Home gained nationwide notice in 1977, when Mother Teresa visited, helped to serve dinner, and prayed with the clients. Magruder himself was the subject of a Newsweek cover story in 1980, when the East Side’s so-called “Street Angel” was named Manhattan’s Man of the Year by Mayor Ed Koch.
A doctor familiar with the case rated Magruder’s chances of pulling through as “no higher than three in ten.”
He said that, as well as being branded, Magruder was blinded by his assailants. “I think of myself as a merciful man,” the doctor said, “but in my opinion, the men who did this should be beheaded.”
Callahan reads the article again, wondering if this is “his” Rowan Magruder or another one— a Rowan Magruder from a world where a guy named Chadbourne is on some of the greenbacks, say. He’s somehow sure that it’s his, and that he was meant to see this particular item. Certainly he is in what he thinks of as the
“real world” now, and it’s not just the thin sheaf of currency in his wallet that tells him so. It’s a feeling, a kind of tone. A truth. If so (and it is so, he knows it), how much he has missed out here on the hidden highways. Mother Teresa came to visit! Helped to ladle out soup! Hell, for all Callahan knows, maybe she cooked up a big old mess of Toads n Dumplins! Could’ve; the recipe was right there, Scotch-taped to the wall beside the stove. And an award! The cover of Newsweek.’ He’s pissed he didn’t see that, but you don’t see the news magazines very regularly when you’re traveling with the carnival and fixing the Krazy Kups or mucking out the bull-stalls behind the rodeo in Enid, Oklahoma.
He is so deeply ashamed that he doesn’t even know he’s ashamed. Not even when Juan Castillo says, “Why joo crine, Donnie?”
“Am I?” he asks, and wipes underneath his eyes, and yeah, he is. He is crying. But he doesn’t know it’s for shame, not then. He assumes it’s shock, and probably part of it is. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Where joo goan?” Juan persists. “Lunch break’s almost over, man.”
“I have to leave,” Callahan says. “I have to go back east.”
” You take off, they ain goan pay joo. ”
” I know, ” Callahan says. “It’s okay. ”
And what a lie that is. Because nothing’s okay.
Nothing.
SIX
“I had a couple of hundred dollars sewn into the bottom of my backpack,” Callahan said. They were now sitting on the steps of the church in the bright sunshine. “I bought an airplane ticket back to New York. Speed was of the essence—of course—but that really wasn’t the only reason. I had to get off those highways in hiding.” He gave Eddie a small nod. “The todash turnpikes. They’re as addictive as the booze—”
“More,” Roland said. He saw three figures coming toward them: Rosalita, shepherding the Tavery twins, Frank and Francine. The girl had a large sheet of paper in her hands and was carrying it out in front of her with an air of reverence that was almost comic. “Wandering’s the most addictive drug there is, I think, and every hidden road leads on to a dozen more.”
“You say true, I say thankya,” Callahan replied. He looked gloomy and sad and, Roland thought, a little lost.
“Pere, we’d hear the rest of your tale, but I’d have you save it until evening. Or tomorrow evening, if we don’t get back until tüen. Our young friend Jake will be here shortly—”
“You know that, do you?” Callahan asked, interested but not disbelieving.
“Aye,” Susannah said.
“I’d see what you have in there before he comes,” Roland said. “The story of how you came by it is part of your story, I think—”
“Yes,” Callahan said. “It is. The point of my story, I think.”
“—and must wait its place. As for now, things are stacking up.”
“They have a way of doing that,” Callahan said. “For months—sometimes even years, as I tried to explain to you— time hardly seems to exist. Then everything comes in a gasp.”
“You say true,” Roland said. “Step over with me to see the twins, Eddie. I believe the young lady has her eye on you.”
“She can look as much as she wants,” Susannah said good-humoredly. “Lookin’s free. I might just sit here in the sun on these steps, Roland, if it’s all the same to you. Been a long time since I rode, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m saddle-sore. Not having any lower pins seems to put everything else out of whack.”
“Do ya either way,” Roland said, but he didn’t mean it and Eddie knew he didn’t. The gunslinger wanted Susannah to stay right where she was, for the time being. He could only hope Susannah wasn’t catching the same vibe.
As they walked toward the children and Rosalita, Roland spoke to Eddie, low and quick. “I’m going into the church with him by myself. Just know that it’s not the both of you I want to keep away from whatever’s in there. If it is Black Thirteen— and I believe it must be—it’s best she not go near it.”
“Given her delicate condition, you mean. Roland, I would have thought Suze having a miscarriage would almost be something you’d want.”
Roland said: “It’s not a miscarriage that concerns me. I’m worried about Black Thirteen making the thing inside her even stronger.” He paused again. ” Both things, mayhap. The baby and the baby’s keeper.”
“Mia.”
“Yes, her.” Then he smiled at the Tavery twins. Francine gave him a perfunctory smile in return, saving full wattage for Eddie.
“Let me see what you’ve made, if you would,” Roland said.
Frank Tavery said, “We hope it’s all right. Might not be. We were afraid, do ya. It’s such a wonderful piece of paper the missus gave us, we were afraid.”
“We drew on the ground first,” Francine said. “Then in lightest char. ‘Twas Frank did the final; my hands were all a-shake.”
“No fear,” Roland said. Eddie drew close and looked over his shoulder. The map was a marvel of detail, with the Town Gathering Hall and the common at the center and the Big River/Devar-Tete running along the left side of the paper, which looked to Eddie like an ordinary mimeo sheet. The kind available by the ream at any office supply store in America.
“Kids, this is absolutely terrific,” Eddie said, and for a moment he thought Francine Tavery might actually faint.
“Aye,” Roland said. “You’ve done a great service. And now I’m going to do something that will probably look like blasphemy to you. You know the word?”
“Yes,” Frank said. “We’re Christians. ‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God or His Son, the Man Jesus, in vain.’ But blasphemy is also to commit a rude act upon a thing of beauty.”
His tone was deeply serious, but he looked interested to see what blasphemy the outworlder meant to commit. His sister did, too.
Roland folded the paper—which they had almost dared not touch, in spite of their obvious skill—in half. The children gasped. So did Rosalita Munoz, although not quite as loudly.
“It’s not blasphemy to treat it so because it’s no longer just paper,” Roland said. “It has become a tool, and tools must be protected. D’ye ken?”
“Yes,” they said, but doubtfully. Their confidence was at least partly restored by the care with which Roland stowed the folded map in his purse.
“Thankya big-big,” Roland said. He took Francine’s hand in his left, Frank’s in his diminished right. “You may have saved lives with your hands and eyes.”
Francine burst into tears. Frank held his own back until he grinned. Then they overspilled and ran down his freckled cheeks.
SEVEN
Walking back to the church steps, Eddie said: “Good kids. Talented kids.”
Roland nodded.
“Can you see one of them coming back from Thunderclap a drooling idiot?”
Roland, who could see it all too well, made no reply.
EIGHT
Susannah accepted Roland’s decision that she and Eddie should stay outside the church with no argument, and the gunslinger found himself remembering her reluctance to enter the vacant lot. He wondered if part of her was afraid of the same thing he was. If that was the case, the battle— her battle—had already begun.
“How long before I come in and drag you out?” Eddie asked.
“Before we come in and drag you out?” Susannah corrected him.
Roland considered. It was a good question. He looked at Callahan, who stood on the top step in blue jeans and a plaid shirt rolled to the elbows. His hands were clasped in front of him. Roland saw good muscle on those forearms.
The Old Fella shrugged. “It sleeps. There should be no problem. But—” He unlocked one of his gnarled hands and pointed at the gun on Roland’s hip. “I sh’d ditch that. Mayhap it sleeps with one eye open.”