Stephen King - Wolves of the Calla

"I gotta tell you that the return trip to New York wasn't much fun," Eddie said. "Too much gunplay." Not to mention my brother's severed head rolling across the floor ofBalazar's office .

"Neither was getting through the door on Dutch Hill," Jake added.

Roland nodded, ceding these points without yielding his own. "All my life I've accepted what you said the first time I knew you, Jake-what you said when you were dying."

Jake looked down, pale and without answer. He did not like to recall that (it was mercifully hazy in any case), and knew that Roland didn't, either. Good! he thought. You shouldn't want to remember! You let me drop! You let me die!

"You said there were other worlds than these," Roland said, "and there are. New York in all its multiple whens is only one of many. That we are drawn there again and again has to do with the rose. I have no doubt of that, nor do I doubt that in some way I do not understand the rose is the Dark Tower. Either that or-"

"Or it's another door," Susannah murmured. "One that opens on the Dark Tower itself."

Roland nodded. "The idea has done more than cross my mind. In any case, the Manni know of these other worlds, and in some fashion have dedicated their lives to them. They believe todash to be the holiest of rites and most exalted of states. My father and his friends have long known of the glass balls; this I have told you. That the Wizard's Rainbow, todash, and these magical doors may all be much the same is something we have guessed."

"Where you going with this, sug?" Susannah asked.

"I'm simply reminding you that I have wandered long," Roland said. "Because of changes in time-a softening of time which I know you all have felt-I've quested after the Dark Tower for over a thousand years, sometimes skipping over whole generations the way a sea-bird may cruise from one wave-top to the next, only wetting its feet in the foam. Never in all this time did I come across one of these doors between the worlds until I came to the ones on the beach at the edge of the Western Sea. I had no idea what they were, although I could have told you something of todash and the bends o' the rainbow."

Roland looked at them earnestly.

"You speak as though my world were as filled with magical doorways as yours is with…" He thought about it. "… with airplanes or stage-buses. That's not so."

"Where we are now isn't the same as anywhere you've been before, Roland," Susannah said. She touched his deeply tanned wrist, her fingers gentle. "We're not in your world anymore. You said so yourself, back in that version of Topeka where Blaine finally blew his top."

"Agreed," Roland said. "I only want you to realize that such doors may be far more rare than you realize. And now you're speaking not of one but two. Doors you can aim in time, the way you'd aim a gun."

I do not aim with my hand , Eddie thought, and shivered a little. "When you put it that way, Roland, it does sound a little iffy."

"Then what do we do next?" Jake asked.

"I might be able to help you with that," a voice said.

They all turned, only Roland without surprise. He had heard the stranger when he arrived, about halfway through their palaver. Roland did turn with interest, however, and one look at the man standing twenty feet from them on the edge of the road was enough to tell him that the newcomer was either from the world of his new friends, or from one right next door.

"Who are you?" Eddie asked.

"Where are your friends?" Susannah asked.

"Where are you from?" Jake asked. His eyes were alight with eagerness.

The stranger wore a long black coat open over a dark shirt with a notched collar. His hair was long and white, sticking up on the sides and in front as if scared. His forehead was marked with a T-shaped scar. "My friends are still back there a little piece," he said, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the woods in a deliberately nonspecific way. "I now call Calla Bryn Sturgis my home. Before that, Detroit, Michigan, where I worked in a homeless shelter, making soup and running AA meetings. Work I knew quite well. Before that-for a short while-Topeka, Kansas."

He observed the way the three younger ones started at that with a kind of interested amusement.

"Before that, New York City. And before that , a little town called Jerusalem's Lot, in the state of Maine."

"You're from our side," Eddie said. He spoke in a kind of sigh. "Holy God, you're really from our side!"

"Yes, I think I am," the man in the turned-around collar said. "My name is Donald Callahan."

"You're a priest," Susannah said. She looked from the cross that hung around his neck-small and discreet, but gleaming gold-to the larger, cruder one that scarred his forehead.

Callahan shook his head. "No more. Once. Perhaps one day again, with the blessing, but not now. Now I'm just a man of God. May I ask… when are you from?"

"1964," Susannah said.

"1977," Jake said.

"1987," Eddie said.

Callahan's eyes gleamed at that. "1987. And I came here in 1983, counting as we did then. So tell me something, young man, something very important. Had the Red Sox won the World Series yet when you left?"

Eddie threw back his head and laughed. The sound was both surprised and cheerful. "No, man, sorry. They came within one out of it last year-at Shea Stadium this was, against the Mets-and then this guy named Bill Buckner who was playing first base let an easy grounder get through his wickets. He'll never live it down. Come on over here and sit down, what do you say? There's no coffee, but Roland-that's this beat-up-lookin guy on my right-makes a pretty fair cup of woods tea."

Callahan turned his attention to Roland and then did an amazing thing: dropped to one knee, lowered his head slightly, and put his fist against his scarred brow. "Hile, gunslinger, may we be well-met on the path."

"Hile," Roland said. "Come forward, good stranger, and tell us of your need."

Callahan looked up at him, surprised.

Roland looked back at him calmly, and nodded. "Well-met or ill, it may be you will find what you seek."

"And you may also," Callahan said.

"Then come forward," Roland said. "Come forward and join our palaver."

"Before we really get going, can I ask you something?"

This was Eddie. Beside him, Roland had built up the fire and was rummaging in their combined gunna for the little earthen pot-an artifact of the Old People-in which he liked to brew tea.

"Of course, young man."

"You're Donald Callahan."

"Yes."

"What's your middle name?"

Callahan cocked his head a litde to the side, raised one eyebrow, then smiled. "Frank. After my grandfather. Does it signify?"

Eddie, Susannah, and Jake shared a look. The thought that went with it flowed effordessly among them: Donald Frank Callahan. Equals nineteen.

"It does signify," Callahan said.

"Perhaps," Roland said. "Perhaps not." He poured water for the tea, manipulating the waterskin easily.

"You seem to have suffered an accident," Callahan said, looking at Roland's right hand.

"I make do," Roland said.

"Gets by with a little help from his friends, you might say," Jake added, not smiling.

Callahan nodded, not understanding and knowing he need not: they were ka-tet. He might not know that particular term, but the term didn't matter. It was in the way they looked at each other and moved around each other.

"You know my name," Callahan said. "May I have the pleasure of knowing yours?"

They introduced themselves: Eddie and Susannah Dean, of New York; Jake Chambers, of New York; Oy of Mid-World; Roland Deschain, of Gilead that was. Callahan nodded to each in turn, raising his closed fist to his forehead.