Stephen King – The Dark Tower 5 – The Wolves of the Calla

“So, Pere—what do you think?”

“You say her husband agreed to keep the secret,” Callahan replied. “And even Jake—who sees clearly—”

“Yes,” Roland said. “He does. He did. And when he asked me what we should do, I gave him bad advice. I told him we’d be best to let ka work itself out, and all the time I was holding it in my hands, like a caught bird.”

“Things always look clearer when we see them over our shoulder, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her last night that she’s got a demon’s spawn growing in her womb?”

“She knows it’s not Eddie’s.”

“So you didn’t. And Mia? Did you tell her about Mia, and the casde banqueting hall?”

“Yes,” Roland said. “I think hearing that depressed her but didn’t surprise her. There was the other—Detta—

ever since the accident when she lost her legs.” It had been no accident, but Roland hadn’t gone into the business of Jack Mort with Callahan, seeing no reason to do so. “Detta Walker hid herself well from Odetta Holmes. Eddie and Jake say she’s a schizophrenic.” Roland pronounced this exotic word with great care.

“But you cured her,” Callahan said. “Brought her face-to-face with her two selves in one of those doorways.

Did you not?”

Roland shrugged. “You can burn away warts by painting them with silver metal, Pere, but in a person prone to warts, they’ll come back.”

Callahan surprised him by throwing his head back to the sky and bellowing laughter. He laughed so long and hard he finally had to take his handkerchief from his back pocket and wipe his eyes with it. “Roland, you may be quick with a gun and as brave as Satan on Saturday night, but you’re no psychiatrist. To compare schizophrenia to warts. . . oh, my!”

“And yet Mia is real, Pere. I’ve seen her myself. Not in a dream, as Jake did, but with my own two eyes.”

“Exactly my point,” Callahan said. “She’s not an aspect of the woman who was born Odetta Susannah Holmes. She is she.”

“Does it make a difference?”

“I think it does. But here is one thing I can tell you for sure: no matter how things lie in your fellowship—

your ka-tet—this must be kept a dead secret from the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Today, things are going your way. But if word got out that the female gunslinger with the brown skin might be carrying a demon-child, the folken’d go the other way, and in a hurry. With Eben Took leading the parade. I know that in the end you’ll decide your course of action based on your own assessment of what the Calla needs, but the four of you can’t beat the Wolves without help, no matter how good you are with such calibers as you carry. There’s too much to manage.” Reply was unneccessary. Callahan was right. “What is it you fear most?” Callahan asked.

“The breaking of the tet,” Roland said at once.

“By that you mean Mia’s taking control of the body they share and going off on her own to have the child?”

“If that happened at the wrong time, it would be bad, but all might still come right. ” If Susannah came back.

But what she carries is nothing but poison with a heartbeat.” Roland looked bleakly at the religious in his black clothes. “I have every reason to believe it would begin its work by slaughtering the mother.”

“The breaking of the tet,” Callahan mused. “Not the death of your friend, but the breaking of the tet. I wonder if your friends know what sort of man you are, Roland?”

“They know,” Roland said, and on that subject said no more.

“What would you have of me?”

“First, an answer to a question. It’s clear to me that Rosalita knows a good deal of rough doctoring. Would she know enough to turn the baby out before its time? And the stomach for what she might find?”

They would all have to be there, of course—he and Eddie, Jake, too, as little as Roland liked the thought of it. Because the thing inside her had surely quickened by now, and even if its time hadn’t come, it would be dangerous. And its time is almost certainly close, he thought. / don’t know it for sure, but I feel it. I—

The thought broke off as he became aware of Callahan’s expression: horror, disgust, and mounting anger.

“Rosalita would never do such a thing. Mark well what I say. She’d die first.”

Roland was perplexed. “Why?”

“Because she’s a Catholic!”

“I don’t understand.”

Callahan saw the gunslinger really did not, and the sharpest edge of his anger was blunted. Yet Roland sensed that a great deal remained, like the bolt behind the head of an arrow. “It’s abortion you’re talking about!”

“Yes?”

“Roland… Roland.” Callahan lowered his head, and when he raised it, the anger appeared to be gone. In its place was a stony obduracy the gunslinger had seen before. Roland could no more break it than he could lift a mountain with his bare hands. “My church divides sins into two: venial sins, which are bearable in the sight of God, and mortal ones, which are not. Abortion is a mortal sin. It is murder.”

“Pere, we are speaking of a demon, not a human being.”

“So you say. That’s God’s business, not mine.”

“And if it kills her? Will you say the same then and so wash your hands of her?”

Roland had never heard the tale of Pontius Pilate and Callahan knew it. Still, he winced at the image. But his reply was firm enough. “You who spoke of the breaking of your tet before you spoke of the taking of her life!

Shame on you. Shame.”

“My quest—the quest of my ka-tet—is the Dark Tower, Pere. It’s not saving this world we’re about, or even this universe, but all universes. All of existence.”

“I don’t care,” Callahan said. “I can’t care. Now listen to me, Roland son of Steven, for I would have you hear me very well. Are you listening?”

Roland sighed. “Say thankya.”

“Rosa won’t give the woman an abortion. There are others in town who could, I have no doubt—even in a place where children are taken every twenty-some years by monsters from the dark land, such filthy arts are undoubtedly preserved—but if you go to one of them, you won’t need to worry about the Wolves. I’ll raise every hand in Calla Bryn Sturgis against you long before they come.”

Roland gazed at him unbelievingly. “Even though you know, as I’m sure you do, that we may be able to save a hundred other children? Human children, whose first task on earth would not be to eat their mothers?”

Callahan might not have heard. His face was very pale. “I’ll have more, do it please ya… and even if it don’t.

I’ll have your word, sworn upon the face of your father, that you’ll never suggest an abortion to the woman herself.”

A queer thought came to Roland: Now that this subject had arisen—had pounced upon them, like Jilly out of her box—Susannah was no longer Susannah to this man. She had become the woman. And another thought: How many monsters had Pere Callahan slain himself, with his own hand?

As often happened in times of extreme stress, Roland’s father spoke to him. This situation is not quite beyond saving, but should you carry on much further— should you give voice to such thoughts— it will be.

“I want your promise, Roland.”

“Or you’ll raise the town.”

“Aye.”

“And suppose Susannah decides to abort herself? Women do it, and she’s very far from stupid. She knows the stakes.”

“Mia—the baby’s true mother—will prevent it.”

“Don’t be so sure. Susannah Dean’s sense of self-preservation is very strong. And I believe her dedication to our quest is even stronger.”

Callahan hesitated. He looked away, lips pressed together in a tight white line. Then he looked back. ” You will prevent it,” he said. “As her dinh.”

Roland thought, I have just been Castled.

“All right,” he said. “I will tell her of our talk and make sure she understands the position you’ve put us in.

And I’ll tell her that she must not tell Eddie.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’d kill you, Pere. He’d kill you for your interference.”

Roland was somewhat gratified by the widening of Callahan’s eyes. He reminded himself again that he must raise no feelings in himself against this man, who simply was what he was. Had he not already spoken to them of the trap he carried with him wherever he went?

“Now listen to me as I’ve listened to you, for you now have a responsibility to all of us. Especially to ‘the woman.’ ”

Callahan winced a little, as if struck. But he nodded. “Tell me what you’d have.”

“For one thing, I’d have you watch her when you can. Like a hawk! In particular I’d have you watch for her working her fingers here.” Roland rubbed above his left eyebrow. “Or here.” Now he rubbed at his left temple. “Listen to her way of speaking. Be aware if it speeds up. Watch for her to start moving in little jerks.”