Ghosts I was familiar and easy with, but the four imps at the other end of the table were more of a problem. It wasn’t just that they were all naked, or that their fat red bodies were as smooth and hairless as store-bought dolls, or that their noses and chins nearly touched, or that they talked so fast and so high that you couldn’t understand what they said, any more than you could understand a cricket. It was mostly their ancient faces without expression, their deep-set eyes with no pupils, and, of course, their table manners—nearly as bad as Cauter Pike’s, and he ate beef stew with a shovel out of a bowl the size of a cauldron. Because they live so long, Dragamen take their sweet time doing most things, but eating is an exception, even when the meal is past the point of struggle. Between gulps and slurps, Cauter Pike carried on his masterfully noncommittal side of the imp conversation: “Well, I declare.” “Ain’t that something.” “How about that?”
Given the miners’ bickering and the imps’ clackety-clack, Allie and I had plenty of chance to talk to each other. I asked her how she liked living down here.
“Oh, it’s ever so nice,” Allie said. “And isn’t Cauter Pike just the sweetest thing?” At that moment, the sweetest thing was retrieving a whole carrot from where it had landed, behind his ear. “He plaited this green ribbon in my hair, and he says one day he’ll take me flying, so high I can see the whole New River Valley.” During this speech, she didn’t look at me, but studied a jar of chow-chow pickle like it held her future. I took it from her hand and set it down.
“Allie,” I said, “I hate to say this, but ain’t you stretching it a bit, this housewife business? Trying to make all this out to be normal? Honey, you have been carried off to a hole in the ground by an ancient creature of myth. Your going drove the sheriff half-crazy, and your neighbors have suffered.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “So Cauter says. It’s me he really wants. He’s just taking it out on them.”
“And your poor pa has looked for you these past three months. Don’t you want to see him?”
She sighed. “Of course I’d like that,” she said, as if she was explaining something obvious to a youngun.
“Well, why don’t you? Why don’t you come back upstairs with me?”
“I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what, honey? Afraid of the sheriff catching you? Or afraid that Cauter Pike won’t let you go?”
“No,” she said. “He’s told me, many a time, I’m free to go whenever. I’m afraid I’d never be able to come back. I mean, look at this place. You’re right, it’s nice enough, but it’s sort of impossible, ain’t it?” She looked down the table at Cauter Pike and gave him a little wave; he winked. “He’s created a whole little world around me, and without me, what would happen? I’m afraid it’d be like waking up from a dream that I’d never have again—me or him, either. Do you understand?”
“I believe I do,” I said, “though I’ve never heard tell of such in all my life. Allie Harrell, you are in love with that old Dragaman.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”
“Lord have mercy,” I said, and I meant it.
That was when the racket started: Boom! Boom! Boom! One after another, each a little closer, each setting off its own wave of echoes in the cavern outside. On the mountain we’d have thought a thunderstorm, but we weren’t on the mountain. Boom! Boom! Boom! Milk and cider sloshed from the mugs, and the table hopped away from me a half inch at a time.
“We firing tonight?” asked the youngest miner.
The foreman looked through his pocket watch, and said, “No, we are not.”
“Do you suppose?” asked the skinny miner.
“Devajkodas!” said the fourth miner, crossing himself.
The imps seemed frozen, their eyes set deeper than usual. One imp finally said two understandable words in a row: “Oh, hell!”
At the next Boom! the imps bolted in four directions, each trying to wriggle headfirst into a tiny chink between logs, and succeeding. Four shiny red butts squeezed flatter and flatter, little chicken legs dangling, until pop pop pop pop, they were gone.
The miners simply vanished, though the foreman did say, “Thank you kindly for the victuals, Miss Allie,” as he went. The “Allie” sounded much farther away than the “Thank you.”
Finally, the last Boom! died away, and I barely could hear, from out front, thin, frightened sounds like a nest of baby mice. The window-box flowers were screaming.
“Hello, the house!” called a familiar voice.
I glared at Allie, knowing now why she had kept her mouth shut about that twelfth place at table, as that last awaited resident of the underworld strode through the door. Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s son-in-law, wore a red jacket and white flared pants and high shiny boots like a Charlottesville swell riding to hounds—not the usual attire for a black man in those days.
“I surely hope the dead and the damned left some stew for a workingman, for friends, I am hungry,” Wheatstraw said. “No, no, don’t get up, keep your seats, enjoy your meal,” he added, though none of us had made the slightest move. “Pearl, you oughtn’t pucker your mouth so,” he said as he straddled the bench next to me. “It ain’t becoming. Someone might come along and kiss it.”
I said something that I am now ashamed of and will not repeat.
“Such colorful language,” Wheatstraw said. “You’ve been hanging out on keelboats, I see. Oh, speaking of language, here’s a piece of advice, Pearl. When you’re this close to my in-laws’ realm, ‘Lord have mercy’ is not the thing to say.”
To speak at length of the rogue Petey Wheatstraw is to invite trouble, but I had known him for years, since I was younger than Allie Harrell, and just learning the ways of a wizard. Petey had taken an interest in me, not entirely on his father-in-law’s behalf, and had been my first companion in roaming the country, which had, of course, ended badly, and I hated him, mostly. But as I watched him put away stew and listened to him lie about what he had been doing and who he had been doing it to, I reflected that he was about the only tie I had left to my younger days, since the Chattanooga dime museum had closed and the widow Winchester had died and her California mansion had gone to tourists, and that made me regret even more that he was a scoundrel and a reprobate and impossible to live with.
“Petey,” I said.
“Peter,” he corrected me.
“Petey,” I said, “what’s that ring on your finger? It’s new, isn’t it?”
It looked like a plain iron band, almost like a washer that a sink installer might slip on his finger to keep it from getting away.
“That’s the latest innovation we’re working on at the Old Concern,” Petey said. “A wishing ring. The idea is, anyone who puts it on gets three immediate wishes granted, no questions asked.”
“What’s the catch?” I asked.
“The problem, so far, isn’t with the technology,” Petey said. “The problem is what you might call user error. Most people think that wishing is a conscious act, when the average person wishes without ceasing, every moment of her life, whether she realizes it or not. Even as she slides the ring onto her finger, in a swivet of worry about what she’ll wish for first, the ring knows that she wishes the morning twinge in her hip would go away and the baby next door would stop wailing and the dishes would wash themselves. By the time the ring passes the second knuckle it’s dumb metal, all power gone to those three accomplishments, two so trivial as to pass without notice. Too bad about the baby, though. Could you pass the cider?”
“Could I see that ring, Mr. Wheatstraw?” Allie asked.
“Certainly.”
“Why, Allie, what would you wish for, that you ain’t already got?” asked Cauter Pike, sort of wistful.
“I’d wish my father was here, to see how we live and see me happy. And I’d wish the sheriff was here, too, so I could give him a piece of my mind. And the third wish, well.” She laughed deep like a man. “A little blue spiderwort would be nice.”
“Put the ring o
n,” I told her.
Everyone looked at me.
“Who’s to say I’d get those?” Allie asked. “I might wind up with who-knows-what, like the silly people Mr. Wheatstraw talked about.”
“I think you know your own mind better than most,” I told her. “I think you should go ahead.”
“But,” Petey said.
“But what?” I said, kicking his shin under the table as hard as I could.
“Nothing!” he said, wincing. “Just a little gas attack, pay it no mind.”
The Dragaman looked worried but said nothing.
“Well,” Allie said. She held up the ring, turned it from side to side, peered through it like a peephole. “A wizard ought to know.” She laughed again. “Here goes.” She slipped on the ring.
“Allie!” cried a voice from outside.
“Allie Harrell!” cried another.
The two together said: “You!”
We all rushed to the front door—except for Cauter Pike, who whooshed up the chimney—to see Ash Harrell and Sheriff Stiles punch and claw and gouge and wrestle each other in the middle of a blue field of spiderwort that stretched as far as the eye could see.
“Stop it!” Allie cried, rushing down the steps. “Stop it, both of you!”
The sheriff was on the ground. Ash Harrell gave him one last kick and staggered into Allie’s embrace. “My girl, my girl,” he said. “I thought you were dead or ruined. Oh, my little girl.”
“I’m fine, Pa, really I am.”
Over her shoulder, Ash Harrell gaped at the sight of Petey Wheatstraw in his fine clothes. “What in the world are you?” he asked.
“You’re just having a nightmare,” Petey said.
“Where is he?” the sheriff yelled. The cavern repeated the question.
From the darkness above, the beat of wings.
“If she’s here, I know you’re here, too, you damned lizard, you coward!” The sheriff was on his feet now, fists clenched, his shouts echoing, spittle flying from his lips. “Show yourself, I say! Finish the job you started!”
The shriek that split the air from high above sent the rest of us to our knees, hands over ears, but not the sheriff. He swayed, blinked, bared his teeth in a corpse’s grin, and said, “Hah!” He flung both arms wide, stood there, ankles together, a scarecrow in a world without crows. We were jolted by another terrific shriek, and then a rush and roar like floodwaters overhead as all the bats took flight.
“Finish it!” the sheriff cried, as a thousand thousand shadows raked his taut and crooked face. In the next instant, a half acre of spiderwort behind him erupted in flame. Embers landed on his jacket sleeves and smoldered.
“No!” I screamed.
“No,” Allie whispered.
Something enormous passed over, too fast to be seen, and then Cauter Pike walked out of the flames, looming over the sheriff like a mountain, boulder-sized fists clenched, breath rasping, fire-sweat in glowing rivulets down his forehead like molten steel. His scowl was terrible to see. But still the sheriff stood there. The Dragaman had stayed his hand.
“Once again, Pearl, I am impressed,” Petey said, helping me up. “Calming a Dragaman! I wouldn’t have believed it.”
“It ain’t me that calmed this Dragaman,” I said. Allie had rushed over to hug one of Cauter Pike’s legs, which she almost could reach around. His expression softened. When he stroked her hair with his tree-trunk fingers, sparks flew.
“Is this Hell?” the sheriff asked.
“Believe me,” Petey said, “it isn’t.”
The sheriff lowered his arms, slumped his shoulders. “I knew if I saw Allie again, I’d see the Dragaman again. And then I would die.”
“Pleased to oblige,” Ash Harrell said, darting forward and snatching the sheriff’s pistol from its holster. Before anyone could move, he raised it to the sheriff’s temple and pulled the trigger. The click made the loudest echo yet.
“That won’t do, Ash Harrell,” I said. “Guns don’t work in a Dragaman’s lair.”
“Fine, then,” he said, slinging the gun into the spiderwort. “I’ll finish the job soon’s we get back.”
“No, you won’t,” Allie said.
“But Allie. After all he’s done. Why not?”
“Because if you do, you’ll never see me again. A good man stopped me from doing such a thing, three months ago, and now I’m stopping you, Pa, just the same.”
Now was Ash Harrell’s turn to slump his shoulders. He and the sheriff stood side by side, like sad brothers. “All right, Allie,” Harrell said. “Whatever you say. But what about these people the sheriff has been rounding up? Who’ll stop that?”
“Too bad she used up her wishes,” Petey said, “on a field of pretty flowers.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” I said. “It wouldn’t take. Stopping this county’s bad business has to be the sheriff’s doing.”
Sheriff Stiles gazed at Allie, who still leaned into Cauter Pike. “I’ve seen so many mountain girls get old before their time, having baby after baby, turning them out like a hay baler. I didn’t want that for you, Allie. Not for you.”
She shook her head. “When I told you no, Sheriff Stiles, I meant it. And my babies, any I have or don’t have, are my business, not yourn.”
He hung his head. “I’m sorry for what I done,” he said, “and I won’t do it no more.”
“Ooh, the sincerity,” Petey said. “How do we know he means it?”
“You can see it on his face,” I said. And sure enough, the flat and shiny parts were filling out, the mouth straightening, the ruined ear unfolding like a bloom.
“It’s a miracle,” Ash Harrell said.
“Objection,” Petey said.
I put one finger under the sheriff’s chin to lift his head for a better look. He worked his jaw and eyebrows as his features woke up. “Ouch!” he said.
“Fire don’t scar us near as bad as we scar ourselves,” I said.
The Dragaman shouted, “Applejack all around!”
While Cauter Pike tapped the barrel, Petey pinched my elbow and drew me aside. “Pearleen Sunday, I know and you know full well that particular wishing ring was burnt out and used up and didn’t half work in the first place, since it delivered unto me only a Memphis gal named Lucinda and neither of her sisters. That means bringing the sheriff and Ash Harrell and all these nasty flowers here was your doing, girl, and I would dearly like to know how you managed it.”
I laughed. “Always about you, ain’t it? You’re imagining things again, so hush.” I turned aside so he wouldn’t see me wince. The pains would worsen in the next couple of days, and I’d be laid up for a week—working displacement magic nearly ruptures something inside—but I wouldn’t give Petey the satisfaction of knowing that. And pains aside, I felt pretty good. “Hey, Petey. Look over there.”
The Dragaman wasn’t as tall as usual, for he had dropped to his knees in front of Ash Harrell. Allie stood a ways back. The sheriff sat farther back still, on the front steps, head in hands. Leathery flowers strained to touch his neck.
“I’d say he’s asking for her hand,” Petey said. “Who would have guessed he’s the old-fashioned sort? I wonder what the answer will be.”
“I think we know, and none too soon. She’ll be showing before long.”
“Showing what?” he asked.
I said nothing.
“You mean.”
He thought it over. Then he blurted, “Lord have—”
He didn’t finish, because I clapped both hands over his mouth. I felt like Christmas. Even Petey Wheatstraw was worth saving.
I am told that when the sheriff came down the mountain he went straight to the courthouse, handed in his badge, and left the county payroll, and the county, for good. The deputy who became sheriff in the special election, whose mother was a Harrell cousin, said that if any Staunton doctors wanted to cut on his neighbors, they damn well could drive down with rope and a basket and catch their own, because he and his deputies had all t
hey could do just chasing bootleggers into Bristol, and besides, the only feebleminded people that worried him were in Richmond and Washington. That was the end of roundups and sterilizations in those parts—though not in every place in Virginia, or the country, either. You can look it up.
All this happened a long time ago, but many who were alive then are with us today, and the mountains are yet full of fire and marvel, for those who care to look. Buzzard’s Rock is still miles from any place, but it’s no longer quite so lonesome. In good weather, a right many people hike up there, along a new-made path called the Appalachian Trail. The trail-head is off Highway 311, just past the Catawba Grocery, but don’t bother to look for a Buzzard’s Rock sign. The place now is called the Dragon’s Tooth, for reasons I think you know.
Don’t expect to see me up there, either. Mind you, I walk the A.T. in all weathers, whenever I take a notion, but no one sees me do it except friends of mine. In the vicinity of the Tooth, for example, I like to visit a certain old couple and find out how their boy is getting along. He’s a big one, but he gets that honest, as mountain people say; he’s also proud and brave and knows his own mind, and he gets that honest, too.
CREDITS
“Dragon’s Deep” by Cecelia Holland. Copyright © 2009 by Cecelia Holland.
“Vici” by Naomi Novik. Copyright © 2009 by Temeraire LLC.
“Bob Choi’s Last Job” by Jonathan Stroud. Copyright © 2009 by Jonathan Stroud.
“Are You Afflicted with Dragons?” by Kage Baker. Copyright © 2009 by Kage Baker.
“The Tsar’s Dragons” by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple. Copyright © 2009 by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple.
“The Dragon of Direfell” by Liz Williams. Copyright © 2009 by Liz Williams.
“Oakland Dragon Blues” by Peter S. Beagle. Copyright © 2009 by Avicenna Development Corporation.
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