by Stephen King
Henchick was nodding. Several of the other older men and women—folken who well remembered the Wolves coming not just once before but twice—were doing the same. “It explains a good deal,” he said. “But how—”
“To strike them in the brain is beyond our abilities, because of the helmets they wear under their hoods,” Roland said. “But we saw such creatures in Lud. Their weakness is here.” Again he tapped his chest. “The undead don’t breathe, but there’s a kind of gill above their hearts. If they armor it over, they die. That’s where we’ll strike them.”
A low, considering hum of conversation greeted this. And then Gran-pere’s voice, shrill and excited: “ ’Tis ever’ word true, for dinna Molly Doolin strike one there hersel’ wi’ the dish, an’ not even dead-on, neither, and yet the creetur’ dropped down!”
Susannah’s hand tightened on Eddie’s arm enough for him to feel her short nails, but when he looked at her, she was grinning in spite of herself. He saw a similar expression on Jake’s face. Trig enough when the chips were down, old man, Eddie thought. Sorry I ever doubted you. Let Andy and Slightman go back across the river and report that happy horseshit! He’d asked Roland if they (the faceless they represented by someone who called himself Finli o’ Tego) would believe such tripe. They’ve raided this side of the Whye for over a hundred years and lost but a single fighter, Roland had replied. I think they’d believe anything. At this point their really vulnerable spot is their complacence.
“Bring your twins here by seven o’ the clock on Wolf’s Eve,” Roland said. “There’ll be ladies—Sisters of Oriza, ye ken—with lists on slateboards. They’ll scratch off each pair as they come in. It’s my hope to have a line drawn through every name before nine o’ the clock.”
“Ye’ll not drig no line through the names o’ mine!” cried an angry voice from the back of the crowd. The voice’s owner pushed several people aside and stepped forward next to Jake. He was a squat man with a smallhold rice-patch far to the south’ards. Roland scratched through the untidy storehouse of his recent memory (untidy, yes, but nothing was ever thrown away) and eventually came up with the name: Neil Faraday. One of the few who hadn’t been home when Roland and his ka-tet had come calling…or not home to them, at least. A hard worker, according to Tian, but an even harder drinker. He certainly looked the part. There were dark circles under his eyes and a complication of burst purplish veins on each cheek. Scruffy, say big-big. Yet Telford and Took threw him a grateful, surprised look. Another sane man in bedlam, it said. Thank the gods.
“ ’Ay’ll take ’een babbies anyro’ and burn ’een squabbot town flat,” he said, speaking in an accent that made his words almost incomprehensible. “But ’ay’ll have one each o’ my see’, an’ ’at’ll stee’ lea’ me three, and a’ best ’ay ain’t worth squabbot, but my howgan is!” Faraday looked around at the townsfolk with an expression of sardonic disdain. “Burn’ee flat an’ be damned to ’ee,” he said. “Numb gits!” And back into the crowd he went, leaving a surprising number of people looking shaken and thoughtful. He had done more to turn the momentum of the crowd with his contemptuous and (to Eddie, at least) incomprehensible tirade than Telford and Took had been able to do together.
He may be shirttail poor, but I doubt if he’ll have trouble getting credit from Took for the next year or so, Eddie thought. If the store still stands, that is.
“Sai Faraday’s got a right to his opinion, but I hope he’ll change it over the next few days,” Roland said. “I hope you folks will help him change it. Because if he doesn’t, he’s apt to be left not with three kiddies but none at all.” He raised his voice and shaped it toward the place where Faraday stood, glowering. “Then he can see how he likes working his tillage with no help but two mules and a wife.”
Telford stepped forward to the edge of the stage, his face red with fury. “Is there nothing ye won’t say to win your argument, you chary man? Is there no lie you won’t tell?”
“I don’t lie and I don’t say for certain,” Roland replied. “If I’ve given anyone the idea that I know all the answers when less than a season ago I didn’t even know the Wolves existed, I cry your pardon. But let me tell you a story before I bid you goodnight. When I was a boy in Gilead, before the coming of the Good Man and the great burning that followed, there was a tree farm out to the east o’ barony.”
“Whoever heard of farming trees?” someone called derisively.
Roland smiled and nodded. “Perhaps not ordinary trees, or even ironwoods, but these were blossies, a wonderful light wood, yet strong. The best wood for boats that ever was. A piece cut thin nearly floats in the air. They grew over a thousand acres of land, tens of thousands of blosswood trees in neat rows, all overseen by the barony forester. And the rule, never even bent, let alone broken, was this: take two, plant three.”
“Aye,” Eisenhart said. “ ’Tis much the same with stock, and with threaded stock the advice is to keep four for every one ye sell or kill. Not that many could afford to do so.”
Roland’s eyes roamed the crowd. “During the summer season I turned ten, a plague fell on the blosswood forest. Spiders spun white webs over the upper branches of some, and those trees died from their tops down, rotting as they went, falling of their own weight long before the plague could get to the roots. The forester saw what was happening, and ordered all the good trees cut down at once. To save the wood while it was still worth saving, do you see? There was no more take two and plant three, because the rule no longer made any sense. The following summer, the blossy woods east of Gilead was gone.”
Utter silence from the folken. The day had drained down to a premature dusk. The torches hissed. Not an eye stirred from the gunslinger’s face.
“Here in the Calla, the Wolves harvest babies. And needn’t even go to the work of planting em, because—hear me—that’s the way it is with men and women. Even the children know. ‘Daddy’s no fool, when he plants the rice commala, Mommy knows just what to do.’ ”
A murmur from the folken.
“The Wolves take, then wait. Take…and wait. It’s worked fine for them, because men and women always plant new babies, no matter what else befalls. But now comes a new thing. Now comes plague.”
Took began, “Aye, say true, ye’re a plague all r—” Then someone knocked the hat off his head. Eben Took whirled, looked for the culprit, and saw fifty unfriendly faces. He snatched up his hat, held it to his breast, and said no more.
“If they see the baby-farming is over for them here,” Roland said, “this last time they won’t just take twins; this time they’ll take every child they can get their hands on while the taking’s good. So bring your little ones at seven o’ the clock. That’s my best advice to you.”
“What choice have you left em?” Telford asked. He was white with fear and fury.
Roland had had enough of him. His voice rose to a shout, and Telford fell back from the force of his suddenly blazing blue eyes. “None that you have to worry about, sai, for your children are grown, as everyone in town knows. You’ve had your say. Now why don’t you shut up?”
A thunder of applause and boot-stomping greeted this. Telford took the bellowing and jeering for as long as he could, his head lowered between his hunched shoulders like a bull about to charge. Then he turned and began shoving his way through the crowd. Took followed. A few moments later, they were gone. Not long after that, the meeting ended. There was no vote. Roland had given them nothing to vote on.
No, Eddie thought again as he pushed Susannah’s chair toward the refreshments, cozy really wasn’t in it at all.
Five
Not long after, Roland accosted Ben Slightman. The foreman was standing beneath one of the torch-poles, balancing a cup of coffee and a plate with a piece of cake on it. Roland also had cake and coffee. Across the greensward, the children’s tent had for the nonce become the refreshment tent. A long line of waiting people snaked out of it. There was low talk but little laughter. Closer by, Be
nny and Jake were tossing a springball back and forth, every now and then letting Oy have a turn. The bumbler was barking happily, but the boys seemed as subdued as the people waiting in line.
“Ye spoke well tonight,” Slightman said, and clicked his coffee cup against Roland’s.
“Do you say so?”
“Aye. Of course they were ready, as I think ye knew, but Faraday must have been a surprise to ye, and ye handled him well.”
“I only told the truth,” Roland said. “If the Wolves lose enough of their troop, they’ll take what they can and cut their losses. Legends grow beards, and twenty-three years is plenty of time to grow a long one. Calla-folken assume there are thousands of Wolves over there in Thunderclap, maybe millions of em, but I don’t think that’s true.”
Slightman was looking at him with frank fascination. “Why not?”
“Because things are running down,” Roland said simply, and then: “I need you to promise me something.”
Slightman looked at him warily. The lenses of his spectacles twinkled in the torchlight. “If I can, Roland, I will.”
“Make sure your boy’s here four nights from now. His sister’s dead, but I doubt if that untwins him to the Wolves. He’s still very likely got what it is they come for.”
Slightman made no effort to disguise his relief. “Aye, he’ll be here. I never considered otten else.”
“Good. And I have a job for you, if you’ll do it.”
The wary look returned. “What job would it be?”
“I started off thinking that six would be enough to mind the children while we dealt with the Wolves, and then Rosalita asked me what I’d do if they got frightened and panicked.”
“Ah, but you’ll have em in a cave, won’t you?” Slightman asked, lowering his voice. “Kiddies can’t run far in a cave, even if they do take fright.”
“Far enough to run into a wall and brain themselves or fall down a hole in the dark. If one were to start a stampede on account of the yelling and the smoke and the fire, they might all fall down a hole in the dark. I’ve decided I’d like to have an even ten watching the kiddos. I’d like you to be one of em.”
“Roland, I’m flattered.”
“Is that a yes?”
Slightman nodded.
Roland eyed him. “You know that if we lose, the ones minding the children are apt to die?”
“If I thought you were going to lose, I’d never agree to go out there with the kids.” He paused. “Or send my own.”
“Thank you, Ben. Thee’s a good man.”
Slightman lowered his voice even further. “Which of the mines is it going to be? The Gloria or the Redbird?” And when Roland didn’t answer immediately: “Of course I understand if ye’d rather not tell—”
“It’s not that,” Roland said. “It’s that we haven’t decided.”
“But it’ll be one or the other.”
“Oh, aye, where else?” Roland said absently, and began to roll a smoke.
“And ye’ll try to get above them?”
“Wouldn’t work,” Roland said. “Angle’s wrong.” He patted his chest above his heart. “Have to hit em here, remember. Other places…no good. Even a bullet that goes through armor wouldn’t do much damage to a zombi.”
“It’s a problem, isn’t it?”
“It’s an opportunity,” Roland corrected. “You know the scree that spreads out below the adits of those old garnet mines? Looks like a baby’s bib?”
“Aye?”
“We’ll hide ourselves in there. Under there. And when they ride toward us, we’ll rise up and…” Roland cocked a thumb and forefinger at Slightman and made a trigger-pulling gesture.
A smile spread over the foreman’s face. “Roland, that’s brilliant!”
“No,” Roland contradicted. “Only simple. But simple’s usually best. I think we’ll surprise them. Hem them in and pick them off. It’s worked for me before. No reason it shouldn’t work again.”
“No. I suppose not.”
Roland looked around. “Best we not talk about such things here, Ben. I know you’re safe, but—”
Ben nodded rapidly. “Say n’more, Roland, I understand.”
The springball rolled to Slightman’s feet. His son held up his hands for it, smiling. “Pa! Throw it!”
Ben did, and hard. The ball sailed, just as Molly’s plate had in Gran-pere’s story. Benny leaped, caught it one-handed, and laughed. His father grinned at him fondly, then glanced at Roland. “They’s a pair, ain’t they? Yours and mine?”
“Aye,” Roland said, almost smiling. “Almost like brothers, sure enough.”
Six
The ka-tet ambled back toward the rectory, riding four abreast, feeling every town eye that watched them go: death on horseback.
“You happy with how it went, sugar?” Susannah asked Roland.
“It’ll do,” he allowed, and began to roll a smoke.
“I’d like to try one of those,” Jake said suddenly.
Susannah gave him a look both shocked and amused. “Bite your tongue, sugar—you haven’t seen thirteen yet.”
“My Dad started when he was ten.”
“And’ll be dead by fifty, like as not,” Susannah said sternly.
“No great loss,” Jake muttered, but he let the subject drop.
“What about Mia?” Roland asked, popping a match with his thumbnail. “Is she quiet?”
“If it wasn’t for you boys, I’m not sure I’d believe there even was such a jane.”
“And your belly’s quiet, too?”
“Yes.” Susannah guessed everyone had rules about lying; hers was that if you were going to tell one, you did best to keep it short. If she had a chap in her belly—some sort of monster—she’d let them help her worry about it a week from tonight. If they were still able to worry about anything, that was. For the time being they didn’t need to know about the few little cramps she’d been having.
“Then all’s well,” the gunslinger said. They rode in silence for awhile, and then he said: “I hope you two boys can dig. There’ll be some digging to do.”
“Graves?” Eddie asked, not sure if he was joking or not.
“Graves come later.” Roland looked up at the sky, but the clouds had advanced out of the west and stolen the stars. “Just remember, it’s the winners who dig them.”
Chapter VI:
Before the Storm
One
Rising up from the darkness, dolorous and accusatory, came the voice of Henry Dean, the great sage and eminent junkie. “I’m in hell, bro! I’m in hell and I can’t get a fix and it’s all your fault!”
“How long will we have to be here, do you think?” Eddie asked Callahan. They had just reached the Doorway Cave, and the great sage’s little bro was already shaking a pair of bullets in his right hand like dice—seven-come-eleven, baby need a little peace n quiet. It was the day after the big meeting, and when Eddie and the Pere had ridden out of town, the high street had seemed unusually quiet. It was almost as if the Calla was hiding from itself, overwhelmed by what it had committed itself to.
“I’m afraid it’ll be awhile,” Callahan admitted. He was neatly (and nondescriptly, he hoped) dressed. In the breast pocket of his shirt was all the American money they’d been able to put together: eleven crumpled dollars and a pair of quarters. He thought it would be a bitter joke if he turned up in a version of America where Lincoln was on the single and Washington on the fifties. “But we can do it in stages, I think.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Eddie said, and dragged the pink bag out from behind Tower’s bookcase. He lifted it with both hands, began to turn, then stopped. He was frowning.
“What is it?” Callahan asked.
“There’s something in here.”
“Yes, the box.”
“No, something in the bag. Sewn into the lining, I think. It feels like a little rock. Maybe there’s a secret pocket.”
“And maybe,” Callahan said, “this isn’t the time to investigate it.”
Still, Eddie gave the object another small squeeze. It didn’t feel like a stone, exactly. But Callahan was probably right. They had enough mysteries on their hands already. This one was for another day.
When Eddie slid the ghostwood box out of the bag, a sick dread invaded both his head and his heart. “I hate this thing. I keep feeling like it’s going to turn on me and eat me like a…a taco-chip.”
“It probably could,” Callahan said. “If you feel something really bad happening, Eddie, shut the damn thing.”
“Your ass would be stuck on the other side if I did.”
“It’s not as though I’m a stranger there,” Callahan said, eyeing the unfound door. Eddie heard his brother; Callahan heard his mother, endlessly hectoring, calling him Donnie. He’d always hated being called Donnie. “I’ll just wait for it to open again.”
Eddie stuffed the bullets into his ears.
“Why are you letting him do that, Donnie?” Callahan’s mother moaned from the darkness. “Bullets in your ears, that’s dangerous!”
“Go on,” Eddie said. “Get it done.” He opened the box. The chimes attacked Callahan’s ears. And his heart. The door to everywhere clicked open.
Two
He went through thinking about two things: the year 1977 and the men’s room on the main floor of the New York Public Library. He stepped into a bathroom stall with graffiti on the walls (BANGO SKANK had been there) and the sound of a flushing urinal somewhere to his left. He waited for whoever it was to leave, then stepped out of the stall.
It took him only ten minutes to find what he needed. When he stepped back through the door into the cave, he was holding a book under his arm. He asked Eddie to step outside with him, and didn’t have to ask twice. In the fresh air and breezy sunshine (the previous night’s clouds had blown away), Eddie took the bullets from his ears and examined the book. It was called Yankee Highways.
“The Father’s a library thief,” Eddie remarked. “You’re exactly the sort of person who makes the fees go up.”
“I’ll return it someday,” Callahan said. He meant it. “The important thing is I got lucky on my second try. Check page one-nineteen.”