The Dark Tower · Book V · 2003

Wolves of the Calla

Farmers call in gunslingers; the gunslingers arm the farmers’ wives; the robot is lying; and the priest finds himself in a novel.

Wolves of the Calla is the fifth Dark Tower novel, published in late 2003: the first King wrote after the van hit him in 1999, and the first of the final three, which arrived within ten months of each other. It is the long one in the middle of the saga, seven hundred-odd pages in which a farming town on the edge of the dark calls on four gunslingers and a billy-bumbler to stand against the riders who come once a generation for its children.

The shape is borrowed on purpose. King names Seven Samurai and The Magnificent Seven among his sources and the town is Calla Bryn Sturgis, after John Sturges: farmers hire gunmen, the gunmen arm the farmers (here the farmers’ wives, with sharpened plates), there is a traitor inside the walls, and the victory is paid for in named dead. Around that spine run two other clocks — a vacant lot in New York that must be bought before July 15, 1977, and a pregnancy that is not quite Susannah’s — and the device that joins them, todash, lets the ka-tet walk through Manhattan as ghosts.

Then the last pages turn the series inside out. Father Callahan, who walked out of ’Salem’s Lot in 1975, is handed a novel called ’Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King, and finds his life in it. Books VI and VII grow from that scene.

Part 1

Prologue: Roont

Tian Jaffords has three fields — River, Roadside, and Son of a Bitch, a tract that grows rocks and blisters — and he plows the last of them with his twin sister Tia in the harness, because ground that full of holes and mutie wasps is too dangerous for livestock. Tia is roont. Twenty-three years ago the Wolves rode out of Thunderclap on grey horses, took one child from nearly every pair of twins, and sent most of them back a month or two later on flatcars, simple for life, to grow into giants and die young. Most births in Calla Bryn Sturgis are twins.

Andy the Messenger Robot (Many Other Functions) — seven feet of stainless steel, blue flashing eyes, a large and meaningless smile — strolls across the field to say the Wolves will come in thirty days, and offers Tian a horoscope. At home Zalia does the arithmetic: Heddon and Hedda, about ten; Lyman and Lia, five; Aaron, a singleton, safe. Tian calls the men to the Gathering Hall, about a hundred and forty of them, and whoever holds the feather holds the floor. George Telford, a rich rancher, says to fight is to die. Then the Old Fella rises at the back: Pere Callahan, the priest with a cross cut into his forehead. Three gunslingers and an apprentice are coming down the Path of the Beam, less than a week’s ride off, and there is something under the floor of his church that may draw them. Time to stand and be true.

A farmer guides a plow pulled by a huge slow woman across a rocky field pocked with holes, under a hard noon sky. — **V · 1 Tian and Tia in the Field** The book opens on Tian Jaffords plowing Son of a Bitch, the worst of his three fields, with his sister Tia in the harness. She is roont: taken by the Wolves as a child and sent back simple, to grow into a giant, like one of nearly every pair of twins born in the Calla. Ground this full of holes and mutie wasps is too dangerous for livestock. The Prologue sets the price before anyone names the enemy.

A seven-foot stainless-steel robot with glowing blue eyes looms over a farmer at the edge of a plowed field. — **V · 2 Andy Brings the News** Andy the Messenger Robot (Many Other Functions), seven feet of stainless steel with flashing blue eyes and a large, meaningless smile, strolls up to tell Tian that the Wolves will come in thirty days, then offers him a horoscope. Nobody in Calla Bryn Sturgis asks how a relic of North Central Positronics always knows the day. That question is most of the book.

A torchlit timber hall packed with farmers; one man at the front holds up a feather while a white-haired priest in black rises at the back. — **V · 3 The Feather at the Gathering Hall** Tian calls the men to the Gathering Hall, about a hundred and forty of them, and whoever holds the feather holds the floor. George Telford says that to fight is to die. Then the Old Fella rises at the back: Pere Callahan, the priest with a cross cut into his forehead, who tells them three gunslingers and an apprentice are coming down the Path of the Beam, and that it is time to stand and be true.

Part 2

Part One: Todash

Five or six weeks past the Emerald City the ka-tet keeps meeting the number nineteen, and Roland lets a party of followers, a woman and a boy among them, trail along behind. One night Eddie, Jake and Oy go todash: their bodies flicker out by the fire and they stand, unseen by the crowds, on Second Avenue on May 31, 1977, the day Jake walked out of Piper School. They follow the 1977 Jake into the Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind and watch a grey Lincoln deliver Balazar, Andolini and Biondi. In the back room Eddie reads the paper Balazar waves: Sombra has paid Calvin Tower a hundred thousand dollars to keep Lot 298, Block 19, at Second Avenue and 46th, unsold until July 15, 1977. The chimes drag them home before they reach the lot.

Roland, awake, follows Susannah’s chair into the woods, as he has on other nights. At a swamp he finds it empty, her clothes on the seat; she has gone on into the water to eat frogs, leeches and a water rat, babbling in a dozen voices. He somehow knows she calls herself Mia, and that she is feeding a child she calls the chap. He says nothing. His hip hurts.

Palaver by daylight: Tower is the rose’s custodian without knowing it; Susannah’s inheritance, back in 1964, could buy the lot; they need doors. Then Callahan walks into camp — Detroit, Topeka, New York, a little town called Jerusalem’s Lot — and goes down on one knee.

“Hile, gunslinger, may we be well-met on the path.”

He weeps telling them the rest: Black Thirteen, the thirteenth bend of Maerlyn’s Rainbow, lies under his church floor, and it has come alive. His party follows him in: Overholser in a clean white Stetson, Tian in a battered sombrero, Zalia, Ben Slightman the Elder and his son Benny. Overholser treats them as drifters until Roland says charyou tree and looks at him. Over dinner he describes the raids: sixty to eighty masked riders on grey horses, with light-sticks and flying sneetches. Andy will not discuss the Wolves without a password, and cites Directive Nineteen. Roland asks for four dinner plates, Jake recites the gunslinger’s creed to its last line,

“I kill with my heart.”

and bursts all four in the air. Roland’s terms: a week to look, then a town meeting.

Then the whole ka-tet goes todash, to a New York where the paper says June 2, and Susannah comes running to Roland on legs and feet. The vagrant dead wander Second Avenue. One poster on the lot’s fence now names a Susannah-Mio, a Dixie Pig, and a year, ‘99. Susannah will not go in. The three who do kneel weeping round the rose as it opens and sings; Eddie hears a jagged note in the song, and Roland says it is sick. Outside the fence Susannah loses seven minutes and her new legs: Mia has come out to look around. Jake carries back a crumpled pink bowling bag that reads “Nothing but strikes at Mid-World Lanes” — and Roland knows what it is for.

Three translucent figures, a young man, a boy and a small striped animal, stand unseen on a crowded 1977 Manhattan sidewalk watching a solid boy in a school blazer walk toward a bookshop. — **V · 4 Two Jakes on Second Avenue** The first todash. Eddie, Jake and Oy go to sleep in Mid-World and wake, unseen, on Second Avenue on May 31, 1977, the day the other Jake left Piper School for good. They follow him to the Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind and watch Balazar’s men lean on Calvin Tower, who owns the vacant lot and, without knowing it, the rose. The chimes drag them back before they can reach it.

By moonlight a legless woman crouches on her hands at the edge of a black swamp pool with a hard, hungry face, while a tall man in a long coat watches from the dead trees behind her. — **V · 5 Susannah at the Swamp** Roland has known for a while that Susannah wanders at night. Tonight he follows her chair into the woods, finds it empty at the edge of a swamp, and watches her go on her hands into the water, feeding on frogs, leeches and a water rat and babbling in a dozen voices. He somehow knows she calls herself Mia. He says nothing, and the secret begins to split the ka-tet.

In a forest camp at morning a white-haired priest kneels on one knee before a seated gunslinger while a young man, a boy, a woman in a wheelchair and a small animal look on. — **V · 6 Hile, Gunslinger** Father Callahan walks into camp — Detroit, Topeka, New York, a little town called Jerusalem’s Lot — and goes down on one knee: “Hile, gunslinger, may we be well-met on the path.” He has come to ask for help against the Wolves, and he has a confession that makes him weep: Black Thirteen lies under the floor of his church, and it has come alive.

On a shaded forest trail a wary group of farm folk led by a heavy man in a white Stetson faces a gunslinger, a woman in a wheelchair, a young man and a boy with a small animal. — **V · 7 The Calla Party** The delegation Callahan has been shepherding: Wayne Overholser, the biggest farmer in the Calla, in a clean white Stetson; Tian and Zalia Jaffords; Ben Slightman the Elder, foreman of the Rocking B, and his son Benny, a little older than Jake. Andy, the robot, is back at their camp cooking. Overholser treats them as drifters until Roland says *charyou tree* and looks at him. He asks about the wheelchair; Susannah tells him as little as she can.

Three translucent figures, a gunslinger, a young man and a boy, kneel in a weed-choked vacant lot around a single glowing red rose, with a board fence covered in torn posters behind them. — **V · 8 The Rose in the Lot** The second todash takes all of them to New York on June 2, 1977. Susannah, who arrives on legs and feet, will not pass the fence and waits outside with Oy; inside, Roland, Eddie and Jake kneel weeping round the rose as it opens and sings, and Eddie hears a jagged note in the song: the rose is sick. Outside, Susannah loses seven minutes, and her legs, to Mia. Jake comes back to Mid-World holding a pink bowling bag that had been lying beside the rose.

Part 3

Part Two: Telling Tales

From the forest’s edge they see the town, the Devar-Tete Whye, palms, rice, desert, and the dark wall of Thunderclap standing on the eastern sky like weather. At the Pavilion the four of them bow and name their lines — Roland of Gilead, son of Steven, the Line of Eld; the ka-tet of Nineteen; Jake, prompted, the ka-tet of the Ninety and Nine — and Oy stands up on his hind legs, bows, and brings down the house. Roland hands his gun to Susannah, asks the folken the old questions, and then, in place of the last one, dances the commala, faster and faster on a hip that already hurts, and dives off the stage into the crowd. That night at the log church Eddie feels the ball under the floor like a weight, and Callahan will not begin his story.

“Mine is no story for starlight.”

In the morning Roland wakes in pain from hip to ankle: the dry twist, and he privately gives himself under a year. Rosalita Munoz, Callahan’s housekeeper, treats him with rock-cat oil and asks him to save the children whatever the big bugs decide. Picking pokeberries, Roland tells Eddie that Susannah is pregnant by the demon of the speaking ring in The Waste Lands; Eddie accepts it, and that they will not tell her yet for fear of waking Mia.

The priest tells his tale in installments. Jerusalem’s Lot, 1975: the vampire Barlow, the crucifix glowing in Callahan’s hand and then going dark, Barlow snapping its arms and forcing him to drink from an opened throat; the church door that burns his hand; a bus to New York. New York, 1975 and ‘76: Home, a wet shelter two blocks from the vacant lot; the blue light he can now see around vampires. One of them feeds on his friend Lupe, infecting him with the disease that will kill him, and Callahan starts killing them, one with a meat cleaver. Then come graffiti about a man with a burned hand and lost-pet posters that are really about him, the work of low men in long yellow coats: soldiers of the Crimson King. For years he hides on the highways between Americas, ducking red-and-white Cadillacs. In 1981 the Hitler Brothers carve the cross into his forehead; two strangers, one wearing an EX LIBRIS ring, run them off. Detroit, December 19, 1983: a room of low men and vampires and a man named Richard Sayre; Callahan goes out the window, wakes at the Way Station in Roland’s desert, takes Black Thirteen from Walter’s hands, and falls through a door into the Cave of Voices, where the Manni find him. Partway through the telling he takes Roland alone into the church, lifts the boards before the altar and folds back the linen from a box of black ghostwood carved with a rose, a stone and a door. Roland will take it: soon.

Between sittings the Calla shows its cards. At the Rocking B, with twenty-three days left, Margaret Eisenhart tells the legend of Lady Oriza, who beheaded the outlaw Gray Dick at her own table with a sharpened plate, and shows Roland the Calla’s version: twelve inches of blue titanium, honed all round but the grip, whistling in flight. She names Zalia Jaffords, Sarey Adams and Rosalita as throwers. On the Jaffords porch at dusk Gran-pere Jamie tells how he, Pokey Slidell, and Eamon and Molly Doolin stood in the road against four Wolves: Molly’s plate took one in the neck, a light-stick took her arm, and afterward Jamie crawled to the dead Wolf, smelled rot, and pulled its mask. What he saw he whispers to Eddie in nineteen words. That night Oy leads Jake to a bluff from which he watches Ben Slightman confer with Andy, then ride east toward nothing but Thunderclap. Roland climbs with Henchick, eighty and breathing easy, to the cave: the pit at the back speaks in the voices of his past, and before it stands a door that was not there until Callahan came, freestanding, marked unfound, a rose etched in its crystal knob. Without the ball the knob will not turn. The priest’s tale ends, and Susannah tells the ka-tet she thinks she is pregnant.

On a torchlit stage before a great crowd, four travelers bow formally while a small striped animal stands on its hind legs beside them, imitating the bow. — **V · 9 Oy Bows to the Calla** Part Two opens with the ride into town and the welcome at the Pavilion, where the torches turn from yellow to crimson as the night goes on. Each of them bows and names a line — Roland of Gilead, son of Steven, the Line of Eld; the ka-tet of Nineteen; Jake, prompted, the ka-tet of the Ninety and Nine — and then Oy stands up on his hind legs and bows too, and the town is theirs.

A gaunt gunslinger dances alone on a torchlit stage, boots a blur, while a crowd claps below and a woman in a wheelchair at the stage’s edge holds his gun across her lap. — **V · 10 Roland Dances the Commala** Roland hands his gun to Susannah, asks the folken the ritual questions — will they open to the gunslingers, do they see them for what they are — and then, instead of the last question, dances. The rice song, the commala, slow at first and then faster than seems possible for a man with a bad hip, until he dives off the stage into the crowd. Eddie has never seen him look so alone, or so much the last of his kind.

In a small rectory pantry a dark-haired woman kneels to rub oil into the hip of a gaunt, grey-stubbled man seated on a stool, his gunbelt hung on a peg. — **V · 11 The Dry Twist** The morning after the dance Roland wakes with pain from hip to ankle: the dry twist, an arthritis that spreads fast, and privately he gives himself under a year of use. Rosalita Munoz, Callahan’s housekeeper, needs one look at the way he crosses a room. She treats him with rock-cat oil and asks him, whatever the big bugs decide, to save the children. He hides the hip from everyone else for as long as he can.

In a dark kitchen lit by one candle a tall pale vampire reaches for the fading crucifix held up by a cornered priest. — **V · 12 The Cross Goes Dark** The Priest’s Tale begins in Jerusalem’s Lot, 1975, in the house of the boy Mark Petrie. Callahan has held the vampire Barlow off with a glowing crucifix; once the boy is free, the glow dies with his faith, Barlow plucks the cross from his hand and snaps its arms, and forces the priest to drink from his own opened throat. Callahan burns his hand on the door of his own church and leaves town on a bus.

At dusk a haggard white-haired man studies a telephone pole thick with blank posters on a New York side street while two men in long yellow coats watch from beside a red-and-white Cadillac. — **V · 13 Lost Pets** After ’Salem’s Lot Callahan drifts into New York, where he can see the vampires that feed on the city, and after one of them feeds on his friend Lupe, passing him the disease that will kill him, he starts killing them. Then come graffiti about a man with a burned hand and lost-pet posters that are really about him, the work of the low men in their long yellow coats. He runs, and finds the highways in hiding between one America and the next.

In a dim log church a priest kneels by a lifted floorboard beneath the altar and folds back linen from a carved black box while a gunslinger crouches beside him. — **V · 14 Under the Altar** Our Lady of Serenity, Callahan’s log church. Roland goes in alone with the priest, his gun left outside, and feels the ball’s hum as a colossal emptiness. Callahan pulls up the boards before the altar and folds back the linen: a black ghostwood box carved with a rose, a stone and a door. Black Thirteen is the Tower’s own glass, the thirteenth bend of Maerlyn’s Rainbow, and it is what has been sending the ka-tet todash. Roland agrees to take it. Soon.

In a ranch yard a stern middle-aged woman has just thrown a blue plate that streaks toward a straw dummy with a potato on its shoulder, while a gunslinger and a rancher watch. — **V · 15 The Tale of Gray Dick** At the Rocking B, Margaret Eisenhart tells the legend of Lady Oriza, who beheaded the outlaw Gray Dick at her own table with a sharpened dinner plate, then shows Roland the Calla’s version: a twelve-inch plate of blue titanium, honed all round the rim except at the grip, with a pod that whistles in flight. She halves a potato on a dummy’s shoulder from across the yard. Roland has his hunters, and they are women.

In a smoky memory a farm boy kneels in a country road beside a fallen green-cloaked rider and lifts away its steel wolf mask, the head beneath lost in shadow. — **V · 16 What Gran-pere Saw** Gran-pere Jaffords, the oldest man in the Calla, has been telling for years how he killed a Wolf. On the porch at dusk he tells Eddie the truer version: Molly Doolin’s plate brought it down, and afterward he crawled to the dead thing, smelled rot coming off it, and pulled its mask away. What he saw beneath he whispers to Eddie in nineteen words, and Eddie understands the grey horses at last.

Two boys sit side by side on a bluff above a wide river at evening with a small striped animal between them, a canvas tent behind and a wall of darkness on the far horizon. — **V · 17 Jake and Benny** Jake lodges at the Rocking B with Benny Slightman, who is a little older, a little softer, and the only friend his own age he has ever had; Benny’s twin died young, but to the Wolves he is still a twin, which is why his father is afraid. The boys camp in a tent on a bluff over the river. The friendship is the book’s gentlest thread and its cruellest: what Jake learns about Benny’s father, he learns while Benny sleeps.

In a high cave mouth a gunslinger presses his palm to a tall freestanding door with a crystal knob, an old bearded man in a dark cloak behind him and a black chasm beyond. — **V · 18 The Unfound Door** Henchick of the Manni, eighty and climbing like a man strolling, leads Roland up to the Cave of Voices. The pit at the back answers in the voices of your past, and before it stands a door that was not there until Callahan came: freestanding, hinged on nothing, a crystal knob etched with a rose, and across it the symbols that mean *unfound*. Without the ball the knob will not turn. With it, the Manni say, the door once opened on a black light with red in it.

Part 4

Part Three: The Wolves

Roland takes the pregnancy to Callahan and asks whether Rosalita could end it; Callahan refuses in horror. Eddie passes on the nineteen words, and Roland fixes on the detail that matters: grey horses all of one shade. Machines. Susannah takes to the Oriza as if born to it and throws eight plates in under three seconds; Eisenhart will stand, and promises a curse if Margaret dies; Took and Overholser will not. Jake notices Slightman’s spectacles and keeps quiet for Benny’s sake. Andy says ten days; Roland calls the meeting for six days out.

Roland and Eddie carry the box up to the cave in the bowling bag. Roland opens it; the chimes bite; Eddie steps through the door onto Second Avenue on June 23, 1977, and into Tower’s back room, where Andolini and Biondi are threatening to burn his first editions one by one. He beats them both down with Roland’s revolver and declares Tower under the protection of the Tet Corporation — a firm that exists from that sentence on. Tower shows him an old envelope, marked with the box’s own symbols, that names Roland Deschain of Gilead, and agrees to leave the city and sell the lot to Tet for a dollar. A bookcase comes through before the door slams. Roland, holding the box open with bullets in his ears, is grey with pain. Eddie says Slightman is the rat. Roland knew: the spectacles.

By moonlight Oy tracks the foreman’s scent across the river, Jake behind him, to a bunker called the Dogan — North Central Positronics, Outpost 16 — where some of thirty monitors watch Took’s, the church and the rectory. From a closet Jake hears Slightman and Andy report to Finli O’Tego at Algul Siento. Slightman did it to keep Benny. The rectory is bugged. As the ka-tet palavers at the Pavilion, out of the bugs’ hearing, the Calla’s children march past singing behind Andy, and Roland warns his friends to believe nothing he says at the meeting. He has a saying for it, from his father’s day:

“First comes smiles, then lies. Last is gunfire.”

That afternoon Roland sends Callahan through the door into June 24, 1977. He finds the bookstore a burnt husk and, on the lot’s fence, a zip code that resolves to East Stoneham, Maine. Roland, waiting in the cave, takes a book from Tower’s shelf with a church on the cover; it hums in his hands, and he keeps it to himself.

The Meeting of the Folken, with lightning walking in Thunderclap: twins carry in the feather, Tian opens, the folken ask aid and succor, and then Roland lies like a genius. The Wolves are the undead servants of vampires, with a soft spot over the heart; on Wolf’s Eve the twins will sleep in a tent by the Pavilion and go north by wagon; the town assumes the old Gloria mine. Telford pleads that it has all been tried before; Jake answers that it has not been tried by gunslingers; Roland allows there may be burning:

“A burned building can be replaced. A roont child cannot.”

Roland tells Slightman, privately, that the children will be hidden below the Wolves’ path. Days before, Susannah has lost three hours in the privy to Mia and told no one. On Wolf’s Eve, at six, Andy comes to the rectory for the guns Eddie promised and finds a privy with a new bolt. Eddie shoots out both eyes, locks him in, finds the password — not nineteen, not ninety-nine, but the year on the fence, 1999 — and orders him to shut down.

Dawn. Ninety-nine children — every twin, and Benny — go up the East Road in wagons. The children will really hide in the rice, with Callahan, Overholser and the other minders. The fighters go to ground in the ditch — Roland and Eddie, Susannah, Margaret Eisenhart, Zalia and Rosalita — with two hundred plates, while Jake, Benny and the Tavery twins lay a trail of ribbons, combs and toys up the path toward the mines, and Frank Tavery breaks his ankle on it. About sixty Wolves come out of the river in waves of five and six and take the bait; the trail-layers tumble into the ditch with Frank as the first riders round the bend. It is what Roland promised:

“Five minutes’ worth of blood and stupidity.”

Revolvers and the Ruger, then the plates, then the Wolves’ answer. Susannah knocks a sneetch out of the air. Margaret Eisenhart is beheaded by a light-stick; Benny climbs out of the ditch to go to her and a sneetch kills him. Jake takes nine; the last is left for Susannah, and she takes it. The folken pour up out of the rice singing. Eisenhart and Slightman come for their dead. Rosalita, who has gone looking for Susannah, finds that she and her chair are gone.

A woman in a wheelchair hurls blue plates two-handed at a row of wolf-shaped straw targets before a fence lined with farm folk and a tall robot. — **V · 19 Susannah Throws** Part Three: five days of visiting and arming. Susannah takes to the Oriza as if born to it and, throwing two-handed from the chair before a crowd at the Jaffords place, puts eight plates into wolf-shaped targets in under three seconds. Zalia Jaffords, Margaret Eisenhart, Rosalita and Sarey Adams practise beside her. Andy is in the crowd, watching.

In the cluttered back room of a used bookshop a lanky young man levels a big revolver at a heavy-browed hoodlum on the floor while a round, frightened bookseller clutches a book in an office chair. — **V · 20 Under the Protection of Gilead** June 23, 1977. Roland opens the box in the cave and Eddie steps through the door into Tower’s back room, where Jack Andolini and George Biondi are threatening to burn the bookseller’s first editions one by one. Eddie beats them both down with the revolver and sends Andolini back to Balazar with a message: Calvin Tower is under the protection of the Tet Corporation, and the mark of Gilead is on him. The Tet Corporation did not exist until Eddie said it.

In a dead control room lit by a wall of flickering monitors a man in spectacles speaks into a microphone beside a tall robot, while a boy and a small animal watch from a closet door open a crack. — **V · 21 Thirty Screens** By moonlight Oy tracks Slightman the Elder’s scent across the river, Jake riding behind, to the Dogan: a North Central Positronics outpost with a skeleton in khaki and a bank of thirty monitors, some watching Took’s, the church, the rectory and the Pavilion. Slightman and Andy arrive; from a closet Jake hears them report to someone called Finli O’Tego at Algul Siento. Slightman says he did it for Benny, not for the spectacles.

Under a darkening sky lit by distant lightning a gunslinger holds up a feather on a stage before an entire town, a tall robot standing head and shoulders above the crowd at the back. — **V · 22 The Lie That Saves** The Meeting of the Folken, with lightning walking in Thunderclap. Twins carry in the feather; Tian opens; the folken answer aye to the old question; then Roland lies like a genius. The Wolves are vampires’ undead servants with a soft spot over the heart; the twins will sleep in a tent by the Pavilion on Wolf’s Eve and go north by wagon; the town assumes the old Gloria mine. Of the burning Telford fears, Roland says: “A burned building can be replaced. A roont child cannot.”

In the early evening a tall robot stands rigid with both eyes dark and smoking beside a wooden privy, while a young man a few paces off lowers a big revolver and a farmer watches empty-handed. — **V · 23 Andy’s Password** Wolf’s Eve, six o’clock. Andy comes to the rectory to collect the guns Eddie promised him and finds a privy with a new bolt on it. Eddie shoots out both blue eyes, locks the shrieking robot in, and goes hunting for the password: not nineteen, not ninety-nine, but the year on the fence poster, 1999. Andy curses him, reports that his power cells will never recharge, and shuts himself down by percentages.

At pale dawn a line of farm wagons crowded with children rolls east along a dusty road between rice paddies toward a wall of darkness on the horizon. — **V · 24 Ninety-Nine Children** Dawn on Wolf’s Day. Ninety-nine children — every pair of twins and Benny Slightman — go up the East Road in wagons driven by Overholser, Tian and the other minders, Callahan and Rosalita on the last. The town believes they are bound for the mines. They are bound for the rice, where they will hide in the paddies while Jake, Benny and the Tavery twins lay a false trail of ribbons, combs and toys up the path toward the mines.

Seen along its length, a roadside ditch in early light holds a gunslinger and a young man with guns, a legless woman with a stack of blue plates and three farm women each holding a plate, all keeping their heads below the road. — **V · 25 The Fighters in the Ditch** In the ditch below the East Road wait Roland and Eddie with the big revolvers, Susannah with plates stacked at her hand, and Margaret Eisenhart, Zalia Jaffords and Rosalita: two hundred Orizas between them. Roland has finally told them what the Wolves really are. Up the path Jake, Benny and the Tavery twins are laying the false trail, and then Frank Tavery breaks his ankle on it, and the plan has a hole in it.

A mass of hooded green-cloaked riders in snarling steel wolf masks pours toward the viewer on grey horses out of a rolling dust cloud, glowing rods raised in their fists. — **V · 26 The Wolves Come** About sixty of them come in waves of five and six, up out of the river with their horses throwing spray, and turn onto the false trail toward the mines as Roland knew they would: grey horses all of one shade, green cloaks and hoods, steel wolf masks that rot in the sun like flesh. Every generation the Calla has hidden its children and waited. This time the ditch is full.

Gunfire and blue plates erupt from a roadside ditch as masked riders rear on grey horses, glowing rods blazing and small humming metal balls streaking toward the defenders. — **V · 27 Light-Sticks and Sneetches** The ambush: revolvers and the Ruger first, then the plates, and then the Wolves’ answer, light-sticks that kill at a touch and sneetches, small metal balls that fly on their own and hunt. Susannah knocks one out of the air with a plate. The ka-tet has met this kind of machine before, in the bear Shardik; Eddie, who grew up on the movies of his own when, will tell Jake afterward exactly where the sticks and the masks were borrowed from.

On the floor of the ditch a blue plate lies in the dust beside an outflung hand, while one woman kneels with her face turned away and another throws above her. — **V · 28 Margaret Eisenhart** Margaret Eisenhart, Henchick’s daughter, who left the Manni for a heathen rancher and regretted nothing, is one of the Calla’s best throwers and the first of the fighters to die, beheaded by a light-stick in the middle of the fight. Her husband promised Roland a curse if she fell. Rosalita, who loses her friend, will want a Wolf of her own before the five minutes are out.

A boy sits on the wheel of an overturned wagon by a dusty road, a pistol in his lap and his face blank with shock, while a gaunt man beside him rolls a cigarette. — **V · 29 Benny Slightman** Benny Slightman sees Margaret fall and climbs out of the ditch to go to her. A sneetch finds him. Jake, screaming his friend’s name, goes up the path after the last of the Wolves; afterward he sits on the wheel of an overturned wagon, staring at the body. The Calla’s two dead are a woman who came to fight and a boy whose father sold the town to keep him safe.

On a road littered with fallen green-cloaked riders and loose grey horses, a young man crouches over one and lifts its steel wolf mask away to show a smooth metal head beneath. — **V · 30 More Metal Beneath** The masks come away on metal. Under the hood of every Wolf is a robot of the kind the ka-tet has met before, with a dish-shaped thinking cap on top of its head like the one on the bear Shardik, and the thinking cap is the kill-spot. Gran-pere’s nineteen words were right. Eddie, who knows the comics and the movies, recognizes the whole costume, and is relieved that Jake sees it too.

Hundreds of farm folk pour up a dusty road from the rice fields, singing and dancing among fallen riders and loose grey horses, while a gunslinger, a young man and a boy stand a little apart. — **V · 31 Commala on the East Road** The folken come up out of the rice singing and dancing among the dead machines on the East Road. It was what Roland had promised them: “Five minutes’ worth of blood and stupidity.” Callahan comes up from the paddies carrying a sleeping child. Eisenhart and Slightman come to find their dead. Rosalita, looking for Susannah, finds that she and her wheelchair are gone.

Part 5

Epilogue: The Doorway Cave

Roland, Eddie, Jake and Callahan run for the arroyo path. A mile past the fork the wheelchair lies wrecked against a rock. At the foot of the climb Eddie finds the willowgreen ring he carved her, still on its rawhide loop, and hangs it round his own neck. Farther up, where a boulder narrows the path, a three-wheeled machine sits humming beside a six-pack of Nozz-A-La one can short. Roland is limping again. In the cave Tower’s bookcase still stands; the pink bag and the box are gone; the door is dull. Roland lays it out: she took the chair as far as it would go, crawled to where a ride had been left for her, rode up, opened the box, and went through.

Then he hands Jake the book. The church on its cover is the twin of the Gathering Hall. ’Salem’s Lot, a novel by Stephen King. Callahan reads his own life in it, down to things he never told anyone, and cries out that he is a real person. Roland calls it the heart of the great mystery and says they will follow Susannah when they can. From here the author is a character in his own saga.

A legless woman with a hard hungry face drags a pink bowling bag across a cave floor toward a tall freestanding door that stands open a crack on a blaze of white light. — **V · 32 Mia Takes the Bag** The book does not show it; the Epilogue shows what is left. While the Calla dances, Mia drives Susannah’s body up the arroyo path — the wheelchair as far as it will go, then hands and knees, then a three-wheeled machine someone left for her — to the cave, where she takes the pink bag with Black Thirteen inside, opens the box, and goes through the Unfound Door toward the New York of 1999. Eddie’s ring, on its rawhide loop, is left at the foot of the path.

In a cave mouth lit from outside a white-haired priest sits on a rock staring at an open book with a church on its cover, while a gunslinger, a young man and a boy stand around him. — **V · 33 A Novel by Stephen King** Roland hands Jake the book that hummed in his hands while Callahan was in 1977, its cover a church that is the twin of the Calla’s Gathering Hall. ’Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King. Callahan reads his own life in it, down to things he never told anyone, and cries out that he is a real person. Roland calls it the heart of the great mystery. The series will spend its last two books on what that means.

What the 2017 film took from this book

The 2017 film takes almost nothing from this book: no Calla, no Wolves, no plates, no Callahan, no todash, no 1977.
The one element reference guides trace to Wolves is the Manni — the film’s seer who places the Tower six months away is one of the Manni, the cloaked far-travelling folk whose Redpath clan Henchick leads here.
The film’s spine, psychic children strapped into a machine firing at the Tower, is the Breakers material of Books VI and VII (and Hearts in Atlantis). Wolves shows only the harvest end of that machine: children taken east and returned ruined.
The taheen in human skins, the low men hunting a boy through New York, and the Dixie Pig all belong to the later books. Here the Dixie Pig is a line on a poster and a T-shirt, and Sayre and the low men appear only in Callahan’s tale (Sayre’s name is also on Tower’s Sombra agreement).

Continuity notes

Roland: right hand still two fingers short; one revolver, worn on the left (Eddie wears the other). New this book: the dry twist, a fast arthritis from hip to ankle that he hides from everyone but Rosalita, who treats it with rock-cat oil and becomes his first lover since Allie in Tull.
Susannah: in her wheelchair throughout the Calla; on legs only while todash in New York (ch. VII), and only until Mia surfaces. Pregnant since the speaking ring in The Waste Lands; Mia, “daughter of none,” hunts at night in her body. Learns the Oriza in days. Leaves the book through the Unfound Door with Black Thirteen; the chair is wrecked on the path; Eddie keeps the willowgreen ring he carved her.
Eddie: rides without ever having learned; carries Roland’s revolver, handed over in Roland’s purse, on the trip to 1977; names the Tet Corporation into existence; shuts Andy down with the password 1999.
Jake: carries his father’s Ruger in the docker’s clutch; the touch now reaches into Roland’s head; makes his first friend, Benny Slightman, and loses him.
Oy: bows to the Calla at the Pavilion; tracks Slightman the Elder by scent.
Callahan: joins the ka-tet from this book on; burned right hand (his own church door, 1975) and a cross-shaped scar on his forehead (the Hitler Brothers, 1981); ends the book holding ’Salem’s Lot.
Dead: Margaret Eisenhart (light-stick) and Benny Slightman (sneetch). Andy shut down, power cells spent. Slightman the Elder alive, his treachery known to the ka-tet. The Wolves destroyed on the East Road.
Objects: Black Thirteen goes from under the altar into the pink Mid-World Lanes bowling bag and through the door with Mia; the Unfound Door is dead again until Book VI; Calvin Tower’s bookcase stands in the cave; Tower and Aaron Deepneau are hiding in East Stoneham, Maine, with the lot still unsold and the Sombra deadline, July 15, 1977, less than three weeks off.

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