Wolves of the Calla

She didn't do that. Didn't have the time, for one thing.

Maybe not, but he'd feel a lot better in the morning, just the same. When he saw all the kids at breakfast. Including Aaron, the little boy with the chubby legs and the little sticking-out belly. He thought of what his mother sometimes said when she saw a mother wheeling a little one like that along the street: So cute! Looks good enough to eat!

Quit it. Go to sleep!

But it was a long time before Eddie got back to sleep.

THREE

Jake awoke from his nightmare with a gasp, not sure where he was. He sat up, shivering, arms wrapped around himself. He was wearing nothing but a plain cotton shirt-too big for him-and flimsy cotton shorts, sort of like gym shorts, that were also too big for him. What…?

There was a grunt, followed by a muffled fart. Jake looked toward these sounds, saw Be

Then the dream. The horrible dream. Susa

That was no dream and you know it. You have to tell Roland.

The thought which followed this was somehow even more disturbing: Roland already knows. So does Eddie.

Jake sat with his knees against his chest and his arms linked around his shins, feeling more miserable than at any time since getting a good look at his Final Essay in Ms. Avery's English Comp class. My Understanding of the Truth, it had been called, and although he understood it a lot better now-understood how much of it must have been called forth by what Roland called the touch-his first reaction had been pure horror. What he felt now wasn't so much horror as it was… well…

Sadness, he thought.

Yes. They were supposed to be ka-tet, one from many, but now their unity had been lost. Susa

Wolves of the Calla, Wolves of New York.

He wanted to be angry, but there seemed no one to be angry at. Susa

Yeah, right, a resentful voice spoke up. They also want to make sure she's able to help out when the Wolves come riding out of Thunderclap. It'd be one less gun if she was busy having a miscarriage or a nervous breakdown or something.

He knew that wasn't fair, but the dream had shaken him badly. The rat was what he kept coming back to; that rat writhing on the meat-fork. Her holding it up. And gri

"Christ," he whispered.

He guessed he understood why Roland wasn't telling Susa

They know better than you, they're grown-ups.

Jake thought that was bullshit. If being a grown-up really meant knowing better, why did his father go on smoking three packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day and snorting cocaine until his nose bled? If being a grown-up gave you some sort of special knowledge of the right things to do, how come his mother was sleeping with her masseuse, who had huge biceps and no brains? Why had neither of them noticed, as the spring of 1977 marched toward summer, that their kid (who had a nickname- 'Bama-known only to the housekeeper) was losing his fucking mind?

This isn't the same thing.

But what if it was? What if Roland and Eddie were so close to the problem they couldn't see the truth?

What is the truth? What is your understanding of the truth?

That they were no longer ka-tet, that was his understanding of the truth.

What was it Roland had said to Callahan, at that first palaver? We are round, and roll as we do. That had been true then, but Jake didn't think it was true now. He remembered an old joke people told when they got a blowout: Well, it's only flat on the bottom. That was them now, flat on the bottom. No longer truly ka-tet- how could they be, when they were keeping secrets? And was Mia and the child growing in Susa

We can beat the Wolves if we're together, he thought. If we're ka-tet. But not the way we are now. Not over here, not in New York, either. I just don't believe it.

Another thought came on the heels of that, one so terrible he first tried to push it away. Only he couldn't do that, he realized. Little as he wanted to, this was an idea that had to be considered.

I could take matters into my own hands. I could tell her myself.

And then what? What would he tell Roland? How would he explain?

I couldn't. There'd be no explanation I could make or that he'd listen to. The only thing I could do -

He remembered Roland's story of the day he'd stood against Cort. The battered old squireen with his stick, the untried boy with his hawk. If he, Jake, were to go against Roland's decision and tell Susa

And I'm not ready. Maybe Roland was -barely -but I'm not him. Nobody is. He'd best me and I'd be sent east into Thunderclap alone. Oy would try to come with me, but I couldn't let him. Because it's death over there. Maybe for our whole ka-tet, surely for a kid all by himself.

And yet still, the secrets Roland was keeping, that was wrong. And so? They'd be together again, all of them, to hear the rest of Callahan's story and-maybe-to deal with the thing in Callahan's church. What should he do then?

Talk to him. Try to persuade him he's doing the wrong thing.

All right. He could do that. It would be hard, but he could do it. Should he talk to Eddie as well? Jake thought not. Adding Eddie would complicate things even more. Let Roland decide what to tell Eddie. Roland, after all, was the dinh.

The flap of the tent shivered and Jake's hand went to his side, where the Ruger would have hung if he had been wearing the docker's clutch. Not there, of course, but this time that was all right. It was only Oy, poking his snout under the flap and tossing it up so he could get his head into the tent.