“Thank you, Roland. You’re growing in that respect. Ask me if I think Tower and Deepneau can get out of New York City clean.”
“Do you?”
“No, I think they’ll leave a trail. We could follow it, but I’m hoping Balazar’s men won’t be able to. The one I worry about is Jack Andolini. He’s creepy-smart. As for Balazar, he made a contract with this Sombra Corporation.”
“Took the king’s salt.”
“Yeah, I guess somewhere up the line he did,” Eddie said. He had heard King instead of king, as in Crimson King. “Balazar knows that when you make a contract, you have to fill it or have a damned good reason why not. Fail and word gets out. Stories start to circulate about how so-and-so’s going soft, losing his shit. They’ve still got three weeks to find Tower and force him to sell the lot to Sombra. They’ll use it. Balazar’s not the FBI, but he is a connected guy, and… Roland, the worst thing about Tower is that in some ways, none of this is real to him. It’s like he’s mistaken his life for a life in one of his storybooks. He thinks things have got to turn out all right because the writer’s under contract.”
“You think he’ll be careless.”
Eddie voiced a rather wild laugh. “Oh, I know he’ll be careless. The question is whether or not Balazar will catch him at it”
“We’re going to have to monitor Mr. Tower. Mind him for safety’s sake. That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“Yer-bugger!” Eddie said, and after a moment’s silent consideration, both of them burst out laughing. When the fit had passed, Eddie said: “I think we ought to send Callahan, if he’ll go. You probably think I’m crazy, but—”
“Not at all,” Roland said. “He’s one of us… or could be. I felt that from the first. And he’s used to traveling in strange places. I’ll put it to him today. Tomorrow I’ll come up here with him and see him through the doorway
—”
“Let me do it,” Eddie said. “Once was enough for you. At least for awhile.”
Roland eyed him carefully, then pitched his cigarette over the drop. “Why do you say so, Eddie?”
“Your hair’s gotten whiter up around here.” Eddie patted the crown of his own head. “Also, you’re walking a little stiff. It’s better now, but I’d guess the old rheumatiz kicked in on you a little. Fess up.”
“All right, I fess,” Roland said. If Eddie thought it was no more than old Mr. Rheumatiz, that was not so bad.
“Actually, I could bring him up tonight, long enough to get the zip code,” Eddie said. “It’ll be day again over there, I bet.”
“None of us is coming up this path in the dark. Not if we can help it.”
Eddie looked down the steep incline to where the fallen boulder jutted out, turning fifteen feet of their course into a tightrope-walk. “Point taken.”
Roland started to get up. Eddie reached out and took his arm. “Stay a couple of minutes longer, Roland. Do ya.”
Roland sat down again, looking at him.
Eddie took a deep breath, let it out. “Ben Slightman’s dirty,” he said. “He’s the tattletale. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Yes, I know.”
Eddie looked at him, wide-eyed. “You know? How could you possibly—”
“Let’s say I suspected.”
“How?”
“His spectacles,” Roland said. “Ben Slightman the Elder’s the only person in Calla Bryn Sturgis with spectacles. Come on, Eddie, day’s waiting. We can talk as we walk.”
SEVENTEEN
They couldn’t, though, not at first, because the path was too steep and narrow. But later, as they approached the bottom of the mesa, it grew wider and more forgiving. Talk once more became practical, and Eddie told Roland about the book, The Dogan or The Hogan, and the author’s oddly disputable name. He recounted the oddity of the copyright page (not entirely sure that Roland grasped this part), and said it had made him wonder if something was pointing toward the son, too. That seemed like a crazy idea, but—
“I think that if Benny Slightman was helping his father inform on us,” Roland said, “Jake would know.”
“Are you sure he doesn’t?” Eddie asked.
This gave Roland some pause. Then he shook his head. “Jake suspects the father.”
“He told you that?”
“He didn’t have to.”
They had almost reached the horses, who raised their heads alertly and seemed glad to see them.
“He’s out there at the Rocking B,” Eddie said. “Maybe we ought to take a ride out there. Invent some reason to bring him back to the Pere’s…” He trailed off, looking at Roland closely. “No?”
“No.” ‘
“Why not?”
“Because this is Jake’s part of it.”
“That’s hard, Roland. He and Benny Slightman like each other. A lot. If Jake ends up being the one to show the Calla what his Dad’s been doing—”
“Jake will do what he needs to do,” Roland said. “So will we all.”
“But he’s still just a boy, Roland. Don’t you see that?”
“He won’t be for much longer,” Roland said, and mounted up. He hoped Eddie didn’t see the momentary wince of pain that cramped his face when he swung his right leg over the saddle, but of course Eddie did.
Chapter III: The Dogan, Part 2
ONE
Jake and Benny Slightman spent the morning of that same day moving hay bales from the upper lofts of the Rocking B’s three inner barns to the lower lofts, then breaking them open. The afternoon was for swimming and water-fighting in the Whye, which was still pleasant enough if one avoided the deep pools; those had grown cold with the season.
In between these two activities they ate a huge lunch in the bunkhouse with half a dozen of the hands (not Slightman the Elder; he was off at Telford’s Buckhead Ranch, working a stock-trade). “I en’t seen that boy of Ben’s work’s’hard in my life,” Cookie said as he put fried chops down on the table and the boys dug in eagerly. “You’ll wear him plumb out, Jake.”
That was Jake’s intention, of course. After haying in the morning, swimming in the afternoon, and a dozen or more barn-jumps for each of them by the red light of evening, he thought Benny would sleep like the dead.
The problem was he might do the same himself. When he went out to wash at the pump—sunset come and gone by then, leaving ashes of roses deepening to true dark—he took Oy with him. He splashed his face clean and flicked drops of water for the animal to catch, which he did with great alacrity. Then Jake dropped to one knee and gently took hold of the sides of the billy-bumbler’s face. “Listen to me, Oy.”
“Oy!”
“I’m going to go to sleep, but when the moon rises, I want you to wake me up. Quietly, do’ee ken?”
“Ken!” Which might mean something or nothing. If someone had been taking wagers on it, Jake would have bet on something. He had great faith in Oy. Or maybe it was love. Or maybe those things were the same.
“When the moon rises. Say moon, Oy.”
“Moon!”
Sounded good, but Jake would set his own internal alarm clock to wake him up at moonrise. Because he wanted to go out to where he’d seen Benny’s Da’ and Andy that other time. That queer meeting worried at his mind more rather than less as time went by. He didn’t want to believe Benny’s Da’ was involved with the Wolves—Andy, either—but he had to make sure. Because it was what Roland would do. For that reason if no other.
TWO
The two boys lay in Benny’s room. There was one bed, which Benny had of course offered to his guest, but Jake had refused it. What they’d come up with instead was a system by which Benny took the bed on what he called “even-hand” nights, and Jake took it on “odd-hand” nights. This was Jake’s night for the floor, and he was glad. Benny’s goosedown-filled mattress was far too soft. In light of his plan to rise with the moon, the floor was probably better. Safer.
Benny lay with his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. He had coaxed Oy up onto the bed with him and the bumbler lay sleeping in a curled comma, his nose beneath his cartoon squiggle of a tail.
“Jake?” A whisper. “You asleep?”
“No.”
“Me neither.” A pause. “It’s been great, having you here.”
“It’s been great for me,” Jake said, and meant it.
“Sometimes being the only kid gets lonely.”
“Don’t I know it… and I was always the only one.” Jake paused. “Bet you were sad after your sissa died.”
“Sometimes I’m still sad.” At least he said it in a matter-of-fact tone, which made it easier to hear. “Reckon you’ll stay after you beat the Wolves?”
“Probably not long.”