Roland went to Rosa and gave her a hug, brief but strong. As he did so he whispered in her ear that while he had no goose, he might be able to find a certain long-necked gander for her, come evening.

“Well,” she said, smiling, “when we get older, we take our prizes where we find them. Don’t we?”

Zalia glanced at Margaret. “What did he say to her? Did’ee kennit?”

Margaret Eisenhart was smiling. “Nothing you haven’t heard yourself, I’m sure,” she said.

Nine

Then the ladies were gone. So was the Pere, on some errand or other. Roland of Gilead sat on the bottom porch step, looking downhill toward the site of the competition so lately completed. When Susannah asked him if he was satisfied, he nodded. “Yes, I think all’s well there. We have to hope it is, because time’s closing now. Things will happen fast.” The truth was that he had never experienced such a confluence of events…but since Susannah had admitted her pregnancy, he had calmed nevertheless.

You’ve recalled the truth of ka to your truant mind,he thought. And it happened because this woman showed a kind of bravery the rest of us couldn’t quite muster up.

“Roland, will I be going back out to the Rocking B?” Jake asked.

Roland considered, then shrugged. “Do you want to?”

“Yes, but this time I want to take the Ruger.” Jake’s face pinked a little, but his voice remained steady. He had awakened with this idea, as if the dreamgod Roland called Nis had brought it to him in his sleep. “I’ll put it at the bottom of my bedroll and wrap it in my extra shirt. No one needs to know it’s there.” He paused. “I don’t want to show it off to Benny, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

The idea had never crossed Roland’s mind. But what was in Jake’s mind? He posed the question, and Jake’s answer was the sort one gives when one has charted the likely course of a discussion well in advance.

“Do you ask as my dinh?”

Roland opened his mouth to say yes, saw how closely Eddie and Susannah were watching him, and reconsidered. There was a difference between keeping secrets (as each of them had in his own way kept the secret of Susannah’s pregnancy) and following what Eddie called “a hunch.” The request under Jake’s request was to be on a longer rope. Simple as that. And surely Jake had earned the right to a little more rope. This was not the same boy who had come into Mid-World shivering and terrified and nearly naked.

“Not as your dinh,” he said. “As for the Ruger, you may take it anywhere, and at any time. Did you not bring it to the tet in the first place?”

“Stole it,” Jake said in a low voice. He was staring at his knees.

“You took what you needed to survive,” Susannah said. “There’s a big difference. Listen, sugar—you’re not planning to shoot anyone, are you?”