Wolves of the Calla

No , Eddie thought, the word is roont .

'This is my brother, Zalman,' Zalia said, her tone oddly formal.

'And my sister, Tia,' Tian added. 'Make your manners, you two galoots.'

Zalman just went ahead sucking one piece of himself and kneading the other. Tia, however, gave a huge (and somehow ducklike) curtsy. 'Long days long nights long earth!' she cried. 'WE GET TATERS AND GRAVY !'

'Good,' Susannah said quietly. 'Taters and gravy is good.'

'TATERS AND GRAVY IS GOOD !' Tia wrinkled her nose, pulling her upper lip away from her teeth in a piglike sneer of good fellowship. 'TATERS AND GRAVY! TATERS AND GRAVY! GOOD OL' TATERS AND GRAVY !'

Hedda touched Susannah's hand hesitantly. 'She go on like that all day unless you tell her shush, missus-sai.'

'Shush, Tia,' Susannah said.

Tia gave a honk of laughter at the sky, crossed her arms over her prodigious bosom, and fell silent.

'Zal,' Tian said. 'You need to go pee-pee, don't you?'

Zalia's brother said nothing, only continued squeezing his crotch.

'Go pee-pee,' Tian said. 'You go on behind the barn. Water the sharproot, say thankya.'

For a moment nothing happened. Then Zalman set off, moving in a wide, shambling gait.

'When they were young—' Susannah began. 'Bright as polished agates, the both of em,' Zalia said. 'Now she's bad and my brother's even worse.'

She abruptly put her hands over her face. Aaron gave a high laugh at this and covered his own face in imitation ('Peet-a-boo!' he called through his fingers), but both sets of twins looked grave. Alarmed, even.

'What's wrong 'it Maw-Maw?' Lyman asked, tugging at his father's pantsleg. Zalman, heedless of all, continued toward the barn, still with one hand in his mouth and the other in his crotch.

'Nothing, son. Your Maw-Maw's all right.' Tian put the baby down, then ran his arm across his eyes. 'Everything's fine. Ain't it, Zee?'

'Aye,' she said, lowering her hands. The rims of her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying. 'And with the blessing, what ain't fine will be.'

'From your lips to God's ear,' Eddie said, watching the giant shamble toward the barn. 'From your lips to God's ear.'

TWO

'Is he having one of his bright days, your Gran-pere?' Eddie asked Tian a few minutes later. They had walked around to where Tian could show Eddie the field he called Son of a Bitch, leaving Zalia and Susannah with all children great and small.

'Not so's you'd notice,' Tian said, his brow darkening. 'He ain't half-addled these last few years, and won't have nobbut to do with me, anyway. Her , aye, because she'll hand-feed him, then wipe the drool off his chin for him and tell him thankya. Ain't enough I got two great roont galoots to feed, is it? I've got to have that bad-natured old man, as well. Head's gone as rusty as an old hinge. Half the time he don't even know where he is, say any small-small!'

They walked, high grass swishing against their pants. Twice Eddie almost tripped over rocks, and once Tian seized his arm and led him around what looked like a right leg-smasher of a hole. No wonder he calls it Son of a Bitch , Eddie thought. And yet there were signs of cultivation. Hard to believe anyone could pull a plow through this mess, but it looked as if Tian Jaffords had been trying.

'If your wife's right, I think I need to talk to him,' Eddie said. 'Need to hear his story.'

'My Granda's got stories, all right. Half a thousand! Trouble is, most of em was lies from the start and now he gets em all mixed up together. His accent were always thick, and these last three years he's missing his last three teeth as well. Likely you won't be able to understand his nonsense to begin with. I wish you joy of him, Eddie of New York.'

'What the hell did he do to you, Tian?'

' 'Twasn't what he did to me but what he did to my Da'. That's a long story and nothing to do with this business. Leave it'

'No, you leave it,' Eddie said, coming to a stop.

Tian looked at him, startled. Eddie nodded, unsmiling: you heard me. He was twenty-five, already a year older than Cuthbert Allgood on his last day at Jericho Hill, but in this day's failing light he could have passed for a man of fifty. One of harsh certainty.

'If he's seen a dead Wolf, we need to debrief him.'

'I don't kennit, Eddie.'

'Yeah, but I think you ken my point just fine. Whatever you've got against him, put it aside. If we settle up with the Wolves, you have my permission to bump him into the fireplace or push him off the goddam roof. But for now, keep your sore ass to yourself. Okay?'

Tian nodded. He stood looking out across his troublesome north field, the one he called Son of a Bitch, with his hands in his pockets. When he studied it so, his expression was one of troubled greed.

'Do you think his story about killing a Wolf is so much hot air? If you really do, I won't waste my time.'

Grudgingly, Tian said: 'I'm more apt to believe that 'un than most of the others.'

'Why?'

'Well, he were tellin it ever since I were old enough to listen, and that 'un never changes much. Also…' Tian's next words squeezed down, as if he were speaking them through gritted teeth. 'My Gran-pere never had no shortage of thorn and bark. If anyone would have had guts enough to go out on the East Road and stand against the Wolves—not to mention enough trum to get others to go with him—I'd bet my money on Jamie Jaffords.'

'Trum?'

Tian thought about how to explain it. 'If'ee was to stick your head in a rock-cat's mouth, that'd take courage, wouldn't it?'

It would take idiocy was what Eddie thought, but he nodded.

'If'ee was the sort of man could convince someone else to stick his head in a rock-cat's mouth, that'd make you trum. Your dinh's trum, ain't he?'

Eddie remembered some of the stuff Roland had gotten him to do, and nodded. Roland was trum, all right. He was trum as hell. Eddie was sure the gunslinger's old mates would have said the same.

'Aye,' Tian said, turning his gaze back to his field. 'In any case, if ye'd get something halfway sensible out of the old man, I'd wait until after supper. He brightens a bit once he's had his rations and half a pint of graf. And make sure my wife's sitting right beside you, where he can get an eyeful. I 'magine he'd try to have a good deal more than his eye on her, were he a younger man.' His face had darkened again.

Eddie clapped him on the shoulder. 'Well, he's not younger. You are. So lighten up, all right?'

'Aye.' Tian made a visible effort to do just that. 'What do'ee think of my field, gunslinger? I'm going to plant it with madrigal next year. The yellow stuff ye saw out front.'

What Eddie thought was that the field looked like a heart-break waiting to happen. He suspected that down deep Tian thought about the same; you didn't call your only unplanted field Son of a Bitch because you expected good things to happen there. But he knew the look on Tian's face. It was the one Henry used to get when the two of them were setting off to score. It was always going to be the best stuff this time, the best stuff ever. China White and never mind that Mexican Brown that made your head ache and your bowels run. They'd get high for a week, the best high ever, mellow , and then quit the junk for good. That was Henry's scripture, and it could have been Henry here beside him, telling Eddie what a fine cash crop madrigal was, and how the people who'd told him you couldn't grow it this far north would be laughing on the other side of their faces come next reap. And then he'd buy Hugh Anselm's field over on the far side of yon ridge… hire a couple of