Paradox Bound

by Peter Clines

  “And it doesn’t strike anyone as a little…I don’t know, weird that a town of two hundred people has three bars that all have related names?” He shook his head. “Hell, has the word paradox even been invented yet?”

  Harry raised an eyebrow. “Is that meant to be a joke?”

  “Seriously, doesn’t anyone else notice how weird it is? The town, the bar names, all that. I mean, if not now, some historian must’ve stumbled across it in books or old journals or something.”

  “Lots of strange-named things out here in the desert.”

  “Like what?”

  Harry pointed off toward the horizon while they walked. “The town I was born in is about eighty-five, maybe ninety miles that way.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shame.”

  “The town is called Shame?”

  She nodded. Her arms stretched out at her sides. Her frock coat lifted up, flapping like a set of awkward wings. “I’m seven months old right now. Almost exactly.”

  “Ever tempted to drive over and see yourself?”

  Harry shook her head and let the coat settle around her. “I’m not there. Mother and Pa left right after I was born. Some trouble in the town or something. They never talked about it.” She jerked her thumb back toward the parked cars. “I think they’re on a train pulling into Indianapolis right about now.”

  Eli nodded and kicked at a rock. It skittered through the dirt ahead of them and vanished into the shadows. “So, 1886. I think right now my family is in…Sanders.”

  “What was their trade?”

  “No idea,” he said, “but I don’t think they were any good at it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because if they’d made any money, they would’ve left.”

  The loose path widened out. Hoofprints and wheel ruts appeared. Eli pictured people coming into town on foot, on horseback, in wagons pulled by oxen or mules, and all being funneled onto the same trail.

  An old, unlit shed appeared first, distinguishing itself from the shadowed and silhouetted buildings. A few more steps and a large, two-story barn loomed behind it. Even from here, the building smelled of smoke and hot metal. A rusted anvil sat out front.

  The trail became a dirt road, which Harry led them down. They entered Hourglass with what looked like a blacksmith’s shop on one side of them and a simple church on the other. A wooden cross had been nailed above the door, and on top of the small steeple a metal one gleamed and glinted in the moonlight. They passed a few houses that ranged from bare, weather-beaten shacks to quaint homes with curtains in the windows.

  Harry paused at an intersection. A quiet saloon stood on one corner, its doors pointed out toward the main street. Eli saw people walk by the entrance inside and heard the murmur of several voices. A striped circle of red, yellow, and black decorated the window, the colors made bolder by the dark curtains behind them.

  Eli looked again. Not a circle—a snake. Swallowing its own tail.

  “The Last Paradox,” Harry said.

  “Are we going in?”

  She shook her head. “Not our time.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “This,” she said, “is where everyone ends up. Everyone who makes it.”

  “Makes it…?”

  “To the end. Once you know the search is over, you come to Hourglass one final time and go to the Last Paradox.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s the goal Abraham gave us,” she sighed. “To make it till the end.”

  Harry moved on. She crossed the street and continued down the main road. Eli followed. “So the people in there have found the dream?”

  “Perhaps. Or it’s just a few locals enjoying the only saloon not packed with strangers.”

  “Couldn’t we just go in now? Find out where the dream’s hidden? What’s going to happen?”

  She glanced back. “Of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what would you think if we went in and you weren’t already in there?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be in…oh.”

  She nodded once and continued on without saying more.

  The next block had a few more residences, a general store, and what looked like a town hall, or maybe a courthouse. A barbershop squatted next door, almost identical to the one in Independence, although the red-and-white post on this one made Eli think of old painted tin toys. It had a wide base, and he wondered if wind-up mechanisms were a common thing yet.

  Hourglass was bigger than Eli had first thought, but not by much. Looking ahead, he guessed fifty or sixty buildings made up the whole town. Most of them had wooden walls, but he saw some mortared stone here and there, and even a few brick chimneys. Three roads altogether—one east to west, two north to south, like a two-barred cross.

  “Where are the horses?” he asked.

  “In barns and stables, I’d imagine.”

  “Shouldn’t there be some tied up in front of the saloons?”

  “Why?”

  “In case someone needs one.”

  “Then they’d go out to the stables and get it. Besides,” she waved a hand at the street, “you’ve seen what it can be like with horses passing through. Why would someone want to keep them in front of their business?”

  A man in a long leather duster walked by on the far side of the street. A rifle balanced on his shoulder. He watched Eli and Harry as they approached. His free hand reached up to touch the brim of his hat. “Gentlemen,” he said. “Evening.” As his hand came down, they saw the star-in-circle badge on his lapel.

  Eli nodded, then reached up to mimic the man’s gesture. On a whim, he lifted his derby a few inches off his head. “Good evening.”

  The man grunted in reply. He gave Harry a second glance, but that was all. Her coat hid the shape of her body and the broad point of her hat hid her face with shadows. He walked past them and headed off toward the Last Paradox.

  “That’s Blinovitch,” Harry said. “Keeps everyone in line if we get too rowdy. Thursday night is going to be very rough on him, if memory serves.”

  After a few minutes of strolling they came to the town’s other intersection. On the far corner stood the tallest building Eli’d seen in Hourglass, a good three stories high. It had swinging doors set into the corner of the building, just like a classic western saloon. Music and voices and laughter spilled out into the street through those doors.

  Across from it, going off the two wooden stars flanking the door, sat a squat police station. More likely a sheriff’s office, Eli corrected himself. Were police even a thing at this point in history?

  Diagonally across from the sheriff’s office, to Eli’s left, the stone-and-mortar block of a bank stared over at the saloon with barred windows. To his right, facing the bank, sat another square, two-story building. A carved sign hung from the upper balcony, two identical bottles, side by side.

  Harry paused to look over at the saloon, then stepped toward the blocky tavern. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Eli looked at the sign. “The Second Iteration?”

  “Yes.”

  He glanced at the saloon. “And that’s the First Time Around.”

  “Very good, Mr. Teague.”

  “Sounds like they’re having a real party over there.”

  “They are. I told you it lasted most of the week.”

  Eli furrowed his brow. His eyes leaped from Harry to the corner doors of the saloon. “That’s your wedding reception.”

  “Yes.”

  “Going on right now.”

  “It started yesterday,” she said. She tipped her chin back over her shoulder, back down the street, back toward the dozens and dozens of parked cars. “I brought us in on Tuesday night.”

  There had been another Model A parked amongst the cars. Another 1929 business coupe. Same year, same model.

  Same car.

  Eli pointed across the street. “You’re over there right now? Younger you.”
<
br />   “Yes,” said Harry. “Me and Christopher. John. Alice. James. I think maybe even Truss. Pretty much everyone who traveled the road is over there drinking and eating and confusing the hell out of the piano player with song requests.” She blushed. “Please pardon my vulgarity.”

  “I’ll live. Somehow.” He looked over at the First Time Around. “Am I over there?”

  Harry gave him an odd look. Head to toes and back. “Do you remember being there?”

  “No, but I figured maybe I…I end up there. Later.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not how it goes. Usually.”

  “Why?”

  “Come inside,” she said, gesturing at the door into the Second Iteration. “I’ll explain what I can, and I’m sure somebody here can explain anything I can’t.”

  29

  The Second Iteration looked almost luxurious after the patched-together saloon back in Independence. Two chandeliers filled with ivory candles lit the room, and small oil lamps sat on every table. Rugs covered most of the wooden floor, but where they didn’t, Eli saw well-fitted planks.

  At least three dozen people filled the room. Maybe as many as fifty. Enough that he couldn’t get a good sense of the tavern’s size. Dozens of conversations filled the air, none shouting but each still straining to be heard over all the others.

  A man at one of the nearby tables grinned and stood up. “Harry,” he said. “Eli. I was worried you two’d never get here.”

  “We’re just a day late,” she said. “No cause for alarm.”

  “A day you’ll never get back,” said James. His face wrinkled with a smile as he hugged her. “At my age, you start counting them.” There was more gray in his hair than there had been yesterday, and a few strands of white, as well, but his grin didn’t seem a day older.

  “We’re going to grab some drinks,” she said. “We’ll catch up?”

  “ ’Course,” he grabbed Eli’s hand in a solid grip. “Good to see you both again.”

  “He’s awfully friendly,” said Eli as they worked their way through the crowd. “Yesterday I thought he was going to clobber me for a few seconds.”

  “Yesterday for us,” she said. “Looks like three or four years for him. He might know you better by now.”

  “What?”

  She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “I told you before, we don’t always meet each other in the same order.”

  “Even here?”

  “Especially here.”

  “That must get really confusing.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to play dumb. Or be cryptic.”

  They reached the bar and she waved down the man behind it. The bartender looked at them over a set of rectangular lenses wrapped with a wire frame. The left-hand lens had a crack running from top to bottom. “Evening, sir. Ma’am.” His eyes flitted from their faces to their clothes and back. “You folks…part of this?”

  “Absolutely,” Harry said. She pulled her coin purse out, fished through it, and spun a handful of coins onto the bar. Then she took two of them back, plucked out three different ones, and added them to the collection. “This is for me and my partner here,” she said, jerking her thumb at Eli. “You’ll let me know when it runs out. If it doesn’t, keep whatever’s left.”

  The bartender eyed the coins for a moment. “You sure about this, ma’am?”

  She rapped her knuckles on the bar. “Two bourbons.”

  The bartender studied her face, shook his head, and swept the coins off the bar with his hand.

  “Eli,” she said, “why don’t you find us a table while I wait for the drinks?”

  He waded through the crowd. Men and women. More skin colors than he’d ever seen in his small Maine town, even during summer tourist season. One or two older than James, two or three looking barely into their teens. Most of them shared drinks and quiet conversations while a few laughed with groups and others sat alone.

  He saw two more tricorne hats in the crowd, and—proving Harry right—a fair number of derbies. One man wore a cowboy hat and the woman across from him had one of the thin, flat caps Eli always pictured newsboys wearing.

  A quartet of searchers played poker. Three chips landed in the pot with the click-clack sound of wood on wood. A tray of them sat off to the side. Eli leaned in to peer at it, then realized it looked like an attempt to read cards over someone’s shoulder. Two of the players, a man and woman, glanced up at him. The man next to him, a broad-shouldered, lumberjack-looking fellow, twisted around and looked up. “Oh,” he said, his scowl melting. “Hey, Eli. Good to see you.”

  “I…” He stared back at the man, at the other players, and remembered Harry’s advice. “Thanks. You too.”

  The lumberjack reached up to grab Eli’s hand and squeezed it tight.

  The woman chuckled. Her dark hair was cut short with sweeping bangs, and a black fedora sat near her elbow. She wore a charcoal suit with an ivory shirt and a wine-colored tie. The ensemble made her look like a detective in an old noir movie.

  The lumberjack’s eyes went from Eli to the tray of poker chips. “D’you need a favor?”

  “No,” said Eli. “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  “Don’t be a dork,” the detective said to the lumberjack. “You’re just confusing him.”

  “What?”

  “He doesn’t know us yet,” she said, waving her free hand at Eli. “This is his first trip to Hourglass, remember?”

  The lumberjack blinked and looked up at Eli again. “Christ,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

  Eli put up a hand. “No,” he said. “It’s okay. I should’ve expected a little…weirdness.”

  The detective chuckled again. She winked at Eli. “Take a green one,” she said, nodding at the tray. “It’s a good color for you.”

  “Now who’s messing with him?” asked the fourth player, his eyes still on his cards. He hadn’t looked up once.

  On a guess, looking from table to tray, it looked like about a third of the poker chips were missing from the set. Eli reached out, ran his finger along the poker chips, and pulled out one of the ones with flaking green paint on the edge. Old nicks and scratches covered it. If the town was only a few months old, the tray of chips had passed through several owners before ending up at the Second Iteration.

  “Wait a minute,” he murmured. He flipped the poker chip over in his palm. His gaze dropped down to the columns of wooden tokens.

  “Mr. Teague,” Harry shouted across the room. “I do not see a table to put these drinks on!”

  “Christ on a crutch,” said the lumberjack. “She’s still calling him ‘Mr. Teague.’ Is this their first week together?”

  The detective smirked and turned her attention back to the game. “Catch you on the rebound, Eli,” she said, her eyes on her cards.

  Eli stepped away from the card game and the tray of poker chips. He glanced down at the green one in his hand. “Do I need a favor?” he murmured.

  He looked up from the token and spotted a table with a flickering lantern. He found Harry in the throng with drinks held high, pointed, and saw her follow his gesture. They met at the table. Eli dropped his derby on the table as Harry sat. He fumbled with the lamp until the wick was a little higher.

  Harry placed her own hat on the table, then pushed one of the glasses across to him. “To your health,” she said, raising her glass.

  He mirrored her. “Kampai.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Japanese.”

  Her brows went up. “You speak Japanese?”

  “No. But my junior-year roommate studied it in college. He toasted with kampai all the time, thought it made him look like a sophisticated world traveler. I picked it up after a few dozen times.”

  “Sounds like a bit of a fool.”

  “He was. But he was a nice guy too.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “To your health, I think.”

  She pursed her lips, nodded, and tipped her drink back.
<
br />   Eli pushed out a breath and swallowed a mouthful of bourbon. It was warm and smooth, and he felt the soft prickle it left along his tongue. He blew out again. And a third time.

  “Good, isn’t it?”

  “Hah. I should not be doing this on an empty stomach.”

  “Truer words,” she said, raising her own glass again.

  He dropped the wooden token on the table. “The favors are old poker chips.”

  She nodded. “Yes, they are. What of it?”

  “I thought they were…I don’t know. Custom-made or something.”

  Harry snorted. “No, people just grabbed what they needed. This is where a good number of favors get swapped, after all.” She gestured at the poker chip on the table. “Is green going to be your color?”

  “It looks like it, yeah.” He gestured around them. “So. Explain.”

  She sipped her bourbon and studied his face.

  “You’re across the street and you’re here,” he said. “And you don’t try to cheat history by going to warn yourself about anything. You could warn—”

  Eli stopped before he said the name. He looked at the table for a few moments, a fine piece of furniture made from dark lacquered wood. Then he took another drink and checked out the chandelier.

  Harry’s gaze didn’t falter. “Outside, you asked why we had our wedding reception here.”

  He nodded, but kept his eyes from hers. “Yeah. I know you said it’s safe, but it just seems…risky. Especially if you all keep coming back here. Isn’t this a, what do they say? A target-rich environment for them?”

  She took another sip. “The faceless men won’t come here. Ever. This one week, in this one town, is the one place searchers are safe from them.”

  Eli looked around the bar. Searchers lounged in chairs and leaned against the bar. A woman in what looked like a gray Civil War jacket rested her boots on a table next to a plate decorated with crumbs and streaks of gravy. A felt top hat balanced on her forehead, shading her eyes. On the far side of the room, an older man with a curling white mustache and an eye patch told a quiet story to three interested listeners and one distracted man while they all drank.

  “Okay,” he said, “so they’re relentless zealots who respect town boundaries.”