“
“Sir?”
He shrugged. “You dragons can’t be controlled by the use of your name. My people can’t be, either, but that’s mostly because we don’t have names.”
Jay couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Then what do people call you?”
The stranger gave another shrug. “You can call me Abuelo, if you need to call me anything.”
“Grandfather,” Jay repeated.
It seemed like an odd choice. The stranger appeared to be in his late twenties—old enough to have a son, but hardly old enough to be a grandfather already.
“You don’t look very grandfatherly,” Jay said.
“You don’t look like much of a dragon.”
“Half the time I’m not sure what I am.”
“Ah. That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“How a dragon could burn himself.” He paused and studied Jay for a long moment before adding, “It’s not really fire, you know. You didn’t really burn yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” Jay held up his burned fingers. “Just look at . . .”
His voice trailed off because there was nothing there—the skin wasn’t even red anymore. The blisters and pain were all gone. He’d been so distracted that he’d never noticed.
“Did you—what did you do? How did you make the burns go away?”
Abuelo shook his head. “I didn’t do a thing. I didn’t have to. Dragonfire doesn’t burn like that.”
“I saw a man burned to ash,” Jay said. “I burned him to ash by breathing fire on him.”
Abuelo gave him another considering look.
“Have you ever seen a man hit by lightning?” he asked. “And I don’t mean a glancing blow. I’m talking about old-school fire-from-the-heavens lightning that can level a ponderosa pine sixty feet tall and leave nothing but ash.”
Jay shook his head.
“That’s what dragonfire can do. What it can’t do is hurt the dragon who called it up.”
“But I saw . . . I felt . . .”
“It was in your mind. You expected to burn your fingers, so you did. And you don’t breathe dragonfire, though I suppose you can call it up that way. Most people find it easier to just throw it like this.”
Abuelo flung out a fist as though he was throwing a ball. Jay wasn’t sure he actually saw a trail of light, but he certainly saw the explosive flare in the sky above them.
He turned back to the stranger.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
Jay shook his head. “No, you’re from one of the dragon clans.” He remembered something Lupita had told him and added, “Are you a feathered serpent?”
Abuelo shook his head. “I tell you, I’m nobody. Once I lived in the world you come from, but that was a long time ago.”
“What made you leave?” Jay asked.
Abuelo looked away for long enough that Jay wished he hadn’t asked the question, but then the man sighed.
“Did you ever think you could make a difference?” he asked.
Jay nodded. He had—or at least other people had thought it for him. Anna and Rosalie and Tío. Rita and Lupita. Even Maria and Señora Elena. He just wasn’t so sure he could do what they all expected of him.
“I did, too,” Abuelo said. “I thought I could make the world a better place. I thought I had all the answers. But in the end I was as bad as Cody. Everything I touched went the wrong way.”
“Cody?”
“You know the stories, how he brought death and illness and fire and who knows what else into the world.”
Jay shook his head.
“They call him Coyote in the stories.”
Jay remembered those, from Lupita.
“My mistakes weren’t ever quite on the scale of Cody’s,” Abuelo went on, “but they still caused problems. People still got hurt. Finally, I had enough and I retreated to these mountains. It’s good here. You can spend a whole day watching the sky change and nobody gets hurt.”
Jay thought about what he was planning to do, this confrontation with El Tigre.
“What kinds of things did you try to do?” he asked.
Abuelo shrugged. “Oh, the usual. Mostly it boiled down to trying to get people to stop pissing on each other. But you can’t change everybody’s way of looking at the world. You can only change things if there’s someone in charge who makes people do the right thing, but you know how it goes. The ones that want to be in charge shouldn’t be, and the people who fall into the job, or get pushed into it . . . sooner or later they get corrupted. Or screw up. Or both.”
“Crap.”
“You said it.”
“No,” Jay told him. “I mean, yeah, what you’re saying is probably true. I’m sure it’s true. But it just means I’m really screwed.”
Abuelo didn’t say anything, but his eyebrows went up in a question. Jay hesitated for a moment, then went ahead and gave Abuelo the CliffsNotes version of his story.
Abuelo seemed to be a good listener, but when the story was done and he still didn’t say anything, Jay began to wonder if he’d even been listening. Finally, the man stirred.
“So people are guilting you into doing this?” he said. “It’s not something you think should be doing?”
“Yes, no. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing. I’m just a kid.”
Abuelo smiled. “You kept saying that while you told me your story, but what does it mean?”
“That I’m too young to have to be making decisions like this.”
“You’re never too young to do the right thing,” Abuelo said.
Jay nodded, but he had to ask, “Or too old? Because here you are.”
Something flickered in the man’s eyes, but then he shrugged.
“That’s true,” he said. “So I’m probably the last person you should listen to.”
“I’m sorr y,” Jay told him. “That was rude of me. If you have any advice for me, I’d really like to hear it.”
Abuelo made another fist and tossed lightning into the sky above them once more. He turned back to Jay and gave him a thin smile.
“I suggest you should at least learn to control your fire,” he said.
“Can you show me how?”
Abuelo nodded. He came down from the rocks, landing lightly on his feet. Standing, he was a little taller than Jay. He tapped a finger on Jay’s chest, on his breastbone.
“We call this the heart of the medicine,” he said.
“You mean my qi?”
“If that’s the dragon name for it. But whatever you call it, everything comes from that place inside us. Our medicine. Our identity. Our understanding of how everything we are connects under, not only our skin, but under the skin of the world around us.”
Paupau had told Jay as much. Qi was the life force, she said. When enough of it accumulated in one place, a being was born. When it was depleted, the being died.
“But it’s hard to always remain centered in that place,” Abuelo went on. “The simple act of living is filled with too many distractions. So what I need to do is show you how to settle into the heart of your medicine whenever you need to. And at a moment’s notice.”
Without any further preamble, Abuelo ran Jay through a series of exercises that were similar to Paupau’s endless practice sessions. He had no trouble following them, but there were subtle differences. For one thing, under Abuelo’s direction Jay could physically feel his qi as it woke in his chest, the energy flowing throughout him. For another, whenever Jay had a question, Abuelo would give him the answer, if he knew it. If he didn’t, he would speculate with Jay about what the answer might logically be. There was none of Paupau’s, “This is just the way it is.” Or her enigmatic, “Someday you will understand why we do this.”
<
br /> Lupita had been just as helpful. Maybe it was a cousins thing.
“You’re a quick study,” Abuelo said as they worked. “I can feel the heart of your medicine growing stronger and more focused by the moment.”
Jay could, too. The sound of shifting scales was a constant murmur in his mind. Deep in his chest, his qi was like a red-hot stream, radiating strength as it centered him.
“My grandmother had me doing exercises like these,” he said, “only she never told me what they were for. And I sure never felt the same intensity in my qi before.”
Abuelo gave him a considering look, but all he said was, “I suppose dragons have their own methods of passing on knowledge.”
Then Abuelo showed him how to throw the fire.
“You don’t have to do it the way I do,” he said. “I just like the feeling of throwing something. With your medicine strong and centered, you can simply direct the path of the lightning with your mind.”
But Jay liked the feeling of throwing, too, and soon the sky above the plateau was like a fireworks display. The lightning Jay threw was yellow dragon gold, but Abuelo’s were all the colors of the rainbow.
It was fun, but finally, Abuelo called enough. Jay turned to him, grinning, his face flushed. The more fire he’d thrown into the sky, the stronger the flow of energy inside him had grown. His qi. The heart of his medicine. He felt as though he could have kept this up all night and not even begin to be tired.
“So can all of the cousins do this?” Jay asked.
Abuelo shook his head. “It has to be in your nature. Dragons are rare creatures, Jay. Your elemental spirit embraces all the elements. Fire and water, rock and air. You could make the earth shake, call up a wind or a rainstorm, light the sky with your lightning.”
“Can I change into a dragon—you know, the way Lupita can become a jackalope?”
“You can, but it’s probably not a great idea. While you and the dragon are one, it’s still a formidable skin to wear. That big old lizard . . .” He spread his hands. “Without a lot of practice and discipline, the dragon nature can easily rise to the fore and if you don’t keep a firm grip, it doesn’t take much for it to rage out of control.”
“I understand.”
“And remember,” Abuelo went on. “Your enemy will have his own powerful medicines. So be careful when you confront him. The truth is, the only way you can be sure of a quick victory is if you ambush him.”
“I don’t want to kill him. I just want to send him away.”
“You might not have a choice.”
“People keep saying that, but we always have a choice.”
Abuelo nodded. “Just as we can all die. Or the people around us can be hurt.”
“Señora Elena says if I win this by killing El Tigre, the cousins will resent me and I’ll have to prove myself over and over.”
“She’s right,” Abuelo said. “But there are times when we have to act quickly and decisively, or we lose our chance for victory. Surprise is a great ally.”
Jay shook his head. “No, I have to do this right, or not do it at all. I can’t just sneak up behind him and kill him.”
“He would.”
“But I’m supposed to be better than him.” Jay waited a moment, then added, “You could come with me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“But—”
“Remember what I told you. However good my intentions, I always manage to screw it up. Without me at your side, you have a chance of things working out.”
“But you’re already involved. You helped me figure out the dragonfire.”
“I did.”
“So why help me that much?”
Abuelo shrugged. “You want to make a difference and maybe you won’t screw it up. I’ve been away from the world long enough to think it might be possible. But not if I come with you.”
“I’m still going to do this.”
“I know you are. Many people are counting on you.”
“I guess. But I’m doing this for me, too. I think I really do love the desert and the barrio and I want the people who live there to be safe under my protection. I could do this. I have to know I can do this.”
Abuelo grinned. “Good for you. You’ve already learned the biggest lesson this situation could teach you.”
Jay shook his head. Did people never stop with saying that kind of thing? But he couldn’t help asking, “Any last advice?”
“Don’t get too cocky. El Tigre hasn’t survived as long as he has by being a pushover.”
“I’ll remember. And thanks for everything. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t run into you up here and—”
Abuelo held up a hand, cutting him off.
“Don’t thank me until you’ve actually succeeded,” he said. “All I might have done is send you more quickly to your death.”
- 8 -
Big fish eat small fish.
—CHINESE PROVERB
JAY HAD HOPED to see Lupita before he reached El Conquistador. But she wasn’t in el entre. He couldn’t find her when he stepped back across into the barrio, either. Both Tío’s house and Rosalie’s trailer were dark. The dogs were awake. They sat in a silent line by the fence and watched him as he walked past. He gave them a nod and continued down the dusty street. At the far end of the block, he tried calling Lupita’s name—he kept his voice low, putting as much intent as he could into it—but it didn’t make any difference.
He would have liked to have said good-bye to her. To Rosalie, too. To Rosalie and Tío and the friends he’d made through them and the band. And then there was Anna . . .
Considering how things had gone in the parking lot, he supposed they’d already said whatever good-byes they were going to, hadn’t they?
He also wished he could have called his parents, but how could he explain what he was about to do? It wasn’t just the upcoming confrontation with El Tigre and his bandas ; when Jay tied himself to the barrio and the desert, he would also be giving up everything to do with his past life. Paupau would understand, but Jay was still too upset to want to talk to her.
The desert was the one thing he couldn’t escape here, but he didn’t mind. It called forth something deeper that resonated in him as nothing ever had before.
He could almost feel the land breathing underfoot. No, not breathing so much as radiating its presence with a pulse that felt like a heartbeat. He wasn’t connected to it the way he supposed Señora Elena was, but he found himself walking in time to its slow rhythm all the same. He could understand the depth of its power, even from his place on the outside.
And although he couldn’t tap into that medicine, its rhythm laid an odd calm over him, settling the ever present rustle of scales in his head.
As he neared Camino Presidio, the early dawn light came creeping above the peaks of the mountains where, in the other world, he’d left the stranger who’d called himself Abuelo. But here he was alone, walking down the street like a character in a Western, heading for the shoot-out. All he needed was a six-gun strapped to his hip.
He called up a tiny spark of dragonfire and flicked it at a candy wrapper lying in the dirt. The wrapper vanished in a burst of flame and turned to a smudge of ash.
Jay’s lips twitched with a small, satisfied smile. He had his own built-in six-gun. He just hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
He was still a couple of blocks away from the pool hall when a dark-skinned man with glossy black hair fell into step beside him. The calm of the desert medicine kept Jay from starting at the man’s sudden appearance; the ping of recognition told Jay the stranger was some kind of cousin. He must have come from el entre.
The stranger gave him a grin.
“
Jay nodded. “
“
�
��Guadalupe?” Jay asked.
“
“
“I can dig it,” the stranger said, switching to English. “But you know . . .” He laid a closed fist against his chest. “I’m just here to tell you that los cuervos have got your back.”
For a moment Jay wondered if the cousins had their own street gangs, but then he realized that the air above them was full of crows. Cousins.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Give ’em hell,” the stranger said.
He grinned again. He lifted his arms straight up, and when he jumped, the man was gone and a crow rose to join its circling companions.
Okay, that was cool, Jay thought. And now that he was paying attention, he felt dozens of little pings. There were cousins all around him. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. The little cousins. Birds and insects and rodents. They wouldn’t be much help, but then, he didn’t want them to be. If he was going to take over Señora Elena’s responsibility for this little stretch of desert, he needed to do it on his own.
But it was comforting to have them as witness.
“We need to get going,” Rosalie said.
Ramon nodded. He and the rest of Malo Malo had spent the last couple of hours setting up their gear on the flatbed trucks. Having hung around with the band for as long as she had, Rosalie knew enough about the stage setup that she could help with the basics—lugging amps and instruments, laying down cable—but fine-tuning was beyond her. She could make no sense out of the arrays of foot pedals or the thicket of wires that went into the soundboard, so at that point she’d pick an out-of-the-way spot to sit and wait, as she did now.
She wondered what kind of a turnout they’d get for an impromptu early morning gig deep in the barrio. The band had put up notices on MySpace and Facebook, and sent the information out through Twitter and to their regular e-mail list. Malo Malo had a loyal fan base, but most people were still asleep and it was a weekday.
The Painted Boy Page 21
