Wolves of the Calla dt-5

by Stephen King

  "Lady Oh-RIZA!" Susannah screamed, and flung one final plate as the Wolf reined its horse around, turning it east, toward whatever it called home. The plate rose, screaming, and clipped off the top of the green hood. For a moment this last child thief sat in its saddle, shuddering and blaring out its alarm, calling for help that couldn't come. Then it snapped violently backward, turning a complete somersault in midair, and thudded to the road. Its siren cut off in mid-whoop.

  And so, Roland thought, our five minutes are over. He looked dully at the smoking barrel of his revolver, then dropped it back into its holster. One by one the alarms issuing from the downed robots were stopping.

  Zalia was looking at him with a kind of dazed incomprehension. "Roland!" she said.

  "Yes, Zalia."

  "Are they gone? Can they be gone? Really?"

  "All gone," Roland said. "I counted sixty-one, and they all lie here or on the road or in our ditch."

  For a moment Tian's wife only stood there, processing this information. Then she did something that surprised a man who was not often surprised. She threw herself against him, pressing her body frankly to his, and covered his face with hungry, wet-lipped kisses. Roland bore this for a little bit, then held her away. The sickness was coming now. The feeling of uselessness. The sense that he would fight this battle or battles like it over and over for eternity, losing a finger to the lobstrosities here, perhaps an eye to a clever old witch there, and after each battle he would sense the Dark Tower a little farther away instead of a little closer. And all the time the dry twist would work its way in toward his heart.

  Stop that, he told himself. It's nonsense, and you know it.

  "Will they send more, Roland?" Rosa asked.

  "They may have no more to send," Roland said. "If they do, there'll almost certainly be fewer of them. And now you know the secret to killing them, don't you?"

  "Yes," she said, and gave him a savage grin. Her eyes promised him more than kisses later on, if he'd have her.

  "Go down through the corn," he told her. "You and Zalia both. Tell them it's safe to come up now. Lady Oriza has stood friend to the Calla this day. And to the line of Eld, as well."

  "Will ye not come yourself?" Zalia asked him. She had stepped away from him, and her cheeks were filled with fire. "Will ye not come and let em cheer ye?"

  "Perhaps later on we may all hear them cheer us," Roland said. "Now we need to speak an-tet. The boy's had a bad shock, ye ken."

  "Yes," Rosa said. "Yes, all right. Come on, Zee." She reached out and took Zalia's hand. "Help me be the bearer of glad tidings."

  SEVENTEEN

  The two women crossed the road, making a wide berth around the tumbled, bloody remains of the poor Slightman lad. Zalia thought that most of what was left of him was only held together by his clothes, and shivered to think of the father's grief.

  The young man's shor'leg lady-sai was at the far north end of the ditch, examining the bodies of the Wolves scattered there. She found one where the little revolving thing hadn't been entirely shot off, and was still trying to turn. The Wolfs green-gloved hands shivered uncontrollably in the dust, as if with palsy. While Rosa and Zalia watched, Susannah picked up a largish chunk of rock and, cool as a night in Wide Earth, brought it down on the remains of the thinking-cap. The Wolf stilled immediately. The low hum that had been coming from it stopped.

  "We go to tell the others, Susannah," Rosa said. "But first we want to tell thee well-done. How we do love thee, say true!"

  Zalia nodded. "We say thankya, Susannah of New York. We say thankya more big-big than could ever be told."

  "Yar, say true," Rosa agreed.

  The lady-sai looked up at them and smiled sweetly. For a moment Rosalita looked a little doubtful, as if maybe she saw something in that dark-brown face that she shouldn't. Saw that Susannah Dean was no longer here, for instance. Then the expression of doubt was gone. "We go with good news, Susannah," said she.

  "Wish you joy of it," said Mia, daughter of none. "Bring them back as you will. Tell them the danger here's over, and let those who don't believe count the dead."

  "The legs of your pants are wet, do ya," Zalia said.

  Mia nodded gravely. Another contraction had turned her belly to a stone, but she gave no sign. " 'Tis blood, I'm afraid." She nodded toward the headless body of the big rancher's wife. "Hers."

  The women started down through the corn, hand-in-hand. Mia watched Roland, Eddie, and Jake cross the road toward her. This would be the dangerous time, right here. Yet perhaps not too dangerous, after all; Susannah's friends looked dazed in the aftermath of the battle. If she seemed a little off her feed, perhaps they would think the same of her.

  She thought mostly it would be a matter of waiting her opportunity. Waiting… and then slipping away. In the meantime, she rode the contraction of her belly like a boat riding a high wave.

  They'll know where you went, a voice whispered. It wasn't a head-voice but a belly-voice. The voice of the chap. And that voice spoke true.

  Take the ball with you, the voice told her. Take it with you when you go. Leave them no door to follow you through.

  Aye.

  EIGHTEEN

  The Ruger cracked out a single shot and a horse died.

  From below the road, from the rice, came a rising roar of joy that was not quite disbelieving. Zalia and Rosa had given their good news. Then a shrill cry of grief cut through the mingled voices of happiness. They had given the bad, as well.

  Jake Chambers sat on the wheel of the overturned waggon. He had unharnessed the three horses that were okay. The fourth had been lying with two broken legs, foaming helplessly through its teeth and looking to the boy for help. The boy had given it. Now he sat staring at his dead friend. Benny's blood was soaking into the road. The hand on the end of Benny's arm lay palm-up, as if the dead boy wanted to shake hands with God. What God? According to current rumor, the top of the Dark Tower was empty.

  From Lady Oriza's rice came a second scream of grief. Which had been Slightman, which Vaughn Eisenhart? At a distance, Jake thought, you couldn't tell the rancher from the foreman, the employer from the employee. Was there a lesson there, or was it what Ms. Avery, back at good old Piper, would have called fear, false evidence appearing real?

  The palm pointing up to the brightening sky, that was certainly real.

  Now the folken began to sing. Jake recognized the song. It was a new version of the one Roland had sung on their first night in Calla Bryn Sturgis.

  "Come-come-commala

  Rice come a-falla

  I-sissa 'ay a-bralla

  Dey come a-folla

  We went to a-rivva

  'Riza did us kivva…"

  The rice swayed with the passage of the singing folken, swayed as if it were dancing for their joy, as Roland had danced for them that torchlit night. Some came with babbies in their arms, and even so burdened, they swayed from side to side. We all danced this morning, Jake thought. He didn't know what he meant, only that it was a true thought. The dance we do. The only one we know. Benny Slightman?Died dancing. SaiEisenhart, too.

  Roland and Eddie came over to him; Susannah, too, but she hung back a bit, as if deciding that, at least for the time being, the boys should be with the boys. Roland was smoking, and Jake nodded at it.

  "Roll me one of those, would you?"

  Roland turned in Susannah's direction, eyebrows raised. She shrugged, then nodded. Roland rolled Jake a cigarette, gave it to him, then scratched a match on the seat of his pants and lit it. Jake sat on the waggon wheel, taking the smoke in occasional puffs, holding it in his mouth, then letting it out. His mouth filled up with spit. He didn't mind. Unlike some things, spit could be got rid of. He made no attempt to inhale.

  Roland looked down the hill, where the first of the two running men was just entering the corn. "That's Slightman," he said. "Good."

  "Why good, Roland?" Eddie asked.

  "Because sai Slightman will have accusations to make," Roland said.
"In his grief, he isn't going to care who hears them, or what his extraordinary knowledge might say about his part in this morning's work."

  "Dance," Jake said.

  They turned to look at him. He sat pale and thoughtful on the waggon-wheel, holding his cigarette. "This morning's dance," he said.

  Roland appeared to consider this, then nodded. "His part in this morning's dance. If he gets here soon enough, we may be able to quiet him. If not, his son's death is only going to be the start of Ben Slightman's commala."

  NINETEEN

  Slightman was almost fifteen years younger than the rancher, and arrived at the site of the battle well before the other. For a moment he only stood on the far edge of the hide, considering the shattered body lying in the road. There was not so much blood, now-the oggan had drunk it greedily-but the severed arm still lay where it had been, and the severed arm told all. Roland would no more have moved it before Slightman got here than he would have opened his flies and pissed on the boy's corpse. Slightman the Younger had reached the clearing at the end of his path. His father, as next of kin, had a right to see where and how it had happened.

  The man stood quiet for perhaps five seconds, then pulled in a deep breath and let it out in a shriek. It chilled Eddie's blood. He looked around for Susannah and saw she was no longer there. He didn't blame her for ducking out. This was a bad scene. The worst.

  Slightman looked left, looked right, then looked straight ahead and saw Roland, standing beside the overturned waggon with his arms crossed. Beside him, Jake still sat on the wheel, smoking his first cigarette.

  "YOU!" Slightman screamed. He was carrying his bah; now he unslung it. "YOU DID THIS! YOU!"

  Eddie plucked the weapon deftly from Slightman's hands. "No, you don't, partner," he murmured. "You don't need this right now, why don't you let me keep it for you."

  Slightman seemed not to notice. Incredibly, his right hand still made circular motions in the air, as if winding the bah for a shot.

  "YOU KILLED MY SON! TO PAY ME BACK! YOU BASTARD! MURDERING BAS- "

  Moving with the eerie, spooky speed that Eddie could still not completely believe, Roland seized Slightman around the neck in the crook of one arm, then yanked him forward. The move simultaneously cut off the flow of the man's accusations and drew him close.

  "Listen to me," Roland said, "and listen well. I care nothing for your life or honor, one's been misspent and the other's long gone, but your son is dead and about his honor I care very much. If you don't shut up this second, you worm of creation, I'll shut you up myself. So what would you? It's nothing to me, either way. I'll tell em you ran mad at the sight of him, stole my gun out of its holster, and put a bullet in your own head to join him. What would you have? Decide."

  Eisenhart was badly blown but still lurching and weaving his way up through the corn, hoarsely calling his wife's name: "Margaret!Margaret! Answer me, dear! Gi'me a word, I beg ya, do!"

  Roland let go of Slightman and looked at him sternly. Slightman turned his awful eyes to Jake. "Did your dinh kill my boy in order to be revenged on me? Tell me the truth, soh."

  Jake took a final puff on his cigarette and cast it away. The butt lay smoldering in the dirt next to the dead horse. "Did you even look at him?" he asked Benny's Da'. "No bullet ever made could do that. Sai Eisenhart's head fell almost on top of him and Benny crawled out of the ditch from the… the horror of it." It was a word, he realized, that he had never used out loud. Had never needed to use out loud. "They threw two of their sneetches at him. I got one, but…" He swallowed. There was a click in his throat. "The other… I would have, you ken… I tried, but…" His face was working. His voice was breaking apart. Yet his eyes were dry. And somehow as terrible as Slightman's. "I never had a chance at the other'n," he finished, then lowered his head and began to sob.

  Roland looked at Slightman, his eyebrows raised.

  "All right," Slightman said. "I see how 'twas. Yar. Tell me, were he brave until then? Tell me, I beg."

  "He and Jake brought back one of that pair," Eddie said, gesturing to the Tavery twins. "The boy half. He got his foot caught in a hole. Jake and Benny pulled him out, then carried him. Nothing but guts, your boy. Side to side and all the way through the middle."

  Slightman nodded. He took the spectacles off his face and looked at them as if he had never seen them before. He held them so, before his eyes, for a second or two, then dropped them onto the road and crushed them beneath one bootheel. He looked at Roland and Jake almost apologetically. "I believe I've seen all I need to," he said, and then went to his son.

  Vaughn Eisenhart emerged from the corn. He saw his wife and gave a bellow. Then he tore open his shirt and began pounding his right fist above his flabby left breast, crying her name each time he did it.

  "Oh, man," Eddie said. "Roland, you ought to stop that."

  "Not I," said the gunslinger.

  Slightman took his son's severed arm and planted a kiss in the palm with a tenderness Eddie found nearly unbearable. He put the arm on the boy's chest, then walked back toward them. Without the glasses, his face looked naked and somehow unformed. "Jake, would you help me find a blanket?"

  Jake got off the waggon wheel to help him find what he needed. In the uncovered trench that had been the hide, Eisenhart was cradling his wife's burnt head to his chest, rocking it. From the corn, approaching, came the children and their minders, singing "The Rice Song." At first Eddie thought that what he was hearing from town must be an echo of that singing, and then he realized it was the rest of the Calla. They knew. They had heard the singing, and they knew. They were coming.

  Pere Callahan stepped out of the field with Lia Jaffords cradled in his arms. In spite of the noise, the little girl was asleep. Callahan looked at the heaps of dead Wolves, took one hand from beneath the little girl's bottom, and drew a slow, trembling cross in the air.

  "God be thanked," he said.

  Roland went to him and took the hand that had made the cross. "Put one on me," he said.

  Callahan looked at him, uncomprehending.

  Roland nodded to Vaughn Eisenhart. "That one promised I'd leave town with his curse on me if harm came to his wife."

  He could have said more, but there was no need. Callahan understood, and signed the cross on Roland's brow. The fingernail trailed a warmth behind it that Roland felt a long time. And although Eisenhart never kept his promise, the gunslinger was never sorry that he'd asked the Pere for that extra bit of protection.

  TWENTY

  What followed was a confused jubilee there on the East Road, mingled with grief for the two who had fallen. Yet even the grief had a joyful light shining through it. No one seemed to feel that the losses were in any way equal to the gains. And Eddie supposed that was true. If it wasn't your wife or your son who had fallen, that was.

  The singing from town drew closer. Now they could see rising dust. In the road, men and women embraced. Someone tried to take Margaret Eisenhart's head away from her husband, who for the time being refused to let it go.

  Eddie drifted over to Jake.

  "Never saw Star Wars, did you?" he asked.

  "No, told you. I was going to, but-"

  "You left too soon. I know. Those things they were swinging-Jake, they were from that movie."

  "You sure?"

  "Yes. And the Wolves…Jake, the Wolves themselves…"

  Jake was nodding, very slowly. Now they could see the people from town. The newcomers saw the children-all the children, still here and still safe-and raised a cheer. Those in the forefront began to run. "I know."

  "Do you?" Eddie asked. His eyes were almost pleading. "Do you really? Because… man, it's so crazy -"

  Jake looked at the heaped Wolves. The green hoods. The gray leggings. The black boots. The snarling, decomposing faces. Eddie had already pulled one of those rotting metal faces away and looked at what was beneath it. Nothing but smooth metal, plus lenses that served as eyes, a round mesh grille that doubtless served as a nose, two sprout
ed microphones at the temples for ears. No, all the personality these things had was in the masks and clothing they wore.

  "Crazy or not, I know what they are, Eddie. Or where they come from, at least. Marvel Comics."

  A look of sublime relief filled Eddie's face. He bent and kissed Jake on the cheek. A ghost of a smile touched the boy's mouth. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

  "The Spider-Man books," Eddie said. "When I was a kid I couldn't get enough of those things."

  "I didn't buy em myself," Jake said, "but Timmy Mucci down at Mid-Town Lanes used to have a terrible jones for the Marvel mags. Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, all of em. These guys…"

  "They look like Dr. Doom," Eddie said.

  "Yeah," Jake said. "It's not exact, I'm sure the masks were modified to make them look a little more like wolves, but otherwise… same green hoods, same green cloaks. Yeah, Dr. Doom."

  "And the sneetches," Eddie said. "Have you ever heard of Harry Potter?"

  "I don't think so. Have you?"

  "No, and I'll tell you why. Because the sneetches are from the future. Maybe from some Marvel comic book that'll come out in 1990 or 1995. Do you see what I'm saying?"

  Jake nodded.

  "It's all nineteen, isn't it?"

  "Yeah," Jake said. "Nineteen, ninety-nine, and nineteen-ninety-nine."

  Eddie glanced around. "Where's Suze?"

  "Probably went after her chair," Jake said. But before either of them could explore the question of Susannah Dean's whereabouts any further (and by then it was probably too late, anyway), the first of the folken from town arrived. Eddie and Jake were swept into a wild, impromptu celebration-hugged, kissed, shaken by the hand, laughed over, wept over, thanked and thanked and thanked.