ONE

Behind the cottage of Rosalita Munoz was a tall privy painted sky-blue. Jutting from the wall to the left as the gunslinger entered, late on the morning after Pere Callahan had finished his story, was a plain iron band with a small disc of steel set eight inches or so beneath. Within this skeletal vase was a double sprig of saucy susan. Its lemony, faintly astringent smell was the privy's only aroma. On the wall above the seat of ease, in a frame and beneath glass, was a picture of the Man Jesus with his praying hands held just below his chin, his reddish locks spilling over his shoulders, and his eyes turned up to His Father. Roland had heard there were tribes of slow mutants who referred to the Father of Jesus as Big Sky Daddy.

The image of the Man Jesus was in profile, and Roland was glad. Had He been facing him full on, the gunslinger wasn't sure he could have done his morning business without closing his eyes, full though his bladder was. Strange place to put a picture of God's Son , he thought, and then realized it wasn't strange at all. In the ordinary course of things, only Rosalita used this privy, and the Man Jesus would have nothing to look at but her prim back.

Roland Deschain burst out laughing, and when he did, his water began to flow.

TWO

Rosalita had been gone when he awoke, and not recently: her side of the bed had been cold. Now, standing outside her tall blue oblong of a privy and buttoning his flies, Roland looked up at the sun and judged the time as not long before noon. Judging such things without a clock, glass, or pendulum had become tricky in these latter days, but it was still possible if you were careful in your calculations and willing to allow for some error in your result. Cort, he thought, would be aghast if he saw one of his pupils - one of his graduated pupils, a gunslinger - beginning such a business as this by sleeping almost until midday. And this was the beginning. All the rest had been ritual and preparation, necessary but not terribly helpful. A kind of dancing the rice-song. Now that part was over. And as for sleeping late...

"No one ever deserved a late lying-in more," he said, and walked down the slope. Here a fence marked the rear of Callahan's patch (or perhaps the Pere thought of it as God's patch). Beyond it was a small stream, babbling as excitedly as a little girl telling secrets to her best friend. The banks were thick with saucy susan, so there was another mystery (a minor one) solved. Roland breathed deeply of the scent.

He found himself thinking of ka, which he rarely did. (Eddie, who believed Roland thought of little else, would have been astounded.) Its only true rule was Stand aside and let me work . Why in God's name was it so hard to learn such a simple thing? Why always this stupid need to meddle? Every one of them had done it; every one of them had known Susannah Dean was pregnant. Roland himself had known almost since the time of her kindling, when Jake had come through from the house in Dutch Hill. Susannah herself had known, in spite of the bloody rags she had buried at the side of the trail. So why had it taken them so long to have the palaver they'd had last night? Why had they made such a business of it? And how much might have suffered because of it?

Nothing, Roland hoped. But it was hard to tell, wasn't it?

Perhaps it was best to let it go. This morning that seemed like good advice, because he felt very well. Physically, at least. Hardly an ache or a -

"I thought'ee meant to turn in not long after I left ye, gunslinger, but Rosalita said you never came in until almost the dawn."

Roland turned from the fence and his thoughts. Callahan was today dressed in dark pants, dark shoes, and a dark shirt with a notched collar. His cross lay upon his bosom and his crazy white hair had been partially tamed, probably with some sort of grease. He bore the gunslinger's regard for a little while and then said, "Yesterday I gave the Holy Communion to those of the smallholds who take it. And heard their confessions. Today's my day to go out to the ranches and do the same. There's a goodish number of cowboys who hold to what they mostly call the Crossway. Rosalita drives me in the buckboard, so when it comes to lunch and dinner, you must shift for yourselves."

"We can do that," Roland said, "but do you have a few minutes to talk to me?"

"Of course," Callahan said. "A man who can't stay a bit shouldn't approach in the first place. Good advice, I think, and not just for priests."

"Would you hear my confession?"

Callahan raised his eyebrows. "Do'ee hold to the Man Jesus, then?"

Roland shook his head. "Not a bit. Will you hear it anyway, I beg? And keep it to yourself?"

Callahan shrugged. "As to keeping what you say to myself, that's easy. It's what we do. Just don't mistake discretion for absolution." He favored Roland with a wintry smile. "We Catholics save that for ourselves, may it do ya."

The thought of absolution had never crossed Roland's mind, and he found the idea that he might need it (or that this man could give it) almost comic. He rolled a cigarette, doing it slowly, thinking of how to begin and how much to say. Callahan waited, respectfully quiet.

At last Roland said, "There was a prophecy that I should draw three and that we should become ka-tet. Never mind who made it; never mind anything that came before. I won't worry that old knot, never again if I can help it. There were three doors. Behind the second was the woman who became Eddie's wife, although she did not at that time call herself Susannah..."

THREE

So Roland told Callahan the part of their story which bore directly upon Susannah and the women who had been before her. He concentrated on how they'd saved Jake from the doorkeeper and drawn the boy into Mid-World, telling how Susannah (or perhaps at that point she had been Detta) had held the demon of the circle while they did their work. He had known the risks, Roland told Callahan, and he had become certain - even while they were still riding Blaine the Mono - that she had not survived the risk of pregnancy. He had told Eddie, and Eddie hadn't been all that surprised. Then Jake had told him . Scolded him with it, actually. And he had taken the scolding, he said, because he felt it was deserved. What none of them had fully realized until last night on the porch was that Susannah herself had known, and perhaps for almost as long as Roland. She had simply fought harder.

"So, Pere - what do you think?"

"You say her husband agreed to keep the secret," Callahan replied. "And even Jake - who sees clearly - "

"Yes," Roland said. "He does. He did. And when he asked me what we should do, I gave him bad advice. I told him we'd be best to let ka work itself out, and all the time I was holding it in my hands, like a caught bird."

"Things always look clearer when we see them over our shoulder, don't they?"

"Yes."

"Did you tell her last night that she's got a demon's spawn growing in her womb?"

"She knows it's not Eddie's."

"So you didn't. And Mia? Did you tell her about Mia, and the casde banqueting hall?"

"Yes," Roland said. "I think hearing that depressed her but didn't surprise her. There was the other - Detta - ever since the accident when she lost her legs." It had been no accident, but Roland hadn't gone into the business of Jack Mort with Callahan, seeing no reason to do so. "Detta Walker hid herself well from Odetta Holmes. Eddie and Jake say she's a schizophrenic." Roland pronounced this exotic word with great care.

"But you cured her," Callahan said. "Brought her face-to-face with her two selves in one of those doorways. Did you not?"

Roland shrugged. "You can burn away warts by painting them with silver metal, Pere, but in a person prone to warts, they'll come back."

Callahan surprised him by throwing his head back to the sky and bellowing laughter. He laughed so long and hard he finally had to take his handkerchief from his back pocket and wipe his eyes with it. "Roland, you may be quick with a gun and as brave as Satan on Saturday night, but you're no psychiatrist. To compare schizophrenia to warts. . . oh, my!"

"And yet Mia is real, Pere. I've seen her myself. Not in a dream, as Jake did, but with my own two eyes."

"Exactly my point," Callahan said. "She's not an aspect of the woman who was born Odetta Susannah Holmes. She is she ."

"Does it make a difference?"

"I think it does. But here is one thing I can tell you for sure: no matter how things lie in your fellowship - your ka-tet - this must be kept a dead secret from the people of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Today, things are going your way. But if word got out that the female gunslinger with the brown skin might be carrying a demon-child, the folken'd go the other way, and in a hurry. With Eben Took leading the parade. I know that in the end you'll decide your course of action based on your own assessment of what the Calla needs, but the four of you can't beat the Wolves without help, no matter how good you are with such calibers as you carry. There's too much to manage." Reply was unneccessary. Callahan was right. "What is it you fear most?" Callahan asked.

"The breaking of the tet," Roland said at once.

"By that you mean Mia's taking control of the body they share and going off on her own to have the child?"

"If that happened at the wrong time, it would be bad, but all might still come right. "If Susannah came back. But what she carries is nothing but poison with a heartbeat." Roland looked bleakly at the religious in his black clothes. "I have every reason to believe it would begin its work by slaughtering the mother."

"The breaking of the tet," Callahan mused. "Not the death of your friend, but the breaking of the tet. I wonder if your friends know what sort of man you are, Roland?"

"They know," Roland said, and on that subject said no more.

"What would you have of me?"

"First, an answer to a question. It's clear to me that Rosalita knows a good deal of rough doctoring. Would she know enough to turn the baby out before its time? And the stomach for what she might find?"

They would all have to be there, of course - he and Eddie, Jake, too, as little as Roland liked the thought of it. Because the thing inside her had surely quickened by now, and even if its time hadn't come, it would be dangerous. And its time is almost certainly close , he thought. / don't know it for sure, but I feel it. I  -

The thought broke off as he became aware of Callahan's expression: horror, disgust, and mounting anger.

"Rosalita would never do such a thing. Mark well what I say. She'd die first."

Roland was perplexed. "Why?"

"Because she's a Catholic!"

"I don't understand."

Callahan saw the gunslinger really did not, and the sharpest edge of his anger was blunted. Yet Roland sensed that a great deal remained, like the bolt behind the head of an arrow. "It's abortion you're talking about!"

"Yes?"

"Roland... Roland." Callahan lowered his head, and when he raised it, the anger appeared to be gone. In its place was a stony obduracy the gunslinger had seen before. Roland could no more break it than he could lift a mountain with his bare hands. "My church divides sins into two: venial sins, which are bearable in the sight of God, and mortal ones, which are not. Abortion is a mortal sin. It is murder."

"Pere, we are speaking of a demon, not a human being."

"So you say. That's God's business, not mine."

"And if it kills her? Will you say the same then and so wash your hands of her?"

Roland had never heard the tale of Pontius Pilate and Callahan knew it. Still, he winced at the image. But his reply was firm enough. "You who spoke of the breaking of your tet before you spoke of the taking of her life! Shame on you. Shame ."

"My quest - the quest of my ka-tet - is the Dark Tower, Pere. It's not saving this world we're about, or even this universe, but all universes. All of existence."

"I don't care," Callahan said. "I can't care. Now listen to me, Roland son of Steven, for I would have you hear me very well. Are you listening?"

Roland sighed. "Say thankya."

"Rosa won't give the woman an abortion. There are others in town who could, I have no doubt - even in a place where children are taken every twenty-some years by monsters from the dark land, such filthy arts are undoubtedly preserved - but if you go to one of them, you won't need to worry about the Wolves. I'll raise every hand in Calla Bryn Sturgis against you long before they come."

Roland gazed at him unbelievingly. "Even though you know, as I'm sure you do, that we may be able to save a hundred other children? Human children, whose first task on earth would not be to eat their mothers?"

Callahan might not have heard. His face was very pale. "I'll have more, do it please ya... and even if it don't. I'll have your word, sworn upon the face of your father, that you'll never suggest an abortion to the woman herself."

A queer thought came to Roland: Now that this subject had arisen - had pounced upon them, like Jilly out of her box - Susannah was no longer Susannah to this man. She had become the woman . And another thought: How many monsters had Pere Callahan slain himself, with his own hand?

As often happened in times of extreme stress, Roland's father spoke to him. This situation is not quite beyond saving, but should you carry on much further  - should you give voice to such thoughts  - it will be .

"I want your promise, Roland."

"Or you'll raise the town."

"Aye."

"And suppose Susannah decides to abort herself? Women do it, and she's very far from stupid. She knows the stakes."

"Mia - the baby's true mother - will prevent it."

"Don't be so sure. Susannah Dean's sense of self-preservation is very strong. And I believe her dedication to our quest is even stronger."

Callahan hesitated. He looked away, lips pressed together in a tight white line. Then he looked back. "You will prevent it," he said. "As her dinh."

Roland thought, I have just been Castled .

"All right," he said. "I will tell her of our talk and make sure she understands the position you've put us in. And I'll tell her that she must not tell Eddie."

"Why not?"

"Because he'd kill you, Pere. He'd kill you for your interference."

Roland was somewhat gratified by the widening of Callahan's eyes. He reminded himself again that he must raise no feelings in himself against this man, who simply was what he was. Had he not already spoken to them of the trap he carried with him wherever he went?

"Now listen to me as I've listened to you, for you now have a responsibility to all of us. Especially to 'the woman.' "

Callahan winced a little, as if struck. But he nodded. "Tell me what you'd have."

"For one thing, I'd have you watch her when you can. Like a hawk! In particular I'd have you watch for her working her fingers here." Roland rubbed above his left eyebrow. "Or here." Now he rubbed at his left temple. "Listen to her way of speaking. Be aware if it speeds up. Watch for her to start moving in little jerks." Roland snapped a hand up to his head, scratched it, snapped it back down. He tossed his head to the right, then looked back at Callahan. "You see?"

"Yes. These are the signs that Mia is coming?"

Roland nodded. "I don't want her left alone anymore when she's Mia. Not if I can help it."

"I understand," Callahan said. "But Roland, it's hard for me to believe that a newborn, no matter who or what the father might have been - "

"Hush," Roland said. "Hush, do ya." And when Callahan had duly hushed: "What you think or believe is nothing to me. You've yourself to look out for, and I wish you well. But if Mia or Mia's get harms Rosalita, Pere, I'll hold you responsible for her injuries. You'll pay to my good hand. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, Roland." Callahan looked both abashed and calm. It was an odd combination.

"All right. Now here's the other thing you can do for me. Comes the day of the Wolves, I'm going to need six folken I can absolutely trust. I'd like to have three of each sex."

"Do you care if some are parents with children at risk?"

"No. But not all. And none of the ladies who may be throwing the dish - Sarey, Zalia, Margaret Eisenhart, Rosalita. They'll be somewhere else."

"What do you want these six for?"

Roland was silent.

Callahan looked at him a moment longer, then sighed. "Reuben Caverra," he said. "Reuben's never forgot his sister and how he loved her. Diane Caverra, his wife... or do'ee not want couples?"

No, a couple would be all right. Roland twirled his fingers, gesturing for the Pere to continue.

"Cantab of the Manni, I sh'd say; the children follow him like he was the Pied Piper."

"I don't understand."

"You don't need to. They follow him, that's the important part. Bucky Javier and his wife... and what would you say to your boy, Jake? Already the town children follow him with their eyes, and I suspect a number of the girls are in love with him."

"No, I need him."

Or can't bear to have him out of your sight ? Callahan wondered... but did not say. He had pushed Roland as far as was prudent, at least for one day. Further, actually.

"What of Andy, then? The children love him, too. And he'd protect them to the death."

"Aye? From the Wolves?"

Callahan looked troubled. Actually it had been rock-cats he'd been thinking of. Them, and the sort of wolves that came on four legs. As for the ones that came out of Thunderclap...

"No," Roland said. "Not Andy."

"Why not? For 'tisn't to fight the Wolves you want these six for, is it?"

"Not Andy," Roland repeated. It was just a feeling, but his feelings were his version of the touch. "There's time to think about it, Pere... and we'll think, too."

"You're going out into the town."

"Aye. Today and every day for the next few."

Callahan grinned. "Your friends and I would call it 'schmoozing.' It's a Yiddish word."

"Aye? What tribe are they?"

"An unlucky one, by all accounts. Here, schmoozing is called commala. It's their word for damned near everything." Callahan was a little amused by how badly he wanted to regain the gunslinger's regard. A little disgusted with himself, as well. "In any case, I wish you well with it."

Roland nodded. Callahan started up toward the rectory, where Rosalita already had harnessed the horses to the buck-board and now waited impatiently for Callahan to come, so they could be about God's work. Halfway up the slope, Callahan turned back.

"I do not apologize for my beliefs," he said, "but if I have complicated your work here in the Calla, I'm sorry."

"Your Man Jesus seems to me a bit of a son of a bitch when it comes to women," Roland said. "Was He ever married?"

The corners of Callahan's mouth quirked. "No," he said, "but His girlfriend was a whore."

"Well," Roland said, "that's a start."

FOUR

Roland went back to leaning on the fence. The day called out to him to begin, but he wanted to give Callahan a head start. There was no more reason for this than there had been for rejecting Andy out of hand; just a feeling.

He was still there, and rolling another smoke, when Eddie came down the hill with his shirt flapping out behind him and his boots in one hand.

"Hile, Eddie," Roland said.

"Hile, boss. Saw you talking with Callahan. Give us this day, our Wilma and Fred."

Roland raised his eyebrows.

"Never mind," Eddie said. "Roland, in all the excitement I never got a chance to tell you Gran-pere's story. And it's important."

"Is Susanna up?"

"Yep. Having a wash. Jake's eating what looks like a twelve-egg omelet."

Roland nodded. "I've fed the horses. We can saddle them while you tell me the old man's tale."

"Don't think it'll take that long," Eddie said, and it didn't. He came to the punchline - which the old man had whispered into his ear - just as they reached the barn. Roland turned toward him, the horses forgotten. His eyes were blazing. The hands he clamped on Eddie's shoulders - even the diminished right - were powerful.

"Repeat it!"

Eddie took no offense. "He told me to lean close. I did. He said he'd never told anyone but his son, which I believe. Tian and Zalia know he was out there - or says he was - but they don't know what he saw when he pulled the mask off the thing. I don't think they even know Red Molly was the one who dropped it. And then he whispered..." Once again Eddie told Roland what Tian's Gran-pere claimed to have seen.

Roland's glare of triumph was so brilliant it was frightening. "Gray horses!" he said. "All those horses the exact same shade! Do you understand now, Eddie? Do you?"

"Yep," Eddie said. His teeth appeared in a grin. It was not particularly comforting, that grin. "As the chorus girl said to the businessman, we've been here before."

FIVE

In standard American English, the word with the most gradations of meaning is probably run . The Random House Unabridged Dictionary offers one hundred and seventy-eight options, beginning with "to go quickly by moving the legs more rapidly than at a walk" and ending with "melted or liquefied." In the Crescent-Callas of the borderlands between Mid-World and Thunderclap, the blue ribbon for most meanings would have gone to commala . If the word were listed in the Random House Unabridged, the first definition (assuming they were assigned, as is common, in order of widest usage), would have been "a variety of rice grown at the furthermost eastern edge of All-World." The second one, however would have been "sexual intercourse." The third would have been "sexual orgasm," as in Did'ee come commala' ? (The hoped-for reply being Aye, say thankya, commala big-big.) To wet the commala is to irrigate the rice in a dry time; it is also to masturbate. Commala is the commencement of some big and joyful meal, like a family feast (not the meal itself, do ya, but the moment of beginning to eat). A man who is losing his hair (as Garrett Strong was that season), is coming commala. Putting animals out to stud is damp commala. Gelded animals are dry commala, although no one could tell you why. A virgin is green commala, a menstruating woman is red commala, an old man who can no longer make iron before the forge is - say sorry - sof' commala. To stand commala is to stand belly-to-belly, a slang term meaning "to share secrets." The sexual connotations of the word are clear, but why should the rocky arroyos north of town be known as the commala draws? For that matter, why is a fork sometimes a commala, but never a spoon or a knife? There aren't a hundred and seventy-eight meanings for the word, but there must be seventy. Twice that, if one were to add in the various shadings. One of the meanings -  it would surely be in the top ten - is that which Pere Callahan denned as schmoozing . The actual phrase would be something like "come Sturgis commala," or "come Bryna commala." The literal meaning would be to stand belly-to-belly with the community as a whole.

During the following five days, Roland and his ka-tet attempted to continue this process, which the outworlders had begun at Took's General Store. The going was difficult at first ("Like trying to light a fire with damp kindling," Susannah said crossly after their first night), but little by little, the folken came around. Or at least warmed up to them. Each night, Roland and the Deans returned to the Pere's rectory. Each late afternoon or evening, Jake returned to the Rocking B Ranch. Andy took to meeting him at the place where the B's ranch-road split off from East Road and escorting him the rest of the way, each time making his bow and saying, "Good evening, soh! Would you like your horoscope? This time of year is sometimes called Charyou Reap! You will see an old friend! A young lady thinks of you warmly!" And so on.

Jake had asked Roland again why he was spending so much time with Benny Slightman.

"Are you complaining?" Roland asked. "Don't like him anymore?"

"I like him fine, Roland, but if there's something I'm supposed to be doing besides jumping in the hay, teaching Oy to do somersaults, or seeing who can skip a flat rock on the river the most times, I think you ought to tell me what it is."

"There's nothing else," Roland said. Then, as an afterthought: "And get your sleep. Growing boys need plenty of sleep."

"Why am I out there?"

"Because it seems right to me that you should be," Roland said. "All I want is for you to keep your eyes open and tell me if you see something you don't like or don't understand."

"Anyway, kiddo, don't you see enough of us during the days?" Eddie asked him.

They were together during those next five days, and the days were long. The novelty of riding sai Overholser's horses wore off in a hurry. So did complaints of sore muscles and blistered butts. On one of these rides, as they approached the place where Andy would be waiting, Roland asked Susannah bluntly if she had considered abortion as a way of solving her problem.

"Well," she said, looking at him curiously from her horse, "I'm not going to tell you the thought never crossed my mind."

"Banish it," he said. "No abortion."

"Any particular reason why not?"

"Ka," said Roland.

"Kaka," Eddie replied promptly. This was an old joke, but the three of them laughed, and Roland was delighted to laugh with them. And with that, the subject was dropped. Roland could hardly believe it, but he was glad. The fact that Susannah seemed so little disposed to discuss Mia and the coming of the baby made him grateful indeed. He supposed there were things - quite a few of them - which she felt better off not knowing.

Still, she had never lacked for courage. Roland was sure the questions would have come sooner or later, but after five days of canvassing the town as a quartet (a quintet counting Oy, who always rode with Jake), Roland began sending her out to the Jaffords smallhold at midday to try her hand with the dish.

Eight days or so after their long palaver on the rectory porch - the one that had gone on until four in the morning -  Susannah invited them out to the Jaffords smallhold to see her progress. "It's Zalia's idea," she said. "I guess she wants to know if I pass."

Roland knew he only had to ask Susannah herself if he wanted an answer to that question, but he was curious. When they arrived, they found the entire family gathered on the back porch, and several of Tian's neighbors, as well: Jorge Estrada and his wife, Diego Adams (in chaps), the Javiers. They looked like spectators at a Points practice. Zalman and Tia, the roont twins, stood to one side, goggling at all the company with wide eyes. Andy was also there, holding baby Aaron (who was sleeping) in his arms.

"Roland, if you wanted all this kept secret, guess what?" Eddie said.

Roland was not put out of countenance, although he realized now that his threat to the cowboys who'd seen sai Eisenhart throw the dish had been utterly useless. Country-folk talked, that was all. Whether in the borderlands or the baronies, gossip was ever the chief sport. And at the very least , he mused, those humpies will spread the news that Roland's a hard boy, strong commala, and not to be trifled with .

"It is what it is," he said. "The Calla-folken have known for donkey's years that the Sisters of Oriza throw the dish. If they know Susannah throws it, too - and well - maybe it's to the good."

Jake said, "I just hope she doesn't, you know, mess up."

There were respectful greetings for Roland, Eddie, and Jake as they mounted the porch. Andy told Jake a young lady was pining for him. Jake blushed and said he'd just as soon not know about stuff like that, if that did Andy all right.

"As you will, soh." Jake found himself studying the words and numbers stamped on Andy's midsection like a steel tattoo and wondering again if he was really in this world of robots and cowboys, or if it was all some sort of extraordinarily vivid dream. "I hope this baby will wake up soon, so I do. And cry! Because I know several soothing cradle-songs - "

"Hush up, ye creakun steel bandit!" Gran-pere said crossly, and after crying the old man's pardon (in his usual complacent, not-a-bit-sorry tone of voice), Andy did. Messenger, Many Other Functions , Jake thought. Is one of your other functions teasing folks, Andy, or is that just my imagination ?

Susannah had gone into the house with Zalia. When they came out, Susannah was wearing not one reed pouch, but two. They hung to her hips on a pair of woven straps. There was another strap, too, Eddie saw, running around her waist and holding the pouches snug. Like holster tie-downs.

"That's quite the hookup, say thankya," Diego Adams remarked.

"Susannah thought it up," Zalia said as Susannah got into her wheelchair. "She calls it a docker's clutch."

It wasn't, Eddie thought, not quite, but it was close. He felt an admiring smile lift the corners of his mouth, and saw a similar one on Roland's. And Jake's. By God, even Oy appeared to be grinning.

"Will it draw water, that's what I wonder," Bucky Javier said. That such a question should even be asked, Eddie thought, only emphasized the difference between the gunslingers and the Calla-folken . Eddie and his mates had known from first look what the hookup was and how it would work. Javier, however, was a smallhold farmer, and as such, saw the world in a very different way.

You need us , Eddie thought toward the little cluster of men standing on the porch - the farmers in their dirty white pants, Adams in his chaps and manure-splattered shor'boots. Boy, do you ever .

Susannah wheeled to the front of the porch and folded her stumps beneath her so she appeared almost to be standing in her chair. Eddie knew how much this posture hurt her, but no discomfort showed on her face. Roland, meanwhile, was looking down into the pouches she wore. There were four dishes in each, plain things with no pattern on them. Practice-dishes.

Zalia walked across to the barn. Although Roland and Eddie had noted the blanket tacked up there as soon as they arrived, the others noticed it for the first time when Zalia pulled it down. Drawn in chalk on the barnboards was the outline of a man - or a manlike being - with a frozen grin on his face and the suggestion of a cloak fluttering out behind him. This wasn't work of the quality produced by the Tavery twins, nowhere near, but those on the porch recognized a Wolf when they saw one. The older children oohed softly. The Estradas and the Javiers applauded, but looked apprehensive even as they did so, like people who fear they may be whistling up the devil. Andy complimented the artist ("whoever she may be," he added archly), and Gran-pere told him again to shut his trap. Then he called out that the Wolves he'd seen were quite a spot bigger. His voice was shrill with excitement.

"Well, I drew it to man-size," Zalia said (she had actually drawn it to husband-size) . "If the real thing turns out to make a bigger target, all to the good. Hear me, I beg." This last came out uncertainly, almost as a question.

Roland nodded. "We say thankya."

Zalia shot him a grateful look, then stepped away from the outline on the wall. Then she looked at Susannah. "When you will, lady."

For a moment Susannah only remained where she was, about sixty yards from the barn. Her hands lay between her breasts, the right covering the left. Her head was lowered. Her ka-mates knew exactly what was going on in that head: I aim with my eye, shoot with my hand, kill with my heart . Their own hearts went out to her, perhaps carried by Jake's touch or Eddie's love, encouraging her, wishing her well, sharing their excitement. Roland watched fiercely. Would one more dab hand with the dish turn things in their favor? Perhaps not. But he was what he was, and so was she, and he wished her true aim with every last bit of his will.

She raised her head. Looked at the shape chalked on the barn wall. Still her hands lay between her breasts. Then she cried out shrilly, as Margaret Eisenhart had cried out in the yard of the Rocking B, and Roland felt his hard-beating heart rise. In that moment he had a clear and beautiful memory of David, his hawk, folding his wings in a blue summer sky and dropping at his prey like a stone with eyes.

"Riza!"

Her hands dropped and became a blur. Only Roland, Eddie, and Jake were able to mark how they crossed at the waist, the right hand seizing a dish from the left pouch, the left hand seizing one from the right. Sai Eisenhart had thrown from the shoulder, sacrificing time in order to gain force and accuracy.

Susannah's arms crossed below her ribcage and just above the arms of her wheelchair, the dishes finishing their cocking arc at about the height of her shoulderblades. Then they flew, crisscrossing in midair a moment before thudding into the side of the barn.

Susannah's arms finished straight out before her; for a moment she looked like an impresario who has just introduced the featured act. Then they dropped and crossed, seizing two more dishes. She flung them, dipped again, and flung the third set. The first two were still quivering when the last two bit into the side of the barn, one high and one low.

For a moment there was utter silence in the Jaffordses' yard. Not even a bird called. The eight plates ran in a perfectly straight line from the throat of the chalked figure to what would have been its upper midsection. They were all two and a half to three inches apart, descending like buttons on a shirt. And she had thrown all eight in no more than three seconds.

"Do'ee mean to use the dish against the Wolves?" Bucky Javier asked in a queerly breathless voice. "Is that it?"

"Nothing's been decided," Roland said stolidly.

In a barely audible voice that held both shock and wonder, Deelie Estrada said: "But if that'd been a man, hear me, he'd be cutlets."

It was Gran-pere who had the final word, as perhaps gran-peres should: "Yer-bugger!"

SIX

On their way back out to the main road (Andy walked at a distance ahead of them, carrying the folded wheelchair and playing something bagpipey through his sound system), Susannah said musingly: "I may give up the gun altogether, Roland, and just concentrate on the dish. There's an elemental satisfaction to giving that scream and then throwing."

"You reminded me of my hawk," Roland admitted.

Susannah's teeth flashed white in a grin. "Ifelt like a hawk. Riza! O-Riza ! Just saying the word puts me in a throwing mood."

To Jake's mind this brought some obscure memory of Gasher ("Yer old pal, Gasher," as the gentleman himself had been wont to say), and he shivered.

"Would you really give up the gun?" Roland asked. He didn't know if he was amused or aghast.

"Would you roll your own smokes if you could get tailor-mades?" she asked, and then, before he could answer: "No, not really. Yet the dish is a lovely weapon. When they come, I hope to throw two dozen. And bag my limit."

"Will there be a shortage of plates?" Eddie asked.

"Nope," she said. "There aren't very many fancy ones -  like the one sai Eisenhart threw for you, Roland - but they've hundreds of practice-plates. Rosalita and Sarey Adams are sorting through them, culling out any that might fly crooked." She hesitated, lowered her voice. "They've all been out here, Roland, and although Sarey's brave as a lion and would stand fast against a tornado..."

"Hasn't got it, huh?" Eddie asked sympathetically.

"Not quite," Susannah agreed. "She's good, but not like the others. Nor does she have quite the same ferocity."

"I may have something else for her," Roland said.

"What would that be, sugar?"

"Escort duty, mayhap. We'll see how they shoot, day after tomorrow. A little competition always livens things up. Five o' the clock, Susannah, do they know?"

"Yes. Most of the Calla would turn up, if you allowed them."

This was discouraging... but he should have expected it. I've been too long out of the world of people , he thought. So I have .

"No one but the ladies and ourselves," Roland said firmly.

"If the Calla-folken saw the women throw well, it could swing a lot of people who are on the fence."

Roland shook his head. He didn't want them to know how well the women threw, that was very nearly the whole point. But that the town knew they were throwing... that might not be such a bad thing. "How good are they, Susannah? Tell me."

She thought about it, then smiled. "Killer aim," she said. "Every one."

"Can you teach them that crosshand throw?"

Susannah considered the question. You could teach anyone just about anything, given world enough and time, but they had neither. Only thirteen days left now, and by the day the Sisters of Oriza (including their newest member, Susannah of New York) met for the exhibition in Pere Callahan's back yard, there would be only a week and a half. The crosshand throw had come naturally to her, as everything about shooting had. But the others...

"Rosalita will learn it," she said at last. "Margaret Eisenhart could learn it, but she might get flustered at the wrong time. Zalia? No. Best she throw one plate at a time, always with her right hand. She's a little slower, but I guarantee every plate she throws will drink something's blood."

"Yeah," Eddie said. "Until a sneetch homes in on her and blows her out of her corset, that is."

Susannah ignored this. "We can hurt them, Roland. Thou knows we can."

Roland nodded. What he'd seen had encouraged him mightily, especially in light of what Eddie had told him. Susannah and Jake also knew Gran-pere's ancient secret now. And, speaking of Jake...

"You're very quiet today," Roland said to the boy. "Is everything all right?"

"I do fine, thankya," Jake said. He had been watching Andy. Thinking of how Andy had rocked the baby. Thinking that if Tian and Zalia and the other kids all died and Andy was left to raise Aaron, baby Aaron would probably die within six months. Die, or turn into the weirdest kid in the universe. Andy would diaper him, Andy would feed him all the correct stuff, Andy would change him when he needed changing and burp him if he needed burping, and there would be all sorts of cradle-songs. Each would be sung perfectly and none would be propelled by a mother's love. Or a father's. Andy was just Andy, Messenger Robot, Many Other Functions. Baby Aaron would be better off being raised by... well, by wolves.

This thought led him back to the night he and Benny had tented out (they hadn't done so since; the weather had turned chilly). The night he had seen Andy and Benny's Da' palavering. Then Benny's Da' had gone wading across the river. Headed east.

Headed in the direction of Thunderclap.

"Jake, are you sure you're okay?" Susannah asked.

"Yessum," Jake said, knowing this would probably make her laugh. It did, and Jake laughed with her, but he was still thinking of Benny's Da'. The spectacles Benny's Da' wore. Jake was pretty sure he was the only one in town who had them. Jake had asked him about that one day when the three of them had been riding in one of the Rocking B's two north fields, looking out strays. Benny's Da' had told him a story about trading a beautiful true-threaded colt for the specs - from one of the lake-mart boats it had been, back when Benny's sissa had been alive, Oriza bless her. He had done it even though all of the cowpokes - even Vaughn Eisenhart himself, do ya not see - had told him such spectacles never worked; they were no more useful than Andy's fortunes. But Ben Slightman had tried them on, and they had changed everything. All at once, for the first time since he'd been maybe seven, he'd been able to really see the world.

He had polished his specs on his shirt as they rode, held them up to the sky so that twin spots of light swam on his cheeks, then put them back on. "If I ever lose em or break em, I don't know what I'd do," he'd said. "I got along without such just fine for twenty years or more, but a person gets used to something better in one rip of a hurry."

Jake thought it was a good story. He was sure Susannah would have believed it (assuming the singularity of Slightman's spectacles had occurred to her in the first place). He had an idea Roland would have believed it, too. Slightman told it in just the right way: a man who still appreciated his good fortune and didn't mind letting folks know that he'd been right about something while quite a number of other people, his boss among them, had been wide of the mark. Even Eddie might have swallowed it. The only thing wrong with Slightman's story was that it wasn't true. Jake didn't know what the real deal was, his touch didn't go that deep, but he knew that much. And it worried him.

Probably nothing, you know. Probably he just got them in some way that wouldn't sound so good. For all you know, one of the Manni brought them back from some other world, and Benny's Da' stole them.

That was one possibility; if pressed, Jake could have come up with half a dozen more. He was an imaginative boy.

Still, when added to what he'd seen by the river, it worried him. What kind of business could Eisenhart's foreman have on the far side of the Whye? Jake didn't know. And still, each time he thought to raise this subject with Roland, something kept him quiet.

And after giving him a hard time about keeping secrets!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But -

But what, little trailhand?

But Benny, that was what. Benny was the problem. Or maybe it was Jake himself who was actually the problem. He'd never been much good at making friends, and now he had a good one. A real one. The thought of getting Benny's Da' in trouble made him feel sick to his stomach.

SEVEN

Two days later, at five o' the clock, Rosalita, Zalia, Margaret Eisenhart, Sarey Adams, and Susannah Dean gathered in the field just west of Rosa's neat privy. There were a lot of giggles and not a few bursts of nervous, shrieky laughter. Roland kept his distance, and instructed Eddie and Jake to do the same. Best to let them get it out of their systems.

Set against the rail fence, ten feet apart from each other, were stuffies with plump sharproot heads. Each head was wrapped in a gunnysack which had been tied to make it look like the hood of a cloak. At the foot of each guy were three baskets. One was filled with more sharproot. Another was filled with potatoes. The contents of the third had elicited groans and cries of protest. These three were filled with radishes. Roland told them to quit their mewling; he'd considered peas, he said. None of them (even Susannah) was entirely sure he was joking.

Callahan, today dressed in jeans and a stockman's vest of many pockets, ambled out onto the porch, where Roland sat smoking and waiting for the ladies to settle down. Jake and Eddie were playing draughts close by.

"Vaughn Eisenhart's out front," the Pere told Roland. "Says he'll go on down to Tooky's and have a beer, but not until he passes a word with'ee."

Roland sighed, got up, and walked through the house to the front. Eisenhart was sitting on the seat of a one-horse fly, shor'boots propped on the splashboard, looking moodily off toward Callahan's church.

"G'day to ya, Roland," he said.

Wayne Overholser had given Roland a cowboy's broad-brimmed hat some days before. He tipped it to the rancher and waited.

"I guess you'll be sending the feather soon," Eisenhart said. "Calling a meeting, if it please ya."

Roland allowed as how that was so. It was not the town's business to tell knights of Eld how to do their duty, but Roland would tell them what duty was to be done. That much he owed them.

"I want you to know that when the time comes, I'll touch it and send it on. And come the meeting, I'll say aye."

"Say thankya," Roland replied. He was, in fact, touched. Since joining with Jake, Eddie, and Susannah, it seemed his heart had grown. Sometimes he was sorry. Mostly he wasn't.

"Took won't do neither."

"No," Roland agreed. "As long as business is good, the Tooks of the world never touch the feather. Nor say aye."

"Overholser's with him."

This was a blow. Not an entirely unexpected one, but he'd hoped Overholser would come around. Roland had all the support he needed, however, and supposed Overholser knew it. If he was wise, the farmer would just sit and wait for it to be over, one way or the other. If he meddled, he would likely not see another year's crops into his barns.

"I wanted ye to know one thing," Eisenhart said. "I'm in with'ee because of my wife, and my wife's in with'ee because she's decided she wants to hunt. This is what all such things as the dish-throwing comes to in the end, a woman telling her man what'll be and what won't. It ain't the natural way. A man's meant to rule his woman. Except in the matter of the babbies, o'course."

"She gave up everything she was raised to when she took you to husband," Roland said. "Now it's your turn to give a little."

"Don't ye think I know that? But if you get her killed, Roland, you'll take my curse with you when ye leave the Calla. If'ee do. No matter how many children ye save."

Roland, who had been cursed before, nodded. "If ka wills, Vaughn, she'll come back to you."

"Aye. But remember what I said."

"I will."

Eisenhart slapped the reins on the horse's back and the fly began to roll.

EIGHT

Each woman halved a sharproot head at forty yards, fifty yards, and sixty.

"Hit the head as high up into the hood as you can get," Roland said. "Hitting them low will do no good."

"Armor, I suppose?" Rosalita asked.

"Aye," Roland said, although that was not the entire truth. He wouldn't tell them what he now understood to be the entire truth until they needed to know it.

Next came the taters. Sarey Adams got hers at forty yards, clipped it at fifty, and missed entirely at sixty; her dish sailed high. She uttered a curse that was far from ladylike, then walked head-down to the side of the privy. Here she sat to watch the rest of the competition. Roland went over and sat beside her. He saw a tear trickling from the corner of her left eye and down her wind-roughened cheek.

"I've let ye down, stranger. Say sorry."

Roland took her hand and squeezed it. "Nay, lady, nay. There'll be work for you. Just not in the same place as these others. And you may yet throw the dish."

She gave him a wan smile and nodded her thanks.

Eddie put more sharproot "heads" on the stuffy-guys, then a radish on top of each. The latter were all but concealed in the shadows thrown by the gunnysack hoods. "Good luck, girls," he said. "Better you than me." Then he stepped away.

"Start from ten yards this time!" Roland called.

At ten, they all hit. And at twenty. At thirty yards, Susannah threw her plate high, as Roland had instructed her to do. He wanted one of the Calla women to win this round. At forty yards, Zalia Jaffords hesitated too long, and the dish she flung chopped the sharproot head in two rather than the radish sitting on top.

"Fuck-commala !" she cried, then clapped her hands to her mouth and looked at Callahan, who was sitting on the back steps. That fellow only smiled and waved cheerfully, affecting deafness.

She stamped over to Eddie and Jake, blushing to the tips of her ears and furious. "Ye must tell him to give me another chance, say will ya please," she told Eddie. "I can do it, I know I can do it - "

Eddie put a hand on her arm, stemming the flood. "He knows it, too, Zee. You're in."

She looked at him with burning eyes, lips pressed so tightly together they were almost gone. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Eddie said. "You could pitch for the Mets, darlin."

Now it was down to Margaret and Rosalita. They both hit the radishes at fifty yards. To Jake, Eddie murmured: "Buddy, I would have told you that was impossible if I hadn't just seen it."

At sixty yards, Margaret Eisenhart missed cleanly. Rosalita raised her plate over her right shoulder - she was a lefty - hesitated, then screamed "Riza !" and threw. Sharp-eyed though he was, Roland wasn't entirely sure if the plate's edge clipped the side of the radish or if the wind toppled it over. In either case, Rosalita raised her fists over her head and shook them, laughing.

"Fair-day goose! Fair-day goose!" Margaret began calling. The others joined in. Soon even Callahan was chanting.

Roland went to Rosa and gave her a hug, brief but strong. As he did so he whispered in her ear that while he had no goose, he might be able to find a certain long-necked gander for her, come evening.

"Well," she said, smiling, "when we get older, we take our prizes where we find them. Don't we?"

Zalia glanced at Margaret. "What did he say to her? Did'ee kennit?"

Margaret Eisenhart was smiling. "Nothing you haven't heard yourself, I'm sure," she said.

NINE

Then the ladies were gone. So was the Pere, on some errand or other. Roland of Gilead sat on the bottom porch step, looking downhill toward the site of the competition so lately completed. When Susannah asked him if he was satisfied, he nodded. "Yes, I think all's well there. We have to hope it is, because time's closing now. Things will happen fast." The truth was that he had never experienced such a confluence of events... but since Susannah had admitted her pregnancy, he had calmed nevertheless.

You've recalled the truth of ka to your truant mind , he thought. And it happened because this woman showed a kind of bravery the rest of us couldn't quite muster up .

"Roland, will I be going back out to the Rocking B?" Jake asked.

Roland considered, then shrugged. "Do you want to?"

"Yes, but this time I want to take the Ruger." Jake's face pinked a little, but his voice remained steady. He had awakened with this idea, as if the dreamgod Roland called Nis had brought it to him in his sleep. "I'll put it at the bottom of my bedroll and wrap it in my extra shirt. No one needs to know it's there." He paused. "I don't want to show it off to Benny, if that's what you're thinking."

The idea had never crossed Roland's mind. But what was in Jake's mind? He posed the question, and Jake's answer was the sort one gives when one has charted the likely course of a discussion well in advance.

"Do you ask as my dinh?"

Roland opened his mouth to say yes, saw how closely Eddie and Susannah were watching him, and reconsidered. There was a difference between keeping secrets (as each of them had in his own way kept the secret of Susannah's pregnancy) and following what Eddie called "a hunch." The request under Jake's request was to be on a longer rope. Simple as that. And surely Jake had earned the right to a little more rope. This was not the same boy who had come into Mid-World shivering and terrified and nearly naked.

"Not as your dinh," he said. "As for the Ruger, you may take it anywhere, and at any time. Did you not bring it to the tet in the first place?"

"Stole it," Jake said in a low voice. He was staring at his knees.

"You took what you needed to survive," Susannah said. "There's a big difference. Listen, sugar - you're not planning to shoot anyone, are you?"

"Not planning to, no."

"Be careful," she said. "I don't know what you've got in your head, but you be careful."

"And whatever it is, you better get it settled in the next week or so," Eddie told him.

Jake nodded, then looked at Roland. "When are you planning to call the town meeting?"

"According to the robot, we have ten days left before the Wolves come. So..." Roland calculated briefly. "Town gathering in six days. Will that suit you?"

Jake nodded again.

"Are you sure you don't want to tell us what's on your mind?"

"Not unless you ask as dinh," Jake said. "It's probably nothing, Roland. Really."

Roland nodded dubiously and began rolling another smoke. Having fresh tobacco was wonderful. "Is there anything else? Because, if there isn't - "

"There is, actually," Eddie said.

"What?"

"I need to go to New York," Eddie said. He spoke casually, as if proposing no more than a trip to the mercantile to buy a pickle or a licorice stick, but his eyes were dancing with excitement. "And this time I'll have to go in the flesh. Which means using the ball more direcdy, I guess. Black Thirteen. I hope to hell you know how to do it, Roland."

"Why do you need to go to New York?" Roland asked. "This I do ask as dinh."

"Sure you do," Eddie said, "and I'll tell you. Because you're right about time getting short. And because the Wolves of the Calla aren't the only ones we have to worry about."

"You want to see how close to July fifteenth it's getting," Jake said. "Don't you?"

"Yeah," Eddie said. "We know from when we all went todash that time is going faster in that version of New York, 1977. Remember the date on the piece of The New York Times I found in the doorway?"

"June second," Susannah said.

"Right. We're also pretty sure that we can't double back in time in that world; it's later every time we go there. Right?"

Jake nodded emphatically. "Because that world's not like the others... unless maybe it was just being sent todash by Black Thirteen that made us feel that way?"

"I don't think so," Eddie said. "That little piece of Second Avenue between the vacant lot and maybe on up to Sixtieth is a very important place. I think it's a doorway. One big doorway."

Jake Chambers was looking more and more excited. "Not all the way up to Sixtieth. Not that far. Second Avenue between Forty-sixth and Fifty-fourth, that's what I think. On the day I left Piper, I felt something change when I got to Fifty-fourth Street.

It's those eight blocks. The stretch with the record store on it, and Chew Chew Mama, and The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind. And the vacant lot, of course. That's the other end. It... I don't know..."

Eddie said, "Being there takes you into a different world. Some kind of key world. And I think that's why time always runs one way - "

Roland held up his hand. "Stop."

Eddie stopped, looking at Roland expectantly, smiling a little. Roland was not smiling. Some of his previous sense of well-being had passed away. Too much to do, gods damn it. And not enough time in which to do it.

"You want to see how near time has run to the day the agreement becomes null and void," he said. "Have I got that right?"

"You do."

"You don't need to go to New York physically to do that, Eddie. Todash would serve nicely."

"Todash would do fine to check the day and the month, sure, but there's more. We've been dumb about that vacant lot, you guys. I mean really dumb."

TEN

Eddie believed they could own the vacant lot without ever touching Susannah's inherited fortune; he thought Callahan's story showed quite clearly how it could be done. Not the rose; the rose was not to be owned (by them or anyone) but to be protected. And they could do it. Maybe.

Frightened or not, Calvin Tower had been waiting in that deserted laundrymat to save Pere Callahan's bacon. And frightened or not, Calvin Tower had refused - as of May 31st, 1977, anyway - to sell his last piece of real property to the Sombra Corporation. Eddie thought that Calvin Tower was, in the words of the song, holding out for a hero.

Eddie had also been thinking about the way Callahan had hidden his face in his hands the first time he mentioned Black Thirteen. He wanted it the hell out of his church... but so far he'd kept it anyway. Like the bookshop owner, the Pere had been holding out. How stupid they had been to assume Calvin Tower would ask millions for his lot! He wanted to be shed of it. But not until the right person came along. Or the right ka-tet.

"Suziella, you can't go because you're pregnant," Eddie said. "Jake, you can't go because you're a kid. All other questions aside, I'm pretty sure you couldn't sign the kind of contract I've been thinking about ever since Callahan told us his story. I could take you with me, but it sounds like you've got something you want to check into over here. Or am I wrong about that?"

"You're not wrong," Jake said. "But I'd almost go with you, anyway. This sounds really good."

Eddie smiled. "Almost only counts with grenados and horseshoes, kid. As for sending Roland, no offense, boss, but you're not all that suave in our world. You... um... lose something in the translation."

Susannah burst out laughing.

"How much are you thinking of offering him?" Jake asked. "I mean, it has to be something , doesn't it?"

"A buck," Eddie said. "I'll probably have to ask Tower to loan it to me, but - "

"No, we can do better than that," Jake said, looking serious. "I've got five or six dollars in my knapsack, I'm pretty sure." He grinned. "And we can offer him more, later on. When things kind of settle down on this side."

"If we're still alive," Susannah said, but she also looked excited. "You know what, Eddie? You just might be a genius."

"Balazar and his friends won't be happy if sai Tower sells us his lot," Roland said.

"Yeah, but maybe we can persuade Balazar to leave him alone," Eddie said. A grim little smile was playing around the corners of his mouth. "When it comes right down to it, Roland, Enrico Balazar's the kind of guy I wouldn't mind killing twice."

"When do you want to go?" Susannah asked him.

"The sooner the better," Eddie said. "For one thing, not knowing how late it is over there in New York is driving me nuts. Roland? What do you say?"

"I say tomorrow," Roland said. "We'll take the ball up to the cave, and then we'll see if you can go through the door to Calvin Tower's where and when. Your idea is a good one, Eddie, and I say thankya."

Jake said, "What if the ball sends you to the wrong place? The wrong version of 1977, or..." He hardly knew how to finish. He was remembering how thin everything had seemed when Black Thirteen had first taken them todash, and how endless darkness seemed to be waiting behind the painted surface realities around them. "... or someplace even farther?" he finished.

"In that case, I'll send back a postcard." Eddie said it with a shrug and a laugh, but for just a moment Jake saw how frightened he was. Susannah must have seen it, too, because she took Eddie's hand in both of hers and squeezed it.

"Hey, I'll be fine," Eddie said.

"You better be," Susannah replied. "You just better."