"Jake?" Eddie asked. 'You okay, kid?"
"Yes," Jake said, although he'd had a bit of a bad turn, remembering how Benny's Da' had screamed. Andy the Messenger Robot, apparently tired of Slightman's grumbling, had pushed or pinched something in the man's elbow-a nerve, probably-and Slightman had "hollered like an owl," as Roland might say (and probably with at least mild contempt). Slightman the Younger was beyond such things, now, of course, and it was that realization-a boy, once full of fun and now cool as riverbank clay-which had made the son of Elmer pause. You had to die, yes, and Jake hoped he could do it at least moderately well when the hour came. He'd had some training in how to do it, after all. It was the thought of all that grave-time that chilled him. That downtime. That lie-still-and-continue-to-be-dead time.
Andy's scent-cold but oily and distinctive-had been all over the Dogan on the far side of the River Whye, for he and Slightman the Elder had met there many times before the Wolf raid that had been greeted by Roland and his makeshift posse. This smell wasn't exactly the same, but it was interesting.
Certainly it was the only familiar one Oy had struck so far, and he wanted to follow it.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Eddie said. "I see something we need."
He put Susannah down, crossed the kitchen, and returned rolling a stainless-steel table probably meant for transporting stacks of freshly washed dishes or larger utensils.
"Upsy-daisy, don't be crazy," Eddie said, and lifted Susannah onto it.
She sat there comfortably enough, gripping the sides, but looked dubious. "And when we come to a flight of stairs? What then, sugarboy?"
"Sugarboy will burn that bridge when he comes to it,"
Eddie said, and pushed the rolling table into the hall. "Mush, Oy! On, you huskies!"
"Oy! Husk!" The bumbler hurried briskly along, bending his head every now and again to dip into the scent but mostly not bothering much. It was too fresh and too wide to need much attention. It was the smell of the Wolves he had found. After an hour's walk, they passed a hangar-sized door marked TO HORSES.
Beyond this, the trail led them to a door which read STAGING AREA and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. (That they were followed for part of their hike by Walter o' Dim was a thing none of them, not even Jake-strong in the touch though he was-suspected. On the boy, at least, the hooded man's "thinking-cap" worked quite well. When Walter was sure where the bumbler was leading them, he'd turned back to palaver with Mordred-a mistake, as it turned out, but one with this consolation: he would never make another.)
Oy sat before the closed door, which was the kind that swung both ways, with his cartoon squiggle of tail tight against his hindquarters, and barked. "Ake, ope-ope! Ope, Ake!"
"Yeah, yeah," Jake said, "in a minute. Hold your water."
"STAGING AREA," Eddie said. "That sounds at least moderately hopeful."
They were still pushing Susannah on the stainless-steel table, having negotiated the only stairway they'd come to (a fairly short one) without too much trouble. Susannah had gone down first on her butt-her usual mode of descent-while Roland and Eddie carried the table along behind her. Jake went between the woman and the men with Eddie's gun raised, the long scrolled barrel laid into the hollow of his left shoulder, a position known as "the guard."
Roland now drew his own gun, laid it in the hollow of his right shoulder, and pushed the door open. He went through in a slight crouch, ready to dive either way or jump backward if the situation demanded it.
The situation did not. Had Eddie been first, he might have believed (if only momentarily) that he was being attacked by flying Wolves sort of like the flying monkeys in The Wizard ofOz.
Roland, however, was not overburdened with imagination, and even though a good many of the overhead fluorescent light strips in this huge, barnlike space had gone out, he wasted no time-or adrenaline-in mistaking the suspended objects for anything but what they actually were: broken robot raiders awaiting repair.
"Come on in," he said, and his words came echoing back to him. Somewhere, high in the shadows, came a flutter of wings.
Swallows, or perhaps barn-rusties that had found their way in from outside. "I think all's well."
They came, and stood looking up with silent awe. Only Jake's four-footed friend was unimpressed. Oy was taking advantage of the break to groom himself, first the left side and then the right. At last Susannah, still sitting on the rolling steel table, said: "Tell you what, I've seen a lot, but I haven't ever seen anything quite like this."