Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [53]
“They will, though,” he said. “Isn’t that true, Mr. Callahan? They will ask.”
“I don’t know,” Callahan said. “You’d have to convince them…”
He trailed off, looking at Roland. Roland was shaking his head.
“That’s not how it works,” the gunslinger said. “Not being from Mid-World you may not know that, but that’s not how it works. Convincing isn’t what we do. We deal in lead.”
Callahan sighed deeply, then nodded. “I have a book. Tales of Arthur, it’s called.”
Roland’s eyes gleamed. “Do you? Do you, indeed? I would like to see such a book. I would like it very well.”
“Perhaps you shall,” Callahan said. “The stories in it are certainly not much like the tales of the Round Table I read as a boy, but…” He shook his head. “I understand what you’re saying to me, let’s leave it at that. There are three questions, am I right? And you just asked me the first.”
“Three, yes,” Roland said. “Three is a number of power.”
Eddie thought, If you want to try a real number of power, Roland old buddy, try nineteen.
“And all three must be answered yes.”
Roland nodded. “And if they are, you may ask no more. We may be cast on, sai Callahan, but no man may cast us back. Make sure your people”—he nodded toward the woods south of them—“understand that.”
“Gunslinger—”
“Call me Roland. We’re at peace, you and I.”
“All right, Roland. Hear me well, do ya, I beg. (For so we say in the Calla.) We who come to you are only half a dozen. We six cannot decide. Only the Calla can decide.”
“Democracy,” Roland said. He pushed his hat back from his forehead, rubbed his forehead, and sighed.
“But if we six agree—especially sai Overholser—” He broke off, looking rather warily at Jake. “What? Did I say something?”
Jake shook his head and motioned Callahan to continue.
“If we six agree, it’s pretty much a done deal.”
Eddie closed his eyes, as if in bliss. “Say it again, pal.”
Callahan eyed him, puzzled and wary. “What?”
“Done deal. Or anything from your where and when.” He paused. “Our side of the big ka.”
Callahan considered this, then began to grin. “I didn’t know whether to shit or go blind,” he said. “I went on a bender, broke the bank, kicked the bucket, blew my top, walked on thin ice, rode the pink horse down nightmare alley. Like that?”
Roland looked puzzled (perhaps even a little bored), but Eddie Dean’s face was a study in bliss. Susannah and Jake seemed caught somewhere between amusement and a kind of surprised, recollective sadness.
“Keep em coming, pal,” Eddie said hoarsely, and made a come on, man gesture with both hands. He sounded as if he might have been speaking through a throatful of tears. “Just keep em coming.”
“Perhaps another time,” Callahan said gently. “Another time we may sit and have our own palaver about the old places and ways of saying. Baseball, if it do ya. Now, though, time is short.”
“In more ways than you know, maybe,” Roland said. “What would you have of us, sai Callahan? And now you must speak to the point, for I’ve told you in every way I can that we are not wanderers your friends may interview, then hire or not as they do their farmhands or saddle-tramps.”
“For now I ask only that you stay where you are and let me bring them to you,” he said. “There’s Tian Jaffords, who’s really responsible for us being out here, and his wife, Zalia. There’s Overholser, the one who most needs to be convinced that we need you.”
“We won’t convince him or anyone,” Roland said.
“I understand,” Callahan said hastily. “Yes, you’ve made that perfectly clear. And there’s Ben Slightman and his boy, Benny. Ben the Younger is an odd case. His sister died four years ago, when she and Benny were both ten. No one knows if that makes Ben the Younger a twin or a singleton.” He stopped abruptly. “I’ve wandered. I’m sorry.”
Roland gestured with an open palm to show it was all right.
“You make me nervous, hear me I beg.”
“You don’t need to beg us nothing, sugar,” Susannah said.
Callahan smiled. “It’s only the way we speak. In the Calla, when you meet someone, you may say, ‘How from head to feet, do ya, I beg?’ And the