Dragon Frontier

by Dan Abnett

  ‘He won’t do it again,’ said Jake. ‘They won’t let him, and, besides, he dropped his guns.’

  Whether Trapper had heard them talking or whether he was coming around naturally, the old man groaned and rolled over. Eliza jumped slightly, but she relaxed again when she realized that he wasn’t quite ready to wake up, after all.

  The fold of skin that covered the opening of the teepee had been dropped into place after they had entered. Jake pulled it back to look outside.

  ‘What are they doing?’ asked Eliza.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jake.

  Yellow Cloud, Bear Paw and the other rider were standing in a little group too far away for Jake to be able to hear them, and, even if he could, he wouldn’t have been able to understand the language.

  Beyond them, Yellow Cloud’s dragon was back in the corral, being fed fish from a large basket. Jake was watching intently when something cut across his field of view. When he looked again, the dragon was rubbing necks with one of the brighter, yellower beasts. He dropped the skin back into place, deciding to stay in the teepee until someone was ready to speak to them.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Soon, the flap was drawn back, and White Thunder walked in, smiling and carrying a basket of fruit.

  ‘Hello,’ said Jake, not sure if he should acknowledge their previous meeting.

  ‘Hello,’ said White Thunder. There was silence for a moment, and then Eliza thrust her hand out at the girl.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jake. ‘White Thunder, this is Eliza.’

  ‘Are you quite well?’ asked White Thunder, looking at Eliza with concern.

  ‘Fine,’ said Eliza. ‘Just … I’m all right really. I just never flew before.’

  White Thunder laughed.

  ‘Truly, it is not natural for us to do this,’ she said. Then her forehead wrinkled and she looked serious again. ‘Eat,’ she said, putting the basket of fruit on the table. ‘I cannot stay.’

  As she turned to leave, Jake took hold of her wrist gently.

  ‘What will they do?’ he asked her.

  ‘I do not know,’ said White Thunder. ‘They must speak to Tall Elk and then Chief Half Moon. This has not happened before.’

  ‘What hasn’t happened before?’ asked Jake, as White Thunder lifted the door flap.

  She shrugged.

  ‘The Thunderbirds have not chosen a stranger before,’ she said, and then she left before Jake could ask her what she meant.

  They’d been in the teepee for half an hour, and Eliza had begun to feel very much better. They’d drunk some water and eaten some fruit, and were sitting talking quietly when Trapper Watkiss groaned and kicked and turned over. Then his head reared up between them, and Eliza yelped.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on? Where’s them Injuns?’

  ‘We’re at the settlement,’ said Eliza without thinking. Suddenly, Trapper staggered to his feet, looking around warily and checking his gun holster. He shook his belt, angry not to find a weapon there.

  ‘The Injun settlement?’ he asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eliza, ‘but you’re perfectly safe. That’s what Jake says anyway.’

  ‘What does a boy know?’ asked Trapper, turning this way and that, looking for a way out of the teepee.

  He almost tripped, dashing across the floor, and pulled back a small section of the door flap. After a moment, he thrust the flap back into place and turned again. Then he reached into his left boot. Jake watched in horror as the old man pulled a long, slender knife from his boot, a hunting knife with a bone handle.

  Trapper Watkiss held the knife in his right hand, away from his body, and turned around again to get his bearings. Jake thought he was going to hurt someone, he looked so fierce and determined.

  ‘Dangerous beggars, if you ask me,’ said Trapper. ‘You’d best stay close, if you want to get out of here alive.’

  ‘We’re not going anywhere,’ said Jake. ‘These people could help me find out what happened to my family, and you said you always wanted to find a dragon.’

  ‘Well, now I’ve found one,’ said Trapper, ‘and all I know is I need to get back to McKenzie’s Prospect and get up a posse with Mr McKenzie. We’ll run the Injuns out of here, and they can take their Thunderbirds with them.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Jake, raising his hands to show Trapper that he couldn’t hurt him, and, what’s more, he didn’t want to get hurt.

  ‘Out of my way, boy,’ said Trapper, jerking the knife in Jake’s direction. ‘You’ll follow me, if you know what’s best for you.’

  Trapper lunged for the skin of the teepee opposite the door flap and cut a long, vertical slit in it. He stuck his head out for a moment. Then he drew it back in again, holding the two sides of the slit together to keep it closed.

  ‘Horses, dead ahead,’ said Trapper, turning to Jake and Eliza. His eyes were big and glazed, and his mouth was set in a determined line. A moment later, he stepped through the slit in the teepee.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Eliza.

  ‘You stay here,’ said Jake, ‘while I go after the old fool and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble. He spent twenty years trying to find his way here, and I don’t like his chances of finding his way out again.’

  Jake disappeared through the slit after Trapper Watkiss. He squatted down close to the teepee. Then, when his eyes had adjusted to the bright sunshine, he spotted Trapper a dozen yards away behind a woodpile.

  Eliza didn’t want to stay in the teepee alone, mostly because she didn’t want to have to explain to a stranger why Trapper Watkiss had cut a slit in one of their beautiful tents. She cursed under her breath and paced up and down for a few seconds. Then she too stepped through the slit in the teepee, into bright afternoon sunlight.

  Jake was still behind the teepee. He stood and took Eliza’s arm, pointing at Trapper Watkiss, who was trying to make it to the horse corral without being noticed. Jake and Eliza made a short dash to the woodpile that Trapper had been hiding behind a few minutes before.

  ‘Mr Watkiss,’ called Jake in a harsh whisper. ‘Mr Watkiss.’ Jake called the old man a word that his mother had told him never to use. Then the two of them watched in horror.

  A young Native man was crossing from one of the teepees to the horses’ corral with a basket of grain under his arm. Trapper was only a few yards away when the Native waved at the old man. Then he looked at Trapper Watkiss again and realized that he was a stranger.

  Trapper realized that he had been spotted, and he panicked. He lunged at the young man with his knife, and the Native didn’t even have time to cry out. He dropped his basket, spilling the grain, which made a sound like heavy rain as it fell in an arcing stream to the baked earth.

  As the Native writhed on the ground in agony, blood seeping from a wound in his belly, Trapper cut the bracelet from the man’s wrist and shoved it in his pocket.

  ‘Mr Watkiss!’ Jake yelled again, horrified. ‘Mr Watkiss!’

  Trapper Watkiss was already running when Jake cried out. He turned at the sound of his name, veering off course and stumbling.

  Before he knew it, Trapper Watkiss was half-running and half-staggering right into a cauldron of the sticky tree sap they called pitch. It had been set over a firepit and was draining off into a deep dish to one side.

  In his haste, Trapper Watkiss kicked over the dish, and the pitch began to spill out in an oozing, tarry stream. The Native woman who had collected the new baskets, ready for them to be lined with pitch to make them waterproof, dropped her load. She brought her hands up to her face and shrieked as two or three of her baskets fell into the fire and caug
ht alight. As Trapper cleared the area and ran on, fire began to spread from the smouldering baskets to the pitch. The flammable liquid burned fast and easily, and the flames were soon shoulder-high.

  The horses in their corral began to neigh and whinny, and Natives appeared from all over the settlement to beat the flames with blankets. Despite their efforts, the fire soon spread to the nearest teepee. The skins burned with an acrid smell, and smoke began to drift across the plateau.

  With the Natives busy fighting the fire, Jake grabbed Eliza’s hand and dashed across the settlement, towards Trapper Watkiss and the horses. First, he wanted to check on the Native that Trapper had stabbed. Jake feared that the man must be dead, but he had to be sure. He felt responsible for everything, and the idea terrified him.

  Then he heard the noise. It sent a shudder through his body and made his hands break out in a clammy sweat. His veins were filled with ice. He squeezed Eliza’s hand. He made himself keep running towards Trapper Watkiss, despite the fact that he felt like he was crawling along, his feet sinking into some sort of quicksand.

  Then the sound came again, a rumbling shriek, the tone too low for a man or even the horses, but it was still a visceral scream.

  Jake heard the splintering of planks and the thudding of fence-posts being uprooted and dropped on the dusty earth. They had been running towards the horse corral, but the sound was coming from Jake’s right, from beyond the smoking blaze of the teepee, whose skeleton was now visible as the skins had burned away almost entirely.

  The dragon, freed from the enclosure, sped towards Trapper Watkiss without seeming to touch the ground, and yet it was not flying. It was so elegantly in control of its movement that it seemed to glide effortlessly towards the old man. Then it reared, bringing its head up high, showing the magnificent claws of its forelegs and the extended length of its chest. Its head was twenty feet off the ground in this rampant position, and it loomed over Trapper. Its red eyes gleamed, and its maw was open, showing bright white teeth. Its nostrils were large and round as if it was breathing hard.

  Events unfolded before Jake’s eyes, as if in slow motion, and yet too fast for him to reach Trapper and prevent his next move.

  The dragon was defensive, but in control. It was too easy to think that it was spooked. It was not. Trapper Watkiss was another story. He had been spooked in the clearing when he’d first seen the beasts. He’d been so spooked that he’d fainted and been unconscious for hours. Trapper had been so scared that he’d tried to kill the dragons, and he’d attacked a Native. Trapper was still panicking.

  The old man’s eyes were wide with fear, and the blade in his hand winked light back and forth as it trembled in his grasp. Trapper lunged at the beast with his long knife, thrusting as hard and as fast as he could. The knife was jerked out of Trapper’s hand as the dragon pulled away, yelping in pain. Trapper had hit his target, and the knife stuck out between the talons of the dragon’s paw. The beast tossed its head and roared, and then it lowered its maw and spat a spinning ball of flames at Trapper as he turned to run.

  The dragon’s aim was true, and the ball of flames thumped into Trapper Watkiss’s back. At first, he didn’t know what had hit him. Then he smelled the back of his jacket beginning to singe and felt the penetrating heat of the flames.

  Trapper Watkiss flapped at his back with his hands, but only managed to make himself look demented. When his attempts to beat out the flames didn’t work, the old man removed his jacket. Then he half-ran and half-hopped away from the dragon, dancing down the ridge of the plateau, beyond the settlement.

  Jake and Eliza could only watch, appalled. They didn’t know how to help the old man. They didn’t know whether they could even get to him in time to help him. He was on the far side of the dragon, and there was no easy way around the creature.

  Trapper hurtled into the mists that marked the upper lip of the waterfall until he was just a ghostly figure. The roar of the water drowned out the dragon’s shriek of pain, and Trapper’s cries of panic. He ran towards the edge of the plateau, slapping at his head with both hands, trying to beat out a flame that had caught in his hair. There was a trail of clothes behind him, including a skin jacket, a kerchief and his gun-belt.

  The last Jake saw of him, the old man was staggering out of his boots to remove his breeches, which were smouldering behind. Then Trapper Watkiss was gone, swallowed by the mists.

  Jake and Eliza could do nothing more for the old man, and, besides, they had very little sympathy for his foolishness.

  The injured dragon continued to wail its low-pitched shriek and stamped the ground with its powerful back legs. Two Native handlers had been feeding the beasts when the animal had broken out. It had turned and was snapping at the other dragons in the corral, spitting small gobs of flame among them. One of the Natives ducked a ball of fire the size of his fist, but, in doing so, landed inside the dragon’s range. The dragon pawed the ground with its back feet and brought its head down to look directly at the Native sprawled on his back on the ground. The young man rose on his hands and knees, still watching the dragon, and tried to scramble backwards, out of its line of fire.

  Jake dropped Eliza’s hand and dashed over to where the man was lying. He stepped over the Native’s body, so that he had one foot on either side of the young man’s waist. He waved at the dragon, both arms above his head, drawing the creature’s attention away from the Native lying on his back, vulnerable to whatever the creature chose to do to him.

  While the dragon’s eyes fixed on Jake, the young Native managed to crawl out of the way behind the boy. The Native stood next to Eliza, and they both watched, dumbstruck, as Jake and the dragon went head to head.

  Jake hardly knew what he was doing. He only knew that he must save the Native handler from the dragon.

  He did not believe that the creature meant to do the Native or himself any harm. Without stopping to think, Jake stepped over the Native’s body and began to wave his arms over his head to get the dragon’s attention.

  His left arm felt oddly light as it swept through the air. The tattoo was warm and throbbed slightly, but waving it was no effort at all. By comparison, his right arm felt heavy, and he had to move it with a purpose, while his left had a will of its own.

  Jake did not notice that the Native had escaped from between his legs. His attention was directed only and entirely at the dragon. The dragon looked down at him from a very great height. Nevertheless, Jake locked eyes with the creature and gazed deeply into the gleaming red orbs. He longed to see in them what he had seen on the night of the fire, when he had looked deeply into that other huge eye.

  As Jake began to see light and shadows in the dragon’s eyes, the warm feeling in his left arm migrated to the rest of his body. He felt a flush in his face and chest, and he felt light and powerful. He took a deep breath and concentrated.

  The dragon shrieked another wail of pain and anguish, but all the aggression had gone out of the sound, which seemed now to be a pathetic plea.

  Holding the dragon’s stare, Jake began to walk slowly backwards. He lowered his arms to shoulder-height, his palms facing his chest, as if he was beckoning.

  Silence fell over the Native settlement. Black Feather, who had been stabbed by Trapper Watkiss, but not killed, was taken away for his wound to be dressed. The fire had been put out, but people were not bustling around to make good the damage it had caused. The Natives had stopped talking and moving around, and were simply standing, watching.

  Eliza was the only one who seemed to notice the reverent silence that had fallen over the settlement. She began to move away from the Native, but he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him. He was
watching something intently, so Eliza followed his eyes, until her gaze fell, once more, on Jake. She could not believe what she was seeing.

  As Jake stepped backwards, the dragon lowered its body until its right forepaw was resting on the ground. Its head dropped too, although its gaze was still fixed on Jake’s eyes. Keeping its left foreleg off the ground, it offered its injured paw to Jake, the knife still stuck between two of the talons.

  Eliza gasped and looked around again. The Natives were still and silent and very serious. Only days before, she had hated Jake and made a mockery of his belief in dragons. Now all she could do was watch him in pure and utter wonder.

  Jake made a soft clucking sound as he stepped towards the dragon. He stood right in front of the beast and put his left hand gently on the dragon’s foreleg. He took the handle of Trapper Watkiss’s knife in his right hand, and, swiftly and steadily, he pulled the blade out.

  The dragon lifted its head and torso off the ground, pawed at the air with its forelegs, directly over Jake’s head, and unfurled its wings. The action of its wings opening and flexing caused dust to fly up around the dragon and Jake. Jake stepped back again, slowly and deliberately. The dragon dropped down on to its forelegs, resting them on the ground in front of it, and lowered its head, as if bowing to the boy.

  Then the dragon lifted its head and turned to its fellow creatures standing in small groups in the corral. They had been still and silent since Jake had begun waving, taking their lead from the wounded creature. As he looked at them, one by one, they too dropped to the ground and lowered their heads.

  Eliza gasped again.

  Jake turned to the corral, looking from one dragon to another, and bowing his head, acknowledging their obeisance. The dragon at his side laid his head down on the ground before Jake, and Jake placed his left hand on the crown of its head.

  Everything was still for a long moment. Then Eliza and the Native standing beside her turned to see Yellow Cloud and Tall Elk striding towards Jake and the dragon.