"Roland tells me that for a guy who doesn't want to be called Father, you have taken some very Fatherly
stands just lately."
"If you're speaking about the idea of terminating your wife's pregnancy—"
Eddie raised a hand. "Let's say I'm not speaking of any one thing in particular. It's just that we've got a job to
do here, and we need you to help us do it. The last thing we need is to get sidetracked by a lot of your old
Catholic blather. So let's just say yes, I was bluffing, and move on. Will that serve? Father?"
Eddie's smile had grown strained and exasperated. There were bright smudges of color on his cheekbones.
Callahan considered the look of him with great care, and then nodded. "Yes," he said. "You were bluffing. By
all means let's leave it at that and move on."
"Good," Eddie said. He looked at Roland.
"The first question is for Susannah," Roland said. "It's a simple one: how are you feeling?"
"Just fine," she replied.
"Say true?"
She nodded. "Say true, say thankya."
"No headaches here?" Roland rubbed above his left temple.
"No. And the jittery feelings I used to get just after sunset, just before dawn—have quit. And look at me!"
She ran a hand down the swell of her breasts, to her waist, to her right hip. "I've lost some of the fullness.
Roland… I've read that sometimes animals in the wild—carnivores like wildcats, herbivores like deer and
rabbits—reabsorb their babies if the conditions to have them are adverse. You don't suppose…" She trailed
off, looking at him hopefully.
Roland wished he could have supported this charming idea, but he couldn't. And withholding the truth within
the ka-tet was no longer an option. He shook his head. Susannah's face fell.
"She's been sleeping quietly, so far as I can tell," Eddie said. "No sign of Mia."
"Rosalita says the same," Callahan added.
"You got dat jane watchin me?" Susannah said in a suspiciously Detta-like tone. But she was smiling.
"Every now and then," Callahan admitted.
"Let's leave the subject of Susannah's chap, if we may," Roland said. "We need to speak of the Wolves. Them
and little else."
"But Roland—" Eddie began.
Roland held up his hand. "I know how many other matters there are. I know how pressing they are. I also
know that if we become distracted, we're apt to die here in Calla Bryn Sturgis, and dead gunslingers can help
no one. Nor do they go their course. Do you agree?" His eyes swept them. No one replied. Somewhere in the
distance was the sound of many children singing. The sound was high and gleeful and innocent. Something
about commala.
"There is one other bit of business that we must address," Roland said. "It involves you, Pere. And what's
now called the Doorway Cave. Will you go through that door, and back to your country?"
"Are you kidding?" Callahan's eyes were bright. "A chance to go back, even for a little while? You just say
the word."
Roland nodded. "Later today, mayhap you and I will take a little pasear on up there, and I'll see you through
the door. You know where the vacant lot is, don't you?"
"Sure. I must have been past it a thousand times, back in my other life."
"And you understand about the zip code?" Eddie asked.
"If Mr. Tower did as you requested, it'll be written at the end of the board fence, Forty-sixth Street side. That
was brilliant, by the way."
"Get the number… and get the date, too," Roland said. "We have to keep track of the time over there if we
can, Eddie's right about that. Get it and come back. Then, after the meeting in the Pavilion, we'll need you to
go through the door again."
"This time to wherever Tower and Deepneau are in New England," Callahan guessed.
"Yes," Roland said.
"If you find them, you'll want to talk mostly to Mr. Deepneau," Jake said. He flushed when they all turned to
him, but kept his eyes trained on Callahan's. "Mr. Tower might be stubborn—"
"That's the understatement of the century," Eddie said. "By the time you get there, he'll probably have found
twelve used bookstores and God knows how many first editions of Indiana Jones's Nineteenth Nervous
Breakdown.'"
"—but Mr. Deepneau will listen," Jake went on.
"Issen, Ake," Oy said, and rolled over onto his back. "Issen kiyet!"
Scratching Oy's belly, Jake said: "If anyone can convince Mr. Tower to do something, it'll be Mr. Deepneau."
"Okay," Callahan replied, nodding. "I hear you well."
The singing children were closer now. Susannah turned but couldn't see them yet; she assumed they were
coming up River Street. If so, they'd be in view once they cleared the livery and turned down the high street
at Took's General Store. Some of the folken on the porch over there were already getting up to look.
Roland, meanwhile, was studying Eddie with a small smile. "Once when I used the word assume, you told
me a saying about it from your world. I'd hear it again, if you remember."
Eddie grinned. "Assume makes an ass out of u and me—is that the one you mean?"
Roland nodded. "It's a good saying. All the same, I'm going to make an assumption now—pound it like a nail
—then hang all our hopes of coming out of this alive on it. I don't like it but see no choice. The assumption is
that only Ben Slightman and Andy are working against us. That if we take care of them when the time comes,
we can move in secrecy."
"Don't kill him," Jake said in a voice almost too low to hear. He had drawn Oy close and was petting the top
of his head and his long neck with a kind of compulsive, darting speed. Oy bore this patiently.
"Cry pardon, Jake," Susannah said, leaning forward and tipping a hand behind one ear. "I didn't—"
"Don't kill him!" This time his voice was hoarse and wavering and close to tears. "Don't kill Benny's Da'.
Please."
Eddie reached out and cupped the nape of the boy's neck gently. "Jake, Benny Slightman's Da' is willing to
send a hundred kids off into Thunderclap with the Wolves, just to spare his own. And you know how they'd
come back."
"Yeah, but in his eyes he doesn't have any choice because—"
"His choice could have been to stand with us," Roland said. His voice was dull and dreadful. Almost dead.
"But—"
But what? Jake didn't know. He had been over this and over this and he still didn't know. Sudden tears spilled
from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. Callahan reached out to touch him. Jake pushed his hand away.
Roland sighed. "We'll do what we can to spare him. That much I promise you. I don't know if it will be a
mercy or not— the Slightmans are going to be through in this town, if there's a town left after the end of next
week—but perhaps they'll go north or south along the Crescent and start some sort of new life. And Jake,
listen: there's no need for Ben Slightman to ever know you overheard Andy and his father last night."
Jake was looking at him with an expression that didn't quite dare to be hope. He didn't care a hill of beans
about Slightman the Elder, but he didn't want Benny to know it was him. He supposed that made him a
coward, but he didn't want Benny to know. "Really? For sure?"
"Nothing about this is for sure, but—"
Before he could finish, the singing children swept around the corner. Leading them, silver limbs and golden
body gleaming mellowly in the day's subdued light, was Andy the Messenger Robot. He was walking
backward. In one hand was a bah-bolt wrapped in banners of bright silk. To Susannah he looked like a
parade-marshal on the Fourth of July. He waved his baton extravagantly from side to side, leading the
children in their song while a reedy bagpipe accompaniment issued from the speakers in his chest and head.
"Holy shit," Eddie said. "It's the Pied Piper of Hamelin."
"Commala-come-one!
Mamma had a son!
Dass-a time 'at Daddy
Had d 'mos 'fun!"
Andy sang this part alone, then pointed his baton at the crowd of children. They joined in boisterously.
"Commala-come-come!
Daddy had one!
Dass-a time 'at Mommy
Had d 'mos' fun!"
Gleeful laughter. There weren't as many kids as Susannah would have thought, given the amount of noise
they were putting out. Seeing Andy there at their head, after hearing Jake's story, chilled her heart. At the
same time, she felt an angry pulse begin to beat in her throat and her left temple. That he should lead them
down the street like this! Like the Pied Piper, Eddie was right—like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Now he pointed his makeshift baton at a pretty girl who looked thirteen or fourteen. Susannah thought she
was one of the Anselm kids, from the smallhold just south of Tian Jaffords's place. She sang out the next
verse bright and clear to that same heavily rhythmic beat, which was almost (but not quite) a skip-rope chant:
"Commala-come-two!
You know what to do!
Plant the rice commala,
Don't ye be… no . . . foo'!
Then, as the others joined in again, Susannah realized that the group of children was bigger than she'd
thought when they came around the corner, quite a bit bigger. Her ears had told her truer than her eyes, and
there was a perfectly good reason for that.
"Commala-come-two! [they sang]
Daddy no foo'!
Mommy plant commala
cause she know jus' what to do!"
The group looked smaller at first glance because so many of the faces were the same—the face of the Anselm
girl, for instance, was nearly the face of the boy next to her. Her twin brother. Almost all the kids in Andy's
group were twins. Susannah suddenly realized how eerie this was, like all the strange doublings they'd
encountered caught in a bottle. Her stomach turned over. And she felt the first twinge of pain above her left
eye. Her hand began to rise toward the tender spot.
No, she told herself, I don't feel that. She made the hand go back down. There was no need to rub her brow.
No need to rub what didn't hurt.
Andy pointed his baton at a strutting, pudgy little boy who couldn't have been more than eight. He sang the
words out in a high and childish treble that made the other kids laugh.
"Commala-come-t'ree!
You know what't 'be
Plant d'rice commala
and d'rice'll make ya free!"
To which the chorus replied:
"Commala-come-t 'ree!
Rice'll make ya free!
When ya plant the rice commala
You know jus' what to be! "
Andy saw Roland's ka-tet and waved his baton cheerily. So did the children… half of whom would come
back drooling and roont if the parade-marshal had his way. They would grow to the size of giants, screaming
with pain, and then die early.
"Wave back," Roland said, and raised his hand. "Wave back, all of you, for the sake of your fathers."
Eddie flashed Andy a happy, toothy grin. "How you doing, you cheapshit Radio Shack dickweed?" he asked.
The voice coming through his grin was low and savage. He gave Andy a double thumbs-up. "How you doing,
you robot psycho? Say fine? Say thankya! Say bite my bag!"
Jake burst out laughing at that. They all continued waving and smiling. The children waved and smiled back.
Andy also waved. He led his merry band down the high street, chanting Commala-come-four! River's at the
door!
"They love him," Callahan said. There was a strange, sick expression of disgust on his face. "Generations of
children have loved Andy."
"That," Roland remarked, "is about to change."
FOUR
"Further questions?" Roland asked when Andy and the children were gone. "Ask now if you will. It could be
your last chance."
"What about Tian Jaffords?" Callahan asked. "In a very real sense it was Tian who started this. There ought
to be a place for him at the finish."
Roland nodded. "I have a job for him. One he and Eddie will do together. Pere, that's a fine privy down
below Rosalita's cottage. Tall. Strong."
Callahan raised his eyebrows. "Aye, say thankya. 'Twas Tian and his neighbor, Hugh Anselm, who built it."
"Could you put a lock on the outside of it in the next few days?"
"I could but—"
"If things go well no lock will be necessary, but one can never be sure."
"No," Callahan said. "I suppose one can't. But I can do as you ask."
"What's your plan, sugar?" Susannah asked. She spoke in a quiet, oddly gentle voice.
"There's precious little plan in it. Most times that's all to the good. The most important thing I can tell you is
not to believe anything I say once we get up from here, dust off our bottoms, and rejoin the folken. Especially
nothing I say when I stand up at the meeting with the feather in my hand. Most of it will be lies." He gave
them a smile. Above it, his faded blue eyes were as hard as rocks. "My Da' and Cuthbert's Da' used to have a
rule between em: first the smiles, then the lies. Last comes gunfire."
"We're almost there, aren't we?" Susannah asked. "Almost to the shooting."
Roland nodded. "And the shooting will happen so fast and be over so quick that you'll wonder what all the
planning and palaver was for, when in the end it always comes down to the same five minutes' worth of
