Max started to use the table to pull himself up. Travis reached out a hand to help him.

107.

"No! Don't touch me!"

It was the snarl of an animal in pain. Travis leaped back and clutched his hand to his chest. Max staggered to his feet. His eyes were brighter now, burning with feverish light.

A moan escaped Travis. "What's happening to you, Max?"

The expression on Max's face flickered somewhere between wonder and fear. But then, maybe there was little distance between the two. "I don't know, Travis. It's like I'm getting clearer. Clearer and lighter all the time. Everything I always thought was real or important seems so dim to me now. The town, the saloon, the people. I can hardly make them out. But other things . . . they're so bright, so sharp, that I 102 mark anthony "What things, Max? What things do you mean?"

But Max only smiled and shook his head.

Travis's gaze moved to the bottle of pills on the table. "What are they, Max? Did the doctor give them to you?" But there was no prescription label on the bottle, and before Max could answer the question, Travis knew the answer. He had never seen pills like them before, but what else could the little lightning bolt signify? "It's Electria, isn't it?"

Max picked up the bottle. He held it in the crook of his right elbow.

The bony fingers of his left hand fumbled with the lid, then snapped it on."I don't know how they knew, Travis. I'd almost forgotten myself. Sure, I used stuff in New York. Then again, I was a senior accountant at one of the top advertising agencies in the city. Things moved so fast, it 108 was almost company policy." He laughed, and it sounded like the old Max. "If you weren't using, they'd send you to the company doctor to get your prescription. But that was ages ago. I left that all behind when I ... when I came here."

Travis took a step nearer his friend. "Who, Max? Who gave them to you?"

Max didn't look up from the bottle. "They knew me, Travis. They knew all about me, but I didn't know who they were. Sure, I'd seen the commercials. But I never knew what they were advertising. I don't think ... I don't think it could have been this."

A jolt ran through Travis, like one of those little lightning bolts. The word was more reflex than statement. "Duratek."

Max shoved the bottle into the pocket of his jeans. "I didn't want to. I didn't want to take them. But my hand--nothing else made the pain go away, nothing the doctor gave me, and this . . . this made it stop. At least for a little while." He hung his head, his voice a rasp.

"Forgive me, Travis."

103.

started to reach out, then remembered and pulled his hand back. "It's all right, Max. It's all right. The pain would make anyone do it. And they're just pills. We'll get you off of them."

Max lifted his gaze. "No, Travis. Not Electria. That's not what I want your forgiveness for."

"Then for what, Max?"

"For what I'm about to do."

A shrill whine pierced the air of the saloon. Travis went rigid. He had heard that sound once before, the last time he had talked to Max on the phone.

109.

Max reached down and undipped a small object from his belt. A pager. He gazed at the glowing" screen, nodded, set the pager on the table, and looked up.

"They're coming."

Invisible hands reached out of the dimness to clutch Travis's throat, strangling him. He stumbled back from the table, sending chairs clattering. Max stood stiff, his expression calm with a kind of sorrowful resignation. Travis fought for air. It was so hard to breathe; the heat was going to suffocate him. A trap. It was a trap.

"How long?" His voice was a croak. "How long do I have?"Max cradled his wounded hand. His tangled hair hid his face. "Three minutes. Four at the most. They were supposed to be here before you, waiting, but you were early. I guess they hadn't counted on that. I guess they thought you'd stay away until the last minute."

Travis's lips pulled back from his teeth in a rictus grin, and he thought of the fence in the old railyard. "Even they make mistakes."

Max nodded. "But not many."

Travis's grin faded. He clenched his hands into "sts, but the gesture was formed of anguish not anger. Mrst Tar1/ l-iorl k,,-!^,,