The torches were orange. Roland stood in their light, gunless and as slim-hipped as a boy. For a moment he only looked out over the silent, watching faces, and Eddie felt Jake’s hand, cold and small, creep into his own. There was no need for the boy to say what he was thinking, because Eddie was thinking it himself. Never had he seen a man who looked so lonely, so far from the run of human life with its fellowship and warmth. To see him here, in this place of fiesta (for it was a fiesta, no matter how desperate the business that lay behind it might be), only underlined the truth of him: he was the last. There was no other. If Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy were of his line, they were only a distant shoot, far from the trunk. Afterthoughts, almost. Roland, however…Roland…

Hush,Eddie thought. You don’t want to think about such things. Not tonight.

Slowly, Roland crossed his arms over his chest, narrow and tight, so he could lay the palm of his right hand on his left cheek and the palm of his left hand on his right cheek. This meant zilch to Eddie, but the reaction from the seven hundred or so Calla-folk was immediate: a jubilant, approving roar that went far beyond mere applause. Eddie remembered a Rolling Stones concert he’d been to. The crowd had made that same sound when the Stones’ drummer, Charlie Watts, began to tap his cow-bell in a syncopated rhythm that could only mean “Honky Tonk Woman.”

Roland stood as he was, arms crossed, palms on cheeks, until they quieted. “We are well-met in the Calla,” he said. “Hear me, I beg.”

“We say thankee!”they roared. And “Hear you very well!”

Roland nodded and smiled. “But I and my friends have been far and we have much yet to do and see. Now while we bide, will you open to us if we open to you?”

Eddie felt a chill. He felt Jake’s hand tighten on his own. It’s the first of the questions, he thought.

Before the thought was completed, they had roared their answer: “Aye, and thankee!”

“Do you see us for what we are, and accept what we do?”

There goes the second one,Eddie thought, and now it was him squeezing Jake’s hand. He saw Telford and the one named Diego Adams exchange a dismayed, knowing look. The look of men suddenly realizing that the deal is going down right in front of them and they are helpless to do anything about it. Too late, boys, Eddie thought.

“Gunslingers!” someone shouted. “Gunslingers fair and true, say thankee! Say thankee in God’s name!”

Roars of approval. A thunder of shouts and applause. Cries of thankee and aye and even yer-bugger.

As they quieted, Eddie waited for him to ask the last question, the most important one: Do you seek aid and succor?