Dark Tower V (Prologue), Page 2

  "Dunno," he said. "But come here, woman, I beg you."

  She came, throwing one last glance over her shoulder at the five children in the back yard—as if to make sure they were still all there, that no Wolves had taken them yet—and then crossed the living room. Gran-pere sat in his corner chair by the dead fire, head bent over, dozing and drizzling from his folded, toothless mouth.

  From this room the barn was visible. Tian drew his wife to the window and pointed. "There," he said. "Do you mark em, woman? Do you see em very well?"

  Of course she did. Tian’s sister, six and a half feet tall, now standing with the straps of her overalls lowered and her big breasts sparkling with water as she splashed them from the rain-barrel. Standing in the barn doorway was Zalman, Zalia’s very own brother. Almost seven feet tall he was, big as Lord Perth and as empty of face as the girl. A strapping young man watching a strapping young woman with her breasts out on show like that might well have been sporting a bulge in his pants, but there was none in Zally’s. Nor ever would be. He was roont.

  She turned back to T. They looked at each other, a man and woman not roont, but only because of dumb luck. So far as either of them knew, it could just as easily have been Zal and Tia standing in here and watching Tian and Zalia out by the barn, grown large of body and empty of head.

  "Of course I see," she told him. "Does ye think I’m blind?"

  "Don’t it sometimes make you wish you was?" he asked. "To see em so?"

  Zalia made no reply.

  "Not right, woman. Not right. Never has been."

  "But since time out of mind—"

  "Bugger time out of mind, too!" Tian cried. "They’s children! Our children!"

  "Would you have the Wolves burn the Calla to the ground, then? Leave us all with our throats cut? That or worse? For it’s happened in other places. You know it has."

  He knew, all right. And who would put matters right, if not the men of Calla Bryn Sturgis? Certainly there were no authorities, not so much as a sheriff, either high or low, in these parts. They were on their own. Even long ago, when the Inner Baronies had glowed with light and culture, they would have seen precious little sign of that bright-life out here. These were the borderlands, and life here had always been strange. Then the Wolves had begun coming and life had grown far stranger. How long ago had it begun? How many generations? Tian didn’t know, but he thought "time out of mind" was too long. The Wolves had been raiding into the borderland villages when Gran-pere was young, certainly—Gran-pere’s own twin had been snatched as the two of them sat in the dust, playing at jacks. "Dey tuk eem cos he closah to de rud," Gran-pere had told them (many times). "Eef Ah come out of dee house firs’ da’ day, Ah be closah to de rud an dey take me, God is good!" Then he would kiss the wooden cross the Old Fella had given him, hold it skyward, and cackle.

  Yet Gran-pere’s own Gran-pere had told him that in his day—which would have been five or perhaps even six generations back, if Tian’s calculations were right—that there had been no Wolves sweeping out of Thunderclap on their horrible gray horses. Once Tian had asked the old man, And did all but a few of the babbies come in twos back then? Did yer Old Fella ever say? Gran-pere had considered this long, then had shaken his head. No, he couldn’t remember that his Gran-pere had ever said about that, one way or the other.

  Zalia was looking at him anxiously. "Ye’re in no mood to think of such things, I wot, after spending your morning in that rocky patch."

  "My frame of mind won’t change when they come or who they’ll take," Tian said.

  "Ye’ll not do something foolish, T, will you? Something foolish and all on your own?"

  "No," he said.

  No hesitation. He’s already begun to lay plans, she thought, and allowed herself a thin gleam of hope. Surely there was nothing Tian could do against the Wolves—nothing any of them could do—but he was far from stupid. In a farming village where most men could think no further than hoeing the next row or planting their stiffies on Saturday night, Tian was something of an anomaly. He could write his name; he could write words which said I LOVE YOU ZALLIE (and had won her by so doing, even though she couldn’t read them there in the dirt); he could add the numbers and also call them back from big to small, which he said was even more difficult. Was it possible...?

  Part of her didn’t want to complete that thought. And yet, when she turned her mother’s heart and mind to Hedda and Heddon, Lia and Lyman, part of her wanted to hope. "What, then?"

  "I’m going to call a meeting at the Town Gathering Hall," he said. "I’ll send the feather. "

  "Willl they come?"

  "When they hear this news, every man in the Calla will turn up. We’ll talk it over. Mayhap they’ll want to fight this time. Mayhap they’ll want to fight for their babbies."

  From behind them, a cracked old voice said, "Ye foolish killin."

  Tian and Zalia turned, hand in hand, to look at the old man. Killin was a harsh word, but Tian judged the old man was looking at them—at him—kindly enough.

  "Why d’ye say so, Gran-pere?" he asked.

  "Men’d go forrad from such a meetin as ye plan on and burn down hat’ countryside, were dey in drink," the old man said. "Men sober—" He shook his head. "Ye’ll never move such."

  "I think this time you might be wrong, Grand-pere," Tian said, and Zalia felt cold terror squeeze her heart. He believed it. He really did.

  3

  There would have been less grumbling if he’d given them at least one night’s notice, but Tian wouldn’t do that. One moon of days before they arrive, Andy had said, and that was all the horoscope Tian Jaffords needed. They didn’t have the luxury of even a single fallow night. And when he sent Heddon and Hedda with the feather, they did come. He’d known they would. It had been over twenty years since the Wolves last came calling to Calla Bryn Sturgis, and times had been good. If they were allowed to reap this time, the crop would be a large one.

  The Calla’s Gathering Hall was an adobe at the end of the village high street, beyond Took’s General Store and cater-corner from the town pavillion, which was now dusty and dark with the end of summer. Soon enough the ladies of the town would begin decorating it for Reap, but they’d never made a lot of Reaping Night in the Calla. The children always enjoyed seeing the stuffy-guys thrown on the fire, of course, and the bolder fellows would steal their share of kisses as the night itself approached, but that was about it. Your fripperies and festivals might do for Mid-World and In-World, but this was neither. Out here they had more serious things to worry about than Reaping Day Fairs.

  Things like the Wolves.

  Some of the men—from the well-to-do farms to the east and the three ranches to the south—came on horses. Eisenhart of the Lazy B even brought his rifle and wore crisscrossed ammunition bandoliers. (Tian Jaffords doubted if the bullets were any good, or that the ancient rifle would fire even if some of them were.) A delegation of the Manni folk came crammed into a buckboard drawn by a pair of mutie geldings—one with three eyes, the other with a pylon of raw pink flesh poking out of its back. Most of the Calla’s menfolk came on donkeys and burros, dressed in their white pants and long colorful shirts. They knocked their dusty sombreros back on the tugstrings with callused thumbs as they stepped into the Gathering Hall, looking uneasily at each other. The benches were of plain pine. With no womenfolk and none of the roont ones, the men filled less than thirty of the ninety benches. There was some talk, but no laughter at all.

  Tian stood out front with the feather now in his hands, watching the sun as it sank toward the horizon, its gold steadily deepening to a color that was like infected blood. When it touched the hills, he took one more look up the high street. It was empty except for three or four roont fellas sitting on the steps of Took’s. All of them huge and good for nothing more than yanking rocks out of the ground. He saw no more men, no more approaching donkeys. He took a deep breath, let it out, then drew in another and looked up at the deepening sky.

  "Man Jesus,
I don’t believe in you," he said. "But if you’re there, help me now. Tell God thankee."

  Then he went inside and closed the Gathering Hall doors a little harder than was strictly necessary. The talk stopped. A hundred and forty men, most of them farmers, watched him walk to the front of the hall, the wide legs of his white pants swishing, his shor’-boots clacking on the hardwood floor. He had expected to be terrified by this point, perhaps even to find himself speechless. He was a farmer, not a stage performer or a politician. Then he thought of his children, and when he looked up at the men, he found he had no trouble meeting their eyes. The feather in his hands did not tremble. When he spoke, his words followed each other easily, naturally, and coherently. They might not do as he hoped they would—Gran-pere might be right about that—but he saw they were willing enough to listen. And wasn’t that the necessary first step?

  "You all know who I am," he said as he stood there with his hands clasped around the reddish feather’s ancient stalk. "Tian Jaffords, son of Alan Jaffords, husband of Zalia Hoonik that was. She and I have five, two pairs and a singleton."

  Low murmurs at that, most probably having to do with how lucky Tian and Zalia were, how lucky with their Aaron. Tian waited for the voices to die away.

  "I’ve lived in the Calla all my life. I’ve shared your khef and you have shared mine. Now hear what I say, I beg you."

  "We say thankee-sai," they murmured. It was little more than a stock response, yet Tian was encouraged.

  "The Wolves are coming," he said. "I have this news from Andy. Thirty days from moon to moon and then they’re here."

  More low murmurs. Tian heard dismay and outrage, but no surprise. When it came to spreading news, Andy was extremely efficient.

  "Even those of us who can read and write a little have almost no paper to write on," Tian said, "so I cannot tell ye with any real certainty when last they came. There are no records, ye ken, just one mouth to another. I know I was well-breeched, so it’s longer than twenty years—"

  "It’s twenty-four," said a voice in the back of the room.

  "Nay, twenty-three," said a voice closer to the front, and Reuben Caverra stood up. He was a plump man with a round, cheerful face. The cheer was gone from it now, however, and it showed only distress. "They took Ruth, my sissy: hear me, I beg."

  A murmur—really no more than a vocalized sigh of agreement—came from the men sitting crammed together on the benches. They could have spread out, but had chosen shoulder-to-shoulder instead. Sometimes there was comfort in discomfort, Tian reckoned.

  Reuben said, "We were playing under the big pine in the front yard when they came. I made a mark on that tree each year after. Even after they brung her back, I went on with em. It’s twenty-three marks and twenty-three years." With that he sat down.

  "Twenty-three or twenty-four, makes no difference," Tian said. "Those who were babbies—or kiddies—when the Wolves came last time have grown up since and had kiddies of their own. There’s a fine crop here for those bastards. A fine crop of children." He paused, giving them a chance to think of the next idea for themselves before speaking it aloud. "If we let it happen," he said at last. "If we let the Wolves take our children into Thunderclap and then send them back to us roont."

  "What the hell else can we do?" cried a man sitting on one of the middle benches. "They’s not human!" At this there was a general (and miserable) mumble of agreement.

  One of the Manni stood up, pulling his dark blue cloak tight against his bony shoulders. He looked around at the others with baleful eyes. They weren’t mad, those eyes, but to Tian they looked a long league from reasonable. "Hear me, I beg," he said.

  "We say thankee-sai." Respectful but reserved. To see a Manni up close was a rare thing, and here were eight, all in a bunch. Tian was delighted they had come. If anything would underline the deadly seriousness of this business, the appearance of the Manni would do it.

  The Gathering Hall door opened and one more man slipped inside. None of them, including Tian, noticed. They were watching the Manni.

  "Hear what the Book says: When the Angel of Death passed over Aegypt, he killed the firstborn in every house where the blood of a sacrificial lamb hadn’t been daubed on the doorposts. So says the Book."

  "Praise the Book," said the rest of the Manni.

  "Perhaps we should do likewise," the Manni spokesman went on. His voice was calm, but a pulse beat wildly in his forehead. "Perhaps we should turn these next thirty days into a festival of joy for the wee ones, and then put them to sleep, and let their blood out upon the earth. Let the Wolves take their corpses into the West, should they desire."

  "You’re insane," Benito Cash said, indignant and at the same time almost laughing. "You and all your kind. We ain’t gonna kill our babbies!"

  "Would the ones that come back not be better off dead?" the Manni responded. "Great useless hulks! Scooped-out shells!"

  "Aye, and what about their brothers and sisters?" asked Vaughn Eisenhart. "For the Wolves only take one out of every two, as ye very well know."

  A second Manni rose, this one with a silky-white beard flowing down over his breast. The first one sat down. The old man looked around at the others, then at Tian. "You hold the feather, young fella—may I speak?"

  Tian nodded for him to go ahead. This wasn’t a bad start at all. Let them fully explore the box they were in, explore it all the way to the corners. He was confident they’d see there were only two alternatives, in the end: let the Wolves take one of every pair under the age of puberty, as they always had, or stand and fight. But to see that, they needed to understand that all other ways out were dead ends.

  The old man spoke patiently. Sorrowfully, even. "To take those who would have been left behind as well as those who’d come back to us spoiled forever...aye, it’s a terrible thing to consider. But think’ee this, sais: if the Wolves were to come and find us childless, they might leave us alone ever after."

  "Aye, so they might," one of the smallhold farmers rumbled—Tian believed his name was Jorge Estrada. "And so they might not. Manni-sai, would you really kill a whole town’s children for what might be?"

  A strong rumble of agreement ran through the crowd. Another smallholder, Garrett Strong, rose to his feet. His pug-dog’s face was truculent. His thumbs were hung in his belt. "Better we all kill ourselves," he said. "Babbies and grown-ups alike."

  The Manni didn’t look outraged at this. Nor did any of the other blue-cloaks around him. "It’s an option," the old man said. "We would speak of it if others would." He sat down.

  "Not me," Garrett Strong said. "It’d be like cuttin off your damn head to save shaving, hear me I beg."

  There was laughter and a few cries of Hear you very well. Garrett sat back down, looking a little less tense, and put his head together with Vaughn Eisenhart. One of the other ranchers, Diego Adams, was listening in, his black eyes intent.

  Another smallholder rose—Bucky Javier. He had bright little blue eyes in a small head that seemed to slope back from his goatee’d chin. "What if we left for awhile?" he asked. "What if we took our children and went back east? All the way to the Big River, mayhap?"

  There was a moment of considering silence at this bold idea. The Big River was almost all the way back to Mid-World...where, according to Andy, a great palace of green glass had lately appeared and even more lately disappeared again. Tian was about to respond himself when Eben Took, the storekeeper’s son, did it for him. Tian was relieved. He hoped to be silent as long as possible. When they were talked out, he’d tell them what was left.

  "Are ye mad?" Eben asked. "Wolves’d come in, see us gone, and burn all to the ground—farms and ranches, crops and stores, root and branch. What would we come back to?"

  "And what if they came after us?" Jorge Estrada chimed in. "Do’ee think we’d be hard to follow, for such as the Wolves? They’d burn us out as Took says, ride our backtrail, and take the kiddies anyway!"

  Louder agreement. The stomp of shor’-boots on the plain pi
ne floorboards. And a few cries of Hear him, hear him!

  "Besides," Neil Faraday said, standing and holding his vast and filthy sombrero in front of him, "they never steal all our children." He spoke in a frightened let’s-be-reasonable tone that set Tian’s teeth on edge. It was this counsel he feared above all others. Its deadly-false call to reason.

  One of the Manni, this one younger and beardless, uttered a sharp and contemptuous laugh. "Ah, one saved out of every two! And that make it all right, does it? God bless thee!" He might have said more, but White-Beard clamped a gnarled hand on the young man’s arm. That worthy said no more, but he didn’t lower his head submissively, either. His eyes were hot, his lips a thin white line.

  "I don’t mean it’s right," Neil said. He had begun to spin his sombrero in a way that made Tian feel a little dizzy. "But we have to face the realities, don’t we? Aye. And they don’t take em all. Why my daughter, Georgina, she’s just as apt and canny—"

  "Yar, and yer son George is a great empty-headed galoot," Ben Slightman said. Slightman was Eisenhart’s foreman, and he did not suffer fools lightly. "I seen him settin on the steps in front of Tooky’s when I rode downstreet. Seen him very well. Him and some others equally empty-brained."

  "But—"

  "I know," Slightman said. "You have a daughter who’s as apt as an ant and canny as the day is long. I give you every joy of her. I’m just pointin out, like, that if not for the Wolves, you’d mayhap have a son just as apt and canny. Nor would he eat a peck a day, winter and summer, to no good end for ye, not even a brace o’ grandbabbies."

  Cries of Hear him and Say thankee as Ben Slightman sat down.

  "They always leave us enough to go on with, don’t they?" asked a smallhold farmer whose place was just west of Tian’s, near the edge of the Calla. His name was Louis Haycox, and he spoke in a musing, bitter tone of voice. Below his moustache, his lips curved in a smile that didn’t have much humor in it. "We won’t kill our children," he said, looking at the Manni. "All God’s grace to ye, gentlemen, but I don’t believe even you could do so, came it right down to the killin-floor. Or not all of ye. We can’t pull up bag and baggage and go east—or in any other direction—because we leave our farms behind. They’d burn us out, all right, and come after the children just the same. They need em, gods know why.