Wolves of the Calla (32 page)

“May she always do fine!” the rancher cried, and tossed off his cup of graf in one long swallow. Eddie admired the man’s throat, if nothing else; Calla Bryn Sturgis graf was so hard that just smelling it made his eyes water.

“DO YA!”
the
folken
responded, and cheered, and drank.

At that moment the torches ringing the Pavilion went the deep crimson of the recently departed sun. The crowd oohed and aahed and applauded. As technology went, Eddie didn’t think it was such of a much—certainly not compared to Blaine the Mono,
or the dipolar computers that ran Lud—but it cast a pretty light over the crowd and seemed to be nontoxic. He applauded with the rest. So did Susannah. Andy had brought her wheelchair and unfolded it for her with a compliment (he also offered to tell her about the handsome stranger she would soon meet). Now she wheeled her way amongst the little knots of people with a plate of food on her lap, chatting here, moving on, chatting there and moving on again. Eddie guessed she’d been to her share of cocktail parties not much different from this, and was a little jealous of her aplomb.

Eddie began to notice children in the crowd. Apparently the
folken
had decided their visitors weren’t going to just haul out their shooting irons and start a massacre. The oldest kids were allowed to wander about on their own. They traveled in the protective packs Eddie recalled from his own childhood, scoring massive amounts of food from the tables (although not even the appetites of voracious teenagers could make much of a dent in that bounty). They watched the outlanders, but none quite dared approach.

The youngest children stayed close to their parents. Those of the painful ’tween age clustered around the slide, swings, and elaborate monkey-bar construction at the very far end of the Pavilion. A few used the stuff, but most of them only watched the party with the puzzled eyes of those who are somehow caught just wrongways. Eddie’s heart went out to them. He could see how many pairs there were—it was eerie—and guessed that it was these puzzled children, just a little too old to use the playground equipment unselfconsciously, who
would give up the greatest number to the Wolves . . . if the Wolves were allowed to do their usual thing, that was. He saw none of the “roont” ones, and guessed they had deliberately been kept apart, lest they cast a pall on the gathering. Eddie could understand that, but hoped they were having a party of their own somewhere. (Later he found that this was exactly the case—cookies and ice cream behind Callahan’s church.)

Jake would have fit perfectly into the middle group of children, had he been of the Calla, but of course he wasn’t. And he’d made a friend who suited him perfectly: older in years, younger in experience. They went about from table to table, grazing at random. Oy trailed at Jake’s heels contentedly enough, head always swinging from side to side. Eddie had no doubt whatever that if someone made an aggressive move toward Jake of New York (or his new friend, Benny of the Calla), that fellow would find himself missing a couple of fingers. At one point Eddie saw the two boys look at each other, and although not a word passed between them, they burst out laughing at exactly the same moment. And Eddie was reminded so forcibly of his own childhood friendships that it hurt.

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 a while 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 as 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 cliché 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.

“Who are you really?” Telford asked. “Tell me, I beg.”

“Eddie Dean, of New York. I hope you’re not questioning my honesty. I hope to
Christ
you’re not doing that.”

Telford took a step back, suddenly wary. Eddie was grimly glad to see it. Fear wasn’t better than respect, but by God it was better than nothing. “Nay, not at all, my friend! Please! But tell me this—have you ever used the gun you carry? Tell me, I beg.”

Eddie saw that Telford, although nervous of him, didn’t really believe it. Perhaps there was still too much of the old Eddie Dean, the one who really
had
been of New York, in his face and manner for this rancher-sai to believe it, but Eddie didn’t think that was it. Not the bottom of it, anyway. Here was a fellow who’d made up his mind to stand by and watch creatures from Thunderclap take the children of his neighbors, and perhaps a man like that simply couldn’t believe in the simple, final answers a gun allowed. Eddie had come to know those answers, however. Even to love them. He remembered their single terrible day in Lud, racing Susannah in her wheelchair under a gray sky while the god-drums pounded. He remembered Frank and Luster and Topsy the Sailor; thought of a woman named
Maud kneeling to kiss one of the lunatics Eddie had shot to death. What had she said?
You shouldn’t’ve shot Winston, for ’twas his birthday.
Something like that.

“I’ve used this one and the other one and the Ruger as well,” he said. “And don’t you ever speak to me that way again, my friend, as if the two of us were on the inside of some funny joke.”

“If I offended in any way, gunslinger, I cry your pardon.”

Eddie relaxed a little.
Gunslinger
. At least the silver-haired son of a bitch had the wit to say so even if he might not believe so.

The band produced another flourish. The leader slipped his guitar-strap over his head and called, “Come on now, you all! That’s enough food! Time to dance it off and sweat it out, so it is!”

Cheers and yipping cries. There was also a rattle of explosions that caused Eddie to drop his hand, as he had seen Roland drop his on a good many occasions.

“Easy, my friend,” Telford said. “Only little bangers. Children setting off Reap-crackers, you ken.”