaps, the heat was immediate and intense, almost too strong to bear. But when it moderated a bit, there was more relief than he would have dared hope for.

When she had finished anointing him, she said: 'How be your body now, gunslinger-sai?'

Instead of answering with his mouth, he crushed her against his lean, undressed body and hugged her tightly. She hugged him back with an artless lack of shame and whispered in his ear, 'If 'ee are who 'ee say 'ee are, 'ee mustn't let un take the babbies. No, not a single one. Never mind what the big bugs like Eisenhart and Telford might say.'

'We'll do the best we can,' he said.

'Good. Thankya.' She stepped back, looked down. 'One part of 'ee has no arthritis, nor rheumatiz, either. Looks quite lively. Perhaps a lady might look at the moon tonight, gunslinger, and pine for company.'

'Perhaps she'll find it,' Roland said. 'Will you give me a bottle of that stuff to take on my travels around the Calla, or is it too dear?'

'Nay, not too dear,' she said. In her flirting, she had smiled. Now she looked grave again. 'But will only help'ee a little while, I think.'

'I know,' Roland said. 'And no matter. We spread the time as we can, but in the end the world takes it