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

“True enough,” Roland said, and hoped neither his voice nor his face would give away any of the sorrow and regret he suddenly felt. Here was a boy who was now ashamed of being a boy. He had made a friend and the friend had invited him to stay over, as friends sometimes do. Benny had undoubtedly promised that Jake could help him feed the animals, and perhaps shoot his bow (or his bah, if it shot bolts instead of arrows).

There would be places Benny would want to share, secret places he might have gone to with his twin in other times. A platform in a tree, mayhap, or a fishpond in the reeds special to him, or a stretch of riverbank where pirates of eld were reputed to have buried gold and jewels. Such places as boys go. But a large part of Jake Chambers was now ashamed to want to do such things. This was the part that had been despoiled by the doorkeeper in Dutch Hill, by Gasher, by the Tick-Tock Man. And by Roland himself, of course. Were he to say no to Jake’s request now, the boy would very likely never ask again. And never resent him for it, which was even worse. Were he to say yes in the wrong way—with even the slightest trace of indulgence in his voice, for instance—the boy would change his mind.

The boy. The gunslinger realized how much he wanted to be able to go on calling Jake that, and how short the time to do so was apt to be. He had a bad feeling about Calla Bryn Sturgis.

“Go with them after they dine us in the Pavilion tonight,” Roland said. “Go and do ya fine, as they say here.”

“Are you sure? Because if you think you might need me—”

“Your father’s saying is a good one. My old teacher—”

“Cort or Vannay?”

“Cort. He used to tell us that a one-eyed man sees flat. It takes two eyes, set a little apart from each other, to see things as they really are. So aye. Go with them. Make the boy your friend, if that seems natural. He seems likely enough.”

“Yeah,” Jake said briefly. But the color was going down in his cheeks again. Roland was pleased to see this.

“Spend tomorrow with him. And his friends, if he has a gang he goes about with.”

Jake shook his head. “It’s far out in the country. Ben says that Eisenhart’s got plenty of help around the place, and there are some kids his age, but he’s not allowed to play with them. Because he’s the foreman’s son, I guess.”

Roland nodded. This did not surprise him. “You’ll be offered graf tonight in the Pavilion. Do you need me to tell you it’s iced tea once we’re past the first toast?”

Jake shook his head.

Roland touched his temple, his lips, the corner of one eye, his lips again. “Head clear. Mouth shut. See much.

Say little.”

Jake grinned briefly and gave him a thumbs-up. “What about you?”

“The three of us will stay with the priest tonight. I’m in hopes that tomorrow we may hear his tale.”

“And see…” They had fallen a bit behind the others, but Jake still lowered his voice. “See what he told us about?”

“That I don’t know,” Roland said. “The day after tomorrow, we three will ride out to the Rocking B. Perhaps noon with sai Eisenhart and have a bit of palaver. Then, over the next few days, the four of us will have a look at this town, both the inner and the outer. If things go well for you at the ranch, Jake, I’d have you stay there as long as you like and as much as they’ll have you.”

“Really?” Although he kept his face well (as the saying went), the gunslinger thought Jake was very pleased by this.

“Aye. From what I make out—what I ken—there’s three big bugs in Calla Bryn Sturgis. Overholser’s one.

Took, the storekeeper, is another. The third one’s Eisenhart. I’d hear what you make of him with great interest.”

“You’ll hear,” Jake said. “And thankee-sai.” He tapped his throat three times. Then his seriousness broke into a broad grin. A boy’s grin. He urged his horse into a trot, moving up to tell his new friend that yes, he might stay the night, yes, he could come and play.

FOUR

“Holy wow,” Eddie said. The words came out low and slow, almost the exclamation of an awestruck cartoon character. But after nearly two months in the woods, the view warranted an exclamation. And there was the element of surprise. At one moment they’d just been clopping along the forest trail, mostly by twos (Overholser rode alone at the head of the group, Roland alone at its tail). At the next the trees were gone and the land itself fell away to the north, south, and east. They were thus presented with a sudden, breathtaking, stomach-dropping view of the town whose children they were supposed to save.

Yet at first, Eddie had no eyes at all for what was spread out directly below him, and when he glanced at Susannah and Jake, he saw they were also looking beyond the Calla. Eddie didn’t have to look around at Roland to know he was looking beyond, too. Definition of a wanderer, Eddie thought, a guy who’s always looking beyond.

“Aye, quite the view, we tell the gods thankee,” Overholser said complacently; and then, with a glance at Callahan, “Man Jesus as well, a’course, all gods is one when it comes to thanks, so I’ve heard, and ’tis a good enough saying.”

He might have prattled on. Probably did; when you were the big farmer, you usually got to have your say, and all the way to the end. Eddie took no notice. He had returned his attention to the view.

Ahead of them, beyond the village, was a gray band of river running south. The branch of the Big River known as Devar-Tete Whye, Eddie remembered. Where it came out of the forest, the Devar-Tete ran between steep banks, but they lowered as the river entered the first cultivated fields, then fell away entirely. He saw a few stands of palm trees, green and improbably tropical. Beyond the moderate-sized village, the land west of the river was a brilliant green shot through everywhere with more gray. Eddie was sure that on a sunny day, that gray would turn a brilliant blue, and that when the sun was directly overhead, the glare would be too bright to look at. He was looking at rice-fields. Or maybe you called them paddies.

Beyond them and east of the river was desert, stretching for miles. Eddie could see parallel scratches of metal running into it, and made them for railroad tracks.

And beyond the desert—or obscuring the rest of it—was simple blackness. It rose into the sky like a vapory wall, seeming to cut into the low-hanging clouds.

“Yon’s Thunderclap, sai,” Zalia Jaffords said.

Eddie nodded. “Land of the Wolves. And God knows what else.”

“Yer-bugger,” Slightman the Younger said. He was trying to sound bluff and matter-of-fact, but to Eddie he looked plenty scared, maybe on the verge of tears. But the Wolves wouldn’t take him, surely—if your twin died, that made you a singleton by default, didn’t it? Well, it had certainly worked for Elvis Presley, but of course the King hadn’t come from Calla Bryn Sturgis. Or even Calla Lockwood to the south.

“Naw, the King was a Mis’sippi boy,” Eddie said, low.

Tian turned in his saddle to look at him. “Beg your pardon, sai?”

Eddie, not aware that he’d spoken aloud, said: “I’m sorry. I was talking to myself.”

Andy the Messenger Robot (Many Other Functions) came striding back up the path from ahead of them in time to hear this. “Those who hold conversation with themselves keep sorry company. This is an old saying of the Calla, sai Eddie, don’t take it personally, I beg.”

“And, as I’ve said before and will undoubtedly say again, you can’t get snot off a suede jacket, my friend. An old saying from Calla Bryn Brooklyn.”

Andy’s innards clicked. His blue eyes flashed. ” Snot: mucus from the nose. Also a disrespectful or supercilious person. Suede: this is a leather product which—”

“Never mind, Andy,” Susannah said. “My friend is just being silly. He does this quite frequently.”

“Oh yes,” Andy said. “He is a child of winter. Would you like me to tell your horoscope, Susannah-sai? You will meet a handsome man! You will have two ideas, one bad and one good! You will have a dark-haired—”

“Get out of here, idiot,” Overholser said. “Right into town, straight line, no wandering. Check that all’s well at the Pavilion. No one wants to hear your goddamned horoscopes, begging your pardon, Old Fella.”

Callahan made no reply. Andy bowed, tapped his metal throat three times, and set off down the trail, which was steep but comfortingly wide. Susannah watched him go with what might have been relief.