"What about Oy?" he asked Jake in a low voice.
"Oy stays with me."
Only four words, but they were enough to convince Callahan Jake knew what he did: this was their night to die. Callahan didn't know if they'd manage to go out in a blaze of glory, but they would be going out, all three of them. The clearing at the end of the path was now hidden from their view by only a single turn; they would enter it three abreast. And little as he wanted to die while his lungs were still clear and his eyes could still see, Callahan understood that things could have been much worse. Black Thirteen had been stuffed away in another dark place where it would sleep, and if Roland did indeed remain standing when the hurly-burly was done, the battle lost and won, then he would track it down and dispose of it as he saw fit. Meanwhile -
"Jake, listen to me a second. This is important."
Jake nodded, but he looked impatient.
"Do you understand that you are in danger of death, and do you ask forgiveness for your sins?"
The boy understood he was being given last rites. "Yes," he said.
"Are you sincerely sorry for those sins?"
"Yes."
"Repent of them?"
"Yes, Pere."
Callahan sketched the sign of the cross in front of him."In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus - "
Oy barked. Just once, but with excitement. And it was a bit muffled, that bark, for he had found something in the gutter and was holding it up to Jake in his mouth. The boy bent and took it.
"What?" Callahan asked. "What is it?"
"It's what she left for us," Jake said. He sounded enormously relieved, almost hopeful again. "What she dropped while Mia was distracted and crying about the song. Oh man - we might have a chance, Pere. We might just have a chance after all."
He put the object in the Pere's hand. Callahan was surprised by its weight, and then struck almost breathless by its beauty. He felt the same dawning of hope. It was probably stupid, but it was there, all right.
He held the scrimshaw turtle up to his face and ran the pad of his index finger over the question-mark-shaped scratch on its shell. Looked into its wise and peaceful eyes. "How lovely it is," he breathed. "Is it the Turtle Maturin? It is, isn't it?"
"I don't know," Jake said. "Probably. She calls it thesk?ldpadda, and it may help us, but it can't kill the harriers that are waiting for us in there." He nodded toward the Dixie Pig. "Only we can do that, Pere. Will you?"
"Oh yes," Callahan said calmly. He put the turtle, thesk?ldpadda, into his breast pocket. "I'll shoot until the bullets are gone or I'm dead. If I run out of bullets before they kill me, I'll club them with the gun-butt."
"Good. Let's go givethem some last rites."
They walked past the CLOSED sign on its chrome post, Oy trotting between them, his head up and his muzzle wearing that toothy grin. They mounted the three steps to the double doors without hesitating. At the top, Jake reached into the pouch and brought out two of the plates. He tapped them together, nodded at the dull ringing sound, and then said: "Let's see yours."
Callahan lifted the Ruger and held the barrel beside his right cheek like a duelist. Then he touched his breast pocket, which bulged and drooped with shells.
Jake nodded, satisfied. "Once we're in, we stay together. Always together, with Oy between. On three. And once we start, we don't stop until we're dead."
"Never stop."
"Right. Are you ready?"
"Yes. God's love on you, boy."
"And on you, Pere. One...two...three." Jake opened the door and together they went into dim light and the sweet tangy smell of roasting pork.
STAVE: Commala-come-ki,
There's a time to live and one to die.
With your back against the final wall
Ya gotta let the bullets fly.
RESPONSE: Commala-come ki!
Let the bullets fly!
Don't 'ee mourn for me, my lads
When it comes my day to die.
13th Stanza: "Hile, Mia, Hile, Mother"
One
Ka might have put that downtown bus where it was when Mia's cab pulled up, or it might only have been coincidence. Certainly it's the sort of question that provokes argument from the humblest street-preacher (can you give me hallelujah) all the way up to the mightiest of theological philosophers (can you give me a Socratic amen). Some might consider it almost frivolous; the mighty issues that loom their shadows behind the question, however, are anything but.
One downtown bus, half empty.
But if it hadn't been there on the corner of Lex and Sixty-first, Mia likely would never have noticed the man playing the guitar. And, had she not stopped to listen to the man playing the guitar, who knows how much of what followed might have been different?
Two
"Awwww,man, wouldja looka-dat!" the cab driver exclaimed, and lifted his hand to his windshield in an exasperated gesture. A bus was parked on the corner of Lexington and Sixty-first, its diesel engine rumbling and its taillights flashing what Mia took to be some kind of distress code. The bus driver was standing by one of the rear wheels, looking at the dark cloud of diesel smoke pouring from the bus's rear vent.
"Lady," said the cab driver, "you mind getting off on the corner of Sixtieth? Tha'be all right?"
Is it?Mia asked.What should I say?
Sure,Susannah replied absently.Sixtieth's fine.
Mia's question had called her back from her version of the Dogan, where she'd been trying to get in touch with Eddie. She'd had no luck doing that, and was appalled at the state of the place. The cracks in the floor now ran deep, and one of the ceiling panels had crashed down, bringing the fluorescent lights and several long snarls of electrical cable with it. Some of the instrument panels had gone dark. Others were seeping tendrils of smoke. The needle on the SUSANNAH-MIO dial was all the way over into the red. Below her feet, the floor was vibrating and the machinery was screaming. And saying that none of this was real, it was all only a visualization technique, kind of missed the whole point, didn't it? She'd shut down a very powerful process, and her body was paying a price. The Voice of the Dogan had warned her that what she was doing was dangerous; that it wasn't (in the words of a TV ad) nice to fool Mother Nature. Susannah had no idea which of her glands and organs were taking the biggest beating, but she knew that theywere hers. Not Mia's. It was time to call a halt to this madness before everything went sky-high.