The Dragon of Cripple Creek

by Troy Howell

  As to our car, it was the perfect metaphor. Due to the abuse it had seen time and again, and neglect, it featured an outbreak of dings and scratches, a gold front fender that matched the gold of my tooth (thanks to a poor frenzied deer and the fact that the parts yard had no match for the gray), a pitted windshield, and rusted wheel rims. Sometimes it wouldn’t go in reverse. The fan belt whined.

  Yep, just like me.

  But thanks to Dad’s new employer, at least we had enough for the trip. I lay in a comfortable bed in a historic hotel. We’d had a decent dinner in the lounge last night.

  I burped in bed just thinking about it.

  With a little imagination (the burp helped, too), I could still taste the tender rib eye and all those fries. I must have drunk a gallon of sarsaparilla, which is kind of like root beer. Dillon said the reason I thought it tasted so good was I had gone so long without food. He had barbecued shrimp, and said the reason that tasted so good was because it was. Dad did not indulge but had a glass of milk. He might have been suffering indigestion, or felt he deserved nothing more, blaming himself for what had happened.

  To escape the mom-’n’-pop-arazzi—which was Dillon’s term for those homegrown, camera-toting stragglers who wanted another glimpse of the gold or of me and my shadow—the cops had escorted us back to the hotel. Dad suspected it wasn’t really for our safety, but to keep an eye on us. Dillon said it was definitely the gold. The chief had grilled him on it while I was in the ambulance. With the car window open just low enough for talk—Dillon explaining to the chief the window would stick in a stubborn down position if it went any lower—he showed him the paltry “gold sample” he had got on the tour. Which, by the way, had as much gold in it as a cloud has cotton candy. Since the chief hadn’t seen my nugget to begin with—he was talking with Max at the time—he had no way to disprove it. But judging from all the excitement, he argued, it couldn’t have been that rock. Why would a rock like that cause such commotion?

  When Dillon related all this on our drive to the hotel, Dad asked him where the gold was, if it truly was gold, and where he had got it.

  Before I could speak, Dillon said, “Sorry, Dad. I’m not telling.”

  That jerked a stare out of me.

  Dad said, “What? I’m your father—remember?”

  “I thought you were the child protection service,” Dillon said smartly, then hung his head.

  Dad fell into a meditative slump. That’s when I realized he was blaming himself. He had not protected his child: He had let me wander off. There was much I wanted to say, to tell him it was my fault, not his, that he hadn’t failed me, that what had happened was for our good, that we could pay off our debts …

  That, in particular, I wanted to say.

  I looked questioningly at Dillon. Why had he hidden the gold? What business was it of his?

  It was my gold, for golly sake.

  I glared at him. If I glared hard enough, maybe he’d feel a hot spot on his head, like aiming the sun through a magnifying glass.

  It worked. He turned in the front seat to address Dad and me. “In case they interrogate either of you, or both of you, I won’t say where I put the … rock. That way, you won’t have to lie.”

  Dad pouted and hit the horn—which, like the seat adjustments and dome light and AC, doesn’t work. “Lie? Why would I lie about something I’m in the dark on? Why would we be interrogated? Gold? Rock? What’s this all about?”

  Dillon was eyeing me, while I looked from him to Dad and back again, my tongue caressing my tooth. I guessed it was my turn.

  “Uh …” I mumbled, and gazed out the window as the town bumped by. “When we’re back in our rooms, I’ll tell you everything.”

  Well, not everything. Not about Ye. He was too incredible. Too unbelievable. They’d think I’d been knocked in the head one time too many. I liked the thought of keeping him secret. It made me feel part of something. Something vast and ancient, like dipping my toe into the cosmos. Telling about Ye would be betrayal.

  “But, Dad,” I said, to make up for what I wasn’t saying, “money won’t be a problem for a while.”

  His eye shone at me in the rearview mirror with what looked like a spark of hope.

  • • •

  As soon as we had entered the lobby, reporters sprang from every direction. Three, four, five in all, notepads in hand, firing questions, shooting pictures. Why they thought I was so newsworthy I couldn’t guess. It only showed how pinched for a story they were.

  Chief Huffman was still with us, striding along as though he was home on the range and we were his herd. “Later!” he boomed at the reporters, but it had no effect. As we hustled our way through, their questions hit us like hailstones. All about gold.

  Where’d you find the—Is it real—Whose is the—Where is the—Can we see the—Gold, gold, gold, gold, gold …

  It probably was a good idea that Dillon had hid the gold.

  While the chief strode to the front desk—I think he was after our room numbers—Dillon dug into his pocket, raised his arm high, and flipped a shiny penny behind him. This caught the reporters off guard. And while they stopped, mesmerized by its flashing, head over tails arc, we darted up the staircase, down the hall, into Dillon and Dad’s room, and slammed the door.

  I lay my journal on the Gideon Bible and closed the nightstand drawer.

  How I ached, inside and out! Every muscle and bone in my body must have met rock. When the medic said I’d feel it in the morning, I had no idea. I reached for the ibuprofen samples they had given me and swallowed one dry. The thought of getting up, let alone packing my bag, was too much.

  I stared at a stain on the window shade. There was no flowered wallpaper in my room, no wallpaper at all. Dillon and Dad got that and twin beds; I got the double bed and the high slim window that faced the street. Last night—this morning actually, around one a.m., after journaling about Ye—I had pulled the shade down, not wanting to be wakened by the sun as early as I had been yesterday.

  Yesterday. Had it been only twenty-four hours? It seemed like a year, a dragon’s dream.

  I looked at my travel clock: 8:32. The shade hardly kept the morning out; it now shone primrose gold. I stared at the stain, letting my thoughts drift, wishing for more sleep.

  I always see faces or animals in random shapes like clouds or spills or clumps of leaves. Specially when I’m not wearing my glasses. As I stared, the stain became a face, and I knew the face. Mom’s—her hair spread out as on a pillow. Like the last time I saw her. When I had bent to kiss her cheek and say goodbye.

  The ache that I’d felt on that day filled my head again. Oh, Mom! Do you know that I am gone? Do you miss my face, my voice, my hand? Can you still see the times we shared long ago, the ones I hold on to with all my heart? Like our tickle tests, when you were always the first to laugh? Or the meteor shower, when we lay on the roof and counted ninety-four? Or our beach vacation, when I hid you with sand and Dad searched and searched …

  What will become of you?

  Will you be there when we come back?

  Or will you slip away and turn to dust?

  I kept staring at the stain.

  It was no longer my mom.

  It was a winged dragon. Ye had eclipsed her, like a bird across the sun.

  Ye, I thought, what will become of you? Will you live forever? Will the pearl, my pearl, Mom’s pearl, Grandma Chance’s pearl, give you never-ending life?

  Or will you slip away and turn to gold?

  Then, like the optical illusion that appears as either a hag or a young woman depending on your outlook, the stain became Mom’s face again. Then it was Ye—and back and forth it went.

  Ye … Mom … Ye … Mom … Ye …

  • • •

  A rustle outside the door.

  That got me out of bed. Stifling another moan, I went to the door and peered through the keyhole.

  There stood a man, a few steps away, bent as if listening or looking for something. He
thrust his nose forward, like a rat. He was small and bowlegged and very tan—I could hardly read his features for his tan. His high-crowned hat, which was black with black feathers stuck in a snaky black band, and his snaky black boots, made up for his short stature.

  Though my room radiator sizzled with heat, I shivered.

  He turned as if he had felt my shiver and looked straight into my eye.

  I almost fell back into bed—but I knew if I moved he’d see a change of light in the keyhole. And he’d be able to see me—all of me—but I couldn’t see him. So I stayed, still as stone, my senses on high alert with the creepies crawling over my skin.

  Our eyes locked.

  His eyes were black and beady, two dark dots in his sun-darkened face. He got closer and closer. It was like one of those scary stories, where you wait for the end with your heart in your throat. My door was locked and chained, but it felt as though there was nothing between us.

  He came even closer. I was peering through a microscope with the controls set on zoom.

  The window shade flew up with a bang behind me and I whipped around, my shoulder whacking the door.

  Blinking with fright and the harsh morning light, I stood there, hand on my heaving chest. Surely, there was no connection between the stranger and the shade. A change in temperature no doubt, probably from the rising sun, had caused it.

  I waited a moment more, held my breath, then peeked through the keyhole again.

  He was gone.

  I plopped onto the bed and wrapped the blanket around me. Then, thinking better of it, I put on my glasses, limped to the window, and peered into the street.

  There he was, his black hat bobbing behind a small black car. He glanced up at me, climbed into the car, and drove away. I noticed his license plate: I2I.

  A TAP ON THE DOOR.

  “Kat!” Dillon’s voice.

  Just to be sure, I peered through the hole and saw his faded red shirt. I unlocked the door and opened it with the chain still in place. He was wearing his morning hair and an anxious look.

  “Kat, you dressed?”

  “Wait a minute.”

  I hurriedly dressed and let him in. He set a tall Styrofoam cup full of coffee on the nightstand.

  “Since when do you drink coffee?” I asked.

  “Since now.” He took a sip. “Anyway, it’s a latte—mostly milk. Want some?”

  “No thanks.”

  “How’d you sleep?”

  “OK. What there was of it.”

  He went to the window. “Nice view.”

  “I’ve hardly had a chance to enjoy it.”

  “Why’s that?”

  I told him about the black-hatted man, though it freaked me out describing the last part.

  “I passed him in the lobby!” said Dillon.

  “He was parked across the street,” I said. “In a black sports car. I got the license plate, in case—”

  “What was it?”

  “Nothing, really. One-two-one.”

  “One-two-one,” Dillon said musingly. “One to one … One hundred twenty-one …”

  I stared at him. “Dillon, I just realized. Those weren’t numbers, they were letters.”

  He went blank for a second, then said, “You mean, the letters I?”

  I nodded slowly, trying to ignore a wave of nausea.

  “Eye-to-eye,” he murmured. “That’s eek-o.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Grags.”

  “Grags?”

  “Gross and gag.”

  We sat still for a moment, trying to make sense of it.

  “Wait,” I said. “He might have been after the gold.”

  “Might have.”

  “Dillon, where is it?”

  He came over, took another sip from his cup, and sat by me on the bed. Coffee breath was definitely better than morning mouth. “Safe,” he said simply. “Now you tell me something.”

  I blinked at him. There was something in his tone I didn’t like.

  “Kat, what really happened?”

  “Huh? You mean that guy?”

  “Not the guy. Your story.”

  “Story?”

  “I think you know what I mean.”

  I put on my innocent girl face, which I had used so often last night I could have auditioned for Joan of Arc. “I don’t think I know what you mean.”

  “Something’s missing from it.”

  I studied his face, noticing the bit of crusted sleep in his eye, the whiskers starting to introduce themselves. He looked old. “What would be missing, brother?” I said. The brother thing usually works.

  “That’s what I’m asking you.”

  Suddenly feeling the pain pill kick in, I got up and tossed my pajamas into my bag.

  “Kat, if you were certain, really certain, that it was gold you’d found—after all, you pocketed it—why didn’t you feel around for more?”

  “Well …” I stammered. I shrugged a shoulder. “I didn’t want to be greedy …”

  He stared at me.

  “And … I wanted to keep going …”

  He kept staring.

  “That nugget was heavy enough …”

  Kept staring.

  “I was in a lot of pain.”

  He acknowledged this with a nod.

  Why was I so unwilling to let him in on my secret? What difference would it make whether he knew about Ye or not? On the other hand, if he didn’t believe my edited story, why would he believe the unabridged version?

  I tried a different tack. “Dillon, you want more gold, don’t you? Just like Dad. You think there’s more.”

  “I think there’s more, and I think there’s more to your story.”

  “What I’d like to know,” I said, turning my volume up a notch, “is why you’re keeping it hidden. You snatched it up and think it’s yours now, don’t you?”

  He flinched, as if he’d had a sudden pain.

  I stuck out my palm. “Just hand it over.”

  He stared at my scratches and bandaged thumb. He frowned over something and looked up at me. Except for a drop of bright blue, his eyes are just like Mom’s, a blend of sadness and secrecy.

  “You don’t have to keep it hidden,” I said, attempting a hardness I didn’t feel. “The cops aren’t after us.”

  As soon as I said that, there were voices in the hall. A knock on the door. I thought of the man in the black hat, and shuddered. I shook my head warningly at Dillon.

  Another knock. It wasn’t my door after all, but Dad’s.

  Dillon peeked through the keyhole.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  He motioned me to be still.

  One voice was Dad’s. The other—I had heard it before: Chief Huffman’s. Plus another I didn’t recognize, higher pitched. Was it the mystery man’s? I glanced out the window: no black car.

  “Let me see!” I whispered, and nudged him aside.

  He put his ear to the door while I looked. I saw a beefy hand—Chief Huffman’s—handing Dad’s hand a sheet of paper. Dad’s hand was shaking, from either fear or rage. Dad wasn’t one to show fear. The only time I’d seen him show fear was when Mom lay in the hospital, her head wrapped up, her face dead, her body hooked to tubes, a monitor beeping.

  Rage, then.

  “Search warrant!” Dad was saying. “Not on your life!”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Graham.” The chief’s stutter was gone. “We have reason to believe you’re concealing stolen property.”

  “Stolen property! Whose?”

  “The Mollie Kathleen’s.”

  “I’m calling my attorney!”

  Dillon and I looked at each other: Dad didn’t have an attorney—he couldn’t afford one.

  “You have that right, Mr. Graham. We still need to search your room.”

  Dillon nudged me aside and took my place.

  I tried to be patient, but my worries were mounting. Where had Dillon put the gold? Would they find it? He was just a kid, and these men were experts
. They knew where people hid things. Loot, drugs, weapons—they couldn’t be fooled.

  Yet, whatever the outcome, I appreciated Dillon’s intent. I looked with admiration at the back of his head, his rumpled hair—dear brother. If Dad had known where the gold was, he’d have given it away, right off. All they’d have to do was watch his eyes. It would be like saying “Warmer, warmer—hot!” in the game of hide the thimble.

  Maybe there was a chance. Maybe the gold wasn’t here at all, but in the car, or the men’s room off the lobby, or …

  On Dillon himself.

  Good thing they hadn’t come here.

  Dillon leaped up as a knuckle rapped the door.

  DILLON LEANED AGAINST THE WALL, ANKLES crossed, sipping his coffee. He said to me, “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  I stared at him. “Should I?”

  “Of course. They’re the law.”

  I unlocked the door and loosened the chain. Chief Huffman towered in the doorway, and a woman in uniform stood with him.

  Dad, craning his neck from behind them both, said, “I’m sorry, honey, but—”

  “Miss Graham,” said the chief. “How are you today?”

  I was speechless.

  He paused when he saw Dillon, then continued. “We’re here on official business. This is Officer Hance.” The woman nodded to me, poker-faced.

  “We’re here to search your room,” said the chief, and he held up the paper I’d seen through the keyhole.

  Despite my daze, I caught some of the words. U.S. District Court … Teller County … Affidavit and Application for a Search Warrant … U.S. Magistrate. At the bottom was an ominous signature as tangled as the gold-tarnished mess I had got us into.

  They entered the room and began their search. I went to the window and gripped the sill to keep from trembling; Dillon slouched against the wall; Dad stood in the doorway, taking it in with a pale, grim face. They lifted the pillows, blankets, mattresses; looked under the bed, felt around the bed frame. They turned the stand upside down and right side up, and emptied the drawer of the bible, my journal, the pain pills, and the tobacco tin.

  The chief got serious about the tobacco tin. He tried prying it open without success. He shook it, asking, “What’s in it?”