He came closer, rifle aimed, his finger on the trigger. His palms were greasy with sweat, and a drop trickled down his forehead and burned one eye.
He got through the trees that blocked his view and found himself at the base of a towering cliff. Sharp-edged boulders lay scattered on the mountain slope below. Off to his left and around the curve of the cliff, he could just spot a sizable apron of loose gravel and fine shards of rock, very much like the mine tailings he’d seen.
Possibly, just possibly, there’d been some digging under the cliff and he was seeing the waste. It could be just another mine, and yet . . .
Possibly, just possibly, he’d found the creature’s den.
He listened for a sound, looked for a movement, but found nothing. By now it wouldn’t take much to persuade him to return with a good-size army. But even he didn’t believe what he was stalking. How would anyone else believe it?
What he needed to do, whether or not anyone believed him, was to establish if he’d actually found the creature’s den.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and palms. He knew he was broadcasting human scent like an alarm. If one little breeze passed over his body and into that den there would be no more secrets.
He edged along the base of the cliff, craning his neck to see what was around the other side.
He could see the mound of waste clearly now. It didn’t look like a natural rockslide; it had to have been put there.
A few more steps. The face of the cliff was curling inward. It could be the mouth of a cave.
He edged closer.
He’d come to the mouth of a cave. It was about ten feet wide, and about his height, not a vast opening. But it was big enough to accommodate the local dragon. Scratchings, tracks, and a furrow, perhaps cut by a long, slender tail, marked the loose soil and gravel on the floor of the entrance.
The dragon had come home.
He rested against the rough stone. What now? His mind was almost coming apart with conflict. Part of him wanted nothing more than to flee from that place in a blind panic, satisfied just to be alive. But another part of him couldn’t give up. He’d come so far, he’d come so close, he wanted that dragon.
He had to know more, see more.
His heart was pounding almost audibly, and it was only by blocking certain thoughts and images from his mind—the size of those footprints, Charlie’s scorched and mangled car, the reported size of this beast—that he could keep his hands steady. With his left hand he carefully, quietly took the flashlight from his belt then edged around the corner and started down that seemingly bottomless pit. His back to the wall, he advanced slowly, peering in every direction. He didn’t want to use the flashlight unless absolutely necessary.
The dragon has the advantage, his logical mind insisted. The dragon has the advantage.
I want him, his soul answered.
He can see in here, you can’t; he knows these tunnels, you don’t; he could corner you so easily!
I’ll be careful, he argued. The fact that he was terrified was beside the point.
The cave entrance immediately opened into a room that at first seemed limitless. From the light coming from outside, Steve could make out a domed ceiling, arcing down to the sandy floor.
There seemed to be an object on the floor in the center of the room. Steve stayed by the wall and didn’t move. His eyes still needed to adjust to the darkness. He’d give them time.
The object looked like a piece of clothing, but in the semidarkness Steve couldn’t tell. He listened, smelled, watched. Nothing. The dragon must have continued deep into the heart of the mountain. Like Jules Cryor said, these tunnels went for miles.
Without stirring from his position, he shifted the rifle to his left hand and the flashlight to his right. He aimed the light low, clicked it on, then slowly moved the beam outward across the room until it found the object.
It was cloth, perhaps a shirt.
He dared to move the light farther across the room, then around the walls, exploring the room’s limits. Except for the one object in the center of the floor, the room was empty. Directly across the room from where he stood Steve saw a tunnel. He kept his eye on that tunnel as he crossed the cave floor to take a look at the shirt or whatever it was.
Yes. Half a flannel shirt, dark with blood, torn and perforated.
He could feel queasiness setting in and his throat tightening with nausea. This shirt could have been Cliff’s, or maybe Vic Moore’s, or Charlie’s. It could have belonged to another victim no one even knew about. He dropped it and turned away. This was not the time to think about that.
He looked ahead. The tracks clearly led to the tunnel beyond. He shouldered the rifle and took the shotgun in hand. He didn’t know how far he would venture in there, maybe only far enough to gain some knowledge of the cave’s layout. He kept the flashlight beam low and made his way across the room.
The tunnel was slightly smaller than the cave entrance. The dragon’s ability to wriggle through such tight places was impressive, Steve thought. It had to be part snake, all right. It had walked across the large room, but here it appeared to have slithered. The floor of the tunnel was scraped smooth.
He looked over his shoulder, double-checking his escape route. Then he gathered his courage and ventured, step by step, down the tunnel.
It sloped downhill. He kept close to the wall and proceeded slowly, carefully.
What was that? He stopped abruptly, his heart hammering. He had heard some faint, rustling noises.
Everything was silent, and he started forward again—then almost laughed as he realized what the sound had been. It was his jacket, brushing against the wall.
Cautiously he moved deeper into the cave. The sand was still smooth as if a grader had run over it, although in several places it had been pushed aside and was piled in small berms against the cave walls. He had never been bothered by claustrophobia, but he was beginning to feel the weight of the mountain above him. Still, he pressed on.
He saw a corner up ahead. He clicked off his flashlight so that if the creature was on the other side, it wouldn’t see light flickering on the cave walls.
As Steve waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he realized that there was light coming from around the corner. Was it possible? He approached the corner slowly, feeling his way along the wall. Yeah. There was a hint of daylight coming from around the corner. Another entrance?
He pressed tightly against the wall and moved in slow, slow motion until he could peer around the corner with one eye. Now he could see light coming down through a sizable shaft. Yes, there was an opening high above, but it was a nearly impossible climb.
He looked behind him, then ahead, then moved carefully around the corner.
Surprise. The cave ended here. There was just that one shaft, which must have been cut through the rock years before, and nothing else.
No dragon.
No other way out, either, he realized. Just the main entrance. The thought slowly entered his mind; I’ve been in this situation before—
A rock fell down the shaft, rattling against the sides and then thudding into the sandy floor. Steve leapt aside, startled out of his wits, an involuntary cry escaping his throat.
Another rock, this one bigger! Then another, rattling down the shaft, clacking and thudding against the first stones that fell, kicking up a choking dust.
The shaft was breaking up! Caving in!
Or being broken up?
Now huge stones, dust, gravel, and debris were pouring through the hole above. The light was vanishing in chunks, the air filling with dust.
A trap, Steve thought. I’ve been caught in a trap.
Steve clicked on his flashlight and dashed back up the tunnel as gray, choking dust billowed like a wave behind him. He ducked to avoid a low-hanging formation, smashed his shoulder into another, but kept going, retracing his tracks.
Levi, he thought. Bait. Trap. No way out. Gotcha.
How long was this tunnel? he wo
ndered, beginning to panic. He should be back to that room by now, back to the entrance—
Then he saw a faint glimmer of daylight! He clipped the flashlight back on his belt, then lunged out of the tunnel and into the room.
But the room was no longer empty. It was nearly filled with a curled, serpentine shape—and the stench of death.
He gasped, stopped, and turned to dive back into the tunnel. Three monstrous, elongated fingers, claws glistening in the dim light, swatted him. He tumbled in the sand, then righted himself, his eyes darting about the room, his mind screaming for options. A long, tapered tail of silver armor now lay across the cave entrance. He turned toward the tunnel. A large scaly, clawed hand guarded it. He was cornered.
Stretched between the tunnel and the entrance, its scales glistening like highway reflectors in the dim light, its huge golden eyes narrow with malice, crouched a beast the size of a whale, the shape of a lizard, its neck and tail like a serpent. No camouflage now; Steve could see it clearly, every inch of it.
The dragon.
I, my wife Abigail, her sister Lois who had married Benjamin Hyde, and Ben’s young son James, all stood in grim and dreadful silence there on the bank of the Hyde River under a stark, full moon. Ben was never one to tolerate dissension in the ranks, much less in the family, and so we were assembled there at his behest, or rather, his order, to be forever convinced of his power.
With only a few muttered incantations Ben was able to produce from the river a spirit the likes of which I had never seen, nor wish ever to see again. It was a drooling, slithering thing, much like an alligator but more like a lizard of that size, displaying an uncanny level of awareness and intelligence. We were terrified, of course, and would have fled for our very lives, save for Ben’s intervention. He commanded the beast to remain crouched by the river’s edge, and it obeyed even though its yellow eyes glowered at us like lamps and its bared teeth continued to gnash, ready, I suppose, to dismember its first victim if Ben would but say the word.
From an account written in 1892 by Carson Homestead and inserted as a supplement in the diary of his wife Abigail, Benjamin Hyde’s sister-in-law, on March 9, 1915
FIFTEEN
THE DIARY
STEVE TURNED animal. He had no thoughts, no feelings, only the raging instinct for survival. He aimed the shotgun without a plan, and the blast exploded into the dragon’s chest at the base of the neck with fiery sparks, the shock rippling through the scales the length of its body with flashes of emerald and ruby. The creature lurched, its face wrinkling, as if in pain. Steve fired again. The blast ignited a violent splash of color on the flank just behind the foreleg. The clawed hand came up, palm out, and blocked the third shot, then the fourth as lead shot pelted the cave walls. Steve let out a cry of terror as the giant hand filled his vision and pummeled him into the rock wall. He struck his head against the stone and dropped to his knees, dazed.
Somehow, even as his head was spinning and his body teetering, he got off another shot that hit the dragon midway down its neck.
Suddenly the shotgun was gone. Steve was just realizing there was nothing in his hands when he saw the dragon, razor teeth bared in anger, hurl the gun across the cave where it clattered against the stone wall near the entrance and landed in the sand.
Steve slipped the 30.06 from his shoulder.
The dragon snatched it away and hurled it against the wall of the cave on the other side.
Now Steve was eye to eye with the monster and had only his sidearm. He chose not to move but remained as stone, on his knees in the sand. The dragon was looking down at him . . .
Steve could see anger, hatred in the glowing, golden eyes. This creature could think! And it seemed to be pondering what to do with him.
Steve shot a glance toward the entrance. The tail was still stationed there, ready to crush him if he tried it.
His eyes returned along the length of the dragon, from the tail to the face, recording for this last instant of his life the creature that would chew, dismember, kill, and eat him, in that order. The scales still shimmered, like light reflected off water, each one a living thing; silken wings, tightly folded, clung to the contour of the creature’s back like a second skin; the elongated neck, tightly curled in this small space, supported the head with rock-steady strength; above the golden eyes, two silvery horns swept backward from the crown of the head.
And now the dragon seemed to be smiling—no, leering—at him in mockery and derision.
In his mind he could see that half-eaten mouse back at the motel, its upper half gone. Now I’m the mouse, he thought. This is how it feels.
Still Steve did not move. Perhaps that was the only thing buying him the time, he thought.
Suddenly the dragon drew back its head, its horns scraping against the ceiling as it drew a long, hissing breath through its nostrils, expanding its rib cage. It swallowed. The neck and chest began to heave as if it might vomit.
Oh, God, no . . .
The creature looked toward the entrance and gave a quick, short puff out the side of its mouth. The fumes ignited into blue flame, a brief flash.
No . . . no! He cringed in terror.
The beast looked down at him, as if to see his reaction. Steve had tried not to react, but that was impossible. He was eye to eye with a most hideous death, an unimaginable horror.
The beast gave another puff, this one longer in duration, the flame larger. Then it took a deep breath, and a blast of blue-and-yellow-flame came straight out through its fangs and incisors, flashing and licking across the ceiling of the cave with the roar of a furnace. The creature drew another deep breath, and this time the golden eyes centered on Steve.
“No . . . NOOOOO!”
Instinctively Steve leapt, then rolled in the sand as the burning gases struck the cave wall and flared out sideways. He scrambled toward the tunnel. Another blast drove him back.
I’m being played with. I’m dead.
Now there was only darkness. The dragon was a vague shape, the glowing eyes suspended in the smoke, studying him. Then the powerful neck curled slightly to the side, and with a concentrated, prolonged flame, the dragon incinerated Steve’s rifle, blackening the barrel, charring the stock, exploding the rounds in the magazine like a string of cherry bombs while Steve dug into the sand, covering his head with his arms.
Black smoke billowed around him. Steve couldn’t breathe. He began to gag.
A blast of flame rolled at him from the right, lighting up the cave walls. He dodged it, leaping to the left. The dragon followed with a steady rotation of its head, keeping the flame inches behind him as he ran.
Then more flames, this time in front. Steve dug in, reversed direction, leapt and rolled in the sand trying to dodge the flames, but they caught his arm and set his sleeve on fire. He beat his arm against the sand to put out the flames, a searing pain flowing over his skin like molten lava. Screams were bursting from deep inside him and echoing off the cave walls like ghostly taunts, adding to his terror.
Flames roared right over his head. He hit the sand flat out. The heat was so intense he thought his body had ignited.
Then another wave of flame came from his right, flashing and rolling along the floor. Out of pure reflex, he rolled to his left and scrambled to his feet. He was blinded by the smoke. His lungs were burning.
The tunnel! It was open, not blocked! Like a frightened animal he tumbled inside, scrambling on hands and knees down the sandy floor, gasping for breath. The air was dusty and filthy, but there was no smoke, no burning vapors.
A hunted animal, Steve crawled and groped his way along the rock wall, hoping against hope for some crevice in which to hide, some place out of that thing’s reach. He kept crawling until he came to the end of the tunnel where rubble now almost filled the shaft above. Then he collapsed in pain and terror on the dusty stones. It was all over. The dragon had him.
But nothing happened.
Suddenly a faint beam of light cut through the haze and smoke.
Steve looked up and saw light coming in through the partially blocked shaft. He tried to be still and think.
There was no sound other than that of his own wheezing. So far he was still alone at the bottom of the tunnel. He looked back in the direction of the main room. There was silence and cool air and dust. Was the thing gone?
He dared not believe it. Yet he could not hear it slithering down the tunnel toward him. Well, he couldn’t stay here, he thought. The only way out was back up the tunnel. If the dragon was going to kill him, it would kill him whether he stayed here or not.
Calling on his last reserves of strength, Steve crawled around the corner toward the tunnel, then sat leaning against the wall, breathing heavily and listening. There was silence and total darkness in the tunnel. Suddenly Steve realized he still had his flashlight on his belt. With shaking fingers he unclipped it and shined it up the tunnel. It was clear. Slowly, painfully, he began to crawl up it, too exhausted to walk.
The trip back up the tunnel seemed interminable, but at last he reached the main room. He flashed the light around. It was empty. The smoke was clearing, and he could see light filtering in to the entrance of the tunnel.
The dragon was gone!
Over against the cave wall, he saw his rifle, black and smoldering, the magazine blown open and the spent shells scattered about on the sand. He crawled over to the wall, then pulled himself to his feet, his legs rubbery, and stole quietly to the entrance. Nothing but fading, reddening daylight out there.
And air. Clear, crisp, breathable air.
He emerged from the cave filthy, scorched, stinking of smoke, and trembling like a leaf. Below him, the thin, struggling trees remained undisturbed. Saddlehorse Peak was awash in the warm light of the late-afternoon sun.
He sank to his knees on the sandy shelf in front of the cave entrance then flopped onto his back to breathe for a while, to recover, to think. He had to get going before it got dark, he knew. But right now he couldn’t move.
(1995) The Oath Page 33
