"Ouch, Ake!" Oy said.
"Quit it, ya baby," Jake said, turning his pony back in the direction of the river. "Gotta be quiet, now."
"Kiyit," Oy agreed, and gave him a wink. Jake worked his fingers down through the bumbler's heavy fur and scratched the place Oy liked the best. Oy closed his eyes, stretched his neck to an almost comical length, and grinned.
When they got back to the river, Jake dismounted and peered over a boulder in both directions. He saw nothing, but his heart was in his throat all the way across to the other side. He kept trying to think what he would say if Benny's Da' hailed him and asked him what he was doing out here in the middle of the night. Nothing came. In English class, he'd almost always gotten As on his creative-writing assignments, but now he was discovering that fear and invention did not mix. If Benny's Da' hailed him, Jake would be caught. It was as simple as that.
There was no hail - not crossing the river, not going back to the Rocking B, not unsaddling the horse and rubbing him down. The world was silent, and that was just fine with Jake.
THIRTEEN
Once Jake was back on his pallet and pulling the covers to his chin, Oy jumped up on Benny's bed and lay down, nose once more under his tail. Benny made a deep-sleep muttering sound, reached out, and gave the bumbler's flank a single stroke.
Jake lay looking at the sleeping boy, troubled. He liked Benny - his openness, his appetite for fun, his willingness to work hard when there were chores that needed doing. He liked Benny's yodeling laugh when something struck him funny, and the way they were evenly matched in so many things, and -
And until tonight, Jake had liked Benny's Da', too.
He tried to imagine how Benny would look at him when he found out that (a) his father was a traitor and (b) his friend had squealed on him. Jake thought he could bear anger. It was hurt that would be hard.
You think hurt's all it'll be? Simple hurt? You better think again. There aren't many props under Benny Slightman's world, and this is going to knock them all out from under him. Every single one.
Not my fault that his father's a spy and a traitor.
But it wasn't Benny's, either. If you asked Slightman, he'd probably say it wasn't even his fault, that he'd been forced into it. Jake guessed that was almost true. Completely true, if you looked at things with a father's eye. What was it that the Calla's twins made and the Wolves needed? Something in their brains, very likely. Some sort of enzyme or secretion not produced by singleton children; maybe the enzyme or secretion that created the supposed phenomenon of "twin telepathy." Whatever it was, they could take it from Benny Slightman, because Benny Slightman only looked like a singleton. Had his sister died? Well, that was tough titty, wasn't it? Very tough titty, especially for the father who loved the only one left. Who couldn't bear to let him go.
Suppose Roland kills him ? How will Benny look at you then ?
Once, in another life, Roland had promised to take care of Jake Chambers and then let him drop into the darkness. Jake had thought there could be no worse betrayal than that. Now he wasn't so sure. No, not so sure at all. These unhappy thoughts kept him awake for a long time. Finally, half an hour or so before the first hint of dawn touched the horizon, he fell into a thin and troubled sleep.
Chapter IV: The Pied Piper
ONE
"We are ka-tet," said the gunslinger. "We are one from many." He saw Callahan's doubtful look - it was impossible to miss - and nodded. "Yes, Pere, you're one of us. I don't know for how long, but I know it's so. And so do my friends."
Jake nodded. So did Eddie and Susannah. They were in the Pavilion today; after hearing Jake's story, Roland no longer wanted to meet at the rectory-house, not even in the back yard. He thought it all too likely that Slightman or Andy - maybe even some other as yet unsuspected friend of the Wolves - had placed listening devices as well as cameras there. Overhead the sky was gray, threatening rain, but the weather remained remarkably warm for so late in the season. Some civic-minded ladies or gents had raked away the fallen leaves in a wide circle around the stage where Roland and his friends had introduced themselves not so long ago, and the grass beneath was as green as summer. There were folken flying kites, couples promenading hand in hand, two or three outdoor tradesmen keeping one eye out for customers and the other on the low-bellied clouds overhead. On the bandstand, the group of musicians who had played them into Calla Bryn Sturgis with such brio were practicing a few new tunes. On two or three occasions, townsfolk had started toward Roland and his friends, wanting to pass a little time, and each time it happened, Roland shook his head in an unsmiling way that turned them around in a hurry. The time for so-good-to-meet-you politics had passed. They were almost down to what Susannah called the real nitty-gritty.