I petted him on the neck, trying to keep him calm. Luckily, Whiskey wasn't interested in following the helicopter. He wanted more fruit.
"The van is down there", said Raleigh leaning on a beech trunk, "beyond the bight of the ravine. We're almost there".
When the helicopter had left we waited a few minutes to be sure, then I gave Raleigh the keys to the van.
"You go first, and open the back doors".
Raleigh nodded and ran off. I took the last fruit from the box and Whiskey tried to tear it away from me, but I hid it behind my back, bouncing it like a basketball player.
I pretended to throw it into the trees and when Whiskey turned around, I ran out of the woods, running in a zig-zag. The dragon roared out of surprise and started to chase me.
This time I didn't waste a moment turning around. I crossed over a small wooden bridge on Johnson Creek and reached the dirt road. I could hear my dragon puffing and taking up large clumps of grass as he tried to catch me.
Thirty feet ahead, Raleigh was waiting for me, next to the van. She had put the plant on the passenger seat and was urged me on.
"Come on, Jack! It's coming!"
I could feel Whiskey's hot breath on my neck now.
I held the Pitahaya tighter and leaped forward. When I got to the doors, I got up into the van with a jump and pressed myself up against the seats, holding my arm back as far as possible.
Whiskey, seeing me get in, started breaking his chase dragging his paws on the dirt road, lifting up a cloud of dust.
"Maurgh?" he grumbled, staring at me at the back of that strange metal can.
He hesitated for a few moments, then he folded his wings onto his back and ducked down to get in. First he got in with his front paws, scratching the ProMaster's plastic covering with his claws. Crawling, he came toward me occupying the whole van with his bulk. Only his tail had stayed out.
"Honey", I yelled, "hurry up!"
I wasn't in a good situation. I had the rifles's butt between my ribs and Whiskey's chest scales smushed against my face, while the dragon tried to get the Pitahaya from my hand. For a few seconds I was able to keep it away from him. Then Whiskey got tired: with both his paws he held my arm still and almost took my hand into his mouth.
"Blah, you slimed me", I said looking at my hand, now empty. Large strings of yellowish saliva dripped from between my fingers. "Again!"
I was disgusted but at least we had made it. While Whiskey was distracted eating the last fruit, Raleigh gathered the six feet of tail and put them into the van. Then she closed the doors and got into the driver's seat.
As we drove down the dirt road, I pushed Whiskey's chest back and and slid out of the corner he had stuck me in. I took the rifle off and set it next to the plant, in the front seat.
We had four very, very complicated hours in front of us. What would we do if a police officer stopped us? It would be a sight. Can you imagine it?
"Hello, sir. License and registration and...holyshitagiantdragon!"
I imagine that Driving with Giant Dragon tickets are very high, if they exist.
Whiskey, after he finished chewing the fruit, smelled the Pitahaya plant on the seat and spread his wings, making them hit the ceiling. The small space made him feisty. He pushed a muscular shoulder against one side, making the van shake. Raleigh turned the steering wheel to avoid going off road, into the ditch.
"Whoa, Jack, try to keep him still!"
"I'm doing what I can", I said petting the dragon on his snout to calm him.
Whiskey tried to open his wings again, turned his neck to look at me and grumbled moving his mouth.
"What is he doing?" Raleigh asked me. "Why is he blinking his eyes?"
"It's the Pitahaya's effect", I answered. "After euphoria comes sleepiness".
Raleigh looked at the dragon waver his head and set it on the front seat, with his eyes closed.
"Can we make it home?"
"I doubt it", I said. "It usually only lasts a few minutes. I'll have to use one of the tranquilizer darts".
In improvised plans not everything always goes well. There's always a surprise, an obstacle you can't foresee. In our case, Raleigh and I were terrorized by the idea of meeting a police officer or, even worse, run into a National Guard check point. Albert Davids wasn't one or the other. He had parked his electric service jeep at the intersection between the dirt road and Blackfoot Rail Road. Recognizable even from a distance, on the door was the Park Ranger seal (Wolf Mountain is in Caribou National Forest), a tree with the letters U and S in the middle.
"Damn it, slow down, slow down", I told Raleigh.
We stopped the van on the side of the dirt road, sixty feet from the park ranger's Jeep. Davids waved and walked toward us. I was in a panic, I really didn't know what to do. If the ranger had gotten a few feet closer, he would have surely noticed a damned giant dragon in the van. I tried to pull Whiskey's head back, to hide it, but he was still dazed, and wouldn't budge from the seat, where he was comfortable.
"I'll take care of it", Raleigh said opening the door. "Stay still".
She took her wallet from a pocket and went toward Davids shining one of her heartbreaking smiles.
"Good morning, ranger".
They met in the middle and Raleigh showed him a license. Maybe the university badge. I couldn't hear what they were saying very well. I made out a "...can't be here...national...", but they were too far to understand the rest. Davids looked at the license and knitted his brows. Meanwhile, in the van, I was desperately looking for a way to hide Whiskey. I had an idea.
The sleeping bag!.
I was really an idiot for not thinking about it before. I made way between the mountain of wings and scales to the doors in the back of the van, and moved Whiskey's tail. Underneath was our camping equipment. I grabbed my blue sleeping bag and opened it halfway, then I went back to the seats and covered Whiskey's head and part of his back. Too late.
Davids had noticed something strange. He bent his head forward a bit and squinted his eyes, looking inside the van, where I was finishing covering my dragon's shoulders.
Fuck! I hid behind the seats, with my heart in my throat. He'll see Whiskey. He'll call for help. And we'll be screwed.
I had to stop him at all costs. I stretched my arm out toward the passenger seat and got the rifle. Then, I searched around the bag and got one of the tranquilizer darts. The words "federal offense" and "life in prison" kept on running through my mind.
What's the minimum sentence for shooting a ranger? I didn't know, but at that point I didn't have many alternatives.
I took a deep breath, opened one of the back doors and got out, the rifle pointed out. I thought of shooting him in the chest ("aim for the large target", as they say in all the action movies) but my arm was shaking so much that if the ranger had been just a yard away, I would have probably missed him. Or I would have shot him in the nuts.
When I turned the corner, however, Davids had his back to me. He was going back to the Jeep.
Shiiiiiiit. I took in a huge breath and leaned on the door, my forehead bathed in sweat. Somehow, Raleigh had distracted him. Wonderful girl. I swear, I was so close to crapping my pants. I got back in the van and seeing the gun she gave me a perplexed look.
"Plan B", I said, without adding anything else.
"Uh-huh, okay", she commented. "Great idea, the sleeping bag, he didn't see anything".
She started up the van again and went toward the intersection. Davids was getting in his Jeep. He turned to look at us and then our van went into a pothole. A piece of the sleeping bag moved and Whiskey raised his head, half asleep, with part of his snout still hidden. Davids had just opened his car door. He widened his eyes and froze.
"Oh, no. He saw us", Raleigh sighed. "Hold on!"
Without thinking twice, she pressed down on the accelerator and with a squeal of tires slammed against the Jeep.
"Raleigh, what...wait!"
The front of our Ram ProMaster hit the Jeep on the front right h
eadlight. The crash made my teeth chatter. With no seat belt, I was catapulted forward against the windshield, but at the last moment I was able to grab onto Whiskey's neck. For an endless moment, the van almost fell over on itself, then it landed back on all four tires. Raleigh got control of the wheel again and reached the paved road.
"Everything okay back there? Jack?"
"Mmmmph", I moaned.
My head was stuck between the seats and I couldn't understand where up or down was. After a series of efforts, I got up all red faced, while Whiskey was getting restless again. I looked beyond the doors' windows. At the intersection, the poor ranger's Jeep had ended up in the ditch and had flipped over.
"Damn that pothole", I mumbled. "We had almost made it".
AT 11:34 A.M. WE OFFICIALLY became wanted. We had gotten to the first houses in Mountain Home when the radio said that the Caribou County authorities were looking for two individuals, a female and a male, onboard a white Ram ProMaster. They didn't have our names only because Raleigh had showed Davids her fake I.D. (the one she used to get into bars when she was a freshman). For the moment, everyone was looking for a certain Rihanna Perry from Caldwell, but it was just a matter of time before they discovered our true identities.
I ran my fingers through my hair. "We're fucked", I mumbled.
"Not yet", Raleigh answered. "There's always plan B. Let's bring the Pitahaya to the university. If I can convince dean Harris, they can't kill Whiskey".
What she didn't say, but was implied, was the fact that the university would keep my dragon.
"That's out of the question", I said. "I saw Abrams and Langley's looks, when they came to my store. I wouldn't trust them with a boiled egg".
Raleigh tightened her jaw.
"Okay, Jack. Do you have a better idea?"
No. I actually didn't. I sat in the back of the van, resting my back against one of Whiskey's legs. After I had injected him with a sedative (three doses, to tell you the truth), the dragon was sleeping curled up on himself. He was snoring, bringing up his abdomen with each breath. I petted the star shaped scar on this neck.
What can I do to save you, buddy?
Run away again? It didn't make much sense. It's not like you can run around the United States with a giant dragon and hope no one notices. Raleigh's plan B seemed like the only hope. But before that, we had to get to Boise safely, avoiding being stopped by the police. Before getting across Mountain Home, I told Raleigh to go into the city.
"If we split up", I said, "we'll have a better chance".
I guided her through Mountain's roads up to Legacy Park, where my parents' house was. My mom and dad weren't home, but my mom's Tesla was in the driveway.
"Where are your parents?" Raleigh asked me as we went in with the spare keys.
"It's Sunday", I pondered, "They could be at my aunt and uncle's in Kuna, for lunch".
I found the Tesla's keys in a drawer in the living room and gave them to Raleigh.
"Go on ahead. In case of road blocks, send me a message".
She took the Pitahaya and ran to the car, then she came back and kissed me.
"We can do it, Jack", she said to me. "You try to make up some time".
"Okay", I answered.
I got back in the van and waited a few minutes before leaving. In the meanwhile, I called Jean at Wild Dragons and told him to go to my uncle's farm.
"That idiot of a sheriff was just here", said LeBon. "He filled me with questions. "Where's Jeq? Where's his van?". What happened? Are you in trouble, Jeq?"
"Um...more or less. The police are searching for us".
"Oh, Mustang trouble then".
"...and I have Whiskey here sleeping cuddled up in the van. He's twenty-six feet long, now".
On the screen LeBon's mustache trembled.
"Mon dieu! D'accord, I'll go over right now. See you there!"
He closed the call and I started up the ProMaster. The thirty miles that separate Mountain Home from Boise go through a dry steppe, a flat expanse of yellowish underbrush and small shrubs, so flat you have the impression, on sunny days without many clouds, that the sky is a blue table glued to the earth. U.S. Highway 26 doesn't waste time in curves or turns, it travels straight between the two cities, and that's why it's pretty easy to see if there's a road block ahead. You notice the stopped traffic right away. If it's not an accident, it's surely a check point. That morning, however, Raleigh's message reached me sooner than the traffic.
At the border between Elmore and Ada counties, the police had placed two cars and an SUV in the middle of the road, and were checking vehicles one by one. Seeing as they were looking for a guy and girl on a van, they hadn't paid attention to her, but it was clear I wouldn't have been able to pass.
That wasn't my plan anyway.
Therefore, halfway down the road I left U.S. 26 and took one of the many roads that cut through the Ghost Farmland between Boise and Kuna.
Before the Drought, that area housed dozens and dozens of farms, ranches, corn fields stripped from the brown and hard earth of the steppe thanks to gigantic circular irrigators.
It took me a while to reach my uncle's farm. Now that almost all the houses and farms were abandoned, a labyrinth of horribly kept roads crossed the steppe, and I didn't know them very well (usually, I came from the north, turning before getting into Kuna). Once in a while, I had to go back to avoid a burnt car carcass, or an old tree that had fallen on the road from the banks of a dusty ditch.
Even so, when I got to the pebble driveway at the farm, Jean hadn't arrived yet. I brought the van to the garden in the back and opened the doors. Whiskey was still sleeping, but it wouldn't be long before he woke up. An hour, maybe less. I went back to the iron gate and looked down the road. Three electricity poles, fifty yards apart from one another, lay on the Johnsons' land, with the cables tangled in the sand. I hadn't noticed, the last time I was there. But on the other hand, electricity is the last of problems in the Ghost Farmland.
All I have to do is wait, I thought walking back and forth.
I put my hands in my pocket and took them out again, biting my bottom lip. Then I went back to looking at the road with my right hand on my forehead, to shade myself from the sunlight.
Everything depended on who would find us first. The sheriff, the National Guard, or Raleigh.
After about ten minutes a small cloud of dust appeared on the horizon. A car was getting closer at high speed. They noticed one of the electricity poles too late, which was laying on three feet of asphalt. The car swerved right and left, almost hitting the Johnsons' mailbox. Even fifty yards away I could hear the loud music: the Star Wars Imperial March. The car was my old Tesla D, Jean LeBon was at the wheel.
Crazy French man. I slapped a hand onto my face.
Jean didn't even see me. He turned without slowing down close to the gate and came onto the driveway almost flipping the car over.
He slammed on the brakes just a yard from the house's front door and got out running.
"Jeq! Jeq!" he called.
He heard my footsteps behind him and turned around.
"Oh, there you are. I hope I'm in time".
"How come it took you so long?" I asked reaching him on the doorstep.
LeBon smiled under his mustache.
"I had to call the Cavalry. It took me a while".
He opened the doors of Tesla and out from the car flew half of my Mustangs: Lutezia, Ursus, Drakkar, Nahar and lastly Deirdre, who immediately landed on my right shoulder, grabbing it with her powerful claws. The other four dragons flew around the roof of the house as if they were in reconnaissance, then they came down near us. Lutezia landed on the gutter above the door, the three males, to show respect for the two females, flew down to the ground. The space in front of the house filled with their hisses.
"Damn it, Jean. We have to hide Whiskey, not declare war on North Korea".
LeBon took two large canvas bags full of supplies from the trunk.
"Would you have prefer
red I come alone?" He asked me.
I looked at Deirdre latched onto my shoulder.
"No, not really".
I helped him with one of the bags and my arm almost fell off.
"Ooof, what did you put in here?"
"I brought water too", LeBon explained. "It's hard to hide if you die of thirst".
I couldn't blame him. We went into the house, followed by the dragons. After putting the supplies on the walnut table in the kitchen I brought him to the backyard. When Jean saw how big Whiskey was, he almost fainted.
"How did he get so big? And how are we going to hide him?"
I shook my head, while the Mustangs climbed onto the van and smelled Whiskey.
"I don't know and...I don't know".
I explained Raleigh's plan to him. For the moment, we only had to keep Whiskey safe while she discovered what the Pitahaya's miraculous growth secret was.
Nobody kills a dragon with golden eggs, my girlfriend had said. I agreed with her, even if I continued to think that a guinea pig life is an insult to the dignity of any living being(included guinea pigs themselves). Sure, I didn't want the National Guard to kill my dragon, but I didn't want him to spend the rest of his life in a laboratory, either, with an electrode stuck up his butt, or worse. I was stuck in a damned dilemma.
I thought going to my uncle's farm would earn us some time, so that I could think of a way to solve this mess. But I didn't have time. I didn't even have a minute.
Thirty seconds after picking up the sleeping bag to show Whiskey to Jean, we heard two cars stop in front of the gate.
Raleigh? Is she here already? I thought full of hope, but when Jean and I came out of the main door, on the road was a sheriff car and a red pick-up. Ertz, another police officer and two men in camouflage, armed with hunting rifles, were waiting for us at the gate.
"Merde", mumbled Jean.
"Yup, very merde. They found us too early".
I put a hand on LeBon's shoulder and smiled, trying to keep calm.
"Pretend nothing's going on", I said walking toward the four men, "maybe Ertz just wants to break my balls".
But Ertz didn't want to break my balls. His mental radar, the one he loved talking about all the time ("you're in my radar, Ports", remember?) had been blinking all morning as if a new Desert Storm had begun.
The Dragon Seller: A Tale of Love and Dragons Page 22
