by Troy Howell
I was right after all. I could have claimed it myself, had I wanted to. Just like Mollie Kathleen.
• • •
So there I sat thirty-five thousand feet up with a guy next to me asking what I thought of the season so far, and I said I liked everything turning red. He said you mean the players, and I said no the trees. He said you mean the tall guys, and I said it didn’t matter how tall they were and that I’d never heard trees called guys. He said he’d never heard guys called trees.
After that, he watched his TV and I looked out my window.
Somewhere over Kansas I thought, We’re above the fruited plains, like in the song. But they looked unfruited to me. I guessed it was the time of year. I got sleepy and pulled my sweatshirt out to ball up for a pillow. It smelled like Ye’s lair, but I’d removed most of the muck. I’d hardly had time to wash up. While Dad had been waiting for Chief Huffman to show and Rex was arranging my flight (though the big-name show folks ended up paying for it), I’d gone into a restroom. My cleanup wasn’t complete, but at least I had a change of clothes.
I didn’t sleep much. I saw images on the TV through my lashes. It was a half sleep, where you’re aware of your surroundings while your mind drifts like a cloud. I finally gave up and put my earphones on. I scanned the channels, looking for news of Cripple Creek. I found a Man-on-the-Street program, and the microphone man was saying, “We’re here in the heart of gold mining country, with Pikes Peak over my left shoulder. The smoke? That’s not from the reluctant dragon holed up in the Mollie Kathleen—it’s from the tourist train that circles Cripple Creek. You there, miss, what do you think of the new gold rush?”
“We should give the gold to the Indians,” said the woman on the street. “This was once their land.”
The microphone man quickly turned to a boy. “You, what’s your name?”
“Moth.”
“Moss?”
“Moth.”
“OK, Moth, what’s your opinion of this dragon affair?”
“I think he should go free. He might find another dragon somewhere in the world to marry, then we’d have more dragons.”
“Very good! And you, sir?”
“No scaly reptilian’s gonna smoke us outta here! I say slay the beast and put an end to this nonsense! Bury him along with his gold! We don’t need no more billionaires! The rich are gettin’ richer ’cause they can afford to! Where does that leave us plain and simple folks?”
Some moron said they should catch the dragon and put it in a zoo to educate people, to not be stingy, share an original with the rest of the world, that it may even be a long lost dinosaur, for all we know, like in Jurassic Park. A skateboarder said, “Extreme dragon sports. You get a guy or a girl, put ’em on a motorbike, give ’em a lance, and have a go at the dragon—dragon jousting.”
On and on it went.
Most people said it was all a crazy rumor. The gold may be real, but the dragon wasn’t. It was made up to scare folks away.
I took off the headphones, looked out the window, and dreamed of Ye.
In the middle of my reverie, as the plane turned and the sunlight shifted, something sparkled near my arm. It sparkled faint and fine, like dancing motes. It sparkled on my sweatshirt, near the cuff.
My reverie fell into woe.
I knew what it was.
GOLD DUST.
Despite the sun, despite the metallic magic, my face went cold, my heart became wax.
I slowly unrolled my cuff. I held out my hand. Gold dust flowed out like sand. It was less than a thimble full, but enough to tell me what I did not wish to know.
Ye had bled after he’d washed out his wound.
That some of it ended up on me was not a surprise. I had stayed as close to him as I could in the tunnels and in the woods.
I stared at the glittering patch until it faded. The sunlight had gone. I closed my hand.
The blow Ye had taken when he first rose in flight—had it done him more harm? Could he fly like that, with a hole in his side and a hole in his wing? Would he helplessly fall, to land in some cornfield or on a hilltop or city street?
Had he done so already?
The image that darkened in my mind was strange—both precious and chilling. I saw the wound spilling blood, turning to gold as he flew, like it had done in the mountain stream. The flight trail of a dragon. I saw it falling in slow motion, golden on the wind. Some child playing in her yard would thrust out her hand and say, “It’s raining gold!”
I closed my eyes, slamming the scene shut like a book, and opened them again to keep from picturing it. I peered out the window, my mind on the edge of a moan.
The plains below had not changed, a study in agricultural geometry broken by patterns of clouds, and the shadow of the jet explored the cloudy hills and hollows.
• • •
When the flight attendants passed snacks around, I took the small foil bag of nuts, emptied it out, wiped the inside clean with my napkin, and put the gold dust carefully in. My next-seat neighbor was too occupied watching a sports channel to notice. I rolled the bag up and placed it in my shirt pocket.
That’s when it occurred to me. The security check. The gold dust, pure dragon gold, had triggered the detectors.
I took out my journal and opened to a blank page.
As I had done with the word Mom long ago, I wrote the word Ye, in the center of the sheet, and followed it with a question mark. Then I turned the Y into wings, and the e into the body and tail of a dragon, and turned the question mark into smoke.
Hope is a risky thing. It might be dashed to pieces on something—like rocks and reality. But I had to have hope. I hoped Ye would heal and live another hundred years or more, curled contentedly in a cave or on some lofty ledge of the world. I made myself think that. Picturing him strong and mysterious, lifting his wings …
I looked out the window again and saw something odd.
The jet had two shadows, one up close, skimming the clouds, the other far below, smaller, fainter. Now, what would be the cause of that?
Leaning forward, I pressed my face to the glass. A chill of excitement ran through me, the kind I got whenever my horse, Angel, flew on the wind.
Ye!
Shadow to shadow, both pairs of wings spread wide—one riveted and rigid, one willowy and veined—a jet and a dragon soared eastward. A twenty-first-century flying machine and an ancient world wonder, each passing each in a snapshot of time. Ye was no match for the jet, nor did he intend to be—he was following nature’s course.
It was incredible.
I glanced around the cabin: Every passenger was involved in gadgets, books, naps, TV. My TV showed a map tracking our location, and I looked back out.
Through a momentary rift in the clouds, Ye flew, in royal living color, across the snaky brown Missouri, and I knew we weren’t in Kansas anymore.
MY STORY ENDS NICELY THERE.
But, truth to tell, it’s not a fantasy, and I must tell all.
I watched Ye with burning eyes and a burning heart, before he slipped back into the clouds. I did not see him again.
The flight continued without incident, except that my seat neighbor, who’d earlier asked me about “the season,” turned and asked, “So … have you been to any of their games, or are you just a couch fan?”
We were touching down on the runway. I gave him the kind of look you’d give a baboon and said nothing. There was a serious disconnect going on. It wasn’t until the airline attendant who met me at the ramp, said, “There’s our Denver Nuggets girl!” that I understood the misunderstanding.
My hat.
Ms. Morro spotted us, showed her ID to the attendant, and we were on our way.
“How’s Mom?” was the first thing I said.
“Oh, Katlin! Haven’t you heard?”
My soul sank.
“The home’s under a malpractice suit due to patient neglect. I don’t think your mom’s going to make it.”
“THIS IS SAY-SO, AND I’
M MIRANDA BATES. My guest today is Katlin Graham, a name synonymous with gold and dragons and the new Wild West. Hello, Katlin.”
“You can call me Kat.”
“Kat, you’re quite a celebrity now. You’ve been on two major talk shows, your story’s been told around the world, we’ve seen the video clips. The gold rush phenomenon’s upon us—”
“Pandemonium’s more like it.”
“—gold is at an all-time thirteen hundred an ounce. Lawsuits and the crime rates have spiked. The economy’s been redesigned. All this because a girl fell down a mining shaft and appeared with a nugget of gold. Tell us, Kat, just how much gold did you find?”
“Not much. About this size.”
“Kat, the listening audience can’t see your hand.”
“Sorry. Bigger than my fist.”
“That’s quite a big nugget.”
“I suppose.”
“Where is it now?”
“I put it back. Who knows who has it is now.”
“You put it back. Don’t you wish you’d kept it?”
“Never.”
“Is it the greed thing, as we’ve been told?”
“It’s the greed thing.”
“Help me understand this. Now that they’ve found more gold, lots more, estimated to be worth billions, a fist-size amount is nothing.”
“Still, I would have put it back.”
“You know, with all due respect, that’s either excessively moral of you, or crazy.”
“So—take your pick.”
“Don’t most girls have a wish list, things you’d like to buy?”
“Two things are on my wish list. They can’t be bought.”
“Give us a hint.”
“My mom is one.”
“And the other?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“We’ve heard you mention a dragon.”
“So?”
“Tell us about it.”
“Him.”
“Tell us about him. Is he magical, like Puff?”
“He’s not a cartoon. He’s not a fairy tale. He’s not cute.”
“What is he?”
“Gone.”
“That’s convenient. What was he then?”
“Mystifying.”
“Anything else?”
“He’s the last one.”
“Would you describe him for me?”
“I might as well describe daybreak.”
“Was he frightening?”
“He was beautiful. Beautiful colors, beautiful eyes, beautiful heart …”
“You mean he was a civilized dragon?”
“More civil than civilized. More civil than most of us.”
“Tell me, Kat, be honest—isn’t this just a publicity stunt, like some people have accused?”
“Why did you ask me about him then? Just so you could say that?”
“I thought I’d give you a chance to deny it. I mean, do you really expect us to believe all this?”
“No, I don’t. We believe whatever we choose. We believe in things that are not true, and don’t believe in things that are.”
“Give me an example.”
“Fame. Fortune. We believe they bring happiness.”
“Well, they help, don’t they?”
“You can be poor and unknown and happy. You can be rich and famous and unhappy.”
“All right, what brings happiness then?”
“Having an honest heart.”
“An honest heart. That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Let’s see what our callers have to say. To the phones. Here’s Yusri, from Jersey City.”
“Hi, Miranda. Yusri Rab of Rab and Associates. Just wanted to make a few comments about the stock market, if I may, particularly gold.”
“We’re here to have dialogue with Kat Graham, but since it’s related, go ahead.”
“I’ll be brief. Contrary to public opinion, the reason the gold market’s good is not due to all the gold that was found, but the rising popularity of gold jewelry. Now’s the time to sell your class ring or teeth or what have you, while gold’s going up. It’s a seller’s market.”
“OK, Mr. Rab, you must be a broker, or a jeweler. But it’s my understanding that investors diverted their monies into the gold, and virtually all but gold has plunged. Kat, any thoughts?”
“No thanks.”
“And to give Kat due credit, I believe it was her discovery that started the gold trend in the first place. Now we go to Lee, in Sacramento.”
“Hi …”
“Go ahead, please.”
“Hi … Kat? I’ve followed your story since those two witnesses said they saw some fantastic creature flying above Pikes Peak—”
“Really?”
“They shot a picture with their cell phone. It’s on the Web. It’s kind of blurry—”
“So, Lee, what’s your question?”
“What I’d like to know is, what direction was he headed?”
“Um … far, far away.”
“All right, Lee?”
“Hey, wait—”
“Next caller. Thomas, here in Washington, D.C.”
“Yeah. What the”—beep—“so special about dragons? Dragon movies, dragon games, dragon books! All this dragon”—beep—“it’s all about the mighty buck! People are makin’ tons of money off any idiot who’ll dig in his pocket—”
“Care to respond, Kat?”
“I agree. If you’re talking about the fantasy media-greedia.”
“Yeah, but that’s just what you’re—”
“All right, Thomas, you’ve had your say. We go now to Boston. Rebecca?”
“Hi. How are you?”
“I’m good. Go ahead.”
“Hi, Calamity? You are my hero. Even if your story’s made-up, the gift of make-believe we lose too early in life, if we ever had it at all. I think girls should dream big, and you’ve captured the yearnings a lot of us have. Imagine! A dragon at the bottom of a gold mine! That’s genius!”
“Your question, Rebecca?”
“I don’t have one. I just wanted to say—”
“Thank you. We’ll take the next call. April, from New York.”
“No, Manhattan—in Kansas.”
“There’s a Manhattan in Kansas?”
“Sure is. Right off the main drag to the Rockies. You should see all the traffic going west.”
“What’s your question?”
“Since you hung up on the last caller who didn’t have a question, I’ll put it this way. Kat, do you realize you’ve championed honesty by returning the gold?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“That was an act of anti-greed. We need more people like you. Hats off to you, girl.”
“OK, April. On to a caller who’s even closer to the action: Colorado Springs. Your name, please?”
“Hello, Kathleen, remember me?”
“Katlin.”
“Of course. Genius is doubtful, but you are pretty clever. I understand you denied starting the fire.”
“That’s true.”
“You deny it?”
“Yes.”
“Five witnesses say otherwise.”
“Caller, your name please?”
“So, you lied about that.”
“Caller, your name.”
“I know her name. She calls herself a journalist, but she doesn’t know Yeats from yodeling, snip from sesquipedality.”
“I know true from false, Katlin Graham. If you lied about that, you could lie about other things.”
“What about the fire, Kat?”
“I—”
“It occurred the morning that Kat’s family skipped town.”
“Is that so. How does that relate?”
“It fits, doesn’t it? You cause trouble, people get hurt, you leave before anyone can catch you.”
“Caller, you’d have more credibility if you gave us your name.”
“R
ose Robbins, KOLT-TV.”
“OK, that certainly helps. What do you say to that, Kat?”
“She can think what she likes. That doesn’t make it—”
“I do think what I like. Here’s what I think. Somehow you knew about the mine’s back entrance. You and Havick were in this together—he’s notorious for shadow work. You paid him in gold nuggets, a paltry amount compared to what you have hidden somewhere. Yes, I know about the nuggets—I can dig, too. When things didn’t go right, you had to fabricate something to cover your tracks. So you made other tracks. Dragon tracks. Anyone can do that kind of thing—I did when I was a kid, in the mud. You started a fire because, duh, dragons breathe fire.”
“Those are some valid points, Rose. Anything else?”
“As to the gold, I’ll bet her family’s got a new life—new car, new clothes—”
“Yeah, we’re filthy rich.”
“Really, Kat?”
“Not.”
“—new rock for Mom’s hand—”
“OK, Rose, we get it.”
“—or maybe an all-new mom.”
“How dare you!”
“Kat, the headsets.”
“Mom’s on her wish list, right?”
“Kat … Kat … it’s OK. We’ll take our next caller. Judd, from Austin.”
“I don’t understand why this girl’s getting so much attention for being irresponsible. She doesn’t belong on your show. She’s a poor example to other kids. She’s a common thief. She’s—”
“Let her respond.”
“No, he’s right. I shouldn’t have let my curiosity get the better of me. I broke through a barrier. Life is like that: You break through barriers, you suffer the consequences.”
“Satisfied, Judd?”
“Suffer? What kind of suffering has she done? She gets all this glory—”
“We have time for one more call. Robin, in Rockbridge, Virginia, you’re on.”
