Not that Eddie was allowed much time for introspection. He knew from Roland’s stories (and from having seen him in action a couple of times) that the gunslingers of Gilead had been much more than peace officers.
They had also been messengers, accountants, sometimes spies, once in awhile even executioners. More than anything else, however, they had been diplomats. Eddie, raised by his brother and his friends with such nuggets of wisdom as Why can’t you eat me like your sister does and I fucked your mother and she sure was fine, not to mention the ever-popular I don’t shut up I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up, would never have thought of himself a diplomat, but on the whole he thought he handled himself pretty well. Only Telford was hard, and the band shut him up, say thankya.
God knew it was a case of sink or swim; the Calla-folk might be frightened of the Wolves, but they weren’t shy when it came to asking how Eddie and the others of his tet would handle them. Eddie realized Roland had done him a very big favor, making him speak in front of the entire bunch of them. It had warmed him up a little for this.
He told all of them the same things, over and over. It would be impossible to talk strategy until they had gotten a good look at the town. Impossible to tell how many men of the Calla would need to join them. Time would show. They’d peek at daylight. There would be water if God willed it. Plus every other cliche he could think of. (It even crossed his mind to promise them a chicken in every pot after the Wolves were vanquished, but he stayed his tongue before it could wag so far.) A smallhold farmer named Jorge Estrada wanted to know what they’d do if the Wolves decided to light the village on fire. Another, Garrett Strong, wanted Eddie to tell them where the children would be kept safe when the Wolves came. “For we can’t leave em here, you must kennit very well,” he said. Eddie, who realized he kenned very little, sipped at his graf and was noncommittal. A fellow named Neil Faraday (Eddie couldn’t tell if he was a smallhold farmer or just a hand) approached and told Eddie this whole thing had gone too far. “They never take all the children, you know,”
he said. Eddie thought of asking Faraday what he’d make of someone who said, “Well, only two of them raped my wife,” and decided to keep the comment to himself. A dark-skinned, mustached fellow named Louis Haycox introduced himself and told Eddie he had decided Tian Jaffords was right. He’d spent many sleepless nights since the meeting, thinking it over, and had finally decided that he would stand and fight. If they wanted him, that was. The combination of sincerity and terror Eddie saw in the man’s face touched him deeply. This was no excited kid who didn’t know what he was doing but a full-grown man who probably knew all too well.
So here they came with their questions and there they went with no real answers, but looking more satisfied even so. Eddie talked until his mouth was dry, then exchanged his wooden cup of graf for cold tea, not wanting to get drunk. He didn’t want to eat any more, either; he was stuffed. But still they came. Cash and Estrada. Strong and Echeverria. Winkler and Spalter (cousins of Overholser’s, they said). Freddy Rosario and Farren Posella… or was it Freddy Posella and Farren Rosario?
Every ten or fifteen minutes the torches would change color again. From red to green, from green to orange, from orange to blue. The jugs of graf circulated. The talk grew louder. So did the laughter. Eddie began to hear more frequent cries of Yer-bugger and something that sounded like Dive-down!, always followed by laughter.
He saw Roland speaking with an old man in a blue cloak. The old fellow had the thickest, longest, whitest beard Eddie had ever seen outside of a TV Bible epic. He spoke earnestly, looking up into Roland’s weatherbeaten face. Once he touched the gunslinger’s arm, pulled it a little. Roland listened, nodded, said nothing—not while Eddie was watching him, anyway. But he’s interested, Eddie thought. Oh yeah— old long tall and ugly’s hearing something that interests him a lot.
The musicians were trooping back to the bandstand when someone else stepped up to Eddie. It was the fellow who had reminded him of Pa Cartwright.
“George Telford,” he said. “May you do well, Eddie of New York.” He gave his forehead a perfunctory tap
with the side of his fist, then opened the hand and held it out. He wore rancher’s headgear—a cowboy hat instead of a farmer’s sombrero—but his palm felt remarkably soft, except for a line of callus running along the base of his fingers. That’s where he holds the reins, Eddie thought, and when it comes to work, that’s probably it.
Eddie gave a little bow. “Long days and pleasant nights, sai Telford.” It crossed his mind to ask if Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe were back at the Ponderosa, but he decided again to keep his wiseacre mouth shut.
“May’ee have twice the number, son, twice the number.” He looked at the gun on Eddie’s hip, then up at Eddie’s face. His eyes were shrewd and not particularly friendly. “Your dinh wears the mate of that, I ken.”
Eddie smiled, said nothing.
“Wayne Overholser says yer ka-babby put on quite a shooting exhibition with another ‘un. I believe yer wife’s wearing it tonight?”
“I believe she is,” Eddie said, not much caring for that ka-babby thing. He knew very well that Susannah had the Ruger. Roland had decided it would be better if Jake didn’t go armed out to Eisenhart’s Rocking B.
“Four against forty’d be quite a pull, wouldn’t you say?” Telford asked. “Yar, a hard pull that’d be. Or mayhap there might be sixty come in from the east; no one seems to remember for sure, and why would they?
Twenty-three years is a long time of peace, tell God aye and Man Jesus thankya.”
Eddie smiled and said a little more nothing, hoping Telford would move along to another subject. Hoping Telford would go away, actually.
No such luck. Pissheads always hung around: it was almost a law of nature. “Of course four armed against forty… or sixty… would be a sight better than three armed and one standing by to raise a cheer. Especially four armed with hard calibers, may you hear me.”
“Hear you just fine,” Eddie said. Over by the platform where they had been introduced, Zalia Jaffords was telling Susannah something. Eddie thought Suze also looked interested. She gets the farmer’s wife, Roland gets the Lord of the fuckin Rings, Jake gets to make a friend, and what do I get? A guy who looks like Pa Cartwright and cross-examines like Perry Mason.
” Do you have more guns?” Telford asked. “Surely you must have more, if you think to make a stand against the Wolves. Myself, I think the idea’s madness; I’ve made no secret of it. Vaughn Eisenhart feels the same—”
“Overholser felt that way and changed his mind,” Eddie said in a just-passing-the-time kind of way. He sipped tea and looked at Telford over the rim of his cup, hoping for a frown. Maybe even a brief look of exasperation. He got neither.
“Wayne the Weathervane,” Telford said, and chuckled. “Yar, yar, swings this way and that. Wouldn’t be too sure of him yet, young sai.”
Eddie thought of saying, If you think this is an election you better think again, and then didn’t. Mouth shut, see much, say little.
“Do’ee have speed-shooters, p’raps?” Telford asked. “Or grenados?”
“Oh well,” Eddie said, “that’s as may be.”
” “I never heard of a woman gunslinger.”
“No?”
“Or a boy, for that matter. Even a ‘prentice. How are we to know you are who you say you are? Tell me, I beg.”
“Well, that’s a hard one to answer,” Eddie said. He had taken a strong dislike to Telford, who looked too old to have children at risk.
“Yet people will want to know,” Telford said. “Certainly before they bring the storm.”
Eddie remembered Roland’s saying We may be cast on but no man may cast us back. It was clear they didn’t understand that yet. Certainly Telford didn’t. Of course there were questions that had to be answered, and answered yes; Callahan had mentioned that and Roland had confirmed it. Three of them. The first was something about aid and succor. Eddie didn’t think those questions had been asked yet, didn’t see how they could have been, but he didn’t think they would be asked in the Gathering Hall when the time came. The answers might be given by little people like Posella and Rosario, who didn’t even know what they were saying. People who did have children at risk.