narrowed. Above them, the ragged cruciform scar on his forehead seemed to glare.
What the hell am I supposed to say to them ?
Better say somethin, Eds, his brother Henry spoke up. They're waiting.
"Cry your pardon if I'm a little slow getting started," he said.
"We've come miles and wheels and more miles and wheels, and you're the first folks we've seen in many a
—"
Many a what? Week, month, year, decade?
Eddie laughed. To himself he sounded like the world's biggest idiot, a fellow who couldn't be trusted to hold
his own dick at watering-time, let alone a gun. "In many a blue moon."
They laughed at that, and hard. Some even applauded. He had touched the town's funnybone without even
realizing it. He relaxed, and when he did he found himself speaking quite naturally. It occurred to him, just in
passing, that not so long ago the armed gunslinger standing in front of these seven hundred frightened,
hopeful people had been sitting in front of the TV in nothing but a pair of yellowing underpants, eating
Cheetos, done up on heroin, and watching Yogi Bear.
"We've come from afar," he said, "and have far yet to go. Our time here will be short, but we'll do what we
can, hear me, I beg."
"Say on, stranger!" someone called. "You speak fair!"
Yeah ? Eddie thought. News to me, fella.
A few cries of Aye and Do ya.
"The healers in my barony have a saying," Eddie told them. 'First, do no harm.' " He wasn't sure if this was a
lawyer-motto or a doctor-motto, but he'd heard it in quite a few movies and TV shows, and it sounded pretty
good. "We would do no harm here, do you ken, but no one ever pulled a bullet, or even a splinter from under
a kid's fingernail, without spilling some blood."
There were murmurs of agreement. Overholser, however, was poker-faced, and in the crowd Eddie saw looks
of doubt. He felt a surprising flush of anger. He had no right to be angry at these people, who had done them
absolutely no harm and had refused them absolutely nothing (at least so far), but he was, just the same.
"We've got another saying in the barony of New York," he told them. " 'There ain't no free lunch.' From what
we know of your situation, it's serious. Standing up against these Wolves would be dangerous. But sometimes
doing nothing just makes people feel sick and hungry."
"Hear him, hear him!" the same someone at the back of the crowd called out. Eddie saw Andy the robot back
there, and near him a large wagon full of men in voluminous cloaks of either black or dark blue. Eddie
assumed that these were the Manni-folk.
"We'll look around," Eddie said, "and once we understand the problem, we'll see what can be done. If we
think the answer's nothing, we'll tip our hats to you and move along." Two or three rows back stood a man in
a battered white cowboy hat. He had shaggy white eyebrows and a white mustache to match. Eddie thought
he looked quite a bit like Pa Cartwright on that old TV show, Bonanza. This version of the Cartwright
patriarch looked less than thrilled with what Eddie was saying.
"If we can help, we'll help," he said. His voice was utterly flat now. "But we won't do it alone, folks. Hear
me, I beg. Hear me very well. You better be ready to stand up for what you want. You better be ready to fight
for the things you'd keep."
With that he stuck out a foot in front of him—the moccasin he wore didn't produce the same fist-on-coffintop
thud, but Eddie thought of it, all the same—and bowed. There was dead silence. Then Tian Jaffords began to
clap. Zalia joined him. Benny also applauded. His father nudged him, but the boy went on clapping, and after
a moment Slightman the Elder joined in.
Eddie gave Roland a burning look. Roland's own bland expression didn't change. Susannah tugged the leg of
his pants and Eddie bent to her.
"You did fine, sugar."
"No thanks to him." Eddie nodded at Roland. But now that it was over, he felt surprisingly good. And talking
was really not Roland's thing, Eddie knew that. He could do it when he had no backup, but he didn't care for
it.
So now you know what you are, he thought. Roland of Gilead's mouthpiece.
And yet was that so bad? Hadn't Cuthbert Allgood had the job long before him?
Callahan stepped forward. "Perhaps we could set them on a bit better than we have, my friends—give them a
proper Calla Bryn Sturgis welcome."
He began to applaud. The gathered folken joined in immediately this time. The applause was long and lusty.
There were cheers, whistles, stamping feet (the foot-stamping a little less than satisfying without a wood
floor to amplify the sound). The musical combo played not just one flourish but a whole series of them.
Susannah grasped one of Eddie's hands. Jake grasped the other. The four of them bowed like some rock
group at the end of a particularly good set, and the applause redoubled.
At last Callahan quieted it by raising his hands. "Serious work ahead, folks," he said. "Serious things to think
about, serious things to do. But for now, let's eat. Later, let's dance and sing and be merry!" They began to
applaud again and Callahan quieted them again. "Enough!" he cried, laughing. "And you Manni at the back, I
know you haul your own rations, but there's no reason on earth for you not to eat and drink what you have
with us. Join us, do ya! May it do ya fine!"
May it do us all fine, Eddie thought, and still that sense of foreboding wouldn't leave him. It was like a guest
standing on the outskirts of the party, just beyond the glow of the torches. And it was like a sound. A boot
heel on a wooden floor. A fist on the lid of a coffin.
SEVEN
Although there were benches and long trestle tables, only the old folks ate their dinners sitting down. And a
famous dinner it was, with literally two hundred dishes to choose among, most of them homely and delicious.
The doings began with a toast to the Calla. It was proposed by Vaughn Eisenhart, who stood with a bumper
in one hand and the feather in the other. Eddie thought this was probably the Crescent's version of the
National Anthem.
"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 non-toxic. 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. Apparenty 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 awhile even executioners. More than
anything else, however, they had been diplomats. Eddie, raised by his brother and his friends with such
nuggets of wisdom as Why can't you eat me like your sister does and I fucked your mother and she sure was
fine, not to mention the ever-popular I don't shut up I grow up, and when I look at you I throw up, would
never have thought of himself a diplomat, but on the whole he thought he handled himself pretty well. Only
Telford was hard, and the band shut him up, say thankya.
God knew it was a case of sink or swim; the Calla-folk might be frightened of the Wolves, but they weren't
shy when it came to asking how Eddie and the others of his tet would handle them. Eddie realized Roland
had done him a very big favor, making him speak in front of the entire bunch of them. It had warmed him up
a little for this.
He told all of them the same things, over and over. It would be impossible to talk strategy until they had
gotten a good look at the town. Impossible to tell how many men of the Calla would need to join them. Time
would show. They'd peek at daylight. There would be water if God willed it. Plus every other cliche he could
think of. (It even crossed his mind to promise them a chicken in every pot after the Wolves were vanquished,
but he stayed his tongue before it could wag so far.) A smallhold farmer named Jorge Estrada wanted to know
what they'd do if the Wolves decided to light the village on fire. Another, Garrett Strong, wanted Eddie to tell
them where the children would be kept safe when the Wolves came. "For we can't leave em here, you must
kennit very well," he said. Eddie, who realized he kenned very little, sipped at his graf and was
noncommittal. A fellow named Neil Faraday (Eddie couldn't tell if he was a smallhold farmer or just a hand)
approached and told Eddie this whole thing had gone too far. "They never take all the children, you know,"
he said. Eddie thought of asking Faraday what he'd make of someone who said, "Well, only two of them
raped my wife," and decided to keep the comment to himself. A dark-skinned, mustached fellow named
Louis Haycox introduced himself and told Eddie he had decided Tian Jaffords was right. He'd spent many
sleepless nights since the meeting, thinking it over, and had finally decided that he would stand and fight. If
they wanted him, that was. The combination of sincerity and terror Eddie saw in the man's face touched him
deeply. This was no excited kid who didn't know what he was doing but a full-grown man who probably
knew all too well.
So here they came with their questions and there they went with no real answers, but looking more satisfied
even so. Eddie talked until his mouth was dry, then exchanged his wooden cup of graf for cold tea, not
wanting to get drunk. He didn't want to eat any more, either; he was stuffed. But still they came. Cash and
Estrada. Strong and Echeverria. Winkler and Spalter (cousins of Overholser's, they said). Freddy Rosario and
Farren Posella… or was it Freddy Posella and Farren Rosario?
Every ten or fifteen minutes the torches would change color again. From red to green, from green to orange,
from orange to blue. The jugs of graf circulated. The talk grew louder. So did the laughter. Eddie began to
hear more frequent cries of Yer-bugger and something that sounded like Dive-down!, always followed by
laughter.
He saw Roland speaking with an old man in a blue cloak. The old fellow had the thickest, longest, whitest
beard Eddie had ever seen outside of a TV Bible epic. He spoke earnestly, looking up into Roland's
weatherbeaten face. Once he touched the gunslinger's arm, pulled it a little. Roland listened, nodded, said
nothing—not while Eddie was watching him, anyway. But he's interested, Eddie thought. Oh yeah—old long
tall and ugly's hearing something that interests him a lot.
The musicians were trooping back to the bandstand when someone else stepped up to Eddie. It was the
fellow who had reminded him of Pa Cartwright.
