The Keep of Fire (7 page)

“Fire and wonder,” the girl whispered.

A shrill cry pierced the air, and Deirdre looked up. The hawk had wheeled lower on red-tinged wings, and Deirdre gazed into small, bright eyes. The hawk rose on a column of air, dwindled into blue sky, and vanished.

Deirdre looked back down, but she already knew the girl would be gone. That much her greatgrandfather’s stories had taught her.

The sun broke like a blister against the sharp summit of Castle Peak, and crimson flowed down into the valley. The day was almost gone. Its death would bring only relief.

A few locals and fewer tourists passed Travis as he walked down Elk Street. Castle City should have been bustling this time of year, but the usual flood of vacationers had dried to a trickle under the summer glare as steadily as Granite Creek. Travis hadn’t bothered to open the Mine Shaft yet. There was no sense in rushing. Those few customers who did come wouldn’t show up until after sunset, when the valley cooled—at least a bit. He would wait until then.

Nor were Max and Deirdre at the saloon. Last night, Deirdre had told him she would be playing at the Medieval Festival that day, and all afternoon he had imagined red-faced Denverites buying hot pewter dragons and gnawing greasy turkey legs under the fierce high-altitude sun. It seemed less a recipe for entertainment than a prescription for sunstroke. He hoped the bard was having some luck.

As for Max—Travis had stopped by his place on the way into town, but Max’s apartment had been dim and silent, and the Volvo gone. For some reason, Travis had gotten out of his truck to peer through the apartment’s front window. The curtains had been drawn, but through a crack he had glimpsed a clutter of crumpled clothes, newspapers, and dirty dishes. At first he was sure he had looked into the wrong apartment—in his experience, Max’s neatness bordered on pathological—then he checked the number. He hadn’t made a mistake.

On his way back to his pickup, something shiny
had caught Travis’s eye, tangled in a web of dry weeds. It was a piece of glossy paper, from a brochure maybe, although Travis could make out only fragments of hyperreal images, so that it was impossible to tell what it was selling. He had shrugged, then shoved the paper into his pocket and climbed back into his truck.

Travis had hoped he would find Max once he got to the Mine Shaft, but his partner hadn’t been at the saloon either. Now, as he walked, a sick feeling rose in his throat. He clenched his jaw and swallowed it.

Of course Max is all right. It’s just a burn, Travis, that’s all. And it’s no mystery that his place is a mess—I’m sure it’s harder to be obsessive-compulsive with just one hand
.

Travis angled across Elk Street, toward McKay’s General Store. In his back pocket were the door hinges he had bought four—was it really only four?—days ago. He needed to return the hinges, to exchange them for new ones. They didn’t fit.

As he stepped onto the boardwalk, Travis noticed a black sport utility parked outside of McKay’s. He paused. It might have been the same vehicle he had seen driving past the saloon the other day. Or it might have been different but identical. It was impossible to tell. The glossy jet paint was without dent or blemish, and the tinted windows were as impenetrable as midnight. The crescent moon logo on the side door glowed scarlet in the fiery light of sunset.

A dude ranch cowboy jostled past Travis, and he blinked, realizing he had been staring. He mumbled an apology, then headed through the creaking side door into the familiar clutter of McKay’s General Store.

McKay’s had opened its doors in the 1870s and hadn’t closed them since, barring holidays and the Great Depression. Ian McKay, son of the original owner, had sold the store in the forties, but about ten
years ago his granddaughter, Onica McKay, returned to Castle City on a genealogical research trip, got caught by the spell of the valley, and bought the store her great-grandfather had built.

The store hadn’t changed much over the years. The gigantic discount warehouses had invaded other mountain towns, leaving McKay’s pressed-tin ceiling and plate-glass front window intact. The high shelves were just as crowded with merchandise as they had been in the waning days of the silver rush—although now they were more likely to hold garlic presses and cans of Indian curry than pickaxes and bottles of mercury.

Travis breathed in dusty, spicy air and smiled at the smell of history. At least there were some things he could still count on. He wandered back to the hardware section, found a new pair of hinges, and headed toward the front of the store.

The high, chiming sound of bells drifted on the air.

Shock crystallized Travis. Once before he had heard silvery music like that in Castle City. Once before, when everything had begun to—

“Thank you for coming to McKay’s,” a chantlike voice drifted from up ahead.

A man with a plastic shopping bag appeared from around a corner, smiled at Travis, then headed for the side entrance of the store. Travis stepped around the corner and saw the source of the sound.

The antique brass cash register that had dominated the front counter of McKay’s for time out of mind was gone. In its place lurked a low, aerodynamic shape molded from black plastic. Again the chiming shimmered on the air, and Travis knew it was not bells. Instead the sound had that hard, perfect clarity that could come only from an electronic chip.

Another customer—a young woman—waited at the counter. Waunita Lost Owl stood on the other side. Her black-and-white hair was woven into a
thick braid, and she wore jeans and a geometric-patterned shirt. A pair of thick-lensed glasses perched in front of her serene brown eyes.

At first Travis thought Waunita was ringing up the young woman’s purchases, but then he wasn’t so certain. Waunita touched each item lightly, then when she was done she touched the black unit on the counter. A pale luminescence frosted the sculpted features of her face, and again the chime sounded on the air.

“Seventeen-thirty-two,” Waunita said.

So she had been totaling the items after all.

The young woman held out a credit card. Waunita took it and passed it over the wedge-shaped unit without touching it. Another chime. Waunita handed the card back, placed the goods in a shiny plastic sack, and nodded as the young woman stepped away.

“Do you need help, Travis?”

He shook his head—he had been staring again. He hurried to the counter and set the hinges down.

“Hello, Waunita. I need to exchange these.”

She nodded and touched the hinges—no, that wasn’t right. Instead she carefully touched the metallic price sticker attached to each one.

Travis frowned as she worked. “What happened to the old cash register?”

“This is better.”

For the first time he noticed that she wore what looked like a black wrist brace, made of nylon and Velcro. On the back of the brace was a small black box. Waunita touched the main unit on the counter. It chimed, and at the same time a small LED on the wrist brace flashed.

His frown deepened.

“It uses my body as a wire,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“When I touch things, this remembers.” She brushed the box attached to the wrist brace, then she
gestured to the unit on the counter. “And when I touch this, it listens through my body and hears what things I touched. Then it adds them up.”

Understanding crept into Travis’s mind. He remembered sitting at the saloon with Max on a slow night a few months ago, watching the Wonder Channel on the TV behind the bar. The show had been about new technologies. One had involved a device that could use the human body to transmit data instead of a network cable. Personal area networks—PANs—that was what the monotonous voice of the narrator had called them. But the prototypes had been large and clunky. They had looked like something from a junior high school science fair compared to the slim, elegant device Waunita wore.

“They do good things,” Waunita said.

He shook his head. “What do you mean, Waunita? Who did this for the store?”

She reached under the counter, pulled out a brochure, and handed it to him.

“Maybe they can help you, too, Travis.”

He glanced down at the brochure and almost laughed. Maybe he should have been surprised to see the crescent moon and capital
D
, but he wasn’t. Duratek. So this was what they did—this was one of the possibilities they advertised.

“Mrs. McKay was worried,” Waunita said. “But now she is full of hope all the time. She says things have not been this good in many years. She is paying me more.”

Travis gazed out the front window. Desiccated scraps of litter blew down Elk Street like dirty tumbleweeds in the gloom. No, Waunita was wrong. Things were not good—they were not good at all. Who were these people? What did they know about real possibilities? He glanced down at the crescent moon on the brochure. Once before he had seen a symbol all over town right before things had changed.
Travis crumpled the brochure, shoved it into his pocket, and turned to walk from the store.

“Travis? You forgot your hinges.”

He barely noticed as Waunita pushed the slick plastic sack into his hand, then he stepped out the front door and walked into hot, gritty twilight. He glanced in both directions, looking for the black vehicle, ready to confront these people, to ask them who they were to come here and change things.

The street was empty, the vehicle was gone. Travis sighed and headed back to open up the saloon.

Max called the Mine Shaft at a quarter to midnight.

Behind the bar, Travis fumbled with the handset. “Max? Max, is that you?”

A digital hiss phased into words. “—course it’s me, Travis.” The voice sounded thin and metallic, as if Max spoke from down a long steel tube.

Travis turned his back to block out the low din of conversation. To his amazement, people had been waiting outside the Mine Shaft when he returned from McKay’s. Now the saloon was over half-full. People were kind sometimes. Too kind. He had thrown a rug over the scorch mark on the floor, but he could still smell the stench of fire.

“Max, I—” He lowered his voice. “I was a little worried when I didn’t hear from you today.”

“Travis, you worry when one of the Daughters of the Frontier breaks a press-on nail opening a beer.”

He couldn’t help a small laugh. It was genuine Max, all right, even if the voice was a poor silicon facsimile. “Where are you? I … are you at home?”

A surge of static, then, “—feel great, Travis. Better every day. Really, I mean it.”

Travis knew he should take Max’s word for it. But it was hard not to remember the feverish light in Max’s eyes when Travis had last seen him. He licked dry lips. “Have you seen Deputy Windom lately?”

A faint buzzing, and silence.

“Max? Are you—?”

“Yes. Yes, I saw—”

Max’s voice was cut off by another sound: a whine so piercing Travis had to jerk the phone away for fear his skull would shatter.

“Max? Max, are you there? What was that?”

Static coalesced into a faint voice. “I’ve got to go, Travis.”

“Wait—are you coming to the saloon tomorrow?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. But I’ll see you soon, Travis. Promise.”

Travis clutched the phone, as if holding it more tightly would keep his friend on the line. “Max, just tell me—”

This time the hiss was replaced by the monotonous drone of a dial tone. Travis hung up the phone.

It was only when Molly Nakamura asked him for a refill on her chai that he realized he had been staring at the phone. He mixed a cup of the fragrant tea and pushed it toward her. She gave a solemn nod, then returned to the table where she was giving an impromptu origami lesson.

Travis turned to unload a tray of dirty glasses. Something on the bar caught his eye. He picked it up and cupped it in his hand. Crisp paper wings stretched from its black body, and its sharp beak curved downward. Although he was sweating, a shudder coursed through him.

It was a gift, Travis. Molly couldn’t have known. On this world, it’s just a bird.…

He set the origami raven back on the bar. Maybe she would think he hadn’t seen it.

Two hours later, the last of the cowboys stumbled
out the door of the saloon. Travis turned chairs up on tables and swept the floor. He wished Deirdre was there. Not to help with the work, but to keep him company, and maybe play a soft song on her mandolin. He finished the rest of his work in silence.

It was late. Time to lock the door, head upstairs, make a try at sleeping. Travis grabbed the keys from the hook behind the bar, then paused. He let his gaze wander over the saloon. It all should have been warm and familiar. Instead it was like looking at a foreign landscape. Nothing was right anymore. The heat, the town, Max. What had happened to Castle City?

What happened to you, Travis?

He wasn’t certain if the voice in his mind was his own, or if it was the
other
voice, the one that told him things, the one that sounded like Jack. But that voice hadn’t spoken to him since his return to Earth. Whatever its source, there was truth in the voice’s words.

Maybe Castle City hasn’t changed, Travis. Maybe you have
.

All the same, something
was
wrong. Travis wasn’t sure what it was, but it had something to do with the weather, and the man in black, and the crescent moon logo. But how did it all fit together?

He shook his head. Once before he had wondered where he was going to get answers to his impossible questions. But this time there was no old-fashioned revival tent glowing in the night before him.

Maybe they can help you, too.…

Or did he have someplace to go for answers after all? He dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out the crumpled brochure. The crescent moon glowed in the illumination of the neon bar lights. Duratek. What could they do for him? What changes might they bring to his life? He hesitated, then opened the brochure.

New shock flowed through him, as if his own body had become the wire. A mosaic of brilliant images
met his eyes, depicting laughing people and too-real landscapes. He shoved his hand back in his pocket and dug deeper. This time he came out with a small scrap of paper, the one he had found outside Max’s apartment. He didn’t need to place it atop the brochure to know it matched, but he did all the same.