The peach tree's maturity period is between August and September here in Idaho, and Tangs spend those two months feasting on their beloved peaches, but I've often been able to pick some without them protesting.
The first year, Sun Tzu discovered me taking a peach from a branch, but instead of biting me on the jugular, taking me into the desert and burying me - like one of the Mustangs would have done - he sat on my shoulder and moving his snout he invited me to take a bite of the fruit. As if he wanted to say "Come on, try it, it tastes like heaven!".
The Tangs are community oriented. I always called them "my hippies". There's no hierarchy among them: they enjoy and protect the peach tree all together.
If it's your first dragon, and if you're not a big expert on animals, these beautiful Chinese dragons are a good pick.
Whiskey
AFTER MY MEETING WITH RALEIGH I went to look for Roger and found him in the small stable, next to the infirmary. He was giving a carrot to Honey, the horse that had taken Zephyr's place.
"Don't worry about the Carb bags", I told him. "I'll bring them inside this evening. You have to give me a hand with the 'backs now, we have to check all six of them".
"Why, did you find a buyer?" Roger asked me. "Man, I liked them..."
"No, no buyer. We're loaning them to the university. For an experiment".
Roger whistled in surprise.
"Cool, mister Ports. And didn't you think of sticking Deirdre and her group in?"
"Roger, don't be silly", I answered, "then the dean would have to call the National Guard to free the college".
Laughing, we went back to the Garden. I was sure Raleigh would be back, so I spent the morning giving my Outbacks a complete check-up. We brought them into the infirmary one by one; we weighed them, measured them, and washed them real good. The Outbacks put up with all the attention with stoic patience, letting us handle them without complaining.
Contrary to popular belief, dragons don't hate water, if it's at room temperature or above. Their double stomach creates enough heat to keep them warm even during cold winter days. However, a cold water bath could compromise their digestion, causing...well...flatulence.
Therefore, if you don't want to have a dragon in your house farting above your head, it's a good idea to heat the water up a bit before bathing them.
After washing them, I had Roger brush their red-orange scales until they shined. In the meanwhile, I finished cleaning the Flight Garden. I raked dead leaves; I checked the peach flowers, since the tree was unoccupied, and I scraped the thin layer of mud that had accumulated on the bottom of the pond. The first drupes had appeared on the cherry tree, as red as kisses but still unripe. No branches appeared to be broken, burnt or nibbled on. Deirdre and the other Mustangs couldn't wait to eat their precious cherries, and that's why they hadn't dared make a mess.
One of the most fascinating aspects of dragons' behavior is their passion, different for every species, for a certain type of fruit tree. It was something I had studied in college, but that still isn't well known and not many Breeders put it into practice. Mustangs, for example, build their communities exclusively on cherry trees, and in fact that was the first tree I had planted when I bought Deirdre's egg. When my first two Outbacks arrived, on the other hand, I had to plant an orange tree, their favorite, and a peach for the Tangs.
Fortunately, Sheela lived at my house most of the time, otherwise I would have had to plant a damned Asian Persimmon as well (let's admit it, kakis are good, but how can you eat them? They're mushy! Blah).
What many people don't know is that dragons develop a real relationship with their tree. Once they settle in, they elect it as their home and it's difficult to make them move. And if the tree is torn down they don't simply move onto another tree. Instead, they wander around the spot where their house was before, all disoriented and shocked, a phenomenon I've also seen in Australian koalas. A scene that can break your heart.
This doesn't mean you can't travel with a dragon. Apartment dragons like the Pink or the Brits don't have any problems moving away from their home, as long as they stay with their owner. And even semi-domesticated dragons like Outbacks can leave their tree for more or less long periods of time (let's say one or two months, sometimes even longer). The only limit is given by orange maturity, between November and the beginning of February. During that time Outbacks don't answer the phone and don't read emails.
The only things that exist for them are oranges.
AS I WAS CLEANING the Garden I asked myself what tree Draco would like, so I remembered we had left our ball "game" unfinished. Seeing as I had to prepare the store for Raleigh's return, I went to the little dragon only in the late afternoon, when Roger had finished his shift and left me alone.
I searched around my work shirt pockets looking for the red ball and went into the Brooding Room. I had a few free minutes and I thought I would put the dragon through a test, just to get rid of my doubt.
Let's see if this little one is the genius of the group, I thought as I opened the door. I was holding the red ball in my right hand and as I entered I waved it in the air.
"Hey, little guy, look who's back!"
I stopped at the door, with my hand up. The multiple incubator was empty.
"What...crap", I murmured.
Where had my dragon gone?
I looked for him in the other incubators, and then I bent down and looked around the floor. Nothing. A flapping of wings grabbed my attention from under the portable air conditioner, an old piece of junk I used in the Room during the summer. Draco was under the metal hood, with his wings open. The right one had gotten stuck in one of the rubber wheels.
"How the hell did you get under there?"
I delicately lifted up the air conditioner's wheel and freed him. The dragon flapped his wings a couple of times and stretched his muscles, ready to jump from my hands.
"No, no, where do you think you're going?"
I grabbed him and held him tight. I stretched out my arms to put him back in the incubator, but Draco tried to free himself and scratched my fingers with his tiny claws.
"What's going on with you? You don't like it anymore?"
I brought him closer to the dome again and Draco bit me between my thumb and forefinger. He didn't want anything to do with going back in there. In the end, to keep him calm I had to pet him under the tail. He hung onto my forefinger and let out a Waaa!, as he swung upside down.
Since when does a two and a half week old dragon try to fly?
First the ball, then this. It started to worry me. Fine, he was a Primus of a new species, an unknown species, but there was the risk of re-writing all the books on dragon biology.
I decided I couldn't leave him in the Brooding Room anymore. Keeping him hanging on my finger, I brought him to the small stable next to the infirmary. When I had bought the store, five years before, instead of the stable there was the old plant and flower store's garage, where the owner loaded the truck for deliveries. I didn't need a garage, so I had transformed it into a place where I could keep large animals - like horses - during their recovery. I walked by Honey's stable with Draco still hanging and roaring. The horse lifted her head and looked at us moving her ears. Next to her stable there was a big glass cage, a square measuring six and a half feet on each side. Hung at different heights, there were two rings, three safety nets and a big perch, at five feet from the ground. I called it "Acrobatica".
The glass was dirty and the hay on the bottom was dry and gray. The last time I had used it was the previous winter, when I had put Sun Tzu in it, the younger Tang.
"I thought I would bring you here at the end of the month", I told the little dragon, "but since you don't want to stay in the incubator..."
I opened the cage door and put Draco up to one of the rings, waiting for him to leave my finger and attach himself to it. Once he took hold of the ring, Draco looked around the Acrobatica and I took my arm out.
The dragon flapped his wings a couple of ti
mes, jumped up toward the second ring, three feet high, and missed it by just a hair. Flapping his wings he landed on one of the safety nets and started roaring at the ring.
"Waaaaaa!"
He had no intention of giving up. He opened his wings again and with a jump went back to the first ring, the lower one. He rocked back and forth like a kid on a swing for a few seconds.
"Good", I murmured. "I see you're having fun".
I changed the old hay and filled the bowl with food, as he continued jumping from the nets to the rings. He tried to reach the three foot high ring another couple of times, but he just barely missed it every time. When I finished cleaning it was already past seven o' clock. I had to prepare the dragons' dinner and close the store.
"It's too late now. We'll play our game tomorrow".
Before leaving, I remembered about the ball and I threw it into the Acrobatica, making it bounce on the ground. Draco followed it around the whole cage until he got hold of it.
"Honey, keep an eye on this daredevil".
I petted the horse on her nose and left them alone. After feeding the Mustangs and the Outbacks with a whole bag of Carbplus, I called Sheela and went into the office to finish up the last documents and authorizations for my 'backs (I was really sure Raleigh would be back). At seven thirty I put the software into "Night Monitor" mode and closed the store. I couldn't wait to see Raleigh again.
THE NEXT MORNING, I told Roger I would stay at the counter and sent him to the back, something he accepted with pleasure because it allowed him to hide out in the Flight Garden and waste time with the dragons.
I sat at the counter staring at the door for hours, as still as an English royal guard, waiting for Raleigh to come back.
Weiss and Hobb? Haha! Naive, I kept on repeating to myself, perhaps far too often.
She didn't show up at nine, nor at ten. As the minutes went by, my self-confidence deflated like a balloon after a birthday party.
I started to feel like an idiot.
At eleven, to distract myself, I checked the list of manuals I kept on the bookcase, next to the rubber toys for dragons. Among the titles were famous books like "How to train your Dragon" by Davis, "One hundred tricks to raise a happy Tang" by Felicia Reel or "Dangerous Mustangs: truth or myth?" written by Lieutenant Colonel Roberts(8). I hadn't gone through them in months, because nobody ever bought them.
At noon I realized I had a seventy dollar hole in the budget because of the manuals, and I started getting angry with myself. It was my fault, I had stepped too far and now Raleigh was at Weiss & Geller's, or maybe with that cheater Xander Hobb and she was getting the Outbacks from them.
At twelve thirty I had lost all hope. The main software's timer let me know it was lunch time. In the office, in a recycled paper bag, a lousy sandwich and a soda were waiting for me.
Awesome, I thought with my morale underground.
I went around the counter and was going toward the back door when a shadow darkened the window. I turned around and that's when I saw her. I almost jumped out of excitement. My heart was beating crazily but I didn't lose control. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and took on a detached expression.
Raleigh opened the door and came in. That day she had a short sleeve t-shirt with the university logo on it (a big blue B), a pair of worn-out jeans and work boots.
"Um...hello again", she murmured.
She was pure embarrassment. She didn't dare look me in the eye and her cheeks were real pink. I didn't know it then, but she had spent the whole morning fighting with her boss, the famous Abrams. He was the one that had forced her to come back to me, because the other breeders' dragons hadn't satisfied him.
"Well, well, well, look who's back", I said with a bastard smile. "Doctor Tompson. It seems I was right: you didn't find the dragons you were looking for anywhere else".
"Mmm...no...", she said.
"Just as I imagined. Did you bring bananas?"
Raleigh shot a homicidal glance at me and I shook my head.
"I'm joking. Listen, let me excuse myself for yesterday, I was really rude". I stretched out my right hand above the counter, in a sign of peace. "Shall we start over?"
"Okay", nodded Raleigh.
We shook hands again and she almost crushed mine. I understood she bore a grudge and on the first occasion she would make me pay for it. And she did, oh yes, in a big way.
She had gotten into the Mustang spirit.
I TOOK HER INSIDE the Flight Garden and this time there were no ambushes. Raleigh shot a worried glance toward the cherry tree, but the Mustangs didn't move from the branches. That morning I had filled them well with rice and they were still digesting, immersed in a happy numbness.
"This way", I said.
I walked around the pond and reached the orange tree. The Outbacks lived in a burrow dug between the tree's roots. They don't like to sleep up high, on the branches. They prefer to stay under ground in the morning and climb onto the branches only at night, when it's cooler.
Raleigh knelt down to look into the hole and shook her head amused.
"I didn't know you were giving me some moles".
"Yeah, I was puzzled too, the first time I saw them dig. I thought it was because of the...". I moved my thumb in the Mustang's direction. "Yeah, well, the Hell's Angels over there".
"And instead?"
Raleigh was running her fingers over the claw marks on the bottom part of the bark.
"Instead it's not like that. It may seem incredible, but most of the time the two communities ignore each other. They only fight when one of them gets too close to the others' tree".
Raleigh turned to look at me.
"According to my boss, dragons alter their tree's development in subtle ways".
"It's an interesting theory. Is this what you're trying to prove?"
She nodded and got back up.
The Outbacks, hearing my voice, poked their heads out of the burrow to see what I was doing. I shook the bag with cereal snacks, and this convinced them to come out. They smelled Raleigh with curiosity, then wobbled out of the hole with their wings folded on their backs and surrounded me, their necks sticking up.
"Allow me to introduce them to you. These are Whyalla, Darwin, Gladstone, Wagga and Canberra. The strange one drooling on your boots is Longstaff".
Longstaff, the youngest 'back, had sat down on one of Raleigh's feet. I gave the doctor some snacks and we sat for a few minutes filling them up.
The dragons started rubbing on Raleigh's jeans, and wagged their tails until she gave them some more cereal. The botanist didn't look bothered at all. I had seen well, the day before. That girl wouldn't get scared working with my dragons.
"What are these pockets on the leg joints?" she asked me after a while, pointing to Longstaff.
I looked closely at the dragon. There were small pockets protecting the "knees" and "elbows", a bit darker than the fire red of the other scales. They looked like cartilage accumulations, but thicker.
"They need them to support the skeleton during flight", I explained. "It's to better absorb impacts". I ran a finger along Longstaff's stomach and by reflex he brought his head up and pushed his chest out.
"In the abdomen, under here, there's a big sac that goes from the genitals up to the throat. When dragons digest, all the methane and hydrogen they produce is stored in this sac, which makes them light and helps them fly. This is why dragons spit fire only when they're under great stress or when they're in grave danger".
"Oh, I see: they fly or they set things on fire, right?" Raleigh asked me.
"Exactly. Sometimes they get ready to spit fire, but they change their minds. So they keep the gasses in their trachea, up here", I pointed to the Outback's neck, "and in the end they have to, well...burp".
"I see", she said and smiled. "Like Sheela yesterday".
"Yup".
I felt my cheeks getting hot so I changed the subject.
"How many dragons do you need, and how long do you think you'
ll keep them?"
Raleigh stopped petting Longstaff and wiped the crumbs off her jeans.
"The university board gave us permission for a three month trial period", she said.
"Okay".
"...and we thought we'd start with three, to observe the effects".
"That's fine. We can do that. Whyalla, Darwin and Canberra are the most easy going, you shouldn't have any problems", I said. "But...I'll have to give you a hand with the move. Because they're so tied to their tree, it'll be difficult for them to settle into the environment, in the beginning".
"We thought so".
"Perfect. So, if it's all right we can go into my office to sign the documents".
She stole a glance at me.
"How did you know I would be back?"
"Oh, It was easy to foresee", I answered with great nerve.
We went toward the Flight Garden's door together.
"You know, the only time my ex tried to come in here, Deirdre set her hair on fire and tried to bite off one of her hands".
"Wow!"
"Yeah, wow, exactly", I imitated a head on fire with my hands. "But she hated dragons, you don't. And they can sense it. I knew you would be back because you love dragons and you wouldn't be able to stand working with those pricks Weiss and Hobb. They're just vendors".
Raleigh gave me an enigmatic smile and didn't say anything. In reality, as I came to know later on, Xander Hobb from "Pets and Dragons" had asked the university for an absurd amount of money, whereas Weiss & Geller didn't want to loan their dragons, they just wanted to sell them, and not even Abrams was crazy enough to adopt any dragons for an indefinite amount of time. In the end, he had forced Raleigh to come back to me. "Set your pride aside, shine your pretty smile and get us a good price", he had told her.
I, however, continue believing in my own explanation.
The Dragon Seller: A Tale of Love and Dragons Page 6
