Once, in another life, Roland had promised to take care of Jake Chambers and then let him drop into the darkness. Jake had thought there could be no worse betrayal than that. Now he wasn’t so sure. No, not so sure at all. These unhappy thoughts kept him awake for a long time. Finally, half an hour or so before the first hint of dawn touched the horizon, he fell into a thin and troubled sleep.

Chapter IV

The Pied Piper

One

“We are ka-tet,” said the gunslinger. “We are one from many.” He saw Callahan’s doubtful look—it was impossible to miss—and nodded. “Yes, Pere, you’re one of us. I don’t know for how long, but I know it’s so. And so do my friends.”

Jake nodded. So did Eddie and Susannah. They were in the Pavilion today; after hearing Jake’s story, Roland no longer wanted to meet at the rectory-house, not even in the back yard. He thought it all too likely that Slightman or Andy—maybe even some other as yet unsuspected friend of the Wolves—had placed listening devices as well as cameras there. Overhead the sky was gray, threatening rain, but the weather remained remarkably warm for so late in the season. Some civic-minded ladies or gents had raked away the fallen leaves in a wide circle around the stage where Roland and his friends had introduced themselves not so long ago, and the grass beneath was as green as summer. There were folken flying kites, couples promenading hand in hand, two or three outdoor tradesmen keeping one eye out for customers and the other on the low-bellied clouds overhead. On the bandstand, the group of musicians who had played them into Calla Bryn Sturgis with such brio were practicing a few new tunes. On two or three occasions, townsfolk had started toward Roland and his friends, wanting to pass a little time, and each time it happened, Roland shook his head in an unsmiling way that turned them around in a hurry. The time for so-good-to-meet-you politics had passed. They were almost down to what Susannah called the real nitty-gritty.

Roland said, “In four days comes the meeting, this time I think of the entire town, not just the men.”

“Damn well told it ought to be the whole town,” Susannah said. “If you’re counting on the ladies to throw the dish and make up for all the guns we don’t have, I don’t think it’s too much to let em into the damn hall.”

“Won’t be in the Gathering Hall, if it’s everyone,” Callahan said. “There won’t be room enough. We’ll light the torches and have it right out here.”

“And if it rains?” Eddie asked.

“If it rains, people will get wet,” Callahan said, and shrugged.