The Keep of Fire Read Free Page B

wooden case over her shoulder.
    She said her name was Deirdre Falling Hawk, and she was a bard.
    For the last month she had worked the big Medieval Festival down the highway, she explained. Now that the festival had closed down for the season, she had come to Castle City, hoping to find a little work before she moved on.
    “The mountains give me songs,” she said. “I always hate to leave them.”
    All Travis knew was that, when she played a melody on the burnished mandolin she took from her case, he had never heard anything so beautiful. He had cleared the boxes from a platform by the player piano that had once served as a vaudeville stage and on it set a chair. For the next two weeks, DeirdreFalling Hawk sat on the tiny stage each night and played her mandolin. She was of both Irish and Native-American descent, and she blended both traditions in her simple, haunting music. After that first night, word spread, and locals packed the bar each evening to hear her play a repertoire that included thirteenth-century madrigals, Celtic ballads, and Plains Indian myths recited in her chantlike voice.
    Travis never saw much of Deirdre during the days; the bard proved as fleeting as her music. But a few times she stopped her Harley as she passed him while cruising down Elk Street.
    “Hop on, my gentle warrior,” she would say.
    My gentle warrior
. That was what she always called him, after he told her the story of the antique spectacles he wore and how once they had belonged to the gunfighter Tyler Caine.
    He would climb onto the back of her bike, and they would go roaring up the canyon, leaning deep into the curves. Finally, one night, they sat and talked after the saloon had closed, drinking whiskey and trading two-bit dreams. In a silent moment, Travis almost reached out a hand to stroke her hair. Almost. His hand faltered, then made a clumsy reach for his glass instead.
    Afterward he was never sure why he hadn’t done it, why he hadn’t let his fingers tangle themselves in the softness of her hair, why he hadn’t drawn her close, kissed her, and made love to her on a blanket thrown over the sawdust-strewn floor. But love was a kind of power, wasn’t it? And power, as he knew well, was a dangerous thing.
    The next night, after Deirdre had played her set at the saloon, he heard the roar of her motorcycle echoing down Elk Street. He never saw her again.
    Until now.
    Travis regarded her from across the bar. “I should have known that was your hog out there.”
    “Actually, it’s new. I picked it up in Cody last summer.” Her lips curved into a wicked smile. “I won it in a poker game against a Hell’s Angel out of L.A.”
    Travis narrowed his eyes. “Remind me never to let you talk me into a hand of five card stud.”
    “Don’t worry, Travis—I’d let you win. Once or twice, anyway.”
    He glanced at the wooden case slung over her shoulder. “Have you come to play, Deirdre?”
    “Maybe. It depends on the going rate.”
    Travis punched a key on the saloon’s antique cash register, then lifted the drawer to scrape up what was left of petty cash. He counted it out on the bar.
    “How does fifty-two dollars and seventeen cents sound?”
    Deirdre stood, scooped up the money, and shoved it into a pocket. “It sounds like you just booked yourself an act, Travis.” She turned and sauntered to the small stage by the piano, moving with the litheness of a deer.
    At the same moment Max set down the phone, although it was clear he hadn’t been talking to anyone for minutes. “So, is she a good friend of yours?”
    Travis poured two mugs of steaming coffee. “Not really.”
    “Of course,” Max said. “That kiss was a dead giveaway. In New York, that’s how complete strangers always greet each other.”
    “I didn’t say she was a stranger.”
    Max’s drooping mustache framed a toothy smile. “Make up your mind, pardner.”
    He considered telling Max that people in the West didn’t really say
pardner
but as usual