The Frank Peretti Collection

by Frank E. Peretti

  Well. She had made out like a bandit. This old tunnel had gotten a bit tighter since she was a kid and the entrance had all but disappeared behind new growth, but it was still there, just as she remembered it.

  Now to get down the river to the Stewarts’ ranch before some of her childhood playmates, now her pursuers, also remembered it.

  STEVE HAD been sitting there forever and wasn’t sure he could trust his perceptions. Was that just the breeze he heard behind him, or was someone—or something—coming through the tall grass?

  He stilled his breathing and listened carefully for the kind of slinking, slithering sounds he’d come to know up on Saddlehorse. There it was again! It could have been footsteps, but he couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.

  Then, from a different direction, he heard another sound. This sound rose and fell, stopped and started, like something moving as light as mist over the ground. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

  He knew the sound—it was the slow, steady, incredibly light touch of the dragon’s belly slithering over the terrain. Frantically, he scanned the trees, the brush, the tall grass. That thing would try to hide itself, but by now he knew what to look for.

  He thought of praying. He resisted the idea. Who was there to pray to?

  “God help me,” crossed his lips anyway.

  He relentlessly scanned the terrain in front of him, the old ruins, the scraggly trees—

  The eyes appeared first. There they were, just like that, suspended in space in a small tree at the opposite end of Hyde Hall. It was as if nature itself had sprouted eyes and was looking down at him.

  Their eyes met and then Steve winced, even cried out as the wound over his heart began to burn. Psychosomatic reaction, he thought. Power of suggestion . . .

  We’re linked! He recoiled in horror at that realization. We’re linked.

  That thing was digging into his heart, his soul, and he was totally helpless. Steve broke out in a cold sweat.

  The eyes moved slightly as the head turned. Steve could discern the shape of the head, horns, and neck emerging from the forested background.

  A red tongue, long, forked, and wet, whipped about like a snake in midair and then vanished again.

  “Oh, God . . .” This time the words came easily, though his voice was shaking. “Oh, God, if you’re there, help me.”

  A low bush just inside Hyde Hall’s foundation flattened. The foundation wall rippled as the shape of an elongated, lizardlike foot passed in front of it.

  Then another foot.

  Steve could smell the thing now, an all too familiar smell of death, of rotting meat. Just like Maggie. And Charlie.

  This time the dragon wasn’t going to let him go.

  “God, help me!” Steve cried.

  Then he heard a sound behind him. A stumbling, a staggering, then a body falling in the grass.

  The dragon’s scales fell out of sync with the background. They flashed, they scrambled, the colors raced and flickered like a Las Vegas display gone mad. Then the camouflage broke down, and Steve could clearly see the dragon was right there, right in front of him, the golden eyes locked on whatever was making the noise behind him.

  Then, loud enough to spike Steve’s terror, a familiar, gruff voice hollered, “GO ON! GIT! GET OUT OF HERE!”

  Suddenly all Steve could see from one side to the other were wings, flashing silver at first, then fading quickly to the sky’s blue. A blast of wind hit him like a wall, and he turned his face away, his eyes shut.

  He could hear the dragon’s wings pounding the air with powerful strokes. When he opened his eyes, the tops of the cottonwoods were still swaying and fluttering from turbulence.

  But the beast was gone.

  It was gone! Steve thought. I’m alive. What a feeling! Right now even the pain in his wrists, his arms, his shoulders, and yes, his chest, was welcome.

  There is a God, he thought as he released a held breath.

  “Levi!” Steve called over his shoulder to the man who had just saved his life.

  “Yeah!” Levi hollered back.

  He could hear the big man struggling as he made his way across Hyde Hall. His breathing was labored, and Steve heard him groan, as if in pain. It didn’t sound good.

  “Levi, are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right,” came the impatient reply.

  Steve heard Levi take a few more steps and finally caught sight of him over his left shoulder.

  A few more steps, and Levi collapsed to the ground right in front of him.

  Levi’s shirt was soaked in blood. He lay there a moment just breathing, almost weeping from the pain. In one hand he carried a gigantic pair of bolt cutters.

  Now the scene at the mining company came back to Steve. Levi had been shot.

  Despite the pain, the big mechanic hadn’t given up on getting his message across. “Is any of this sinking in yet?”

  “It—it was afraid of you,” Steve stammered.

  “And Evelyn.” Levi stopped to breathe and gain some strength. Then he started crawling toward Steve with the bolt cutters. “And so the townfolk don’t care much for us.” He fell to the ground again, weak and gasping. “They thought I was dead, and so did I. But I guess God tricked ’em. They all ran off and just left me there.”

  “How did you know I’d be here?”

  “They were gonna sacrifice somebody. The dragon won’t take me, and Tracy got away, so—”

  “She got away?”

  Levi pulled himself over to the rock and started groping about with the bolt cutters. He was in agony just moving his arms. “Ran. Just ran for all she was worth. Ran out through the hole I busted through with the loader.”

  He got the cutters’ jaws around one of the links and bore down on the long handles. There was a snap.

  Steve tugged.

  “Hold still now,” Levi instructed, “I only got half of it.”

  Steve held still. “How badly are you wounded?”

  “Bad enough. It was Bly’s doing. The dragon couldn’t do it for him, so he finally did it himself. I thought it might happen this way.” He bore down on the handles again, and the link finally broke.

  Steve felt an immediate slackening of the chain.

  “Don’t pull now,” Levi said. “Give me some slack to pull through here.”

  Levi worked at the chain, pulling it from around the rock. “This was really stupid,” he said as he worked. “The dragon’s after everybody. What does he care if they send somebody on ahead for him to eat?”

  “You’re right,” Steve said. “But Bly wanted to make sure I was at the head of the list.”

  Levi was silent for a moment. Then, “Okay, I think we’ve got her.”

  Steve leaned forward and pulled gently. The chain slid from around the rock, loosened from around his wrists, and then fell away. He brought his arms around in front, numb and aching, and began rubbing his wrists with relief. “Levi, I owe you my life.”

  “You owe Jesus your life. I’ll just settle for a doctor.”

  Steve reached over. “Let me have a look.”

  Levi lay down as Steve pulled his shirt open. “Do you care?”

  “Of course I care.”

  “Not about me! About you! About the dragon! You have to care, Steve. When you stop caring, that’s when the dragon’ll take you.”

  Steve looked into those piercing eyes. “Okay. I care.”

  He examined Levi’s wound. The bullet had ripped through the abdomen and probably damaged the liver. Blood was pouring out of the wound.

  “You have to resist him,” Levi urged, his voice getting weak. “The Bible says, ‘Submit to God; Resist the devil and he will flee from you.’ You submit to God and get clean of your sin, that ol’ dragon’ll be a pussycat. You’ll put him down real easy.”

  “Try not to talk. I’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Steve was about to get to his feet, but Levi grabbed his hand. “I gotta get this s
aid! You gotta get right with God, Steve.”

  “Okay, Levi. Okay.”

  Levi looked up at him, apparently relieved by Steve’s answer. “You got yourself marked, so he’s your dragon now, Steve. You’re part of him; he’s part of you. But you get right with God, you can kill him; just you wait and see.”

  “And just how is that supposed to happen?”

  Levi gave a weak smile. “When the dragon sees Jesus in you, he’ll back up. He will. You can fool him into backing up. You’ll scare him, just like I did, just like Evelyn.” His eyes closed as if to sleep. “Go to that tunnel . . . use the tunnel . . . Jesus’ll take care of the rest.”

  Steve didn’t understand, but he said, “Okay, Levi.”

  With intense effort, Levi took a small, brass key from his shirt pocket. “Northwest Bank,” he gasped. “Oak Springs. My sister’ll help you out.”

  Steve took the key. “Your safety deposit box.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, we’ll talk about that as soon as—”

  Levi fell asleep, his head resting peacefully on the ground.

  “Levi!”

  There was no answer. Steve knew there would never be one.

  “HELLO, Clark County Sheriff’s Office, this is Deputy Matson.”

  The lieutenant with the Oak Springs police took just a moment to look through the glass enclosing his office and observe the distraught woman seated just outside. The attack she’d suffered in her home just the other night could have pushed her over the edge; he didn’t know.

  “Hello,” he said. “This is Lieutenant Jarvis with the Oak Springs Police.” He framed his question carefully. “We just got a report that you were having some trouble over there. I’m trying to follow it up.”

  Matson didn’t sound like he expected such a question. “Gee, I don’t think we’ve had any trouble. It’s been a dull morning, actually.”

  “Is Sheriff Collins there?”

  “Yeah, hold on.”

  Now Lieutenant Jarvis took a long, second look at Evelyn Benson.

  A voice came on the line. “Sheriff Collins.”

  Jarvis drew a deep breath and proceeded, “Hi, Sheriff. This is Lieutenant Jarvis with the Oak Springs police, just following up on a call we got. Any trouble over there?”

  “Why? What have you heard?”

  “Well . . . someone has you dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yeah, shot by one of your deputies, and there’s supposed to be some real trouble brewing out in Hyde River too.”

  “Oh, boy. Who told you all this?”

  “I’ve got a lady sitting out in the station right now who’s beside herself—”

  “Is it Evelyn Benson?”

  “Yeah, it sure is.”

  The sheriff laughed. “Oookay. I’m sorry about that. Listen, Evelyn Benson is—well, she’s not a psycho, but she’s under a ton of stress right now. She was attacked in her home the other night.”

  “Yeah, I was on that case.”

  “And did you know her husband was mauled and killed by a grizzly just a little over a week ago?”

  “Yeah, I was aware of that. So I was kind of wondering—”

  “It’s been tough on her. She might need professional help; I don’t know. But she’s really got it in for Hyde River right now. She came to me saying there were killers all conspiring together up there, and—has she said anything to you about a dragon?”

  “A what?”

  “A dragon You know, big, fire-breathing lizard.”

  “A dragon? No. She hasn’t said anything about that.”

  “Well, ask her about it. You’ll get quite a story. She thinks a dragon ate her husband.”

  EVELYN STOOD up when Jarvis came out of his office. “Now do you believe me?”

  “Mrs. Benson, why don’t you sit down a minute?”

  She was beyond being soothed by kind formalities. “Didn’t you call them?”

  “I called them.”

  “Who did you talk to?”

  “Sheriff Collins.”

  She was stunned. “That’s—that’s impossible.”

  “He’s all right. Everything’s fine over there.”

  “Sheriff Collins is dead!” she said. “I saw him myself!”

  “I just talked to him.”

  “How do you know it was him?”

  Jarvis held his hand up to settle her down. “Please, just calm down.”

  “I’ll calm down when you get excited, you follow me? You’ve got to do something! You’ve got to go out there!”

  “Mrs. Benson, that’s not our jurisdiction.”

  “Well, somebody has to do something!”

  “What about the dragon, Mrs. Benson?”

  That stopped her cold.

  “Haven’t you told people a dragon ate your husband?”

  At that moment, Evelyn knew Jarvis would never believe her.

  At that moment, Jarvis decided he shouldn’t.

  AT THE Clark County Sheriff’s Office, Doug Ellis hung up the phone and rejoined the crew Bly had sent to clean out the place. Kyle Figgin got a pat on the back—he’d done a splendid job as Deputy Matson. The door was locked, a “Closed for Maintenance” sign was hung on the door, the shades were drawn, and the calls were forwarded to the dispatcher. Collins’s body had already been wrapped and taken out the back to a waiting truck; Phil Garrett’s body had gone out to the truck not long before that. In a few more minutes, the floors would be mopped and everything returned to normal, and none too soon. The second-shift deputy was due to arrive in half an hour.

  Doug did wonder what explanation would be given for Collins’s disappearance, but then again, why explain it at all? As always, there was no evidence, there were no witnesses, and no one would say a word, especially now.

  AS THE SUN settled behind the mountains and their shadow crept across the decaying ruins of Old Town, Steve remained beside Levi’s limp body, alive, free, and devastated to realize, only now, that Levi Cobb had truly been his friend. Steve was overcome with remorse. The pains he felt in his body, even the pain from the wound over his chest, were insignificant by comparison.

  It should’ve been me, Levi, not you.

  He wept, unashamedly, for Levi, for Cliff, for this whole miserable valley where death was a cherished pet, where a despised mechanic had died for a stranger.

  Why? Why?

  His cries of pain and remorse in that empty, decaying shell of a building kept him from hearing the approaching hoofbeats. Finally they were so close they startled him, and he looked up.

  Tracy! She was free, alive! Here she came on horseback, trotting down the main street through the ruined town, leading an extra horse behind her. “Steve! Are you all right?”

  His legs were weak as he tried to stand. He quickly wiped his eyes and his face, trying to compose himself. “You’re alive!”

  “Just barely.”

  She rode up alongside Hyde Hall and reined in her horse. From her worn, muddy, and torn appearance you’d think she’d been dragged behind it, Steve thought.

  “How did you know where I was?” he asked.

  “I can put two and two together.” Tracy’s expression was quizzical as she noted the chains. “How on earth did you get loose?”

  “Levi came and cut me loose.”

  “Then quit standing there! Let’s go!”

  Hadn’t she heard what he said? “He’s—he’s dead. He was shot.”

  She craned her neck and could see Levi’s body lying in the grass. “Then let’s go. I didn’t rent these horses!”

  Steve stood there. “Tracy! He saved my life! The dragon was here—”

  “Leave him! If we don’t get over those mountains right now we’re as dead as he is!”

  Steve looked down at his friend, pale with death, soaked in blood, like a fallen, forgotten soldier on a deserted battlefield. “I can’t. I can’t just leave him here.”

  “Yes, you can. You’d better. Bly and the others are going to be hot on
our trail once they figure out what’s happened.”

  Steve looked at Levi one more time. Levi was dead, and yet something he said still echoed in Steve’s mind. “He told me how to kill the dragon—I think.”

  “Are you going to get on your horse or not?”

  “What about the dragon?”

  “To heck with the dragon! To heck with the whole town! They can have it!”

  Steve looked at Tracy, then at Levi’s body. Finally it seemed right to trust her, to run for that horse and jump into the saddle. It was reassuring to find the horse fully bridled and saddled, and the sheriff’s shotgun stowed in a saddle scabbard. Tracy had to have a plan, all right.

  “Just follow me,” Tracy instructed over her shoulder. “I know a trail out of the valley.”

  He rode behind her as they headed through the ruins and then north along the river.

  “Where’d you get the horses?”

  “The Stewart ranch, down the valley a few miles. They weren’t home, so I helped myself.”

  The picture was bizarre. “A deputy sheriff stealing horses?”

  “Impounding horses. There’s a difference.”

  HAROLD BLY was back in the tavern, and this time he’d opted for a shot of whiskey. Things were not going well.

  Carl Ingfeldt burst in the front door, almost knocking the cowbell off its hook. Then he stood there, afraid to speak.

  “Well?” Bly demanded.

  Carl shook his head. “We lost her, boss. That old Skyler mine tunnel was left open. We figure she must’ve ducked down through there and come out below the roadblock.”

  “You should’ve thought of that!”

  Carl could only shrug helplessly. “Nobody’s gone in there for years. We didn’t think she’d think of it.”

  Bly let it go. He looked over at Bernie. “Well, we figured as much. Bernie just heard from the Stewarts. They’ve got two horses missing.”

  “Two horses?”

  “She’s going to try and go over the mountains and take Benson with her, if she can spring him. We’d better get somebody down there to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  Andy Schuller burst through the door with another sorry report. “No sign of Cobb.”