John Hawks - The Traveler

“Hello there!” the girl said. “Are you the people from Spain?”

“No, we’re from Los Angeles.” Gabriel introduced himself and Maya. “And who are you?”

“Alice Chen.”

“Does this place have a name?”

“New Harmony,” Alice said. “We picked that name two years ago. Everyone had a vote. Even the kids.”

The girl jumped down from the wall and went over to inspect Gabriel’s dusty motorcycle. “We’re waiting for two possibles from Spain. Possibles live here for three months and then we can vote them in.” She turned away from the motorcycle and stared at Maya. “If you’re not possibles, then what are you doing here?”

“We’re looking for someone named Martin,” Maya explained. “Do you know where he is?”

“I think you better talk to my mom first.”

“That’s not necessary-”

“Follow me. She’s in the community center.”

The little girl led them across another bridge where the stream tumbled over red rocks and swirled around in pools. Large houses built in the Southwestern style were on both sides of the road. The houses had stucco outer walls, small windows, and flat roofs that could be used as patios on hot nights. Most of the houses were quite large, and Maya wondered how the builders had trucked in tons of brick and concrete over the narrow dirt road.

Alice Chen kept glancing over her shoulder as if she expected the visitors to run away from her. As they walked past a house painted pastel green, Gabriel caught up with Maya. “Weren’t these people expecting us?”

“Apparently not.”

“Who is Martin? The Pathfinder?”

“I don’t know, Gabriel. We’ll find out soon enough.”

They walked through a grove of pine trees and reached a compound of four white buildings around a courtyard with a stone fountain placed in the center. “This is the community center,” Alice told them as she pulled open a heavy wooden door.

They followed her down a short hallway to a schoolroom filled with toys. A young teacher sat on a throw rug with five children and read from a picture book. She nodded at Alice, then stared at the strangers as they walked past the doorway.

“Little kids have school all day long,” Alice explained. “But I get out at two o’clock in afternoon.”

They left the school, passed through the courtyard, and entered the second building. This contained three windowless offices filled with computers. In one of the rooms, people sat in separate cubicles, studying the images on computer screens while they talked on phone headsets. “Turn the mouse over,” said a young man. “Can you see a red light? That means…” He stopped for a few seconds and stared at Maya and Gabriel.

They kept moving, passing back through the courtyard and into a third building with more desks and computers. A Chinese woman wearing a white physician’s jacket came out of a back room. Alice ran up to the woman and whispered to her.

“Good afternoon,” the woman said. “I’m Alice’s mother, Dr. Joan Chen.”

“She’s Maya and that’s Gabriel. They’re not from Spain.”

“We’re looking for-”

“Yes. I know why you’re here,” Joan said. “Martin mentioned you at the council meeting. But there was no agreement. We didn’t vote on the issue.”

“We just want to talk to Martin,” Gabriel said.

“Yes. Of course.” Joan touched her daughter’s shoulder. “Take them up the hill to see Mr. Greenwald. He’s helping build the new house for the Wilkins family.”

Alice ran ahead of them as they left the clinic and continued up the road. “I wasn’t expecting a welcome committee when we showed up here,” Gabriel said. “But your friends don’t seem to be very hospitable.”

“Harlequins don’t have friends,” Maya said. “We have obligations and alliances. Don’t say anything until I can evaluate the situation.”

Bits of straw littered the road. A few hundred yards later, they reached a stack of straw bales placed next to a busy construction site. Steel rods had been embedded into the concrete foundation of a new house and the bales were being skewered on the rods like giant yellow bricks. About twenty people of all ages were working on the house at the same time. Teenagers wearing sweat-stained T-shirts were hammering rods into the bales with sledgehammers while three older people pinned a galvanized steel mesh to the outer walls. Two carpenters wearing tool belts were building a wood frame to support the home’s roof beams. Maya realized that all the buildings in the valley had been built in the same simple way. The community didn’t need massive amounts of brick and concrete, just plywood boards, wood beams, waterproof plaster, and a few hundred bales of straw.

A muscular Latino man in his forties was kneeling in the dirt, measuring a piece of plywood. He wore shorts, a stained T-shirt, and a well-worn tool belt. When he saw the two strangers, he stood up and approached them.

“Can I help you?” he asked. “Are you looking for someone?”

Before Maya could come up with an answer, Alice stepped through the doorway of the house with a stocky older man who wore thick eyeglasses. The man hurried over to them and forced a smile.

“Welcome to New Harmony. I’m Martin Greenwald. And this is my friend, Antonio Cardenas.” He turned to the Latino man. “These are the visitors we discussed at the council meeting. I was contacted by our friends in Europe.”

Antonio didn’t look happy to see them. His shoulders tensed up and he spread his legs slightly as if he was getting ready to fight. “Do you see what’s hanging from her shoulder? Know what that means?”

“Keep your voice down,” Martin said.

“She’s a goddamn Harlequin. The Tabula wouldn’t be happy if they knew she was here.”

“These people are my guests,” Martin said firmly. “Alice will take them down to the Blue House. Around seven o’clock, they can come over to the Yellow House and we’ll have dinner.” He turned to Antonio. “And you’re invited too, my friend. We’ll talk about it over a glass of wine.”

Antonio hesitated for a few seconds, then returned to the construction site. Acting as tour guide, Alice Chen escorted her visitors back to the parking area. Maya wrapped her weapons in the blanket and Gabriel slung the jade sword over his shoulder. They followed Alice back up the valley to a blue house on a side road near the stream. It was fairly small-a kitchen, one bedroom, a living room with a sleeping loft. A pair of French doors opened onto a walled garden with rosemary bushes and wild mustard.

The bathroom had a high ceiling and an old-fashioned claw-foot tub with green stains on the faucets. Maya stripped off her dirty clothes and took a bath. The water smelled faintly like iron, as if it came from deep in the earth. When the tub was half full, she lay back and tried to relax. Someone had placed a wild rose in a dark blue bottle above the sink. For a moment she forgot about the dangers around them and concentrated on this single point of beauty in the world.

If Gabriel turned out to be a Traveler, then she could continue to protect him. If the Pathfinder decided that Gabriel was just another ordinary soul, then she would have to leave him forever. Sliding beneath the surface of the water, she pictured Gabriel remaining at New Harmony, falling in love with a pleasant young woman who liked to bake bread. Gradually, her imagination pulled her down a darker path and she saw herself standing outside a house at night, staring through a window while Gabriel and his wife prepared dinner. Harlequin. Blood on your hands. Stay away.

She washed and rinsed her hair, found a bathrobe in the cabinet, and slipped down the hallway to the bedroom. Gabriel was sitting on the bed in the sleeping loft that occupied a half ledge in the living room. A few minutes later he got up quickly and she heard him swear to himself. More time passed and then the wooden ladder creaked as he climbed down to take a bath.