Free Avalon: The Retreat by L. Michael Rusin Page A

blacksmith forge. On the inside was a large cradle that held a wooden beam about ten feet long and designed to span the back side of the two entry doors to secure them from the inside, in effect bracing them from entry. The beam had gone missing.

    Once inside the lobby, Mike and Dan let their eyes adjust as they scanned the interior. To the left were several doors that led to hallways and rooms with numbers assigned to them, and they saw a large counter about twenty feet long situated about twice that distance directly in front of the door. It was obviously where the guests had registered.
    They could see from this vantage point the place was not only fully equipped, but detailed in such a way as to flaunt itself to the observer. The overly richness of construction, with its fine details, was designed to strike the observer as their eyes took in each amenity. To Mike and Dan, it was a dream come true, with unlimited potential for their desired purposes.
    The entire counter was hand-carved and a work of art, accented with an intricately carved “Avalon” title in the wood across its front. Behind it was a standup secretary, complete with numerous pigeonholes, and there were still keys in each. They assumed that the keys opened the cabins, but there were clearly more keys than cabins. They didn’t know it right then, but a great many additional rooms existed off to the left of the main building.
    The floor of the registration lobby was a magnificent, hand-laid affair of rich oak parquet. The master craftsmen who installed it had constructed an inlaid design of the world, a huge map of California, scenes of cattle, miners, and the railroad finishing the intricate designs. Mike and Dan walked from one place to another, marveling at this incredible find. On one wall were his and her bathrooms, each large enough to accommodate over a dozen clientele at a time. Both had areas for two or three people to receive a massage and the ladies’ bathroom had a beauty makeup area, while the men’s housed a three-seat shoeshine stand.
    To the left of the registration desk was a large living room area replete with leather furniture and a huge fireplace on one wall. Back against the far wall, above the fireplace, was a life-sized daguerreotype, or first generation photograph, of a man, a woman, and a young boy. The fireplace was so large that Mike and Dan were actually able to stand in it, laughing as they soaked in the opulent magnitude of the entire scene. On the floor of the fire pit was a permanently attached log holder that was made from five-foot sections of railroad tracks.
    There was a mantle built to go past the width of the fireplace opening. It was over a foot thick, two feet deep, and about fifteen feet long and obviously made from a single tree. On both sides of the fireplace, rock work made up the wall and located at a height of about eight feet from the floor were large stained glass windows depicting deer and bison grazing in what appeared to be a large, tree covered meadow.
    The outside hearth was Italian marble and there were bookshelves on one wall that stretched out about fifty feet, still full of old books. Aged magazines stacked on a few of the tables gathered the dust of nearly a century absent of human activity. In one corner was a six-foot globe of the world on a rotating azimuth mounted to a stand and a heavy floor platform. Mike was surprised that he could still spin it with a light touch of his finger, even after all these years. But it was covered with a layer of dust that sent both he and Dan on a coughing fit as they moved on to explore another area.
    To one side of the fireplace was a stack of logs waiting to be burned, sitting in a log holder made from old railroad tracks that matched the log rack in the fire pit. Pedestal ashtrays, the cylindrical kind with sand traps on their tops, were distributed throughout the place. One wall was made of natural rough-hewn rock and each stone had been meticulously