It was Ben Slightman. “Stock’s all put to bed, boss.” He took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt. “And the boys’re off with Benny’s tent. Andy was stalkin em close, so that’s well.” Slightman looked at Roland. “It’s early for rock-cats, but if one were to come, Andy’d give my boy at least one shot at it with his bah—he’s been told so and comes back ‘Order recorded.’ If Benny were to miss, Andy’d get between the boys and the cat. He’s programmed strictly for defense and we’ve never been able to change that, but if the cat were to keep coming—”

“Andy’d rip it to pieces,” Eisenhart said. He spoke with a species of gloomy satisfaction.

“Fast, is he?” Roland asked.

“Yer-bugger,” Slightman said. “Don’t look it, do he, all tall and gangly like he is? But aye, he can move like greased lightning when he wants to. Faster than any rock-cat. We believe he must run on ant-nomics.”

“Very likely,” Roland said absently.

“Never mind that,” Eisenhart said, “but listen, Ben—why d’you suppose it is that Andy won’t talk about the Wolves?”

“His programming—”

“Aye, but it’s as Roland pointed out to us just before’ee came in—and we should have seen it for ourselves long before this—if the Old People set him a-going and then the Old People died out or moved on… longbefore the Wolves showed themselves…do you see the problem?”

Slightman the Elder nodded, then put his glasses back on. “Must have been something like the Wolves in the elden days, don’t you think? Enough like em so Andy can’t tell em apart. It’s all I can figure.”

Is it really?Roland thought.

He produced the Tavery twins’ map, opened it, and tapped an arroyo in the hill country northeast of town. It wound its way deeper and deeper into those hills before ending in one of the Calla’s old garnet mines. This one was a shaft that went thirty feet into a hillside and then stopped. The place wasn’t really much like Eyebolt Canyon in Mejis (there was no thinny in the arroyo, for one thing), but there was one crucial similarity: both were dead ends. And, Roland knew, a man will try to take service again from that which has served him once. That he should pick this arroyo, this dead-end mineshaft, for his ambush of the Wolves made perfect sense. To Eddie, to Susannah, to the Eisenharts, and now to the Eisenharts’ foreman. It would make sense to Sarey Adams and Rosalita Munoz. It would make sense to the Old Fella. He would disclose this much of his plan to others, and it would make sense to them, as well.

And if things were left out? If some of what he said was a lie?