Wolves of the Calla

  Shrieking Benny's name, Jake walked across the East Road, reloading the Ruger as he went, tracking through his dead friend's blood without realizing it. To his left, Roland, Susannah, and Rosa were putting paid to the five remaining Wolves in what had been the raiding party's north wing. The raiders whirled their horses in jerky, useless circles, seeming unsure what to do in circumstances such as these.

  "Want some company, kid?" Eddie asked him. On their right, the group of Wolves who had been stationed on the town side of the arroyo path all lay dead. Only one of them had actually made it as far as the ditch; that one lay with its hooded head plowed into the freshly turned earth of the hide and its booted feet in the road. The rest of its body was wrapped in its green cloak. It looked like a bug that has died in its cocoon.

  "Sure," Jake said. Was he talking or only thinking? He didn't know. The sirens blasted the air. "Whatever you want. They killed Benny."

  "I know. That sucks."

  "It should have been his fucking father," Jake said. Was he crying? He didn't know.

  "Agreed. Have a present." Into Jake's hand Eddie dropped a couple of balls about three inches in diameter. The surfaces looked like steel, but when Jake squeezed, he felt some give--it was like squeezing a child's toy made out of hard, hard rubber. A small plate on the side read

  "SNEETCH"

  HARRY POTTER MODEL

  Serial # 465-11-AA HPJKR

  CAUTION

  EXPLOSIVE

  To the left of the plate was a button. A distant part of Jake's mind wondered who Harry Potter was. The sneetch's inventor, more than likely.

  They reached the heap of dead Wolves at the head of the arroyo path. Perhaps machines couldn't really be dead, but Jake was unable to think of them as anything else, tumbled and tangled as they were. Dead, yes. And he was savagely glad. From behind them came an explosion, followed by a shriek of either extreme pain or extreme pleasure. For the moment Jake didn't care which. All his attention was focused on the remaining Wolves trapped on the arroyo path. There were somewhere between eighteen and two dozen of them.

  There was one Wolf out in front, its sizzling fire-stick raised. It was half-turned to its mates, and now it waved its light-stick at the road. Except that's no light-stick, Eddie thought. That's a light-saber, just like the ones in the Star Wars movies. Only these light-sabers aren't special effects--they really kill. What the hell's going on here? Well, the guy out front was trying to rally his troops, that much seemed clear. Eddie decided to cut the sermon short. He thumbed the button in one of the three sneetches he had kept for himself. The thing began to hum and vibrate in his hand. It was sort of like holding a joy-buzzer.

  "Hey, Sunshine!" he called.

  The head Wolf didn't look around and so Eddie simply lobbed the sneetch at it. Thrown as easily as it was, it should have struck the ground twenty or thirty yards from the cluster of remaining Wolves and rolled to a stop. It picked up speed instead, rose, and struck the head Wolf dead center in its frozen snarl of a mouth. The thing exploded from the neck up, thinking-cap and all.

  "Go on," Eddie said. "Try it. Using their own shit against em has its own special pl--"

  Ignoring him, Jake dropped the sneetches Eddie had given him, stumbled over the heap of bodies, and started up the path.

  "Jake? Jake, I don't think that's such a good idea--"

  A hand gripped Eddie's upper arm. He whirled, raising his gun, then lowering it again when he saw Roland. "He can't hear you," the gunslinger said. "Come on. We'll stand with him."

  "Wait, Roland, wait." It was Rosa. She was smeared with blood, and Eddie assumed it was poor sai Eisenhart's. He could see no wound on Rosa herself. "I want some of this," she said.

  SIXTEEN

  They reached Jake just as the remaining Wolves made their last charge. A few threw sneetches. These Roland and Eddie picked out of the air easily. Jake fired the Ruger in nine steady, spaced shots, right wrist clasped in left hand, and each time he fired, one of the Wolves either flipped backward out of its saddle or went sliding over the side to be trampled by the horses coming behind. When the Ruger was empty, Rosa took a tenth, screaming Lady Oriza's name. Zalia Jaffords had also joined them, and the eleventh fell to her.

  While Jake reloaded the Ruger, Roland and Eddie, standing side by side, went to work. They almost certainly could have taken the remaining eight between them (it didn't much surprise Eddie that there had been nineteen in this last cluster), but they left the last two for Jake. As they approached, swinging their light-swords over their heads in a way that would have been undoubtedly terrifying to a bunch of farmers, the boy shot the thinking-cap off the one on the left. Then he stood aside, dodging as the last surviving Wolf took a halfhearted swing at him.

  Its horse leaped the pile of bodies at the end of the path. Susannah was on the far side of the road, sitting on her haunches amid a litter of fallen green-cloaked machinery and melting, rotting masks. She was also covered in Margaret Eisenhart's blood.

  Roland understood that Jake had left the final one for Susannah, who would have found it extremely difficult to join them on the arroyo path because of her missing lower legs. The gunslinger nodded. The boy had seen a terrible thing this morning, suffered a terrible shock, but Roland thought he would be all right. Oy--waiting for them back at the Pere's rectory-house--would no doubt help him through the worst of his grief.

  "Lady Oh-RIZA!" Susannah screamed, and flung one final plate as the Wolf reined its horse around, turning it east, toward whatever it called home. The plate rose, screaming, and clipped off the top of the green hood. For a moment this last child thief sat in its saddle, shuddering and blaring out its alarm, calling for help that couldn't come. Then it snapped violently backward, turning a complete somersault in midair, and thudded to the road. Its siren cut off in mid-whoop.

  And so, Roland thought, our five minutes are over. He looked dully at the smoking barrel of his revolver, then dropped it back into its holster. One by one the alarms issuing from the downed robots were stopping.

  Zalia was looking at him with a kind of dazed incomprehension. "Roland!" she said.

  "Yes, Zalia."

  "Are they gone? Can they be gone? Really?"

  "All gone," Roland said. "I counted sixty-one, and they all lie here or on the road or in our ditch."

  For a moment Tian's wife only stood there, processing this information. Then she did something that surprised a man who was not often surprised. She threw herself against him, pressing her body frankly to his, and covered his face with hungry, wet-lipped kisses. Roland bore this for a little bit, then held her away. The sickness was coming now. The feeling of uselessness. The sense that he would fight this battle or battles like it over and over for eternity, losing a finger to the lobstrosities here, perhaps an eye to a clever old witch there, and after each battle he would sense the Dark Tower a little farther away instead of a little closer. And all the time the dry twist would work its way in toward his heart.

  Stop that, he told himself. It's nonsense, and you know it.

  "Will they send more, Roland?" Rosa asked.

  "They may have no more to send," Roland said. "If they do, there'll almost certainly be fewer of them. And now you know the secret to killing them, don't you?"

  "Yes," she said, and gave him a savage grin. Her eyes promised him more than kisses later on, if he'd have her.

  "Go down through the corn," he told her. "You and Zalia both. Tell them it's safe to come up now. Lady Oriza has stood friend to the Calla this day. And to the line of Eld, as well."

  "Will ye not come yourself?" Zalia asked him. She had stepped away from him, and her cheeks were filled with fire. "Will ye not come and let em cheer ye?"

  "Perhaps later on we may all hear them cheer us," Roland said. "Now we need to speak an-tet. The boy's had a bad shock, ye ken."

  "Yes," Rosa said. "Yes, all right. Come on, Zee." She reached out and took Zalia's hand. "Help me be the bearer of glad tidings."

  SEVENTEEN

/>   The two women crossed the road, making a wide berth around the tumbled, bloody remains of the poor Slightman lad. Zalia thought that most of what was left of him was only held together by his clothes, and shivered to think of the father's grief.

  The young man's shor'leg lady-sai was at the far north end of the ditch, examining the bodies of the Wolves scattered there. She found one where the little revolving thing hadn't been entirely shot off, and was still trying to turn. The Wolf's green-gloved hands shivered uncontrollably in the dust, as if with palsy. While Rosa and Zalia watched, Susannah picked up a largish chunk of rock and, cool as a night in Wide Earth, brought it down on the remains of the thinking-cap. The Wolf stilled immediately. The low hum that had been coming from it stopped.

  "We go to tell the others, Susannah," Rosa said. "But first we want to tell thee well-done. How we do love thee, say true!"

  Zalia nodded. "We say thankya, Susannah of New York. We say thankya more big-big than could ever be told."

  "Yar, say true," Rosa agreed.

  The lady-sai looked up at them and smiled sweetly. For a moment Rosalita looked a little doubtful, as if maybe she saw something in that dark-brown face that she shouldn't. Saw that Susannah Dean was no longer here, for instance. Then the expression of doubt was gone. "We go with good news, Susannah," said she.

  "Wish you joy of it," said Mia, daughter of none. "Bring them back as you will. Tell them the danger here's over, and let those who don't believe count the dead."

  "The legs of your pants are wet, do ya," Zalia said.

  Mia nodded gravely. Another contraction had turned her belly to a stone, but she gave no sign. " 'Tis blood, I'm afraid." She nodded toward the headless body of the big rancher's wife. "Hers."

  The women started down through the corn, hand-in-hand. Mia watched Roland, Eddie, and Jake cross the road toward her. This would be the dangerous time, right here. Yet perhaps not too dangerous, after all; Susannah's friends looked dazed in the aftermath of the battle. If she seemed a little off her feed, perhaps they would think the same of her.

  She thought mostly it would be a matter of waiting for her opportunity. Waiting . . . and then slipping away. In the meantime, she rode the contraction of her belly like a boat riding a high wave.

  They'll know where you went, a voice whispered. It wasn't a head-voice but a belly-voice. The voice of the chap. And that voice spoke true.

  Take the ball with you, the voice told her. Take it with you when you go. Leave them no door to follow you through.

  Aye.

  EIGHTEEN

  The Ruger cracked out a single shot and a horse died.

  From below the road, from the rice, came a rising roar of joy that was not quite disbelieving. Zalia and Rosa had given their good news. Then a shrill cry of grief cut through the mingled voices of happiness. They had given the bad, as well.

  Jake Chambers sat on the wheel of the overturned waggon. He had unharnessed the three horses that were okay. The fourth had been lying with two broken legs, foaming helplessly through its teeth and looking to the boy for help. The boy had given it. Now he sat staring at his dead friend. Benny's blood was soaking into the road. The hand on the end of Benny's arm lay palm-up, as if the dead boy wanted to shake hands with God. What God? According to current rumor, the top of the Dark Tower was empty.

  From Lady Oriza's rice came a second scream of grief. Which had been Slightman, which Vaughn Eisenhart? At a distance, Jake thought, you couldn't tell the rancher from the foreman, the employer from the employee. Was there a lesson there, or was it what Ms. Avery, back at good old Piper, would have called FEAR, false evidence appearing real?

  The palm pointing up to the brightening sky, that was certainly real.

  Now the folken began to sing. Jake recognized the song. It was a new version of the one Roland had sung on their first night in Calla Bryn Sturgis.

  "Come-come-commala

  Rice come a-falla

  I-sissa 'ay a-bralla

  Dey come a-folla

  We went to a-rivva

  'Riza did us kivva . . . "

  The rice swayed with the passage of the singing folken, swayed as if it were dancing for their joy, as Roland had danced for them that torchlit night. Some came with babbies in their arms, and even so burdened, they swayed from side to side. We all danced this morning, Jake thought. He didn't know what he meant, only that it was a true thought. The dance we do. The only one we know. Benny Slightman? Died dancing. Sai Eisenhart, too.

  Roland and Eddie came over to him; Susannah, too, but she hung back a bit, as if deciding that, at least for the time being, the boys should be with the boys. Roland was smoking, and Jake nodded at it.

  "Roll me one of those, would you?"

  Roland turned in Susannah's direction, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, then nodded. Roland rolled Jake a cigarette, gave it to him, then scratched a match on the seat of his pants and lit it. Jake sat on the waggon wheel, taking the smoke in occasional puffs, holding it in his mouth, then letting it out. His mouth filled up with spit. He didn't mind. Unlike some things, spit could be got rid of. He made no attempt to inhale.

  Roland looked down the hill, where the first of the two running men was just entering the corn. "That's Slightman," he said. "Good."

  "Why good, Roland?" Eddie asked.

  "Because sai Slightman will have accusations to make," Roland said. "In his grief, he isn't going to care who hears them, or what his extraordinary knowledge might say about his part in this morning's work."

  "Dance," Jake said.

  They turned to look at him. He sat pale and thoughtful on the waggon-wheel, holding his cigarette. "This morning's dance," he said.

  Roland appeared to consider this, then nodded. "His part in this morning's dance. If he gets here soon enough, we may be able to quiet him. If not, his son's death is only going to be the start of Ben Slightman's commala."

  NINETEEN

  Slightman was almost fifteen years younger than the rancher, and arrived at the site of the battle well before the other. For a moment he only stood on the far edge of the hide, considering the shattered body lying in the road. There was not so much blood, now--the oggan had drunk it greedily--but the severed arm still lay where it had been, and the severed arm told all. Roland would no more have moved it before Slightman got here than he would have opened his flies and pissed on the boy's corpse. Slightman the Younger had reached the clearing at the end of his path. His father, as next of kin, had a right to see where and how it had happened.

  The man stood quiet for perhaps five seconds, then pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a shriek. It chilled Eddie's blood. He looked around for Susannah and saw she was no longer there. He didn't blame her for ducking out. This was a bad scene. The worst.

  Slightman looked left, looked right, then looked straight ahead and saw Roland, standing beside the overturned waggon with his arms crossed. Beside him, Jake still sat on the wheel, smoking his first cigarette.

  "YOU!" Slightman screamed. He was carrying his bah; now he unslung it. "YOU DID THIS! YOU!"

  Eddie plucked the weapon deftly from Slightman's hands. "No, you don't, partner," he murmured. "You don't need this right now, why don't you let me keep it for you."

  Slightman seemed not to notice. Incredibly, his right hand still made circular motions in the air, as if winding the bah for a shot.

  "YOU KILLED MY SON! TO PAY ME BACK! YOU BASTARD! MURDERING BAS--"

  Moving with the eerie, spooky speed that Eddie could still not completely believe, Roland seized Slightman around the neck in the crook of one arm, then yanked him forward. The move simultaneously cut off the flow of the man's accusations and drew him close.

  "Listen to me," Roland said, "and listen well. I care nothing for your life or honor, one's been misspent and the other's long gone, but your son is dead and about his honor I care very much. If you don't shut up this second, you worm of creation, I'll shut you up myself. So what would you? It's nothing to me, either way. I'll
tell em you ran mad at the sight of him, stole my gun out of its holster, and put a bullet in your own head to join him. What would you have? Decide."

  Eisenhart was badly blown but still lurching and weaving his way up through the corn, hoarsely calling his wife's name: "Margaret! Margaret! Answer me, dear! Gi' me a word, I beg ya, do!"

  Roland let go of Slightman and looked at him sternly. Slightman turned his awful eyes to Jake. "Did your dinh kill my boy in order to be revenged on me? Tell me the truth, soh."

  Jake took a final puff on his cigarette and cast it away. The butt lay smoldering in the dirt next to the dead horse. "Did you even look at him?" he asked Benny's Da'. "No bullet ever made could do that. Sai Eisenhart's head fell almost on top of him and Benny crawled out of the ditch from the . . . the horror of it." It was a word, he realized, that he had never used out loud. Had never needed to use out loud. "They threw two of their sneetches at him. I got one, but . . . " He swallowed. There was a click in his throat. "The other . . . I would have, you ken . . . I tried, but . . . " His face was working. His voice was breaking apart. Yet his eyes were dry. And somehow as terrible as Slightman's. "I never had a chance at the other'n," he finished, then lowered his head and began to sob.

  Roland looked at Slightman, his eyebrows raised.

  "All right," Slightman said. "I see how 'twas. Yar. Tell me, were he brave until then? Tell me, I beg."

  "He and Jake brought back one of that pair," Eddie said, gesturing to the Tavery twins. "The boy half. He got his foot caught in a hole. Jake and Benny pulled him out, then carried him. Nothing but guts, your boy. Side to side and all the way through the middle."

  Slightman nodded. He took the spectacles off his face and looked at them as if he had never seen them before. He held them so, before his eyes, for a second or two, then dropped them onto the road and crushed them beneath one bootheel. He looked at Roland and Jake almost apologetically. "I believe I've seen all I need to," he said, and then went to his son.