"Todash turnpikes," Eddie murmured. "Dig the concept."
"I don't know if that's right or not," Callahan said. "I only know I saw extraordinary things in my wanderings over the next few years, and I also met a lot of good people. It seems almost an insult to call them normal people, or ordinary people, but they were both. And certainly they give such words as normal and ordinary a feel of nobility for me.
"I didn't want to leave New York without seeing Rowan Magruder again. I wanted him to know that maybe I had pissed in Lupe's dead face - I'd gotten drunk, surely enough - but I hadn't dropped my pants all the way down and done the other thing. Which is my too-clumsy way of saying I hadn't given up entirely. And that I'd decided not just to cower like a rabbit in a flashlight beam."
Callahan had begun to weep again. He wiped at his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt. "Also, I suppose I wanted to say goodbye to someone, and have someone say goodbye to me. The goodbyes we speak and the goodbyes we hear are the goodbyes that tell us we're still alive, after all. I wanted to give him a hug, and pass along the kiss Lupe had given me. Plus the same message: You're too valuable to lose. I - "
He saw Rosalita hurrying down the lawn with her skirt twitched up slightly at the ankle, and broke off. She handed him a flat piece of slate upon which something had been chalked.
For a wild moment Eddie imagined a message flanked by stars and moons:
LOST! ONE STRAY DOG WITH MANGLED FRONT PAW! ANSWERS TO THE NAME OF ROLANDl BAD-TEMPERED, PRONE TO BITE, BUT WE LOVE HIM ANYWAY!!!
"It's from Eisenhart," Callahan said, looking up. "If Overholser's the big farmer in these parts, and Eben Took's the big businessman, then you'd have to call Vaughn Eisenhart the big rancher. He says that he, Slightman Elder and Younger, and your Jake would meet us at Our Lady falls noon, if it do ya fine. It's hard to make out his shorthand, but I think he'd have you visit farms, smallholds, and ranches on your way back out to the Rocking B, where you'd spend the night. Does it do ya?"
"Not quite," Roland said. "I'd much like to have my map before I set off."
Callahan considered this, then looked at Rosalita. Eddie decided the woman was probably a lot more than just a housekeeper. She had withdrawn out of earshot, but not all the way back to the house. Like a good executive secretary , he thought. The Old Fella didn't need to beckon her; she came forward at his glance. They spoke, and then Rosalita set off.
"I think we'll take our lunch on the church lawn," Callahan said. "There's a pleasant old ironwood there that'll shade us. By the time we're done, I'm sure the Tavery twins will have something for you."
Roland nodded, satisfied.
Callahan stood up with a wince, put his hands in the small of his back, and stretched. "And I have something to show you now," he said.
"You haven't finished your story," Susannah said.
"No," Callahan agreed, "but time has grown short. I can walk and talk at the same time, if you fellows can walk and listen."
"We can do that," Roland said, getting up himself. There was pain, but not a great deal of it. Rosalita's cat-oil was something to write home about. "Just tell me two things before we go."
"If I can, gunslinger, and do'ee fine."
"They of the signs: did you see them in your travels?"
Callahan nodded slowly. "Aye, gunslinger, so I did." He looked at Eddie and Susannah. "Have you ever seen a color photo of people - one taken with a flash - where everyone's eyes are red?"
"Yeah," Eddie said.
"Their eyes are like that. Crimson eyes. And your second question, Roland?"
"Are they the Wolves, Pere? These low men? These soldiers of the Crimson King? Are they the Wolves?"
Callahan hesitated a long time before replying. "I can't say for sure," he said at last. "Not a hundred per cent, kennit. But I don't think so. Yet certainly they're kidnappers, although it's not just children they take." He thought over what he'd said. "Wolves of a kind, perhaps." He hesitated, thought it over some more, then said it again: "Aye, Wolves of a kind."
Chapter IV: The Priest's Tale Continued (Highways
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