Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [105]
Eddie thought of saying, If you think this is an election you better think again, and then didn’t. Mouth shut, see much, say little.
“Do’ee have speed-shooters, p’raps?” Telford asked. “Or grenados?”
“Oh well,” Eddie said, “that’s as may be.”
“I never heard of a woman gunslinger.”
“No?”
“Or a boy, for that matter. Even a ’prentice. How are we to know you are who you say you are? Tell me, I beg.”
“Well, that’s a hard one to answer,” Eddie said. He had taken a strong dislike to Telford, who looked too old to have children at risk.
“Yet people will want to know,” Telford said. “Certainly before they bring the storm.”
Eddie remembered Roland’s saying We may be cast on but no man may cast us back. It was clear they didn’t understand that yet. Certainly Telford didn’t. Of course there were questions that had to be answered, and answered yes; Callahan had mentioned that and Roland had confirmed it. Three of them. The first was something about aid and succor. Eddie didn’t think those questions had been asked yet, didn’t see how they could have been, but he didn’t think they would be asked in the Gathering Hall when the time came. The answers might be given by little people like Posella and Rosario, who didn’t even know what they were saying. People who did have children at risk.
“Who are you really?” Telford asked. “Tell me, I beg.”
“Eddie Dean, of New York. I hope you’re not questioning my honesty. I hope to Christ you’re not doing that.”
Telford took a step back, suddenly wary. Eddie was grimly glad to see it. Fear wasn’t better than respect, but by God it was better than nothing. “Nay, not at all, my friend! Please! But tell me this—have you ever used the gun you carry? Tell me, I beg.”
Eddie saw that Telford, although nervous of him, didn’t really believe it. Perhaps there was still too much of the old Eddie Dean, the one who really had been of New York, in his face and manner for this rancher-sai to believe it, but Eddie didn’t think that was it. Not the bottom of it, anyway. Here was a fellow who’d made up his mind to stand by and watch creatures from Thunderclap take the children of his neighbors, and perhaps a man like that simply couldn’t believe in the simple, final answers a gun allowed. Eddie had come to know those answers, however. Even to love them. He remembered their single terrible day in Lud, racing Susannah in her wheelchair under a gray sky while the god-drums pounded. He remembered Frank and Luster and Topsy the Sailor; thought of a woman named Maud kneeling to kiss one of the lunatics Eddie had shot to death. What had she said? You shouldn’t’ve shot Winston, for ’twas his birthday. Something like that.
“I’ve used this one and the other one and the Ruger as well,” he said. “And don’t you ever speak to me that way again, my friend, as if the two of us were on the inside of some funny joke.”
“If I offended in any way, gunslinger, I cry your pardon.”
Eddie relaxed a little. Gunslinger. At least the silver-haired son of a bitch had the wit to say so even if he might not believe so.
The band produced another flourish. The leader slipped his guitar-strap over his head and called, “Come on now, you all! That’s enough food! Time to dance it off and sweat it out, so it is!”
Cheers and yipping cries. There was also a rattle of explosions that caused Eddie to drop his hand, as he had seen Roland drop his on a good many occasions.
“Easy, my friend,” Telford said. “Only little bangers. Children setting off Reap-crackers, you ken.”
“So it is,” Eddie said. “Cry your pardon.”
“No need.” Telford smiled. It was a handsome Pa Cartwright smile, and in it Eddie saw one thing clear: this man would never come over to their side. Not, that was, until and unless every Wolf out of Thunderclap lay dead for the town’s inspection in this very Pavilion. And if that happened, he would claim to have been with them from the very first.
Eight
The dancing went on until moonrise, and that