The Oath

  Finally she heard him and stopped yanking at her horse’s reins.

  Steve reined in his horse. Now it too was getting nervous, skittish. “Tracy!” He gestured wildly. “Get back here!”

  Her horse was still fighting against her. “No! You come with me!”

  How could he get through to her? “Tracy, the dragon! It’s a trap!”

  She shouted back at him in anger, “There isn’t any dragon! Now come on!”

  No, his instincts screamed, don’t go one step farther.

  He stayed where he was and tried coaxing her more gently. “Tracy, come on now. I love you. Just come back with me.”

  “I don’t want to go back! I want out of this valley, with you.”

  He kept coaxing her. “We’ll find a way. Just come this way!”

  “You come with me,” she begged even as her horse started toward him on its own. “If you really love me.”

  I can’t. He knew it. His instincts, his heart, screamed it.

  His horse spooked, leaping backward, bucking. He held on for all he was worth.

  The meadow between him and Tracy was moving, bulging, heaving. A monstrous, tapered shaft appeared, flexing like an eel.

  Tracy’s horse whinnied and reared up on its hind legs.

  The shaft whipped violently, catching her horse under the rib cage and swatting it over on its back. Tracy disappeared in the tall meadow grass as the horse rolled, kicking and snorting, and finally righted itself. In utter panic, it ran straight downhill and disappeared into the trees.

  “TRACY!” Steve grabbed the shotgun and leapt from his horse, chambering a round.

  Tracy struggled to her feet, stunned and disoriented. The mound of rock was immediately behind her, and now it, too, was starting to move. “Steve . . .”

  Steve was aiming the shotgun. “Get down!” Where could he shoot? What part of the dragon was where?

  She remained standing, stunned and confused. The dragon’s tail rose from the grass and swatted her backward. She fell against the rocks, and the rocks came alive with waves and ripples of red and purple light.

  Suddenly Steve could see a change in her eyes, in her whole countenance. The stupor was gone. She understood, and with the awakening came the unspeakable terror of a helpless soul only inches from death. “Steve . . .” She tried to run, but as Steve watched in horror, a tree faded into three elongated, clawed fingers. The silver claws were blurred streaks as they struck her in the rib cage, spinning her, throwing her sideways to the ground.

  “No!” Steve felt her pain as he saw it happen. He dashed forward, weaving from side to side, trying to see the beast’s outline.

  No need. The mound of rocks rippled, wavered, then faded to glimmering silver scales. Expansive wings unfurled like banners against the sky. The golden eyes, silver horns, and gnarled brow rose high above the meadow on a tree-sized neck.

  Steve had his shot and took it, centering on the dragon’s snout. The creature lurched as it was hit, and the shock rippled down the neck scales like bolts of electricity.

  From somewhere, Tracy screamed his name, and then he saw her just below the dragon’s raised neck. She was crawling toward him, her shirt hanging from her ribs in bloody shreds. “Run, Steve! Run, get out of here!”

  He slammed in another round and aimed for the dragon’s head, hoping for the eyes.

  Oof! He didn’t see the tip of the tail until it struck him across the chest, knocking him several feet backward and into the brush. He quickly got back on his feet.

  Tracy was still crawling, haltingly pulling herself through the grass with one good arm, trying to get to her feet, her frightened eyes searching for Steve but not finding him.

  The huge, three-fingered hand reached down, and the claws hooked under her body and flipped her several feet into the air. She landed in the grass on her back. The clawed hands reached again.

  Steve aimed the shotgun for those wicked, golden eyes.

  The dragon raised its bony fingers in front of its face.

  The beast held Tracy Ellis. She was limp and dying, looking down at Steve with pleading in her eyes. He felt he was seeing her across hundreds of miles.

  The dragon peered around Tracy with one eye, watching for Steve’s next move. Steve moved sideways, looking for a shot. The dragon kept Tracy between them, holding her up like a shield.

  Tracy’s mouth contorted as she tried to speak, but her punctured lungs only produced a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. Blood and black fluid ran down over the scaled hand that held her.

  The dragon looked at Steve with both eyes, then at the woman in its grasp.

  In one eternal instant, the jaws closed over Tracy Ellis’s head and chest, and the teeth knifed through her body as if slicing the air, meshing together with a metallic grind.

  Steve went numb. In shock, he collapsed and fell backward to the ground but didn’t know it, didn’t feel it. His mind could not accept the unspeakable, unfathomable horror of what he was seeing.

  The dragon didn’t chew. It just swallowed the first bite, then the second, then the last, and never took its eyes off him.

  A sliver of sense returned to Steve only when Tracy was totally gone and the scales started shifting to the color of the night sky.

  “No . . .” Steve’s voice was hoarse, his throat like tight, dry leather. “No, you don’t.” It wasn’t anger that began to fill him, but raw killing instinct. “No, you don’t!”

  He could still make out the shape of the torso, a bulge in the starry tapestry behind it. He fired, and the vague shape before him flashed like fireworks.

  The golden eyes appeared to send a familiar message in their malicious glint: You’re mine now; I’ll never let you go.

  Then the head, the wings, and the serpentine, scaled body all blended with the meadow, the trees, the sky. The dragon had full advantage.

  Too shocked and horrified to think, Steve turned and ran for his horse.

  Wind from the beating of huge wings rippled the grass; the sky overhead wrinkled and wavered. Steve hit the ground as the beast passed over, then he looked up through the grass just in time to see his horse jerk skyward like a limp puppet, shake violently from side to side, and drop to earth again, the head clipped off at the shoulders.

  Steve rolled, then crawled, then scrambled for the trees farther down the hill like a small animal being chased by a hawk. He had no strategy now, no tactics, no plan; he was only running for his life. He could hear the wings beating behind him and see the meadow grass whipping in the wind as he leapt and sprinted through the brush and grass, wild with terror and adrenaline.

  The trees, the trees, the trees! He ran for their shelter. He dove under their cover and tumbled to the ground among the trunks. High above, the forest canopy groaned and snapped from a sudden impact. He got to his feet and dove through the brush and brambles, slashing and fighting his way down the hill. Behind him, limbs snapped like gunshots, trees groaned and swayed, needles and branches floated and clattered to the ground.

  It was coming after him, fighting its way into the trees.

  JACK AND AMY CARLSON weren’t able to carry out their eviction quickly enough to suit Doug Ellis. Jack had tried to stop Doug’s gang but ended up on the ground in front of the house, his jaw cracked, his mouth bleeding, and Amy holding him in terror as Doug and his men ransacked the little house, throwing furniture, clothing, and every precious possession out the front door. A dresser tumbled end for end on the rocky ground, clothing from the closet flew out the bedroom window, and the bathroom mirror shattered in the yard. The big miners, loggers, and truckers took to it with wild abandon, whooping, hollering, pillaging.

  Two doors up the street, the Malones were getting the same treatment. Kathy Malone was the first to notice the Carlsons fallen on their front lawn and came running.

  “What is it?” Amy pleaded. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know,” Kathy said. “Sam’s run up the street to call Pastor Woods. I think
we’d better get out of here.”

  EVERY TIME Reverend Ron Woods put the phone down, it rang again. Another parishioner was calling, and every voice was frightened, desperate. “What’s happening? They say I have to leave!” “They broke all my mother’s china!” “Tim’s bleeding and he can’t walk!” “The kids are scared to death, and so am I!” “They’re in my house right now!”

  “Get out of town,” he told them all. “Don’t even think about what to take with you. Just get out, now!”

  Some argued with him, but he never softened his message, for he saw no better or safer course of action. It had finally happened: Moral restraint had finally collapsed like a broken dam. There was no moral code to guide the town, no reasoning to give it light. There was only Harold Bly, unleashed and empowered to carry out in action all he had become in spirit. This you could not reason with; you could only flee before it.

  Woods’s wife Susan clutched at his arm. She was terrified. “Maybe we’d better get out of here, too.”

  “There’s no need,” he replied.

  “What do you mean there’s no need?” she asked, incredulous. “The town’s going crazy!”

  Woods didn’t have time to answer. There was a pounding at the door and voices outside.

  She was ready to panic and run. “Ron, what’ll we do?”

  He reached out and took her in his arms. “Don’t worry. It’ll be all right. Just wait here.”

  He went to the front door and swung it open. Joe Staggart, Elmer McCoy, and five other men stood outside with sidearms, rifles, and flashlights.

  Elmer, billed cap still straight and level on his head and beer ponch in full bloom, was the spokesman. “Reverend Woods, you probably know why we’re here.”

  Woods didn’t say a word. He simply looked from man to man as he unbuttoned his shirt and spread it open to reveal the blackening welt over his heart.

  They stared at it, then exchanged questioning looks with one another. A few rifle barrels wilted toward the ground.

  Elmer finally found his voice. “Uh, we just stopped by to let you know—you’d best stay inside tonight. There’s trouble in the streets.”

  “I’ll stay out of your way,” he said.

  “We’d appreciate that, Reverend.”

  They moved on.

  STEVE RAN, thrashed and beat his way down the mountain until he reached a creek. This must be Hatchet Creek, he thought, or a tributary. There was a debris jam just downstream. Sticks, dead saplings, and debris, perhaps the work of beavers, had come up against some fallen trees and created a tangled mass over the creek. By now, his presence of mind had returned enough for him to consider a hiding place. He walked into the water, slid belly-down, and headed for the debris, not splashing, only sliding, crawling, and letting the current carry him through the icy water.

  Normally he would have whooped and hollered at the first shocking contact with the icy cold water. Tonight his only thought was concealment. He could hide from sight under that debris; the downslope air currents would carry his scent into the valley and away from the dragon; the cold of the creek might obscure the heat of his body in case the dragon could sense that; and the sound of the creek might cover up his breathing.

  He dug his way into the tangle as the sticks poked and jabbed at him and several snapped in protest. Finally he got all the way under, hoping he could stay awhile and not be evicted by an angry beaver. He found a few sodden logs and crawled on top of them, getting at least his upper torso clear of the water. It was a compromise, a half-choice between being eaten by the dragon or risking hypothermia.

  He sat very still, trying to calm himself, trying to listen. He was still alive. Maybe, just maybe, he could stay that way if he only kept his head.

  So where was the dragon? What had happened? The dragon had followed him through the forest for a time, but at some moment it had stopped the pursuit, and he wasn’t sure why. He doubted the forest had stopped it. True, the trees and undergrowth were thick and tangled—he’d had trouble getting through it himself— but he’d seen how the dragon’s lithe, serpentine body could go just about anywhere and hardly leave any sign it had been there. Steve could think of two possibilities: either the dragon had taken to the air for some aerial reconnaissance or . . .

  Or it was only a few yards away, waiting for the right moment. It could tear away this little tangle of sticks with one swipe of those claws . . .

  Calm down, Steve, calm down. He had to put aside the horrible images, the stark terror, the sight of Tracy being eaten alive—

  No, no, he could never forget that. He would see it before his eyes forever. “Tracy.” He couldn’t help whimpering there in the cold and dark. “Oh, my God—no—”

  The memory of her, the horrible images of her death, now became his enemy. The more he replayed what had happened, the more he wanted to die, just crawl out in the open and get the whole thing over with.

  He shook his head, then he reached into the river and splashed water in his face. Wake up, Steve! You have to live! You have to fight and prevail! He had to stop thinking of Tracy, or he would most assuredly die of despair. He couldn’t let that happen. He had to think.

  Any weapons? Any resources? Think! The shotgun was gone; he had no recollection of dropping it. All he remembered was running.

  What if—he shuddered—the dragon had flown off to digest his meal?

  Maybe I’m out of trouble for a while . . .

  He caught himself. No. No cop-outs, Benson. No wishful thinking. Care! Remember what Levi said, Care! He had to assume the dragon was still hunting him, that the danger was not over. He’d seen the pattern: Right before Charlie died, Charlie didn’t care anymore. Maggie had been singing and carefree; so had Vic Moore. In the tavern, Harold Bly and the others were all marked, but all they did was sit there drinking beer and laughing about it. None of them cared, either.

  It was that way with Tracy, too. She hadn’t cared what she said or did . . . until it was too late.

  So you’d better care, Steve. You’d better care.

  He felt the wound over his heart. He couldn’t see it in the dark, but it felt about the same: raw to the touch, throbbing at times, burning at other times. Sometimes he didn’t feel it at all.

  I don’t feel it when I don’t care, he thought.

  Tracy’s had been dripping all over her, and she hadn’t felt a thing.

  So maybe Levi was right. Again. Maybe this mark was a matter of the heart. Levi had described this condition as being “hooked,” and that concept seemed to match what Steve had observed. Somehow—okay, maybe it was a spiritual matter—the victim became linked with the dragon just as a trout became linked with the fisherman. In the case of the fish, the hook became set in the fish’s mouth; in the case of the human, the hook, whatever it was, became set in the heart—the soul, the spirit, whatever—causing a festering sore. That being the case, you could fight like a fish and struggle all you wanted, but there really was no escape. You either killed the dragon, or he eventually reeled you in and you became his supper.

  Unless, of course, you could get the hook out of your heart. And according to Levi, who believed the dragon was sin, the solution was to get right with God. Find Jesus.

  So—what now?

  Well, whether or not the dragon’s connection was spiritual or biochemical or whatever it was, this struggle was going to have some pretty weird rules. Building or finding a fortress to fend the dragon off wouldn’t work, and neither would escaping the area. Either way, the hook being set, all the dragon had to do was wait until Steve didn’t care anymore.

  And there it was again, an incessant reminder: Care.

  He struck himself in the chest, and the wound lashed back at him with a wave of fresh pain.

  “Good,” he said. “You just keep hurting. Don’t let me forget about you.”

  He had to destroy the dragon; that was clear. But he would have to do it before he no longer cared to do it. Strategy. He had to build a strategy.

&
nbsp; If he could make it back toward the mines he’d investigated yesterday—it seemed so long ago!—perhaps he could locate the cavern Jules Cryor had mentioned, the one with the tunnels and passages that went on for miles.

  An ideal home for a dragon, one would think.

  He had a good idea where the cavern wasn’t, which would narrow his search. The last place the dragon would look for him would be in its own lair—or so he hoped. The last thing that old lizard would be expecting was a victim on the offense.

  That stoked Steve’s fires. Sure. Why be only the hunted? I’ll do some hunting myself!

  He breathed one more little prayer—boy, it could get to be a habit—and carefully wriggled out from under the debris. He looked up at the ceiling of stars stretched between the mountain ridges. The stars were clear and bright, seeming so much closer in the clean mountain air. He looked for the Big Dipper, and from there found the North Star. From that he verified the most direct route to the summit of Saddlehorse.

  But . . . hey, what was this?

  Now here was luck. Over on the west side of the starry canopy, the stars were jiggling to one side in sequence as if an unseen object were giving each a little nudge as it passed by. Steve kept watching, training his eyes as the phenomenon continued. He could imagine the sky as a star-patterned blanket with a small animal crawling under it, creating a hump that moved along under the stars, making them rise and then subside. Incredible!

  Soon he was able to discern the dragon’s flying shape, like a huge circling buzzard, high above the draw, gliding, circling, following the ridge on one side and then the ridge on the other.

  Reconnaissance, no doubt. Wide sweeps.

  He had to smile. That thing had lost him and didn’t know his intentions.

  Well! I’m one up on him! Now if I can just keep it that way . . .

  DOUG ELLIS strode over to Elmer McCoy’s big flatbed truck and yanked the driver’s door open; Kyle Figgin, passionately embracing Carlotta Nelson, almost fell out. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re supposed to be watching this roadblock!”