—Estrada, Anselm, Overholser—with their bahs hugged to their chests. Instead of a bah, Vaughn Eisenhart was hugging the rifle Roland had cleaned for him. In the road, approaching from the east, he saw rank upon rank of green-cloaked riders on gray horses. They were slowing now. The sun was finally up and gleaming on the metal of their masks. The joke of those masks, of course, was that there was more metal beneath them. Roland let the eye of his imagining rise, looking for other riders—a party coming into the undefended town from the south, for instance. He saw none. In his own mind, at least, the entire raiding party was here. And if they’d swallowed the line Roland and the Ka-Tet of the Ninety and Nine had paid out with such care, it should be here. He saw the bucka waggons lined up on the town side of the road and had time to wish they’d freed the teams from the traces, but of course this way it looked better, more hurried. He saw the path leading into the arroyos, to the mines both abandoned and working, to the honeycomb of caves beyond them. He saw the leading Wolves rein up here, dragging the mouths of their mounts into snarls with their gauntleted hands. He saw through their eyes, saw pictures not made of warm human sight but cold, like those in the Magda-seens. Saw the child’s hat Francine Tavery had let drop. His mind had a nose as well as an eye, and it smelled the bland yet fecund aroma of children. It smelled something rich and fatty—the stuff the Wolves would take from the children they abducted. His mind had an ear as well as a nose, and it heard—faintly—the same sort of clicks and clunks that had emanated from Andy, the same low whining of relays, servomotors, hydraulic pumps, gods knew what other machinery. His mind’s eye saw the Wolves first inspecting the confusion of tracks on the road (he hoped it looked like a confusion to them), then looking up the arroyo path. Because imagining them looking the other way, getting ready to broil the ten of them in their hide like chickens in a roasting pan, would do him no good. No, they were looking up the arroyo path. Must be looking up the arroyo path. They were smelling children—perhaps their fear as well as the powerful stuff buried deep in their brains—and seeing the few tumbled bits of trash and treasure their prey had left behind. Standing there on their mechanical horses. Looking.
Go in, Roland urged silently. He felt Jake stir a little beside him, hearing his thought. His prayer, almost. Go in. Go after them. Take what you will.
There was a loud clack! sound from one of the Wolves. This was followed by a brief blurt of siren. The siren was followed by the nasty warbling whistle Jake had heard out at the Dogan. After that, the horses began to move again. First there was the soft thud of their hooves on the oggan, then on the far stonier ground of the arroyo path. There was nothing else; these horses didn’t whinny nervously, like those still harnessed to the buckas. For Roland, it was enough. They had taken the bait. He slipped his revolver out of its holster. Beside him, Jake shifted again and Roland knew he was doing the same thing.
He had told them the formation to expect when they burst out of the hide: about a quarter of the Wolves on one side of the path, looking toward the river, a quarter of their number turned toward the town of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Or perhaps a few more in that direction, since if there was trouble, the town was where the Wolves—or the Wolves’ programmers—would reasonably expect it to come from. And the rest? Thirty or more? Already up the path. Hemmed in, do ya.
Roland began counting to twenty, but when he got to nineteen decided he’d counted enough. He gathered his legs beneath him—there was no dry twist now, not so much as a twinge—and then pistoned upward with his father’s gun held high in his hand.
“For Gilead and the Calla!” he roared. “Now, gunslingers! Now, you Sisters of Oriza! Now, now! Kill them! No quarter! Kill them all!”
Fifteen
They burst up and out of the earth like dragon’s teeth. Boards flew away to either