Beyond the Pale Read Free Page B

the pickup launched itself down the road.
    Travis laughed as the oddness of his encounter at the orphanage evaporated in the mundane task of piloting the truck. Now that he thought about what had happened, it nolonger seemed so strange. There had been some sort of animal between the sheds, and the man in black was just a drifter, peculiar but harmless. As for the sounds—he could chalk those up to wind and imagination. Either that or he was going insane, and there was nothing at all special about
that
. He hummed along with the radio as he drove.
    A pointed shape came into view up ahead. As he drew closer, Travis saw it was a big circus tent pitched in a field next to the road. Its canvas roof was patched in countless places, and parked to the side was an old school bus covered with a blotchy coat of white paint. He slowed down as he passed the tent. In front was planted a crude sign. As always, it took a moment of concentration to stop the words from roaming, then he reined them in. The sign read:
    BROTHER CY’S APOCALYPTIC TRAVELING
SALVATION SHOW
Ailments Cured—Faith Restored—Souls Redeemed
Come on in—we want to save you !
    It was an old-fashioned revival. Travis hadn’t thought these sorts of things still existed. He shifted into fourth, and the tent vanished behind him. At least now he knew where the strange man had come from, and he had been right on one count. The old guy was a nut, although not the kind he had thought.
    The battered pickup cruised down the road, and he turned his attention to everyday matters—how many kegs of beer he needed to order for the bar, who he had to call to get rid of that skunk holed up under the saloon, and when he was going to find time to patch the leak in the storeroom’s roof.
    Yet all the way into town, Travis couldn’t quite forget the far-off music of bells.

3.
    Twilight was drifting from the sky like silver snow by the time Travis turned onto Elk Street and brought the pickup to a halt in front of the Mine Shaft Saloon. Only the summit ofCastle Peak rose high enough above the valley to be gilded by the last of the sunlight. He stepped out and shut the vehicle’s door without bothering to lock it. Small-town living had its own little luxuries.
    Elk Street hadn’t changed much in the last hundred years. If cars could be traded for wagons and potholed pavement for red mud, Castle City’s main drag wouldn’t look much different than it had at the height of the mining days. It ran broad and straight through the heart of town—unlike the narrow, convoluted roads of Eastern cities, constructed by people who were still accustomed to the cramped burgs of the Old World, before they came to realize just how much elbow room this new continent truly had to offer. Weather-corroded false fronts rose sharp and square against the sky, and hitching rails stood in front of most buildings, although these days they usually kept mountain bikes from wandering off instead of horses.
    Lights were coming on all along Elk Street against the deepening night. People strolled the boardwalks, heading to the Mosquito Café for the best cup of cappuccino in Castle County, or chatting in front of McKay’s General Store, or stopping to look at the smoky quartz crystals, obsidian bolo ties, and hand-drawn tarot cards in the window of the Blue Summit Earth Shop. At the end of the street, graceful as a ghost, hovered Castle City’s old opera house, with its Greek Revival columns and baroque marble facade.
    Travis hopped onto the boardwalk in front of the saloon just as the neon sign above sizzled to red-and-blue life. He reached out to turn the brass doorknob, then paused. He frowned and leaned toward the door to peer at the upper left corner. There. It was so small and inconspicuous he had nearly missed it. Something had been scratched into the door’s faded gray paint, an oval shape formed of two curved lines:

    What it signified Travis couldn’t say. Most likely it was just some piece of