When the holy man with the scar on his forehead left to get his trailmates, the gunslinger stood watching him go without moving. Roland’s thumbs were hooked into the waistband of his old patched jeans, and he looked as if he could stand that way well into the next age. The moment Callahan was out of sight, however, he turned to his own mates and made an urgent, almost bearish, clutching gesture at the air: Come to me . As they did, Roland squatted on his hunkers. Eddie and Jake did the same (and to Susannah, hunkers were almost a way of life). The gunslinger spoke almost curtly.

“Time is short, so tell me, each of you, and don’t shilly-shally: honest or not?”

“Honest,” Susannah said at once, then gave another little wince and rubbed beneath her left breast.

“Honest,” said Jake.

“Onnes,” said Oy, although he had not been asked.

“Honest,” Eddie agreed, “but look.” He took an unburned twig from the edge of the campfire, brushed away a patch of pine-duff, and wrote in the black earth underneath:

Calla Callahan

“Live or Memorex?” Eddie said. Then, seeing Susannah’s confusion: “Is it a coincidence, or does it mean something?”

“Who knows?” Jake asked. They were all speaking in low tones, heads together over the writing in the dirt. “It’s like nineteen.”

“I think it’s only a coincidence,” Susannah said. “Surely not everything we encounter on our path is ka, is it? I mean, these don’t even sound the same.” And she pronounced them, Calla with the tongue up, making the broad-a sound, Callahan with the tongue down, making a much sharper a-sound. “ Calla’s Spanish in our world…like many of the words you remember from Mejis, Roland. It means street or square, I think…don’t hold me to it, because high school Spanish is far behind me now. But if I’m right, using the word as a prefix for the name of a town—or a whole series of them, as seems to be the case in these parts—makes pretty good sense. Not perfect, but pretty good. Callahan, on the other hand…” She shrugged. “What is it? Irish? English?”

“It’s sure not Spanish,” Jake said. “But the nineteen thing—”

“Piss on nineteen,” Roland said rudely. “This isn’t the time for number games. He’ll be back here with his friends in short order, and I would speak to you an-tet of another matter before he does.”

“Do you think he could possibly be right about Black Thirteen?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” Roland said. “Based just on what happened to you and Eddie last night, I think the answer is yes. Dangerous for us to have such a thing if he is right, but have it we must. I fear these Wolves out of Thunderclap will if we don’t. Never mind, that need not trouble us now.”

Yet Roland looked very troubled indeed. He turned his regard toward Jake.