Yet at first, Eddie had no eyes at all for what was spread out directly below him, and when he glanced at Susannah and Jake, he saw they were also looking beyond the Calla. Eddie didn't have to look around at Roland to know he was looking beyond, too. Definition of a wanderer , Eddie thought, a guy who's always looking beyond .
"Aye, quite the view, we tell the gods thankee," Overholser said complacently; and then, with a glance at Callahan, "Man Jesus as well, a'course, all gods is one when it comes to thanks, so I've heard, and 'tis a good enough saying."
He might have prattled on. Probably did; when you were the big farmer, you usually got to have your say, and all the way to the end. Eddie took no notice. He had returned his attention to the view.
Ahead of them, beyond the village, was a gray band of river running south. The branch of the Big River known as Devar-Tete Whye, Eddie remembered. Where it came out of the forest, the Devar-Tete ran between steep banks, but they lowered as the river entered the first cultivated fields, then fell away entirely. He saw a few stands of palm trees, green and improbably tropical. Beyond the moderate-sized village, the land west of the river was a brilliant green shot through everywhere with more gray. Eddie was sure that on a sunny day, that gray would turn a brilliant blue, and that when the sun was directly overhead, the glare would be too bright to look at. He was looking at rice-fields. Or maybe you called them paddies.
Beyond them and east of the river was desert, stretching for miles. Eddie could see parallel scratches of metal running into it, and made them for railroad tracks.
And beyond the desert - or obscuring the rest of it - was simple blackness. It rose into the sky like a vapory wall, seeming to cut into the low-hanging clouds.
"Yon's Thunderclap, sai," Zalia Jaffords said.
Eddie nodded. "Land of the Wolves. And God knows what else."
"Yer-bugger," Slightman the Younger said. He was trying to sound bluff and matter-of-fact, but to Eddie he looked plenty scared, maybe on the verge of tears. But the Wolves wouldn't take him, surely - if your twin died, that made you a singleton by default, didn't it? Well, it had certainly worked for Elvis Presley, but of course the King hadn't come from Calla Bryn Sturgis. Or even Calla Lockwood to the south.
"Naw, the King was a Mis'sippi boy," Eddie said, low.
Tian turned in his saddle to look at him. "Beg your pardon, sai?"
Eddie, not aware that he'd spoken aloud, said: "I'm sorry. I was talking to myself."
Andy the Messenger Robot (Many Other Functions) came striding back up the path from ahead of them in time to hear this. "Those who hold conversation with themselves keep sorry company. This is an old saying of the Calla, sai Eddie, don't take it personally, I beg."
"And, as I've said before and will undoubtedly say again, you can't get snot off a suede jacket, my friend. An old saying from Calla Bryn Brooklyn."
Andy's innards clicked. His blue eyes flashed. "Snot : mucus from the nose. Also a disrespectful or supercilious person. Suede : this is a leather product which - "
"Never mind, Andy," Susannah said. "My friend is just being silly. He does this quite frequently."
"Oh yes," Andy said. "He is a child of winter. Would you like me to tell your horoscope, Susannah-sai? You will meet a handsome man! You will have two ideas, one bad and one good! You will have a dark-haired - "
"Get out of here, idiot," Overholser said. "Right into town, straight line, no wandering. Check that all's well at the Pavilion. No one wants to hear your goddamned horoscopes, begging your pardon, Old Fella."
Callahan made no reply. Andy bowed, tapped his metal throat three times, and set off down the trail, which was steep but comfortingly wide. Susannah watched him go with what might have been relief.
"Kinda hard on him, weren't you?" Eddie asked.
"He's but a piece of machinery," Overholser said, breaking the last word into syllables, as if speaking to a child.
"And he can be annoying," Tian said. "But tell me, sais, what do you think of our Calla?"
Roland eased his horse in between Eddie's and Callahan's. "It's very beautiful," he said. "Whatever the gods may be, they have favored this place. I see corn, sharproot, beans, and... potatoes? Are those potatoes?"
"Aye, spuds, do ya," Slightman said, clearly pleased by Roland's eye.
"And yon's all that gorgeous rice," Roland said.
"All smallholds by the river," Tian said, "where the water's sweet and slow. And we know how lucky we are. When the rice comes ready - either to plant or to harvest - all the women go together. There's singing in the fields, and even dancing."
"Come-come-commala," Roland said. At least that was what Eddie heard.
Tian and Zalia brightened with surprise and recognition. The Slightmans exchanged a glance and grinned. "Where did you hear The Rice Song?" die Elder asked. "When?"
"In my home," said Roland. "Long ago. Come-come-commala, rice come a-falla." He pointed to the west, away from the river. "There's the biggest farm, deep in wheat. Yours, sai Overholser?"
"So it is, say thankya."
"And beyond, to the south, more farms... and then the ranches. That one's cattle... that one sheep... that one cattle... more cattle... more sheep..."