Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar-Apr 2013 (27 page)

Except for the dragon in the trunk.

"We should bury it," Jimi said. Days had passed while they waited to see if anyone followed. He pulled some peanut butter and Welch's grape jelly down from the cupboard to make them sandwiches. Now, this evening, whatever one it might be (Jimi had lost track of time and hours and all aspects of civilization) he sat with the albino girl from Conway, wondering what to do. Her pale skin glowed in the twilight. She surely was a lovely thing.

Outside racketed a chorus of June bugs. Every few minutes some creepy-crawlie would splat itself against the window trying to meet the sixty-watt bulb swinging over the table. Jimi flinched each time. Pink never did pay them any mind.

Ribbons, glitter, and bones in a plastic box—materials for Pink's play-pretties—waited on the mustard-colored Formica table that bisected the Airstream. Amulets, Midas had called 'em, necessaries for the unwary soul, and weren't all God's children unwary?

Pink said, "What makes you think it's dead?" Her fingers busied themselves twining fuchsia ribbon around a mole skull.

"It ain't moving." Jimi rubbed the back of his neck where the dragon lay in his golden skin. It itched like a fire ant bite.

"It ain't stinkin' neither. And something dead that long would stink." She held her creation up for Jimi to admire. The color wasn't to Jimi's taste. The rest looked fine enough.

He asked what she thought they should do, not clear on how Pink had become the brains of the outfit, but satisfied that it was so.

Pink switched out the ribbon for ochre yarn, then fastened the amulet around his neck. "You bound yourself to it when you ran off with it. Now you're responsible."

Delicately Jimi touched his new adornment. It weighed on his chest. "Chinese dragons are illegal. Who'd risk bringing 'em in?"

"The drought," said Pink. "Times like these people take chances. I've seen all kinds of crazy stuff. We can hide it. There's thousands of caves up here. Tyson factory uses them to store chicken carcasses. We can find a wild cave and stow it. It'll be secret and it'll be ours."

It took several days of hiking the woods, turning over stones, and crawling down ridges before Jimi stumbled, plumb fell down and nearly broke his neck, into a suitable hole. The limestone cavern was just tall enough to stand up in. Somewhere in the back end, in the pitch-black where he had no intention of going, water burbled.

At night, under a pregnant moon, they moved the creature. The dragon had grown, which Jimi swore couldn't happen. It looked less like a big eel and more like a giant snake. Scales showed now on its pale violet skin. The neck didn't appear to be strong enough to hold the weight of the head, which didn't resemble anything Jimi recognized. Something that might be horns budded from its slick forehead. Silver eyes showed an uncomfortable depth. The gluey skin looked wet, and the whiskers, like some kind of overgrown catfish's, curled in pale spirals.

The bulges in its transparent gullet were bits of a person, Jose or Alejandro—half-digested now. It gave Jimi the shakes. He'd known that man once, even if he couldn't recall his exact name. Pink steadied Jimi. He swallowed, ashamed to have less courage than a girl.

Protecting their arms with plastic bags just in case, they slopped the dragon into the biggest container Jimi could buy at the Walmart Supercenter over to Fayetteville, a fifty-five gallon electric-blue recycling bin.

Peeper frogs and cicadas serenaded them as they dragged the blue bin through the woods. They reached the site out of breath and sweating. A haze of bugs nipped their skin. The cave's black hole yawned at their feet. The creature made a wheezing noise as it dropped ten feet down into the dark. From the cave floor the Immortal glowed like an earthbound star.

They held a whispered confab under the spangled sky. Pink said, "I don't think it's dead. There ought to be some way to check."

Sweat dripped from Jimi's black hair as he shook his head. "Even if it is, we need to leave it be. That was a man in the dragon's gut. He didn't get there by accident. Done is done. Now I say we get out of here."

Pink crossed her arms. "What about your dragon tattoo?"

With conscious effort Jimi kept from rubbing the patch on his neck. "I'm one hundred percent U.S. of A. The only Chinese I know is chop suey, so don't go saying I owe anything here. We could make KC tonight in a couple of hours, or Little Rock, if you like."

"You run if you want," said Pink. "I'm staying to find out about my kin. I don't need help."

Jimi swallowed the sigh that rose from his belly. From the minute he stood by Pink's booth at the Toad Suck craft alley, he knew she was for him. They fit together like an acorn and its cap. "All right then. We gotta live. Guess I'll figure out something."

Pink rested a hand on his neck. The irritation eased. She said, "You won't be sorry."

 
OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS Jimi cleared space by the Airstream and set to growing life's necessaries, cultivated from seeds in the plastic baggies he always had with him. He figured setting up couldn't be any more difficult than doing it in a greenhouse back home. Besides, everyone knew Arkansas produced the best weed (save Mississippi) in the South. Selling product up Fayetteville way would give them some folding money.

Pink contrived her play-pretties. Effort grooved lines between her eyebrows as she bound and wound and tied pieces of nature to bits of made things, all the while singing meaning into her creations. Other times she visited Midas.

Jimi didn't care for that. Midas Welbe creepified him for certain. But she insisted the augur-man knew something. Jimi believed knowing wasn't the same as saying. Midas Welbe no doubt knew a score of things. Most of which Jimi suspected he'd rather not be told, even if Pink felt differently.

Evenings, the downing sun would warm the unmelting snow of Pink's hair as she learned the secrets of leaf and bough. It was a homecoming, she said, to know her mama tended this same grove. Jimi figured the trees were her trade. Same as it must've been her momma's. That was all right by him, though he couldn't see the benefit of it.

While they waited for Jimi's crop to grow the earth turned boggy. Low fields swelled to marshes. Waterfalls sprang jubilant from crags. Wood ducks and greenheads moved to new addresses in previously stubbled meadows.

One muggy night, Jimi leaned against the rusting Airstream picking at mosquito bites. He said, "Ground's gone awry. My planting's rotted plumb in the dirt. I looked for a decent yield to set us up. This place is a pisshole."

Snuggling into his shoulder, Pink said, "Been no rain hereabouts since last year. Wrong direction, water coming up from the ground. I could go see Midas. He might know something."

"Don't," said Jimi. The less Pink saw of Midas, the better he felt. Besides, he should look into this. It was his job, after all. "Tomorrow I'll see to the neighbors. Check if they got the same problems. Might be nothing." Jimi wasn't keen on the idea. Being a stranger, and not your average white boy, he had to push down a wispy fear.

"All right then." Pink said. "Be home by suppertime."

The morning sun painted the day with a honey-light. Warmth stirred up an earthy smell congruent with the heavy mist that ladled itself around Jimi's legs. Already he'd taken coffee with Tim Williams, who groused that water swamped his cornfield, and not the low one neither. Outside there was a smell of wet, like wood rot. The earth felt spongy underfoot. It unsettled Jimi, who'd thought the swampiness limited to their piece of land.

Continuing along, Jimi shouted in fear as a wall of gray water, tall as a man, rose up from the damn ground, where no wave should be, to knock down Jayme Stone as she walked her little dog. The little dog never did get up. A great puddle of sour ooze ankle high was left behind. After helping her rescue the terrier's broken body from the muck, Miz Stone said Midas took care of things hereabouts. He was the man to fix this terrifying deluge.

Jayme said Jimi'd find Midas at his fishing hole. Earlier he'd passed that way carrying a pail and a six-pack of Bud. She recommended Jimi go past Pistone's dairy, past the wrecked train tracks, up an overgrown trail.

Now Jimi pushed his way through a staggering number of cottonwoods. Sweat glued his black Cannibal Corpse T-shirt to his back. He brushed a cobweb from his face and paused for consideration.

There was nary a path through the woods, at least none he could spot. Twice now something had hissed at him, and he had no idea what the critter was, or what he'd done to piss it off. Jimi swatted at the no-see-ums haloing his head. He wished for a sign, an ordinary street sign. He missed Port Arthur. He missed the noise, the stink, and the pure regularness of it all.

A city has streets and people and rules. Keep the speed limit. Don't steal. Obey the cops. Of course, Jimi had broken those laws and then some. So maybe it was fitting that he'd landed ass-up in a place like Red Star, where he had only Pink to advise him. And now Midas.

A hot metal tang stung his nose. A deep thrum rattled him. Likely it was just a bird. Likely. The hairs on Jimi's arms stood up. Something boomed close behind him. He backed into a trickle of water, then turned and ran, following it down, away from the deep bass sound. When the water was up to his knees he stopped, finding himself at the mouth of a lake he didn't know existed.

Midas stood in the shallows on the far side with a bucket next to him. Curls of steam rose from it. He leaned over the water, studying the glassy surface, his hair stringing down so as Jimi wondered how he could see. He held a net, which looked awkward to manage in the heavy work gloves he wore.

Jimi sloshed over along the lake edge. He scanned the ground for snakes before settling on a mossy log. He asked, "Catch any fish?"

"Too hot for fish," said Midas. "You out on a promenade?" Around Jimi's neck hung the bone piece secured with ochre yarn. Pink made him put it on that morning. The little doohickey caught Midas's eyes. The augur-man seemed to vibrate with tension. To break it, Jimi tossed a rock that lay at his feet into the lake.

"You oughta be careful, son. You shouldn't put things places unless you know all about 'em. I'm familiar with this pond man and boy, longer than most people figure. Even I don't know what might lie in there anymore."

Jimi gulped, sure Midas could hear his fear, his heart was beating that hard. "Our place is swamped. Other folks got the same problem. They said to see you about fixing things."

"You could go back to Texas," Midas said. "No need to stay."

"Pink won't leave and I won't go without her. You telling me this bog is natural?"

"Got no need to tell you anything." A new splash riveted Midas's attention. He netted a black lizard daubed with red spots. When he grabbed the hissing thing in his gloved hand, smoke flashed from its skin. Midas dumped the lizard in the bucket. The water inside boiled. "Salamanders," Midas explained. "They get a tad warm when a body upsets 'em."

"I knew you for an augur-man. Only met one before, but you got the look." That was one question answered for sure. Jimi smiled.

Working carefully so as not to disturb the pail, Midas stripped the gloves from his hands. "That amulet Pink's work? Can I see?"

It seemed a reasonable request. Jimi couldn't figure his reluctance to remove the bony piece. Slowly he looped it from his neck, then handed it over.

Fast as lightning, Midas dropped it in the bucket, almost as if it burned. Jimi stood up in surprise. Anger mixed with fear. He motioned toward the bucket. "What'd you do that for?"

Midas pinned Jimi with his pale eyes. "Settle down. We couldn't talk comfortable with that thing on you. Why'd you come here, son? I never did believe that tinsel-story Pink told."

There was something persuasive about his light blue eyes. Jimi chewed his lip. He'd never been good at lying. A cicada started sawing loud enough to wake the dead. Bugs whirred and chirruped. What was his voice against this noise? Jimi took a breath before unspooling the tale he'd kept wrapped 'round his heart.

He remembered that Texas night. Jimi was working nightshift on an offshore oil rig as a fifth hand, only work a nobody like him could get, when all hell broke loose on a CSC barge sneaking into port. He'd never seen anything like it. Folks were yelling, diving into the water. Roughnecks quit work to have a look-see. Jimi joined them at the metal rail, glad to fit in. It was terrifying, but exciting, too. Until the barge sank amid explosions and screams. That gave him the chills.

Seconds later, the rig groaned as metal bent in ways it shouldn't. The derrick man called up that something was stuck in the mud pit. The rig boss ordered a couple of Mex divers into the water. After they jumped, blood pumped up with mud. Jimi felt sick inside. None of those divers came back.

Things like giant eels circled the derrick. One of the drillers pulled out a .38 Smith & Wesson to shoot the monsters. A creature big as a semi jumped up, flew through the goddamn air, to cut him in half with its claw, then plunged back into the water. That was a big one.

There were little ones too, writhing and snapping in the waves. One got on the rig and attacked a driller. They tangled it with chain. It looked strangled sure, but it was too late for the feller it'd bit into fleshy pieces. The dead creature gave Jimi the heebie-jeebies. The rig boss ordered him to take the thing to shore in the lifeboat. Someone would be waiting.

Jimi didn't want to go. But he had no choice. He motored off with the little monster beside him. Heat scorched his back as the oil rig exploded. Ash smudged the stars as flames shot over the water. Shrieks and gunshots and the smell of burnt meat hung on the air.

A sedan waited by the dock, accompanied by a string of police cars. Men in dark suits watched the burning rig, and no doubt Jimi, as he shipped toward them. Their mirror sunglasses reflected the hell-born fire.

But then some instinct bid Jimi to duck low and veer off. He tied up a mile away, bagged the dead thing—by then he was pretty sure it was a contraband dragon—and then lit out of Texas carrying it in his trunk.