by Dan Abnett
He wandered over to a group of men fixing arrowheads to newly cut shafts with lengths of leather cordage. They looked up, but did not seem surprised to see him.
Jake turned to apologize to White Thunder and saw the most extraordinary sight. Just as there was a corral for the horses, there was also a corral for an altogether different group of creatures. Jake thought that he was seeing things, that his fever would rush back into his head and cause him to faint.
He did not want to faint in front of White Thunder, and he did not want to go back to the teepee. He wanted to look deep into the creatures’ eyes and see what he had seen on the night of the fire … what he thought he’d seen.
Are these the creatures that set fire to our wagon? Jake wondered. What happened to Pa and Ma and Emmie? I must find them, I must!
He watched several Native men feed the creatures fish from baskets woven with designs of Thunderbirds. The beasts were vast and scaled, with long tails and huge heads. They looked like lizards with wings. No, they didn’t look like lizards or birds, even though that’s what the Natives called them. Jake remembered his favourite book, and he knew that he had read descriptions of creatures just like the ones in the corral. He knew that he had seen a linocut print of exactly the same creatures in Fire Beyond the Clouds. Jake knew that these were not Thunderbirds because he knew that these creatures were dragons.
Just at that moment, a dragon dropped out of the sky right in front of him, landing gracefully and bringing its head down to Jake’s level.
Yellow Cloud stepped between Jake and the dragon, and the boy was sure the Native had been riding the amazing beast. The Native guide took a leather thong from around his wrist with a bright red jewel at its centre. Jake saw the jewel glinting in the light and was reminded of his mother’s brooch with its green enamel scales and its brilliant ruby. Then Yellow Cloud raised the bracelet high above his head and spun it in the air. Jake was amazed by the clear, high-pitched whistle that it emitted.
The creature that had startled Jake, rooting him to the spot with awe and wonder, lifted its head. Then it turned towards the whistle and backed carefully away from the boy.
Jake’s eyes sparkled, his throat tightened and his head felt as if it was full of hot cotton wool. Suddenly, he was sweating all over, and his head was spinning. He felt as if he was going to fall off the plateau, over the cliff and into the bright yellow sun. His eyes rolled back, his knees buckled, and he fainted, right in front of White Thunder.
He didn’t hit the ground because Yellow Cloud scooped him up in his arms and carried him back into the teepee. As the Native guide laid him on the matting, Jake opened his eyes. For just a moment, he saw Yellow Cloud’s left arm close up. The tattoo in the shape of a dragon’s wing extended the whole length of his arm, with its tail circling his wrist. The tattoo was a series of delicate lines, but the spaces between looked like faded yellow burn scars.
The next night, Tall Elk, the medicine man, worked on Jake from twilight almost until dawn, but his fever would not break. Jake’s skin was boiling hot, but he shivered with cold. He sweated so much that Tall Elk struggled to feed him enough water to keep him alive, and he was as pale as a ghost, except for the bright red spots high in his cheeks and the pink glaze of his bloodshot eyes.
Jake’s head was full of visions of dragons and of glittering, silver fish being thrown into their gullets. He dreamed of being bundled through a blue-black sky, wrapped in skins. He dreamed the smooth, dry scales of a dragon under his hands and the weight of Yellow Cloud’s body at his back. He dreamed the view over a flying dragon’s head.
Then he was falling, swooping down off the plateau, making huge lazy circles in the sky before seeing a cluster of lights in the distance below. The sun began to paint a hazy pink line on the horizon, against the ridges of inky blue mountains.
Jake dreamed the rush of air cooling his fevered brow and the dragon’s smoky exhalations wafting past his face. He dreamed that he was flying over a cluster of wooden buildings with firm dirt roads between them. He dreamed the sounds of a cock crowing and a woman scolding. Then he felt strong arms around him and the jostle and jolt of a pair of legs running beneath him.
He tried to look up, but his neck was unbearably sore, and his eyes burned. He felt hot and cold, and every muscle ached, and he couldn’t fight the urge to surrender to the falling sensation that swept over him.
Jake grew limp in Yellow Cloud’s arms, as the Native dashed the last hundred yards to the nearest house.
The blacksmith was already stoking his fire for the day’s work. His wife was in the kitchen, preparing his breakfast and lighting the stove. When she saw the Native with the child in his arms, looking so pale and ill, she dropped everything and called her husband to help carry the boy into the house.
She turned to speak to the Native, but she was too late. Yellow Cloud left just as soon as he knew that Jake would get the help that he needed among his own people. Tall Elk had done his best, and now it was up to the local doctor to use his modern medicine to save the boy.
‘Bring him into the forge,’ said Elizabeth Garret, ‘and fetch Doc Trelawny. Wake him if you have to.’
Elizabeth Garret was a fierce little woman with a tight bun under her house cap. She had been a mother for long enough to know when a child needed more than just a mother’s love to get well.
Pius Garret was a surprisingly small man for a blacksmith, but he made up for his lack of stature with a tough, tight-muscled body and a good deal of dexterity. He worked harder and longer than he needed, not to impress, but because he loved his job. Pius Garret had grown up the son of an Irish jockey, travelling the racecourses of the Emerald Isle and never settling down. It mattered to him to be at the centre of a community, and this community was growing fast.
Elizabeth Garret put a kettle on to boil, filled a dish with cold water and, armed with a pile of neatly folded flannels, went to work making the boy comfortable.
As she tripped past the ladder to the loft where her three children slept, Elizabeth called to them to get up quickly and fend for themselves.
Eliza, the Garrets’ thirteen-year-old daughter, was downstairs and in the forge before her father had come home with the doctor. She was wearing an old shirt of her father’s and bib-overalls. In fact, if it wasn’t for the braids that kept her hair tidy, she might have been mistaken for a boy.
‘What’s happened, Mama?’ she asked. ‘Papa’s bacon isn’t cooked and there are no eggs.’
‘Interruptions is what’s happened,’ said her mother. ‘You’ll find enough eggs under Gwen and the girls, and you know very well how to use a skillet, young lady.’
‘What interruptions?’ asked Eliza.
‘Never you mind what interruptions,’ said her mother. ‘Sort out the boys and fix breakfast, and we can talk once I’ve sorted this out.’
‘If anyone can sort out interruptions, it’s you, Mama,’ said Eliza, and then ducked out of the way, laughing, as her mother threw one of the wet flannels at her.
‘For goodness’ sake put a dress on before you go off to school, or Miss Ballantine will frown at me long and hard the next time I see her,’ said Elizabeth Garret.
The truth was that the last thing on Mrs Garret’s mind was what the schoolmistress would think of her daughter’s overalls. She was much more concerned about the pale, lifeless boy whose brow she was mopping.
There was a good deal of banging and bustling as Doc Trelawny hurried in, his black doctor’s bag carried before him. He took off his hat and coat before he crossed the forge to Jake, and offered them to Garret to put away. Then he leaned over the boy to take a closer look at him.
; After peering into Jake’s pale face, Doc Trelawny said, ‘Well, I’ll be darned if this isn’t Lars Polson’s boy. I knew Doc Polson back in St Louis. I’d heard they were heading west on the trail. I’d stake my reputation this is his boy. I never thought to see a survivor, and certainly not one I’d recognize.’
‘Survivor?’ asked Mrs Garret.
‘The fire down at the river crossing, ten days since,’ said Doc Trelawny. ‘You never saw such a thing, and not enough bodies to bury.’
Two boys suddenly rushed into the forge, almost falling over each other to see what was going on.
‘Eliza said there was interruptions,’ said one of them. It was impossible for anyone but his family to know that Michael was speaking and not his identical twin brother, David. Their teacher, Miss Ballantine, knew them apart because David held his pencil in his left hand, a habit she was trying to shake him of, despite his mother’s protestations that she couldn’t see anything ‘sinister’ in it.
‘Away, boys,’ said Garret. ‘The lad needs air.’
The boys stepped back to stand one on either side of their father. Despite being only eight years old, they stood almost shoulder-high to him, but they respected him the same as if he’d been seven feet tall.
‘Besides,’ said Mrs Garret, ‘we don’t know what’s the matter with him, and he’s got a fever fit to burst.’
Jake rolled his eyes up and opened his lids. He could see a woman’s face close to his, but it didn’t look like the girl who’d been looking after him, so it must be …
‘Ma?’ he asked.
‘Poor boy. He’s delirious,’ said Mrs Garret, and she shushed him and put a fresh flannel on his forehead.
‘I’ll need to look for injuries,’ said the doctor, ‘so let’s get him undressed.’
Ten minutes later, Jake Polson had been thoroughly examined and wrapped up in blankets. His skin was clammy and pale, but there were no obvious injuries apart from some bruises on his back and shoulder that were beginning to fade.
‘Now, let’s take a look at that arm,’ said Doc Trelawny.
‘This doesn’t look like your work,’ he said to Mrs Garret as he began to take away the bandages and examine the bitter-sweet-smelling poultice beneath.
‘It was done before the Native brought him here,’ she said.
‘They must have found him that night and taken him to the settlement to tend to his wounds,’ said the doctor. ‘Perhaps the tribe felt responsible for the fire. Maybe there are others.’
‘Others?’ asked Garret.
‘There were bodies missing. The fire was fierce and blazed for half the night, but there should have been more evidence of the dead. If the Polson boy survived, perhaps others did too.’
‘We could get up a party,’ said Garret. ‘We could go in search of more survivors.’
‘I’m sure if there are more survivors, they’re in good hands,’ said Doc Trelawny. ‘Let’s just worry about the boy for the time being.’
Doc Trelawny was confident he would find the cause of Jake’s fever under the poultice. Then he peeled it back and gasped as he discovered the medicine man’s tattoos. He was shocked by them at first, but the delicate lines pricked into Jake’s skin with the inks made from soot and plants didn’t look sore. The burns running the length of Jake’s arm had not completely healed, but the skin was a healthy colour, and it was not inflamed either. Doc Trelawny carefully turned Jake’s arm this way and that until he had thoroughly examined all of it.
‘What have they done to the poor child?’ asked Mrs Garret.
‘It’s quite extraordinary, isn’t it?’ asked Doc Trelawny. ‘It’s beautiful work, though, and they’ve done no harm to his skin. It’s clean and smooth, and there’s no scabbing at all.’
‘I’ve never seen the like of it,’ said Garret.
‘The Native guide has something the same,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I saw it when he put the boy in my arms, but why would they do such a thing to a child?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Doc Trelawny, ‘but they are religious people with a great many rites and traditions. They would not tattoo the boy to do him harm.’
Doc Trelawny laid Jake’s arm on the outside of his blankets. Jake’s left hand was closed in a tight fist, apparently the only muscles in his fevered body that were capable of tensing. Doc Trelawny firmly unwrapped Jake’s clenched thumb, and then his fingers. It soon became obvious that the skin of his palm was damaged. It was puffy and purple, and puckered at the edges of a crusting yellow scab. Doc Trelawny could feel the hand throbbing as he released the fingers. He held it side by side with Jake’s right hand and noticed how discoloured and swollen it was.
‘Look,’ said Doc Trelawny. ‘The boy’s got poison in his blood and no mistake. We must clean and dress the wound. A leech or two should do the trick. Then it’ll be up to you to manage the fever and make sure the boy gets enough to drink and a little to eat.’
‘It’s so swollen,’ said Mrs Garret.
‘That’s not the worst of it,’ said Doc Trelawny. ‘If the colour doesn’t improve, we might have to amputate a finger or two before this is over.’
Pius Garret swallowed hard, clutching the doctor’s coat and hat so tightly that he was almost wringing the life out of them.
‘Don’t just stand there,’ said Mrs Garret. ‘Fill the large dish with water from the kettle, and, once we’ve cleaned this lot up, we’ll get the boy to bed.’
Eliza popped her head around the forge door. ‘Breakfast, Papa,’ she said brightly.
‘And set a place for the doctor,’ said her mother. ‘He’ll be ready for a good breakfast by the time we’ve finished.’
Doc Trelawny and Mrs Garret took great care cleaning the wound, removing the crusty scabs and draining the infected areas. The hand looked worse, but Doc Trelawny didn’t want to leave any infection behind. When he had finished, the wound was smeared in a soothing salve, made by Doc Trelawny’s wife, and covered up. Then the hand and arm were wrapped in the boiled rag bandages.
When they were finished, Garret carried the boy up to the loft and settled him in Eliza’s bed.
Jake’s fever stayed with him all day. Elizabeth Garret sat with him and kept replacing the cooling flannels on his forehead. Jake cried out for his mother once or twice, and he said ‘White Thunder’ once too, but Mrs Garret had no idea what it meant.
The following morning, Pius Garret woke up before the first cock had even had a chance to crow.
He forgot he had a mysterious sick boy in his loft, but when he remembered he listened at the foot of the stairs. The loft was quiet, and Garret hoped that his wife had got some sleep. He stoked the fire in the forge and made coffee, and the first cock crowed.
‘Cock-a-doo–’
‘Aaaaaaahhhhh!’
Garret flew up the ladder when he heard the scream, and Jake was still screaming when the blacksmith reached the loft.
David and Michael were clutching each other, and Eliza was staring at Jake with huge eyes, holding her blankets tightly against her chest as if they would shield her from harm. Jake was sitting bolt upright, the scream still coming from his open mouth, while Mrs Garret shook him gently by the shoulders and talked quietly to him.
‘You’re going to be all right. You’re in a safe place. We want to help you,’ she said.
Pius Garret gave Jake a stern look as he crossed the room to his sons. He ruffled David’s hair and patted Michael on the shoulder. Then he looked over at Eliza who smiled at him and loosened her grip on her blankets.
‘He’s scared,’ Pius told them. ‘You would be too if you found yourself in a strange house without Mama.’
‘There, there,’ she said. ‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
Jake was thin and weary after the ten long days of his fever, and Doc Trelawny had insisted he needed to rest, but Mrs Garret had to almost force him to lie down.
Once he had calmed down, Pius took the twins’ hands and led them across the room.
‘Come and say hello,’ he said. ‘You too, Eliza.’
Soon, the whole family was clustered around Jake. Once they had all been introduced, Jake listened while Garret told him what they knew about his family.
‘They’re dead?’ asked Jake, pressing his lips together so that they did not tremble.
‘The search party found two bodies, both young men,’ said Garret. ‘The damage was serious, so there might not have been a lot of remains, but it seems unlikely.’
‘So where are Ma and Pa and Emmie?’ asked Jake.
‘We don’t know,’ said Mrs Garret, putting an arm around Jake. He shrugged it off.
‘If they’re dead, I want to know!’ shouted Jake, bright spots of colour appearing on his cheeks, but not from fever this time.
‘The Native guide –’ began Mrs Garret, trying to answer Jake’s question and soothe his anger, but, as soon as he heard the words, he went into a rant.
‘The dragons will get you!’ he shouted. ‘They’ll fly back here, and they’ll burn your house down, unless you tell me where my ma and pa are.’
‘I thought his fever had broken,’ said Garret.
Mrs Garret tried to place a hand on Jake’s forehead. His fever had broken during the night, but his face was very red, and he was speaking gibberish.
‘There are no dragons,’ Garret said firmly.
‘The Natives keep them in a corral. I saw one in the teepee too. They call them Thunderbirds, but there’s no such things. I don’t know why they call them that. They’re dragons … Like horses, only bigger and greener and –’