The Return of the Dragon

by Rebecca Rupp

  “An unspeakable practice, slavery,” the dragon said. “Barbaric. Abominable. A hideous custom. But,” it continued bolsteringly, “all will eventually come right, my dear. Humans can be dense, but they do eventually learn. I predict that in less than a century all” — the dragon twisted its mouth as though the word had a bad taste —“slavery here will be a thing of the past.”

  “A century?” asked Sallie.

  “A hundred years,” the dragon said. “Again, from the Latin. A useful language, Latin. Century,” it repeated. “Centennial. Centimeter. Centipede.”

  “A hundred years?” Sallie said, horrified. “Nothing will get better for a hundred years?” Her eyes filled with tears again.

  “It could, of course, be sooner,” the dragon said helpfully. “Depending on the political and economic climate.”

  Sallie mopped her face on her apron. “But we can’t wait,” she said. “I — my family — we need help right now.”

  The dragon, looking annoyed with itself, shook its head. “How foolish of me,” it said. “I forget how short-lived you creatures are. Of course you need a speedier solution. Your parents are quite right. Of course you must run away.” It closed its eyes and seemed lost for a moment in thought.

  “Any new endeavor is difficult, my dear,” it said finally. “It is always hard to leave the old and familiar for the new and unknown. It takes great courage. But you will find that the rewards are well worth the struggle. Think of caterpillars.”

  “Caterpillars?” repeated Sallie, startled.

  “They don’t stay caterpillars,” the dragon said. “They spin cocoons and turn into butterflies. It can’t be easy for them, poor things, leaving their safe little lives on the ground, where they were used to crawling around on things and munching leaves. But then they fly on glorious wings. And so will you, my dear. You’ll see.”

  Then it said, “Please hold out your hand.”

  Doubtfully Sallie held out her hand. The dragon lifted a forefoot, leaned forward, and swiftly pricked Sallie’s hand with one golden claw. Sallie felt a sharp pang, which quickly turned into a soothing warmth. In the middle of her palm, the dragon’s claw had left a gleaming fleck of gold.

  “It is the mark of a Dragon Friend,” the dragon said softly. “All dragons will know you by it and will help you in times of need.”

  Awed, Sallie touched a finger to the golden mark.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  The dragon pointed through the trees. “Go that way,” it said. “Your home — or perhaps I should say your profligate owner’s home — lies in that direction.”

  Sallie got slowly to her feet.

  “Good luck, my dear,” the dragon said. “Be brave. Remember the butterfly.”

  When Sallie arrived home, her family was in the cabin, gathered around the rough wooden table, too upset to eat their evening meal.

  “Where have you been, Sallie?” her mother asked as Sallie opened the door. “They’ve been looking for you all afternoon up at the Big House. Miss Harriet is mighty angry, Eliza says.”

  Sallie sat down on the bench next to Jamie and reached for a piece of corn bread. She took a big bite.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “I’m not going to do what Harriet says anymore.”

  Her mother frowned. “Sallie,” she began gently.

  Sallie got up from the bench and walked to the door. She opened it and peered out, to make sure no one was listening. There was nobody nearby. She came back to the table and sat down again.

  “Mama,” she said. “Daddy. Please. Are we going to run away?”

  Sallie’s parents exchanged a long look. Sallie’s father put an arm around Sallie’s mother and hugged her close.

  “Yes,” Sallie’s father said. “It’s the only way.”

  He grinned ruefully. “I’m a very valuable property, you know. I’d go a long way toward paying for the master’s poker games.”

  Sallie’s mother put a hand on his arm.

  “We’ll go tomorrow night,” she said. “As soon as it’s dark. We were waiting until the last minute to tell you. I know it’s going to be hard on you children, and it’s dangerous — but it will be far worse if we stay here.”

  Sallie’s father turned to the children. “And you cannot say anything about this to anyone,” he said. “Not one word, even to your best friends. Not to Amanda, Sallie, or to Samuel, Jamie. Especially not to Martha Jane. No one must know.”

  “There will be trouble enough when they find we’re gone,” Sallie’s mother said. “It will be safer for all our friends, the less they know.”

  Sallie spent the next day working at the Big House. Harriet was cross with her.

  “Where were you yesterday?” she said. “I wanted you. You’re supposed to do what I say. I could have you whipped, you know, if you don’t do what you’re told.”

  “Yes, Miss Harriet,” Sallie said meekly. She fanned Harriet while she practiced the harp. She made Harriet’s bed and dusted her bedroom and mended her pink dress, which had a torn hem. And all the while she counted the hours until night would fall.

  I’ll never work in this house again, she thought to herself, hugging her secret close. I’ll never see you again, she thought, helping Harriet dress to go downstairs for supper. On the way home, she slammed the back door of the Big House behind her. Never again, Sallie said to herself. She repeated it to herself over and over again, like a little song. Never again. Never again.

  Back in the little cabin, Sallie and her family collected a very few things to take on their long journey. A bundle of tools for her father —“They owe me that much,” her father said grimly — a few scraps of clothing, some pennies Sallie’s mother had earned selling eggs, a package of cold corn bread, and a bracelet of carved wooden beads.

  “That belonged to your great-great-grandfather,” Sallie’s father said. “It came all the way from Africa.”

  Soon it was dark and the slave quarters were silent. Nothing stirred.

  “You can’t make a single sound,” Sallie’s father whispered. “Even if you stub your toe, Jamie, and it really hurts — you must stay absolutely quiet. If you make a noise, they might find us and bring us back, and that would be terrible. We would be beaten, whipped. We would all be sold. We would never see each other again.”

  Jamie’s eyes were wide and frightened. “I’ll be very quiet,” he whispered.

  Sallie nodded.

  Silently they slipped out the cabin door, around the side of the house, through the garden, and into the woods, the way Sallie had gone the day before. Sallie’s father pointed up at the sky.

  “That’s the way we’re going,” he said. “North. See the Drinking Gourd?”

  “Where?” Jamie whispered.

  “Those seven stars,” his father explained. “See how they’re shaped like a dipper? See the long handle and the cup? As long as we keep those stars in front of us, we’ll know we’re going in the right direction.”

  “Hurry,” Sallie’s mother said. “We want to get as far as we can before daybreak.”

  They walked for many nights. Often they walked through streams, and once they crossed a muddy swamp, in water up to their waists. Sallie hated that swamp. The sticky bottom felt awful.

  “It’s the best thing we could have found,” her father said. “Sometimes slave catchers chase after escaping slaves with dogs. The dogs are trained to follow a person’s scent. But they can’t follow a scent through water.”

  They were hungry all the time.

  Sometimes they found nuts and berries in the woods. Sometimes Sallie’s father caught fish, but not often, because it was very dangerous to light a cooking fire.

  They slept in thickets and in caves, and once in a deserted barn in a little clearing, its roof half fallen in.

  “We must be almost there,” Sallie’s father said one day, when Jamie complained that his feet were tired. “It can’t be much farther now. We’ll come to a big river. It’s called the Ohio. And on the oth
er side, it’s all free country. Once we get there, we’ll be free.”

  But the very next night disaster struck. They were walking along a little grass track through the woods, single file, their way lit only by the moon. There was no sound but the rustle of wind in the leaves. Then, behind them in the distance, there came the sound of barking dogs.

  Sallie’s mother looked back in alarm.

  “Amos!” she whispered. “What’s that?”

  “Let’s go faster,” said Sallie’s father. “There’s nowhere to hide here.”

  They hurried along the little path, as fast as they could go, tripping and stumbling. Sallie’s heart began to pound with fear.

  We’re so close, she thought, so close. They can’t catch us now.

  Behind them the barking of dogs got louder, and there was a sound of horses’ hooves and the jingling of harnesses.

  “Those dogs smell something, boys!” a man’s deep voice shouted. “Runaways!”

  The trees suddenly gave way to a long grassy field. Far across it, Sallie could see the dark gleam of flowing water. It was the river.

  “Might as well give it up,” the deep voice shouted. “We’ve got you now!”

  A dog howled.

  Sallie’s mother stumbled and fell. When she tried to get to her feet again, her face twisted with pain. “It’s my ankle!” she gasped. “Amos . . .”

  Sallie’s father handed his bundle of tools to Sallie, and bent and scooped Sallie’s mother up in his arms.

  “We’ll never make it,” Sallie’s mother said.

  “Run!” Sallie’s father shouted. “Sallie! Jamie! Run!”

  Oh please, Sallie thought to herself. Oh please, let us make it across the river. Oh please . . .

  And then, miraculously, above them in the sky, where a moment ago there had been nothing but moon and stars, appeared a great flash of glittering gold.

  “Dear Lord,” said Sallie’s father.

  It was the dragon. It hovered high above the trees, long golden neck arched, golden wings outspread.

  Sallie’s mother hid her face in her father’s shirt front.

  Jamie burst into tears.

  Sallie stepped quickly forward. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s a dragon. And a friend. I met her in the woods before we ran away. I should have told you. But I know she won’t hurt us. I think she’s here to help us.”

  “We could use it,” Sallie’s father said. Behind them the baying of the dogs was growing louder.

  The dragon reared back in the air. There was a whooshing sound of indrawn breath and a sudden roar of flame. The night exploded with light. The dragon shone sun-golden in the air, blowing a blaze of blue flame. At the edge of the wood, the thicket began to burn. Fire licked across the grass. Bushes crackled and burst into flame. Light flickered across the faces of Sallie’s parents and brother. Jamie had stopped crying.

  There was now a wall of fire between Sallie’s family and their pursuers. They heard, faintly, the sound of startled yells and of dogs retreating, yelping now in terror.

  A hot wind struck them. The dragon landed before them in the grass. Politely it inclined its golden head.

  Sallie’s father stepped forward.

  “We have no words to thank you, sir,” he began.

  “Ma’am,” Sallie hissed hastily behind him.

  “Ma’am,” Sallie’s father said. “You have saved our lives.” He paused. “More than our lives. You have given us our freedom.”

  The dragon impatiently shook its head. “You have taken back your freedom,” it said. “It was yours all along.”

  It gestured toward the river with a golden claw.

  “There on the bank,” the dragon said, “near that little clump of trees, you’ll find a rowboat. It was left there by the farmer who lives in the house across the river. You can just see the light in his window from here. He leaves the boat there for runaways like yourselves. He is a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He will help you.”

  Slowly Sallie and her family began to walk across the field toward the river, with the golden dragon pacing by their side. The wind in their faces now was cool and fresh, blowing toward them off the river. It smelled sweetly green.

  Sallie’s father took deep breaths.

  “Smell that,” he said. “The air of freedom.”

  Sallie’s mother suddenly gave a little laugh. “I just realized,” she said, “we don’t even have a name. Our old master — we certainly don’t want his anymore.”

  “No name?” Sallie said. “You mean we can just pick one of our own?”

  The dragon had paused in the grass. It held its golden head very high, staring off across the dark river.

  “In the matter of a name,” the dragon said solemnly, “I would be most honored if you would take mine.”

  The children shifted on the cave floor. The dragon had fallen silent.

  “Did they really take your name?” Sarah Emily asked. “Goldenwings? That must have sounded a little strange.”

  The dragon bent down toward her with an incredulous look on its face. “Strange?” it repeated, in an offended tone. “Strange? You find my name strange?”

  Sarah Emily hastily backtracked. “Not at all,” she said. “It’s a beautiful name. I didn’t mean anything bad. It’s just a little unusual, that’s all.”

  The dragon regarded her suspiciously for a moment. It gave a small snort.

  “Go on,” Sarah Emily said. “What happened to Sallie? Did they get across the river? Were they all right?”

  “They crossed the river,” the dragon said. “They settled down in Ohio, in free country. Sallie’s father opened a little blacksmith shop. They were safe, but Sallie worried about all the people they had left behind. When she grew up, she decided to do something about it. She went back down south, following secret paths through the woods, and helped many runaways find their way north, out of slavery, into freedom. Then the Civil War came and Abraham Lincoln took care of all the rest. And Sallie learned to read. After the war, she became a schoolteacher.”

  “She flew,” Hannah said softly.

  “What happened to Jamie?” Zachary asked.

  The dragon’s face grew sad. “He joined the Union army during the war,” it said. “He was killed at Gettys-burg. Fighting for freedom.”

  Zachary, still sitting cross-legged at the dragon’s feet, said quietly, “What’s worth fighting for . . .”

  “I know why you told us Sallie’s story just now,” Hannah said. “And those other stories too. This is all about freedom, isn’t it? We’ve been so confused, Fafnyr. Mr. King was almost making sense, but now that I think about it, I see that he was all wrong.”

  “I don’t think Mr. King really wants to protect Fafnyr,” Zachary said. “I think he just wants another valuable possession.”

  “Fafnyr isn’t property,” Sarah Emily chimed in. “It isn’t up to us to share him. He doesn’t belong to us. He doesn’t belong to anybody except to himself.”

  “Herself,” Hannah whispered quickly.

  The golden dragon nodded.

  “I thought you’d work it out,” it said, sounding pleased.

  Then it gave an indignant snort.

  “As if any dragon would fall for that,” it said scornfully. “Nature preserve, indeed.”

  “We don’t want to accept Mr. King’s proposal,” Zachary said, “but we’re just kids — and he’s rich and powerful and grown up. What if he won’t take no for an answer? What can we do?”

  The dragon waved a golden claw. “In life,” it said impressively, “one often reaches decision points.”

  “I don’t understand,” Hannah said.

  The dragon gave a tiny snort. “Take, for example,” it said, “the moment before breakfast.”

  “Before breakfast?” Zachary repeated blankly.

  “Precisely,” the dragon said. “A prototypic decision point. You could choose to have oatmeal, you see, or mutton chops, bran flakes or jellybeans, toast or tacos. It�
�s quite simple. You survey the alternatives and pick the best one. Even the youngest dragon can do it.”

  “But . . .” Sarah Emily began.

  “Jellybeans would be a poor choice,” the dragon said severely. “They are nutritionally limited. And, of course, so small.”

  “But I don’t see . . .” Sarah Emily began again.

  “Of course you don’t,” the dragon said. “You’re not using your head.”

  It gave an enormous yawn.

  “When confronted with a problem, one studies the alternatives, selects the best solution, and proceeds with it. It’s very simple.” It looked at the children down the length of its golden nose. “You must learn, my dears, to reason like a dragon.”

  Supper was over. Hannah, Zachary, and Sarah Emily were in Aunt Mehitabel’s front parlor, where Hannah was teaching Sarah Emily to play chess. Zachary, who had eaten three bowls of chocolate pudding and was feeling lazy, lay on his stomach in front of the glass-fronted bookcase, idly reading the titles of books.

  “The ones with the little pointy hats are bishops,” Hannah said. “They move diagonally, like this. Come on, S.E., pay attention.”

  “I can’t help it,” Sarah Emily said. “All the pieces are so pretty. Look at the castles with their little turrets. And my queen has a crown with teeny silver beads.”

  “She’s lined up with my bishop,” Hannah said patiently. “The bishops move diagonally.”

  “Oh!” Sarah Emily said. She hastily swooped her queen out of the way. “I see.”

  “Nobody could read these books,” said Zachary from his place on the floor. “They’re awful. Listen: The Collected Spiritual Ramblings of Dr. Theophilus Bumbrage. A Botanical Description of the Duckweeds of Delaware. A Discourse on the Jungle Fowl of India and Ceylon.”

  “Where’s Ceylon?” Sarah Emily asked. “What are jungle fowl?”

  “Ceylon is called Sri Lanka now,” Hannah said, moving a carved green pawn. “It’s an island in the Indian Ocean. And jungle fowl are sort of like chickens. Wild chickens. You can’t move that castle there, S.E. They only go in straight lines.”