Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [61]
Overholser stood a long time, looking from Roland to Eddie and then back to Roland again. Here was a man not used to changing his mind; if he did so, it would hurt him like a rupture. From down the road came the laughter of the boys as Oy fetched something Benny had thrown—a stick almost as big as the bumbler was himself.
“I’d listen,” Overholser said at last. “I’d do that much, gods help me, and say thankee.”
“In other words he explained all the reasons why it was a fool’s errand,” Eddie told her later, “and then did exactly what Roland wanted him to do. It was like magic.”
“Sometimes Roland is magic,” she said.
Six
The Calla’s party had camped in a pleasant hilltop clearing not far south of the road but just enough off the Path of the Beam so that the clouds hung still and moveless in the sky, seemingly close enough to touch. The way there through the woods had been carefully marked; some of the blazes Susannah saw were as big as her palm. These people might be crackerjack farmers and stockmen, but it was clear the woods made them uneasy.
“May I spell ye on that chair a bit, young man?” Overholser asked Eddie as they began the final push upslope. Susannah could smell roasting meat and wondered who was tending to the cooking if the entire Callahan-Overholser party had come out to meet them. Had the woman mentioned someone named Andy? A servant, perhaps? She had. Overholser’s personal? Perhaps. Surely a man who could afford a Stetson as grand as the one now tipped back on his head could afford a personal.
“Do ya,” Eddie said. He didn’t quite dare to add “I beg” (Still sounds phony to him, Susannah thought), but he moved aside and gave over the wheelchair’s push-handles to Overholser. The farmer was a big man, it was a fair slope, and now he was pushing a woman who weighed close on to a hundred and thirty pounds, but his breathing, although heavy, remained regular.
“Might I ask you a question, sai Overholser?” Eddie asked.
“Of course,” Overholser replied.
“What’s your middle name?”
There was a momentary slackening of forward motion; Susannah put this down to mere surprise. “That’s an odd ’un, young fella; why d’ye ask?”
“Oh, it’s a kind of hobby of mine,” Eddie said. “In fact, I tell fortunes by em.”
Careful, Eddie, careful, Susannah thought, but she was amused in spite of herself.
“Oh, aye?”
“Yes,” Eddie said. “You, now. I’ll bet your middle name begins with”—he seemed to calculate—“with the letter D.” Only he pronounced it Deh, in the fashion of the Great Letters in the High Speech. “And I’d say it’s short. Five letters? Maybe only four?”
The slackening of forward push came again. “Devil say please!” Overholser exclaimed. “How’d you know? Tell me!”
Eddie shrugged. “It’s no more than counting and guessing, really. In truth, I’m wrong almost as often as I’m right.”
“More often,” Susannah said.
“Tell ya my middle name’s Dale,” Overholser said, “although if anyone ever explained me why, it’s slipped my mind. I lost my folks when I was young.”
“Sorry for your loss,” Susannah said, happy to see that Eddie was moving away. Probably to tell Jake she’d been right about the middle name: Wayne Dale Overholser. Equals nineteen.
“Is that young man trig or a fool?” Overholser asked Susannah. “Tell me, I beg, for I canna’ tell myself.”
“A little of both,” she said.
“No question about this push-chair, though, would you say? It’s trig as a compass.”
“Say thankya,” she said, then gave a small inward sigh of relief. It had come out sounding all right, probably because she hadn’t exactly planned on saying it.
“Where did it come from?”
“Back on our way a good distance,” she said. This turn of the conversation did not please her much. She thought it was Roland’s job to tell their history (or not tell it). He was their dinh. Besides, what was told by only one could not be contradicted. Still, she thought she could say a little more. “There’s a thinny. We came from the other side of that, where things are much different.” She craned around to look at him. His