Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [222]
“But the ball doesn’t allow such thoughts,” Callahan said. “I believe it lures people on to acts of terrible evil by whispering to them that they will do good. That they’ll make things not just a little better but all better.”
“Yes,” Roland said. His voice was as dry as the snap of a twig in a fire.
“Do you think such traveling might actually be possible?” Callahan asked him. “Or was it only the thing’s persuasive lie? Its glammer?”
“I believe it’s so,” Roland said. “And I believe that when we leave the Calla, it will be by that door.”
“Would that I could come with you!” Callahan said. He spoke with surprising vehemence.
“Mayhap you will,” Roland said. “In any case, you finally put the box—and the ball within—inside your church. To quiet it.”
“Yes. And mostly it’s worked. Mostly it sleeps.”
“Yet you said it sent you todash twice.”
Callahan nodded. The vehemence had flared like a pine-knot in a fireplace and disappeared just as quickly. Now he only looked tired. And very old, indeed. “The first time was to Mexico. Do you remember way back to the beginning of my story? The writer and the boy who believed?”
They nodded.
“One night the ball reached out to me when I slept and took me todash to Los Zapatos, Mexico. It was a funeral. The writer’s funeral.”
“Ben Mears,” Eddie said. “The Air Dance guy.”
“Yes.”
“Did folks see you?” Jake asked. “Because they didn’t see us.”
Callahan shook his head. “No. But they sensed me. When I walked toward them, they moved away. It was as if I’d turned into a cold draft. In any case, the boy was there—Mark Petrie. Only he wasn’t a boy any longer. He was in his young manhood. From that, and from the way he spoke of Ben—‘There was a time when I would have called fifty-nine old’ is how he began his eulogy—I’d guess that this might have been the mid-1990s. In any case, I didn’t stay long…but long enough to decide that my young friend from all that long time ago had turned out fine. Maybe I did something right in ’Salem’s Lot, after all.” He paused a moment and then said, “In his eulogy, Mark referred to Ben as his father. That touched me very, very deeply.”
“And the second time the ball sent you todash?” Roland asked. “The time it sent you to the Castle of the King?”
“There were birds. Great fat black birds. And beyond that I’ll not speak. Not in the middle of the night.” Callahan spoke in a dry voice that brooked no argument. He stood up again. “Another time, perhaps.”
Roland bowed acceptance of this. “Say thankya.”
“Will’ee not turn in, folks?”
“Soon,” Roland said.
They thanked him for his story (even Oy added a single, sleepy bark) and bade him goodnight. They watched him go and for several seconds after, they said nothing.
Twenty
It was Jake who broke the silence. “That guy Walter was behind us, Roland! When we left the way station, he was behind us! Pere Callahan, too!”
“Yes,” Roland said. “As far back as that, Callahan was in our story. It makes my stomach flutter. As though I’d lost gravity.”
Eddie dabbed at the corner of his eye. “Whenever you show emotion like that, Roland,” he said, “I get all warm and squashy inside.” Then, when Roland only looked at him, “Ah, come on, quit laughin. You know I love it when you get the joke, but you’re embarrassing me.”
“Cry pardon,” Roland said with a faint smile. “Such humor as I have turns in early.”
“Mine stays up all night,” Eddie said brightly. “Keeps me awake. Tells me jokes. Knock-knock, who’s there, icy, icy who, icy your underwear, yock-yock-yock!”
“Is it out of your system?” Roland asked when he had finished.
“For the time being, yeah. But don’t worry, Roland, it always comes back. Can I ask you something?”
“Is it foolish?”
“I don’t think so. I hope not.”
“Then ask.”
“Those two men who saved Callahan’s bacon in the laundrymat on the East Side—were they who I think they were?”
“Who do you think they were?”
Eddie looked at Jake. “What about you, O son of Elmer? Got any ideas?”
“Sure,” Jake said. “It