“Of course you don’t,” the Old Fella said. “So listen and gain wisdom. Rancher Adams and all of you, listen and gain wisdom. Not six days’ ride nor’west of us, and bound southeast along the Path of the Beam, come three gunslingers and one ’prentice.” He smiled at their amazement. Then he turned to Slightman. “The ’prentice isn’t much older than your boy Ben, but he’s already as quick as a snake and as deadly as a scorpion. The others are quicker and deadlier by far. I have it from Andy, who’s seen them. You want hard calibers? They’re at hand. I set my watch and warrant on it.”

This time Overholser made it all the way to his feet. His face burned as if with a fever. His great pod of a belly trembled. “What children’s goodnight story is this?” he asked. “If there ever were such men, they passed out of existence with Gilead. And Gilead has been dust in the wind for a thousand years.”

There were no mutterings of support or dispute. No mutterings of any kind. The crowd was still frozen, caught in the reverberation of that one mythic word: gunslingers.

“You’re wrong,” Callahan said, “but we don’t need to fight over it. We can go and see for ourselves. A small party will do, I think. Jaffords here…myself…and what about you, Overholser? Want to come?”

“ There ain’t no gunslingers!”Overholser roared.

Behind him, Jorge Estrada stood up. “Pere Callahan, God’s grace on you—”

“—and you, Jorge.”

“—but even if there were gunslingers, how could three stand against forty or sixty? And not forty or sixty normal men, but forty or sixty Wolves ?”

“Hear him, he speaks sense!” Eben Took, the storekeeper, called out.

“And why would they fight for us?” Estrada continued. “We make it from year to year, but not much more. What could we offer them, beyond a few hot meals? And what man agrees to die for his dinner?”

“Hear him, hear him!”Telford, Overholser, and Eisenhart cried in unison. Others stamped rhythmically up and down on the boards.

The Old Fella waited until the stomping had quit, and then said: “I have books in the rectory. Half a dozen.”

Although most of them knew this, the thought of books—all that paper—still provoked a general sigh of wonder.

“According to one of them, gunslingers were forbidden to take reward. Supposedly because they descend from the line of Arthur Eld.”

“The Eld! The Eld!” the Manni whispered, and several raised fists into the air with the first and fourth fingers pointed. Hook em horns, the Old Fella thought. Go, Texas . He managed to stifle a laugh, but not the smile that rose on his lips.

“Are ye speaking of hardcases who wander the land, doing good deeds?” Telford asked in a gently mocking voice. “Surely you’re too old for such tales, Pere.”