And he could sense it so clearly now as he touched it: It was a part of him; he was a part of it. He owned it. It was all his . . .
He loved this beast!
Something dribbled down his chest, and he looked in time to see a black stream soaking his shirt, dripping over his belt, spreading in a pool across the dragon’s scales.
For some reason, he thought of Tracy.
The scales under his hands quivered. Was this creature moving, or was it the ground?
He looked up, and saw the huge jaws of the creature opening.
He lurched backward, falling onto the rocks just as the monster’s snout fell like a tree on its own belly and the jaws clamped shut with a metallic grating.
Steve scrambled up the hill, his chest, hands, and arms spattered and slick, the dust sticking and caking on the slime. He looked back to see the long neck curled in a near circle, the head suspended just above the prone body, swaying, rubbery, weak. The eyes were half open. The dragon was trying to recover, trying to see.
He loved to look at the dragon, to watch it. He wanted to stay there forever and be a part of it.
It was trying to eat him.
He wanted to keep it.
It was trying to eat him.
He didn’t want to leave.
IT WAS TRYING TO EAT HIM!
Something in his spirit, some deeply buried sense of conscience finally prevailed, and he began to inch, then stumble, then run across the mountain slope as the beast awakened, coiled, and twisted. The tail lay across Steve’s path. He tried to work his way around it. It came alive, twisted, curled, rose into the air and then whipped, the tip just missing his head. He ducked under it, got by it.
The stupor was gone. Now his eyes were open, and all he could see was Evil. He turned and fled downhill.
HAROLD BLY wasn’t getting any reports. He could hear screams, shouting, even gunshots out in the streets of Hyde River, but Andy wasn’t keeping him informed, and neither was Carl, and he hadn’t seen Doug in over an hour. He didn’t want his face identified with what was going on out there, and yet he was beginning to wonder if he had trusted the others a little too much. He looked at his watch. If he didn’t get a report from somebody in ten minutes . . .
ANDY SCHULLER’S mob had broken up, each man looking after his own whims and desires. Andy and John Tyler were going through the Hazelett home, pawing through the handmade jewelry. Abel Hoffmeier felt entitled to a chain-saw in the front window of the hardware store and kicked the glass out to get it. The crash got people’s attention, the idea caught on, and soon the power and garden tools, housewares, and tape players started going out the door.
Kyle Figgin’s neighbor, Deke Schonley, always thought the property line was more in his favor than Kyle would admit. Well, tonight Kyle was gone, so Deke took the opportunity to sledgehammer every slat out of Kyle’s wooden fence.
Someone had stolen their car, so Becky Nelson and her four children fled on foot from their home, past Jeff’s dead and bloody body, and down the street, looking for any friendly face, any avenue of escape, the two boys running with their little sister between them and Becky carrying the baby.
“Bigots! Get out of here!” people yelled from their yards as some threw stones at them.
All Becky could do was scream at her children, “Run! Run!” as they fled south with nowhere to go but away. Ken and Cherry Hazelett came by in their pickup and stopped to help them into the truck bed. Then the Hazeletts and Nelsons fled through the opened roadblock and out of town.
Henry Gorst heard what was happening to his hardware store and finally got there, armed with a shotgun. “What do you people think you’re doing? Put that stuff down!”
No one listened.
“I’m not on the list!”
That didn’t seem to matter.
He fired into the air. Someone felt threatened and fired back. Gorst fell to the street, a bullet in his shoulder.
STEVE WAS using Cryor’s flashlight to warn him of branches, briars, and brush, but he was driven now by enough fear that it mattered little what might be in front of him. He just kept crashing, slashing, and pushing his way downhill through the undergrowth.
He didn’t feel much pain from the wound over his heart, but it was dripping all over him as if he’d severed a black artery. His clothes were spattered with the black slime. He was leaving black handprints on the trunks of the trees. With one remaining sliver of sanity he thought, This is it, the final stage.
What had that creature done to him? He was terrified of dying but felt no fear of the dragon. He loved that beast while knowing it would eat him. He didn’t want to run even as he ran.
Ridiculous thoughts cascaded through his mind, and every one of them seemed so true and practical: Maybe there’s a way to tame it. Maybe it won’t really eat me. If I ignore it it’ll leave me alone. This mark doesn’t hurt that much, I can live with it. Maybe the dragon won’t eat me until tomorrow. . .
I want to keep it! It’s mine!
I want to live, too, said a small but powerful voice from a corner of his mind. That one little voice was enough to keep him fleeing down the mountainside.
HIGH ABOVE, on the rocky slope of Saddlehorse, the dragon was reviving. It twisted, curled, clawed the air, and finally, with some leverage from its tail, rolled over on its belly, pushing over some small trees in the process. Then it rested, the glow returning to its eyes, the claws moving, the nostrils sampling the wind. It was drawing strength from hearts and spirits now in chaos below—from the town of Hyde River, from scattered souls up and down the valley, and from that little man now scrambling down the mountainside. It knew, it could feel, it could hear the cries, the shouts, the pain.
It raised its head high, its neck a stunning question mark against the sky, and inhaled a long breath that swelled its chest. Then it raised itself on its left foreleg and the stump of its right, and peered into the valley.
It couldn’t see the little man, but it knew where he was. It knew where he was going.
HAROLD BLY looked at his watch. The ten minutes were up, and the noise outside was getting worse. Like it or not, he had to get out there and take control. This was going to be his town, run his way. With the town cleared out, the dragon would be on his side again. With the hearts of the town in his pocket, the land and wealth would follow, pure and simple.
But he had to make that clear to everyone. He had to get out there.
He’d been holding a towel to his chest. He pulled it away to take a look. The wound was oozing black slime, soaking the towel, fouling the air. Well, no matter. It didn’t hurt a bit, and soon it would clear up. He threw the towel aside.
“I’m going to live forever!” he proclaimed to the empty tavern. “No rules but my rules!”
He ran out the back door to his car.
STEVE STOPPED to rest, to get his bearings, and to listen. He couldn’t hear that thing coming after him, but right now the blood pounding in his ears and his own gasping for breath made hearing impossible.
So okay, Benson, he thought, what’s your strategy now?
The Hyde River flowed placidly below him, a black ribbon with silver sparkles of moonlight, only a few more minutes through the woods. He could follow it downstream until he found the Hyde River Road, and from there get back to town.
Yeah. Town. Hyde River, where all the dragon’s biggest defenders and concealers were, probably the least safe place on earth for a Steve Benson or any meddling outsider. But it was where this whole nightmare started, and he knew it was where it would have to end. Levi Cobb had been right about everything else. Now, having touched the beast, Steve believed. He could never run far enough to escape the dragon because it was a part of him; wherever he went he would carry the dragon with him like latent death buried in his soul. Someday, the dragon would win. It would take him and destroy him—unless he destroyed the dragon first, and now Steve knew there was only one way to do that.
So, okay. If those people loved the drag
on so much, they might as well meet it face to face.
Steve started climbing down the steep slope, through the trees and brush, heading for the river. Here come your two greatest enemies, folks: the dragon you love and the man who’s trying to kill it.
THE DRAGON carefully inspected the damage to its wings. They were broken, torn, and useless. Quickly but gingerly, it gathered the snapped bones and tattered membranes together with its mouth and folded them neatly into a close-fitting but ragged cape along its back.
Then it folded its forelegs along its side, pushed with its hind legs, and slid forward over the rocks, gliding like a serpent, its feather-light touch returning. With motion established, it folded its hind legs as well and began to slither. It wove through the trees, arcing over fallen logs, pushing with its coils against the tree trunks, moving like a sled over snow, smoothly, almost silently, picking up speed. It was following the little man who had tried to kill it.
PAUL HAD been looking all over town for his former partner and finally found Jimmy Yates in, of all places, Paul’s own living room, going through Paul’s desk!
“I hid the checkbook, Jimmy.”
Jimmy spun around, surprised, but then bold. “Hey, Paul! How’s it going?”
“Where’s that pumper truck?”
Jimmy only smiled. “Somewhere.”
“I want it back!”
“What’s it worth to you?”
“Don’t push me!”
“Hey, I’ll make you a deal,” Jimmy said. “You give me the company checkbook, I’ll give you the truck.”
Paul smirked at that. “So you can cash out the account? You think I’m crazy?”
“Hey, you want the pumper back, you give me the money. Simple!”
“You want simple?” Paul answered, pulling a pistol from his belt.
Jimmy looked down the barrel, hands outstretched pleadingly. “Hey, Paul, now come on . . .”
Paul smiled. What a feeling!
STEVE HUNG from some low limbs and groped with his feet until they found a resting place on a large rock just above the river. He let go of the limbs and perched on the rock, looking down at the rippling, moon-dappled water. The river was deeper here, and moving fast. It would be a cold swim, but for now the river would be the easiest way to go until he could find some navigable ground. It was also one way to keep from getting lost out here. The decision made, he slid down the rock and into the water, then pushed himself out into the main stream, where the current carried him away.
KYLE FIGGIN heard the gunshot from Paul’s house as he ran by but gave it no thought. There was shooting going on all around him right now, and he was in a hurry.
Doug came out of the Nelson house and blocked his path. “Where are you going?”
Kyle tried to dodge around him. “Out of my way!”
Doug grabbed him by the arm and brought him to a joint-stretching halt. “Where’s the flatbed?”
“Who cares?”
Now Doug jerked him close. “I told you to take it back to Elmer’s before something happens to it.”
“Why don’t you do it then?”
“Because I told you to.”
Kyle beat Doug’s hands off. “Yeah, while you and everybody else get to pick through the houses. Forget it!”
Doug tried to deck him, but Kyle knew it was coming and ducked, then head-butted Doug in the stomach. Doug reached down, grabbed Kyle around the waist, and heaved him through the air.
Kyle rolled in the street, and then his hand went to his gun. Doug’s boot went to Kyle’s jaw.
Just then, a car horn sounded. It was Harold Bly, pulling up with his head out the window. “Doug!”
Doug was in no mood to talk to anybody. “What?”
Bly was in a mood where he’d better be talked to. “What’s going on? Where’s Andy?”
Doug was keeping an eye on Kyle in case he got up again. “I don’t know.”
“What about Carl and Bernie?”
“They’re cleaning out the houses.”
“I haven’t seen any of you guys! Did you get the jobs done?”
“Yeah, we did them all.”
Kyle was getting up shakily.
Bly demanded, “What’s the matter with him?”
“Nothing.”
“What about the Nelsons and the Hazeletts?”
“They’re out.”
“So why didn’t anybody tell me?”
“We’re busy!”
“Yeah, we’re busy,” Kyle agreed, wiping his bleeding jaw.
Bly didn’t take that very well. “Yeah? Well, you’re not through. Get some men together. Dottie Moore has to go!”
Doug and Kyle looked at each other. Doug said, “Who says?”
Bly repeated his order. “Get some men together! I’ll meet you over there!” And with that, Bly drove off.
“Do it yourself,” Doug hollered after him.
CAN YOU SEE ANYTHING?” Susan Woods asked. “
Reverend Ron Woods was on the floor, peering over the sill of the front window toward the town below. “I see some people running. I think that was Harold Bly’s car that just went by.”
Susan was huddled on the floor beside the sofa with their young son and daughter, as far as she could get from the outside walls and windows.
Another gunshot rang out.
“Ron, get away from the window!” He joined her.
“What are we going to do?”
“They won’t hurt us.”
“But what about the others? Some of our friends, and the Nelsons and the Carlsons . . .”
“It’s not our problem.”
“Ron,” she pleaded, “we’ve got to do something!”
He shrugged lazily. “All we really have to do is wait. Things will settle down, I’m sure.” Susan was about to protest, but he tried to soothe her with, “We can’t blame them, you know. They’re only doing what they think is best.”
DOTTIE MOORE had been hiding as well and feared the worst when she heard a loud banging on her door.
For some reason, when she found out it was Harold Bly, she felt relieved. “Well, hello, Harold. And what brings you out of your shell tonight?”
He looked behind him; the other guys hadn’t shown up yet. “Dottie, you may have noticed there are some changes being made.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed, all right.”
Now Bly straightened his spine and found a stronger voice. “Well, it’s going to apply to you as well. We’ve asked some families to vacate their homes and take up lodging somewhere else. So unless other arrangements can be made, I’ll have to ask you to do the same.”
She raised one eyebrow. “Other arrangements?”
Bly nodded. “Sure. Things we’ve discussed.”
Well, she could straighten her spine and speak in a strong voice too. “Harold, I think you have the wrong address. This house doesn’t belong to the company. Vic and I bought it eight years ago.”
“Well, I’m foreclosing on the mortgage.”
“You don’t hold the mortgage, remember? We bought it through the bank in West Fork. Sure, the company owned it, but it defaulted. This house was never yours!”
Suddenly, and much too late, he remembered. He tried not to feel stupid but felt stupid anyway. He looked for his men, who still hadn’t arrived.
Dottie summarized for him. “So the house isn’t yours and never will be. Now, was there anything else?”
He scowled at her. “I want you out of town, Dottie! I can make things really difficult for you.”
“Get a job, Harold,” she said, and tried to close the door.
He held the door open with his hand. “Dottie, I mean it!”
Her eyes looked beyond him, and she smiled. “Harold, maybe you should worry about the property you do own.”
He looked in the same direction, down the street, just in time to see Andy Schuller setting fire to the Carlson house while a cheer went up from Andy’s buddies.
“That’s my property!” Harol
d realized.
“Good night, Harold,” said Dottie, closing the door on him.
Bly ran down the street as flames engulfed the gasoline-soaked front porch and licked up the siding of the little house.
“What are you doing?” he screamed. “I didn’t tell you to burn it down!”
Andy still had the empty gasoline can in his hands and didn’t seem a bit sorry as he said, “Gee, sorry, Harold! I thought—”
Bly grabbed Andy by the neck. “You stupid—”
Then Andy’s buddies were all over Bly. He kicked and wriggled and shook them loose and then stood there with fists clenched, glaring at the grinning Andy in the light and heat of the growing fire. Andy’s shirt was smeared black, and so was Bly’s. He looked at every man standing there. All of them were smeared and stained with the stuff, their chests, their arms, their faces.
“Are you all crazy?” he demanded. “That’s company property! It belonged to me!”
They just laughed at him. Harold Bly on the losing end! Too much!
“Somebody call the fire department!” Bly shouted, nearly hysterical. Then he realized that most of them were the fire department.
Just then, Carl Ingfeldt’s wife came running down the street pushing a brand new lawn mower, the wheels rumbling loudly over the asphalt.
They all cheered. “All right!” “Nice catch!” “Go, baby, go!”
She was followed by her children, each carrying a new toy with the price tag still attached. She and the children were followed by a limping, bleeding Henry Gorst. “Margaret! Stop! Those aren’t yours! Please!”
“Henry!” Bly cried in shock.
Henry Gorst only glared at him. “Look what you’ve done!”
Bly ran toward the center of town in time to see neighbors, friends, and even people he’d never met running into Henry Gorst’s hardware store and back out with anything and everything they could carry.
He shouted, he hollered, he protested.
They laughed, they smiled, they kept stealing.
STEVE HAD floated down the river until he saw the old road, then run down the road until he feared detection, then blazed his way along the river bank until he was close to town. He’d finally finished the whole trip in the river again, floating when it was deep enough and crawling when it was too shallow. Now he stood in the waist-deep water just under the bridge that connected the four-way stop with the big Hyde Mining Company complex. He was completely, thoroughly wet and cold enough to be blue but so pumped with adrenaline he didn’t notice. He was listening to the shouting, the shooting, the screams and jeers. He could see the glow of fire reflected from the face of the company building. The town was going nuts, and no doubt some people were being hurt, maybe even killed. The dragon, though physically in the mountains, was present everywhere in this place right now.
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