The question was spoken without ostentation—almost conversationally, in fact—but Eddie felt his heart gave a lurch, and when Susannah’s hand crept into his, he squeezed it. Here was the third question, the key question, and it hadn’t been asked of the Calla’s big farmer, big rancher, or big businessman. It had been asked of a sodbuster’s wife with her mousy brown hair pulled back in a bun, a smallhold farmer’s wife whose skin, although naturally dark, had even so cracked and coarsened from too much sun, whose housedress had been faded by many washings. And it was right that it should be so, perfectly right. Because the soul of Calla Bryn Sturgis was in four dozen smallhold farms just like this, Eddie reckoned. Let Zalia Jaffords speak for all of them. Why the hell not?

“I seek it and say thankya,” she told him simply. “Lord God and Man Jesus bless you and yours.”

Roland nodded as if he’d been doing no more than passing the time of day. “Margaret Eisenhart showed me something.”

“Did she?” Zalia asked, and smiled slightly. Tian came plodding around the corner, looking tired and sweaty, although it was only nine in the morning. Over one shoulder was a busted piece of harness. He wished Roland and Jake a good day, then stood by his wife, a hand around her waist and resting on her hip.

“Aye, and told us the tale of Lady Oriza and Gray Dick.”

“ ’Tis a fine tale,” she said.

“It is,” Roland said. “I’ll not fence, lady-sai. Will’ee come out on the line with your dish when the time comes?”

Tian’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth, then shut it again. He looked at his wife like a man who has suddenly been visited by a great revelation.

“Aye,” Zalia said.

Tian dropped the harness and hugged her. She hugged him back, briefly and hard, then turned to Roland and his friends once more.

Roland was smiling. Eddie was visited by a faint sense of unreality, as he always was when he observed this phenomenon. “Good. And will you show Susannah how to throw it?”

Zalia looked thoughtfully at Susannah. “Would she learn?”

“I don’t know,” Susannah said. “Is it something I’m supposed to learn, Roland?”

“Yes.”

“When, gunslinger?” Zalia asked.

Roland calculated. “Three or four days from now, if all goes well. If she shows no aptitude, send her back to me and we’ll try Jake.”

Jake started visibly.

“I think she’ll do fine, though. I never knew a gunslinger who didn’t take to new weapons like birds to a new pond. And I must have at least one who can either throw the dish or shoot the bah, for we are four with only three guns we can rely on. And I like the dish. I like it very well.”