"Say thankee, Andy."
"May it do ya fine." The robot's guts clicked again. "In the meantime, would you perhaps care to hear your horoscope?"
Chapter VI: The Way of the Eld
ONE
At around two in the afternoon of that day, the ten of them sat down to what Roland called a rancher's dinner. "During the morning chores, you look forward with love," he told his friends later. "During the evening ones, you look back with nostalgia."
Eddie thought he was joking, but with Roland you could never be completely sure. What humor he had was dry to the point of desiccation.
It wasn't the best meal Eddie had ever had, the banquet put on by the old people in River Crossing still held pride of place in that regard, but after weeks in the woods, subsisting on gun-slinger burritos (and shitting hard little parcels of rabbit turds maybe twice a week), it was fine fare indeed. Andy served out whopping steaks done medium rare and smothered in mushroom gravy. There were beans on the side, wrapped things like tacos, and roasted corn. Eddie tried an ear of this and found it tough but tasty. There was coleslaw which, Tian Jaffords was at pains to tell them, had been made by his own wife's hands. There was also a wonderful pudding called strawberry cosy. And of course there was coffee. Eddie guessed that, among the four of them, they must have put away at least a gallon. Even Oy had a little. Jake put down a saucer of the dark, strong brew. Oy sniffed, said "Coff!" and then lapped it up quickly and efficiently.
There was no serious talk during the meal ("Food and palaver don't mix" was but one of Roland's many little nuggets of wisdom), and yet Eddie learned a great deal from Jaffords and his wife, mostly about how life was lived out here in what Tian and Zalia called "the borderlands." Eddie hoped Susannah (sitting by Overholser) and Jake (with the youngster Eddie was already coming to think of as Benny the Kid) were learning half as much. He would have expected Roland to sit with Callahan, but Callahan sat with no one. He took his food off a little distance from all of them, blessed himself, and ate alone. Not very much, either. Mad at Overholser for taking over the show, or just a loner by nature? Hard to tell on such short notice, but if someone had put a gun to his head, Eddie would have voted for the latter.
What struck Eddie with the most force was how goddam civilized this part of the world was. It made Lud, with its warring Grays and Pubes, look like the Cannibal Isles in a boy's sea-story. These people had roads, law enforcement, and a system of government that made Eddie think of New England town meetings. There was a Town Gathering Hall and a feather which seemed to be some sort of authority symbol. If you wanted to call a meeting, you had to send the feather around. If enough people touched it when it came to their place, there was a meeting. If they didn't, there wasn't. Two people were sent to carry the feather, and their count was trusted without question. Eddie doubted if it would work in New York, but for a place like this it seemed a fine way to run things.
There were at least seventy other Callas, stretching in a mild arc north and south of Calla Bryn Sturgis. Calla Bryn Lockwood to the south and Calla Amity to the north were also farms and ranches. They also had to endure the periodic depredations of the Wolves. Farther south were Calla Bryn Bouse and Calla Staffel, containing vast tracts of ranchland, and Jaffords said they suffered the Wolves as well... at least he thought so. Farther north, Calla Sen Pinder and Calla Sen Chre, which were farms and sheep.
"Farms of a good size," Tian said, "but they're smaller as ye go north, kennit, until ye're in the lands where the snows fall - so I'm told; I've never seen it myself - and wonderful cheese is made."
"Those of the north wear wooden shoes, or so 'tis said." Zalia told Eddie, looking a little wistful. She herself wore scuffed clodhoppers called shor'boots.
The people of the Callas traveled little, but the roads were there if they wanted to travel, and trade was brisk. In addition to them, there was the Whye, sometimes called Big River. This ran south of Calla Bryn Sturgis all the way to the South Seas, or so 'twas said. There were mining Callas and manufacturing Callas (where things were made by steam-press and even, aye, by electricity) and even one Calla devoted to nothing but pleasure: gambling and wild, amusing rides, and...
But here Tian, who had been talking, felt Zalia's eyes on him and went back to the pot for more beans. And a conciliatory dish of his wife's slaw.
"So," Eddie said, and drew a curve in the dirt. "These are the borderlands. The Callas. An arc that goes north and south for... how far, Zalia?"
" 'Tis men's business, so it is," she said. Then, seeing her own man was still at the embering fire, inspecting the pots, she leaned forward a bit toward Eddie. "Do you speak in miles or wheels?"