“So what kind of place is this?” I asked softly. It may have been a bar, but it felt more like a library or church.
“It’s some damn place for thinkin’ instead of drinkin’,” Carnahan confirmed. “They serve watered-down beer and tea so strong it’ll slap you.” He shook his head. “You put women in charge, this is what you get.”
Betty appeared next to us. If she took offense at Carnahan’s comment, it didn’t show. She put some bread on the table. “I’ll be right back to take your orders, gentlemen.”
When she was out of earshot I observed, “You seem a bit out of place here, Stan.”
He ran his fingers through his short hair and nodded. “Yeah, you could say that. No matter how much I try, I still stick out, and not just ’cause I’m tall.”
Then he looked at me with surprising sincerity. “You ever kill anybody? Hell, course you have, I could tell the minute I looked at you. Well, I killed one too many people. He wasn’t any different than anyone else, except that when I looked in his eyes, I didn’t see an enemy. I just saw a guy just like me, man. With everything inside him-” He slapped his chest for emphasis. “-that I have inside me.” He looked down. “After that, I went looking for something different.”
“And you found it?”
He shrugged. “If you like rule by committee, kids underfoot all the time, and some woman who claims she’s a goddess living in the woods calling the shots, then yeah, I found it. I thought these folks were all here for the same reason as me, to get away from all the meanness in the world. And they’re mostly decent people. But they’re so cut off here, I don’t think they realize how fragile all this is. They think anyone who shows up has been divinely drawn here by Epona. But eventually someone’s gonna top that hill who ain’t lookin’ for peace and love.”
“So why do you stay?”
“Gave my word,” he muttered. “All I got left, so I have to make it worth something.”
Betty returned and put down two tankards of wine. “Compliments of the house. We have to finish this old stuff before we open the new cask Epona gave us. Enjoy.”
Again I waited until Betty was across the room. “Epona gave them wine?”
He nodded. “She keeps the good stuff to herself, and when her worshippers hold their mouths just right, she gives it to them. Us,” he corrected.
“She sounds more like a bartender than a goddess.”
He took a long drink. “I’m bein’ too cynical. Epona’s something, I gotta admit. She started this place. A spot away from everything, away from all the troubles of the world. People hear about it, but supposedly you can’t find it unless you’re meant to.”
“So I’m meant to be here?”
“Hell, I’m just repeating what she told me. She lives in a little house in the heart of the woods out there, and every full moon, people go up there to ask her advice, her blessing, and so forth. Nicole is sort of her day-to-day manager here in town, making sure everything runs smooth. Most of the jobs are done by women, unless something needs lifting or killing.”
“Lots of things need lifting?”
“No. And nothing ever needs killing.”
“You sound disappointed,” Betty said from behind me.
Carnahan looked up. “Got nothing to fight against here, Betty. Nothing to measure yourself against.”
“We fight against what’s inside of us. That’s the scariest stuff of all, don’t you think?”
“That’s Epona talking,” he snorted.
“ No,” Betty said with surprising, sudden intensity. “It’s me talking. Every person here believes in what Epona represents, but we think for ourselves. We believe we can exist without conflict, in harmony with nature and-”
“-in connection with spirit,” Carnahan finished with her. “Yeah, I know the words.”
“But not the meaning. Stan, we all took a conscious leap of faith when we came here. I won’t have it denigrated by someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” he repeated. He glanced at me and winked.
“Yes. Someone who says he believes, but doesn’t. Someone who says he wants to change, but not really. You’re a liar, Stan, and you and I aren’t the only ones who know it.”
Stan smiled at me. “Sense of humor is the first casualty of enlightenment.”
Betty rolled her eyes, grinned and mussed his hair like a boy.
“You believe this Epona is a goddess?” I asked Betty.
She thought for a moment. “Do you know what I was before I came here? Nothing. Well, that’s not strictly true, I bore my late husband’s children, then raised them to be men like him and women like me. We left no mark on anything. Every special jagged edge had been smoothed away by time and our sense of propriety. I knew that when I died, I’d leave no trace behind. Even my children would forget what I looked like. But I was resigned to being a woman, a person, of absolutely no consequence.”
Her whole demeanor changed. The amusement was replaced by a look of wonder, all the more powerful for its completeness. “Then I met Epona. She didn’t try to convince me my life was wrong, or my choices bad. She just… she showed me I could be more. I could matter.”
“By moving to the woods and opening a tavern?” I asked, with as little sarcasm as I could manage.
She smiled one of those infuriating, patient grins the enlightened always have for the rest of us. “I understand why you say that. After fire ants, cynicism is the most difficult thing to kill. But look around. Every tile, every crossbeam, every book and decoration and piece of furniture is there because I put it there. This place is mine, in a way my life never was before. And a cynic could never see that, or even comprehend it. But once the cynic inside us dies, the idealist can dance in the moonlight. Epona showed me that. That’s why I love her, and worship her. So yes, I believe she’s a goddess.” With that, she left to attend to something in her kitchen.
“She feels pretty strongly about it,” I observed to Carnahan.
“Ah, they all do. I tell you, if I hadn’t promised to stick it out for a year, I would’ve already blown this place like a port city whore.”
“How much longer do you have?”
He shrugged. “This is boring,” he said abruptly, and stood. I followed him to the end of the counter. He removed the darts from the dart board, then nodded at a big bowl of apples. “Grab those.”
We went outside. It was completely dark now, and the enormous full moon rose in the east. Orange torchlight illuminated the whole town.
Carnahan stuck all the darts but one into the wall by the door. He readied the remaining one in his hand. “We can at least try to keep our skills sharp, right? Those apples won’t feel anything. Toss one up.”
“Which way?”
“Surprise me.”
I threw one high into the darkness above the torches. Carnahan’s eyes flashed upward, his arm jerked, and the dart stuck neatly into the fruit as it came down.
Betty, watching from her tavern’s back door, said, “Not bad.”
Grinning, Stan reached for the bowl. “You try.”
I plucked a dart, and he hurled an apple higher and harder than I’d done. I made myself relax; no conscious skill could help me with this, only the instincts I’d honed over the last few years. My elbow flexed before I even knew it, and my apple landed with the dart fully embedded.
A few other townsfolk stopped to watch and politely applauded. The three girls we’d seen inside joined Betty in the doorway. I took the bowl back and threw another apple. Carnahan hit it dead center. I did the same on my next turn.
By now we’d attracted quite a crowd, including several charming young ladies. Miraculously we both hit our next two apples, to much appreciative clapping. At last one girl, a shapely lass with long red hair, took an apple from the bowl. She wobbled a little, tipsy from the celebration, but the gleam in her eye was unmistakable.
She took a big, voluptuous bite from the apple. Torchlight glinted on the juice as it ran down her chin. “I have an apple-flavored kiss,” she said, “for whichever of you puts their dart closest to the center of this bite.”