Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [297]
Silence. Clicks and clacks.
“Programming won’t let him, I bet,” Eddie said sadly. “Well, if we get enough strong backs—”
“I can help you,” Andy said. “Where are these guns, sais?”
“Better not say just now,” Eddie replied. “You meet us at the Pere’s rectory early on Wolf’s Eve, all right?”
“What hour would you have me?”
“How does six sound?”
“Six o’ the clock. And how many guns will there be? Tell me that much, at least, so I may calculate the required energy levels.”
My friend, it takes a bullshitter to recognize bullshit, Eddie thought merrily, but kept a straight face. “There be a dozen. Maybe fifteen. They weigh a couple of hundred pounds each. Do you know pounds, Andy?”
“Aye, say thankya. A pound is roughly four hundred and fifty grams. Sixteen ounces. ‘A pint’s a pound, the world around.’ Those are big guns, sai Eddie, say true! Will they shoot?”
“We’re pretty sure they will,” Eddie said. “Aren’t we, Tian?”
Tian nodded. “And you’ll help us?”
“Aye, happy to. Six o’ the clock, at the rectory.”
“Thank you, Andy,” Eddie said. He started away, then looked back. “You absolutely won’t talk about this, will you?”
“No, sai, not if you tell me not to.”
“That’s just what I’m telling you. The last thing we want is for the Wolves to find out we’ve got some big guns to use against em.”
“Of course not,” Andy said. “What good news this is. Have a wonderful day, sais.”
“And you, Andy,” Eddie replied. “And you.”
Eleven
Walking back toward Tian’s place—it was only two miles distant from where they’d come upon Andy—Tian said, “Does he believe it?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie said, “but it surprised the shit out of him—did you feel that?”
“Yes,” Tian said. “Yes, I did.”
“He’ll be there to see for himself, I guarantee that much.”
Tian nodded, smiling. “Your dinh is clever.”
“That he is,” Eddie agreed. “That he is.”
Twelve
Once more Jake lay awake, looking up at the ceiling of Benny’s room. Once more Oy lay on Benny’s bed, curved into a comma with his nose beneath his squiggle of tail. Tomorrow night Jake would be back at Father Callahan’s, back with his ka-tet, and he couldn’t wait. Tomorrow would be Wolf’s Eve, but this was only the eve of Wolf’s Eve, and Roland had felt it would be best for Jake to stay this one last night at the Rocking B. “We don’t want to raise suspicions this late in the game,” he’d said. Jake understood, but boy, this was sick. The prospect of standing against the Wolves was bad enough. The thought of how Benny might look at him two days from now was even worse.
Maybe we’ll all get killed, Jake thought. Then I won’t have to worry about it.
In his distress, this idea actually had a certain attraction.
“Jake? You asleep?”
For a moment Jake considered faking it, but something inside sneered at such cowardice. “No,” he said. “But I ought to try, Benny. I doubt if I’ll get much tomorrow night.”
“I guess not,” Benny whispered back respectfully, and then: “You scared?”
“ ’Course I am,” Jake said. “What do you think I am, crazy?”
Benny got up on one elbow. “How many do you think you’ll kill?”
Jake thought about it. It made him sick to think about it, way down in the pit of his stomach, but he thought about it anyway. “Dunno. If there’s seventy, I guess I’ll have to try to get ten.”
He found himself thinking (with a mild sense of wonder) of Ms. Avery’s English class. The hanging yellow globes with ghostly dead flies lying in their bellies. Lucas Hanson, who always tried to trip him when he was going up the aisle. Sentences diagrammed on the blackboard: beware the misplaced modifier. Petra Jesserling, who always wore A-line jumpers and had a crush on him (or so Mike Yanko claimed). The drone of Ms. Avery’s voice. Outs at noon—what would be plain old lunch in a plain old public school. Sitting at his desk afterward and trying to stay awake. Was that boy, that neat Piper School boy, actually going out to the north of a farming town called Calla Bryn Sturgis to battle child-stealing monsters?