Callahan saw the gunslinger really did not, and the sharpest edge of his anger was blunted. Yet Roland sensed that a great deal remained, like the bolt behind the head of an arrow. “It’s abortion you’re talking about!”

“Yes?”

“Roland…Roland.” Callahan lowered his head, and when he raised it, the anger appeared to be gone. In its place was a stony obduracy the gunslinger had seen before. Roland could no more break it than he could lift a mountain with his bare hands. “My church divides sins into two: venial sins, which are bearable in the sight of God, and mortal ones, which are not. Abortion is a mortal sin. It is murder.”

“Pere, we are speaking of a demon, not a human being.”

“So you say. That’s God’s business, not mine.”

“And if it kills her? Will you say the same then and so wash your hands of her?”

Roland had never heard the tale of Pontius Pilate and Callahan knew it. Still, he winced at the image. But his reply was firm enough. “You who spoke of the breaking of your tet before you spoke of the taking of her life! Shame on you. Shame .”

“My quest—the quest of my ka-tet—is the Dark Tower, Pere. It’s not saving this world we’re about, or even this universe, but all universes. All of existence.”

“I don’t care,” Callahan said. “I can’t care. Now listen to me, Roland son of Steven, for I would have you hear me very well. Are you listening?”

Roland sighed. “Say thankya.”

“Rosa won’t give the woman an abortion. There are others in town who could, I have no doubt—even in a place where children are taken every twenty-some years by monsters from the dark land, such filthy arts are undoubtedly preserved—but if you go to one of them, you won’t need to worry about the Wolves. I’ll raise every hand in Calla Bryn Sturgis against you long before they come.”

Roland gazed at him unbelievingly. “Even though you know, as I’m sure you do, that we may be able to save a hundred other children? Human children, whose first task on earth would not be to eat their mothers?”

Callahan might not have heard. His face was very pale. “I’ll have more, do it please ya…and even if it don’t. I’ll have your word, sworn upon the face of your father, that you’ll never suggest an abortion to the woman herself.”

A queer thought came to Roland: Now that this subject had arisen—had pounced upon them, like Jilly out of her box—Susannah was no longer Susannah to this man. She had become the woman . And another thought: How many monsters had Pere Callahan slain himself, with his own hand?