If anything about the ride into Calla Bryn Sturgis surprised Eddie, it was how easily and naturally he took to horseback. Unlike Susannah and Jake, who had both ridden at summer camp, Eddie had never even petted a horse. When he’d heard the clop of approaching hooves on the morning after what he thought of as Todash Number Two, he’d felt a sharp pang of dread. It wasn’t the riding he was afraid of, or the animals themselves; it was the possibility—hell, the strong probability —of looking like a fool. What kind of gunslinger had never ridden a horse?

Yet Eddie still found time to pass a word with Roland before they came. “It wasn’t the same last night.”

Roland raised his eyebrows.

“It wasn’t nineteen last night.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what I mean.”

“I don’t know, either,” Jake put in, “but he’s right. Last night New York felt like the real deal. I mean, I know we were todash, but still…”

“Real,” Roland had mused.

And Jake, smiling, said: “Real as roses.”

Two

The Slightmans were at the head of the Calla’s party this time, each leading a pair of mounts by long hacks. There was nothing very intimidating about the horses of Calla Bryn Sturgis; certainly they weren’t much like the ones Eddie had imagined galloping along the Drop in Roland’s tale of long-ago Mejis. These beasts were stubby, sturdy-legged creatures with shaggy coats and large, intelligent eyes. They were bigger than Shetland ponies, but a very long cast from the fiery-eyed stallions he had been expecting. Not only had they been saddled, but a proper bedroll had been lashed to each mount.

As Eddie walked toward his (he didn’t need to be told which it was, he knew: the roan), all his doubts and worries fell away. He only asked a single question, directed at Ben Slightman the Younger after examining the stirrups. “These are going to be too short for me, Ben—can you show me how to make them longer?”

When the boy dismounted to do it himself, Eddie shook his head. “It’d be best if I learned,” he said. And with no embarrassment at all.

As the boy showed him, Eddie realized he didn’t really need the lesson. He saw how it was done almost as soon as Benny’s fingers flipped up the stirrup, revealing the leather tug in back. This wasn’t like hidden, subconscious knowledge, and it didn’t strike him as anything supernatural, either. It was just that, with the horse a warm and fragrant reality before him, he understood how everything worked. He’d only had one experience exactly like this since coming to Mid-World, and that had been the first time he’d strapped on one of Roland’s guns.

“Need help, sugar?” Susannah asked.