Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [51]
The stranger wore a long black coat open over a dark shirt with a notched collar. His hair was long and white, sticking up on the sides and in front as if scared. His forehead was marked with a T-shaped scar. “My friends are still back there a little piece,” he said, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the woods in a deliberately nonspecific way. “I now call Calla Bryn Sturgis my home. Before that, Detroit, Michigan, where I worked in a homeless shelter, making soup and running AA meetings. Work I knew quite well. Before that—for a short while—Topeka, Kansas.”
He observed the way the three younger ones started at that with a kind of interested amusement.
“Before that, New York City. And before that, a little town called Jerusalem’s Lot, in the state of Maine.”
Seven
“You’re from our side,” Eddie said. He spoke in a kind of sigh. “Holy God, you’re really from our side!”
“Yes, I think I am,” the man in the turned-around collar said. “My name is Donald Callahan.”
“You’re a priest,” Susannah said. She looked from the cross that hung around his neck—small and discreet, but gleaming gold—to the larger, cruder one that scarred his forehead.
Callahan shook his head. “No more. Once. Perhaps one day again, with the blessing, but not now. Now I’m just a man of God. May I ask…when are you from?”
“1964,” Susannah said.
“1977,” Jake said.
“1987,” Eddie said.
Callahan’s eyes gleamed at that. “1987. And I came here in 1983, counting as we did then. So tell me something, young man, something very important. Had the Red Sox won the World Series yet when you left?”
Eddie threw back his head and laughed. The sound was both surprised and cheerful. “No, man, sorry. They came within one out of it last year—at Shea Stadium this was, against the Mets—and then this guy named Bill Buckner who was playing first base let an easy grounder get through his wickets. He’ll never live it down. Come on over here and sit down, what do you say? There’s no coffee, but Roland—that’s this beat-up-lookin guy on my right—makes a pretty fair cup of woods tea.”
Callahan turned his attention to Roland and then did an amazing thing: dropped to one knee, lowered his head slightly, and put his fist against his scarred brow. “Hile, gunslinger, may we be well-met on the path.”
“Hile,” Roland said. “Come forward, good stranger, and tell us of your need.”
Callahan looked up at him, surprised.
Roland looked back at him calmly, and nodded. “Well-met or ill, it may be you will find what you seek.”
“And you may also,” Callahan said.
“Then come forward,” Roland said. “Come forward and join our palaver.”
Eight
“Before we really get going, can I ask you something?”
This was Eddie. Beside him, Roland had built up the fire and was rummaging in their combined gunna for the little earthen pot—an artifact of the Old People—in which he liked to brew tea.
“Of course, young man.”
“You’re Donald Callahan.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your middle name?”
Callahan cocked his head a little to the side, raised one eyebrow, then smiled. “Frank. After my grandfather. Does it signify?”
Eddie, Susannah, and Jake shared a look. The thought that went with it flowed effortlessly among them: Donald Frank Callahan. Equals nineteen.
“It does signify,” Callahan said.
“Perhaps,” Roland said. “Perhaps not.” He poured water for the tea, manipulating the waterskin easily.
“You seem to have suffered an accident,” Callahan said, looking at Roland’s right hand.
“I make do,” Roland said.
“Gets by with a little help from his friends, you might say,” Jake added, not smiling.
Callahan nodded, not understanding and knowing he need not: they were ka-tet. He might not know that particular term, but the term didn’t matter. It was in the way they looked at each other and moved around each other.
“You know my name,” Callahan said. “May I have the pleasure of knowing yours?”
They introduced themselves: Eddie and Susannah Dean, of New York; Jake Chambers, of New York; Oy of Mid-World; Roland Deschain, of Gilead that was.