Tom Pawlik - Beckon

He returned to his suite, where he found Miriam still asleep, and sat down in the other room to collect his thoughts. And formulate a plan.

Everything had just taken a serious turn for the worse. What he’d seen in Vale’s office convinced him he could no longer trust the man. He could no longer trust anyone in this town.

They were holding a woman prisoner either in the lodge or somewhere in town. And it obviously had something to do with the van he’d seen the other day. This woman had followed Carson from California. But what had Carson been doing in California?

And Carson’s appearance had been more than a little disconcerting. His symptoms were similar to Miriam’s, only more severe. An unsettling thought grew in the pit of his stomach as he wondered again what the other side effects of this substance were.

Right now everyone he had met in Beckon seemed to be in the same predicament as Miriam. Frank Carson and Amanda, the Brownes, the Huxleys, and the Dunhams. Probably even Henderson.

George felt sick inside as he wondered what he’d gotten Miriam into. She had been right about Vale. Judging by the way he had just treated Carson, he seemed to have no trouble exercising his complete authority over everyone in town. They all needed the perilium, and he controlled the supply, which meant he made the rules. Quite the monopoly he had going.

But George was at a point of no return. All moral squeamishness aside, right now his top priority was to make sure Miriam had unfettered access to the perilium. At all costs. Unfortunately that meant he would need to cooperate until he could find a way to change the rules of the game in his favor.

Fortunately Vale was a prisoner too. Miriam had determined that much herself. He was beholden to Nun’dahbi—whoever she was—to keep him supplied. Vale had indicated that she was the only one who actually knew how to make perilium, which meant she was the one with the real power.

Which also meant Vale had a point of vulnerability.

Later that afternoon, George found Thomas Vale in the great room standing at the windows, gazing out across the mist-covered landscape. Vale turned from the window, and George could see he was holding a drink.

“I trust Miriam is resting comfortably,” Vale said. “Amanda told me what happened this morning.”

“It gave me a pretty good scare. You didn’t tell me perilium would have that kind of side effect.”

“A minor consequence,” Vale said and sipped his drink. “But they can be avoided easily enough. Fatigue is one of the early warning signs that she’s ready for another dose. I suppose we should have given her one last night before going to bed. But I wouldn’t worry about it. It won’t happen again.”

George was taken aback at how casually Vale seemed to dismiss the incident. But he knew he needed to refrain from being overly confrontational at the moment. “How can you be sure?”

“Trust me, George, I don’t like it any more than you do. But we must deal with it and move on. I’ve survived for more than a hundred and thirty years without serious incident. I’m living proof it can be done.”

George shook his head. It was odd to think he was talking to a man who had lived through the Civil War, not to mention the entire twentieth century and now well into the twenty-first. Vale had seen so much history and yet he’d seen it only from this small corner of the world. No wonder the man could be so callous. He’d been the center of his own universe for too long.

“I’m curious…” George went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink. It had been a while since he’d had a formal business meeting, but now he found himself slipping easily into negotiation mode. It was just like riding a bike. “Everyone in Beckon seems to have a very specific function. You’ve given me some idea of what my role here would entail, but what exactly will you need me to do?”

They sat down on the leather couches, and Vale drummed his fingers on the wide armrest. “Our lives here are about balance. We have to maintain a very delicate balance in order to succeed—for all of us to succeed. And what I need is your help to maintain the status quo.”

“What status quo?”

“With the N’watu,” Vale said. “We have a very old treaty with them. We give them what they want, and in turn they give us what we need.”

George smiled inwardly. This was an interesting bit of information. Vale had obligations himself. Some sort of symbiotic relationship with the N’watu.

“So obviously you need a steady supply of perilium from them, but what exactly do they want in return?”

Vale took another sip of his drink. “Isolation.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The N’watu are a very ancient culture and fiercely xenophobic,” Vale said. “I first arrived in Wyoming back in 1878 looking for gold. And when I stumbled across the cave entrance, they captured me. I had to think pretty quick in order to save my life.”

George’s eyebrows went up. “They were going to kill you?”

Vale nodded. “If I hadn’t had one of the local Indians as a guide, I’d be dead. But fortunately he spoke their language, and I was able to negotiate with them.”

“But what did you have to bargain with?”

“The most powerful commodity on the market.”

George furrowed his brow. This should be good. “What’s that?”

Vale’s icy yellow-green eyes narrowed. “Fear.”

“Fear? Of what?”

“Well, that’s the real trick, isn’t it?” Vale said. “The key to any negotiation—as I’m sure you well know—is finding out what the other party is most afraid of and exploiting that to your advantage. Fear of losing their business or losing market share. Or losing their life.”

“So what do the N’watu fear?”

“Losing their home,” Vale said. “They have a deep spiritual connection with this mountain. I think they see themselves as guardians in a way. Priests. I got the sense that they were protecting something. Something deep inside the cave. So I explained to them how the white man was moving ever westward and even if they killed me, it would only be a matter of time before others would come. And come with more guns. I convinced them that soon their way of life, their whole existence, would be threatened.”

“Very clever,” George said. He hadn’t realized it before, but to one degree or another he’d been employing those tactics in the business world his whole life. A thought that, after meeting Thomas Vale, was a little unsettling. “What did you offer to alleviate those fears?”

“I assured them that I could keep them safe. I could conceal the entrance to their cave and keep their home hidden away from prying eyes, as it were. I staked claim to the surrounding land and built this lodge to conceal the entrance, and eventually the town to conceal the lodge.”

“Hidden in plain sight,” George said. “Brilliant.”

Vale chuckled and sipped his drink. “You know, I used to think I stumbled across that cave by accident. Pure dumb luck. But now I know it was fate. It was my destiny to discover the N’watu. We found each other, really. We each supplied what the other was looking for.”

“Kismet.” George nodded. “And now your whole life is focused on keeping this place a secret.”

Vale gestured out the window. “I’m still trying to keep the white man away and keep the N’watu hidden from the modern world. But as I said, it’s a balancing act. And that’s why I chose you. Politicians are tireless busybodies, and I need you to help keep them out of my business.”

“So this cave…” George rubbed his jaw. “Where exactly is it?”

Vale gestured to the floor. “Right beneath us. As I said, I built this lodge over the entrance. I’ve provided the N’watu with complete privacy for the last 130 years in exchange for their sacred elixir of youth. Not such a bad trade-off, I’d say.”