Dragon Frontier

  Mrs Garret couldn’t bear to listen to Jake’s delirium any more. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him firmly. Jake looked at her for a moment, stunned, and then lay back on the pillow.

  ‘I’m tired,’ he said.

  ‘Sleep,’ said Mrs Garret kindly, pulling up his blankets.

  ‘So … many … dreams,’ said Jake, drifting off to sleep.

  When he had finished his day’s work, Pius Garret went to sit with Jake while Mrs Garret rested, for she had been with him all day.

  Upstairs, Jake woke with a start.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked quietly. ‘Where are Ma and Pa and Emmie?’

  ‘You’re in the forge house at McKenzie’s Prospect,’ said Garret. ‘You remember. We talked about …’

  ‘The fire,’ said Jake in a sad, quiet voice. ‘There was a terrible fire. I saw Ma and Pa trying to save the wagon.’ His eyes widened. ‘The dragons,’ he said, his voice even quieter, as if he dared not say the word.

  ‘Dreams,’ said Garret. ‘You had a terrible, burning fever. The Native brought you here to get better.’

  ‘White Thunder looked after me,’ whispered Jake. ‘I was hot, and I saw dragons, and then I fainted.’

  ‘You’re much better now,’ said Garret.

  ‘White Thunder,’ said Jake again, ‘and Yellow Cloud, with the dragons.’

  ‘Yellow Cloud brought you here,’ said Garret. ‘He rides a horse. I know because I taught him to shoe his horses when one of them was lame.’

  ‘There were dragons,’ said Jake again.

  ‘Only in your imagination,’ said Garret. ‘The Natives breed fine Appaloosas, the finest I ever saw. I won’t have you talking about dragons any more, do you hear me?’

  Garret wasn’t angry with the boy, but he was concerned for him. The fever could do terrible things to a person’s body or mind.

  ‘He brought me here?’ asked Jake.

  ‘He acts as contact between the Natives and the local towns and settlements along the river,’ said Garret.

  ‘He helped us to cross at the fording place, before the fire,’ said Jake.

  ‘I’m sure that’s right,’ said Garret, relieved that the boy finally appeared to be talking sense. He began to say that Jake could stay with them for as long as he needed, but Jake had other ideas.

  ‘I can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘I have to find out what happened. I need to know everything about the fire and what happened to my family!’

  ‘You mustn’t get your hopes up,’ said Garret. ‘There’s been no sign of your parents and your sister …’

  Jake’s face fell and he looked pale and fragile. ‘You think they’re dead, don’t you? Pa and Ma … and Emmie …’ he asked, sniffing hard.

  There was nothing for it. Garret gently put an arm around Jake’s shoulder and handed him a handkerchief. Neither Garret nor Jake noticed when Eliza put her head around the door to ask if her father would come downstairs for his supper.

  Eliza watched for a moment and then ducked back out of sight. A whole flood of emotions welled up in her. Her brother, Daniel, had died of cholera when he was about Jake’s age. They had buried him on the trail, before they even reached McKenzie’s Prospect. Her father had missed Daniel so badly that Eliza had tried to fill his place, but he still clearly pined for his lost son, and now he had his arm around another boy, a stranger.

  Eliza’s face burned with feelings that she didn’t understand, but she knew that she hated Jake. She hated him for coming into their home, taking her bed and for taking her brother’s place in her father’s heart.

  She coughed and knocked so that her father knew she was there, before she put her head around the loft door again.

  ‘Supper’s ready, Papa,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘Mama says it’s the best bean stew she ever tasted.’

  ‘Good girl,’ said Garret, not looking up. ‘Bring me a bowl of it and some bread, and I’ll eat it sitting here.’

  Eliza wanted her father to look up, to see the scowl on her face, but he didn’t. He simply kept looking down at Jake, lying in her bed.

  McKenzie’s Prospect had started out as a one-horse trading post.

  That all changed when Nathan McKenzie made his home there and built a mercantile and a saloon bar to entice the traders to stay a while. Several of them did. They named the little town McKenzie’s Prospect after its founder and built a landing stage on the bend of the river.

  Within a year or two, Main Street was named, and pretty soon people were building on Second Street. Old Doc Thompson had swelled the town numbers again when he decided to stay, and, when he’d been on his last legs, his nephew, Doc Trelawny, over from St Louis, had looked after him. Eventually, he’d taken over the doc’s surgery and built a second storey on the house for his wife and children. He’d been the town’s doctor for nearly two years.

  McKenzie’s Prospect was bustling. Some of the first buildings had been replaced by bigger ones with steps up to verandas to keep the dirt out and tether posts for horses. The mercantile store was the biggest emporium for a hundred miles, supplying the wagon-trainers on their journeys west, and there was always someone drinking in the saloon.

  The settlement was not as big as St Louis, or as comfortable, but Main Street was flat and level, and wide enough for two carriages to pass. Large parts of it even had new boardwalks, so that pedestrians wouldn’t step in front of the wagons and carts that rode up and down the street all day long.

  There was plenty of good farmland to the east of the town, and folks settled to a decent life, farming and trading. Nathan McKenzie was happy to take the credit for the town’s prosperity. He had made a good deal of money out of the place and his businesses, but he was an ambitious man who believed that he could make anything happen. He spent his days sitting at the counter of the mercantile store, resting his bad leg, while his nephew did all the work. He spent his evenings in the saloon bar, welcoming folk to his town and finding out who was doing what.

  Eight or ten days after arriving in McKenzie’s Prospect, Jake was allowed out for the first time. His arm was still bandaged, and Elizabeth Garret still changed the dressing on his hand every day, but the swelling had gone and the flesh was pink again. Jake’s fever was a thing of the past. It was the first time Jake had been in a town for months and he was desperate to get out of the house. He was also desperate to talk to people and to try to find out what had happened to the wagon train, and to his parents and Emmie.

  He was grateful to the Garrets, and he had grown very fond of them, but he had too many questions about the Natives and the dragons, questions that the Garrets couldn’t answer.

  Jake and Garret rode into town in the blacksmith’s cart to pick up supplies from the mercantile. They lived close enough to walk, but Jake was still weak and Garret needed the cart to drop off some of his finished wares. He pulled his cart up outside the mercantile and walked up the steps with Jake. The boy didn’t need his hand holding, but Garret stayed close. He couldn’t bear the idea of anything happening to Jake, after the terrible time he’d had.

  Nathan McKenzie sat at the end of the counter with a pipe in his hand. He didn’t smoke much, but spent a lot of time filling his pipe, tamping down the tobacco and lighting it. Then he’d set it down and let it go out. He’d scrape out the unburnt tobacco and put the pipe in his pocket, and twenty minutes later he’d begin the ritual all over again.

  ‘Blacksmith,’ he said by way of a greeting when Garret walked into the store.

  ‘Mr McKenzie,’ said Garret.

  It was unusual for the most important man in town to greet the blacksmith, but today Pius Garret had brought the wagon-train b
oy with him. Nathan McKenzie always liked to know exactly what was going on in his town.

  Lem Sykes, Nathan McKenzie’s nephew, smiled his awkward, crooked smile at Garret.

  ‘Give you a hand to unload, Mr Garret?’ he asked.

  ‘Sure, Lem,’ said Garret. Then he turned to Jake. ‘Will you be all right finding something to look at?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Jake, smiling at Garret. When he felt surer of himself, he might ask Mr McKenzie if he knew anything about the fire, but he wanted to get an idea of the man first.

  Jake looked at the broad shelves that ran around the room, filled with everything from pickling vinegars to honey. Barrels of corn and flour stood in front of the counter, and there were sweets in jars beside the cash register. Guns hung from hooks, with knives in a cabinet beneath. One wall had shelves full of cloth, sewing notions, skins, shoes and boots, but Jake didn’t care very much for them. Immediately to the right of the door, however, there was a rack that Jake was interested in.

  Frontiersmen and homesteaders didn’t have much time for reading, but McKenzie’s Prospect was home to a schoolhouse, and some of the ladies could find time for a dime novel or a story magazine.

  Jake stood in front of the rack that housed a dozen or so books and a display of magazines. Most of them were only homespun tales or romances, but Jake did take one book off the shelf. He turned to the title page and was about to read it when a large hand fell heavily on his shoulder.

  ‘So, who might you be, young man?’ asked Nathan McKenzie, as if he didn’t know.

  ‘It’s that boy,’ said a gruff voice before Jake could answer for himself.

  The odd growl made Jake jump so hard that McKenzie’s hand fell off his shoulder. Jake ducked away from the man and looked around, eyes wide, for whoever had spoken. He hadn’t realized there was anyone else in the store, and there was something oddly familiar about the harsh voice. Jake thought, for a moment, that he was hearing a ghost.

  ‘Been with the Injuns, they say,’ added the voice.

  ‘Let the boy speak,’ said McKenzie.

  ‘Pa … Watkiss?’ asked Jake, realizing who the voice belonged to and feeling relieved and excited all at once. If Pa Watkiss had found his way to the town, maybe there was hope for the Polsons, after all.

  ‘Ain’t nobody’s pa,’ said the voice as a head appeared over the lip of the counter. It had a mop of red hair and a grizzled beard the same colour. Then there was a sound of rummaging about, and a small man with a barrel chest walked around the counter to stand next to Nathan McKenzie.

  Now that Jake could see him, he realized he’d been wrong. This man was even shorter than Pa Watkiss and much scruffier. Pa Watkiss had prided himself on his neatness and taken great pleasure in his make-do-and-mend philosophy. This man didn’t appear to have mended anything for five or ten years. He hadn’t had a shave or trimmed his hair or beard for a year or two, and he didn’t look like he’d washed his hands for a month.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ said Jake, blushing at his mistake, and secretly very disappointed.

  ‘Trapper Watkiss,’ said the grubby little man, wiping a hand down the filthy front of his shirt, as if making ready to offer it to the boy for him to shake.

  McKenzie’s eyes lit up, suddenly interested in the boy again.

  ‘Don’t frighten the lad,’ he said, ‘and keep your grubby hands to yourself.’

  ‘Didn’t mean nothing,’ said Watkiss, looking for a pocket to stuff his errant hand into.

  ‘I’m not frightened, sir,’ Jake said. ‘I just thought …’ Then it dawned on him. ‘Trapper Watkiss?’ he asked, looking carefully at the scruffy little man.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ said Trapper Watkiss, ‘I had a brother once. Long time ago. Haven’t seen him since …’

  Jake waited, expecting this Mr Watkiss to summon up a date. He didn’t.

  ‘Not since Missouri,’ he said after a pause. ‘Thought he was dead.’

  Trapper Watkiss said this in a very matter-of-fact tone, but suddenly Jake’s face felt hot with excitement again. Maybe there was a connection, after all.

  He swallowed hard and said, ‘I think he is.’

  ‘Well, there you are then,’ said Trapper Watkiss.

  ‘Take the book if you like it,’ said Mr McKenzie.

  Jake looked at his hands. He’d completely forgotten about the book. His father’s voice rang in his head, ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be, and be in debt to no man.’

  ‘No thank you,’ said Jake, putting the book back on the shelf.

  A hand fell on Jake’s shoulder again, but this time it was Pius Garret’s firm grasp, and Jake sighed with relief.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Garret.

  ‘Fine,’ said Jake.

  ‘You’ve met Mr McKenzie and Trapper Watkiss, I see,’ he said to Jake in a voice that sounded somehow stern.

  ‘He’s old friends with Trapper’s long-lost brother,’ said Mr McKenzie, and then he laughed at his joke. He took his pipe out of his pocket and, with the help of a sturdy walking stick, made his way back to the stool at the end of the counter.

  Pius Garret stepped up to the counter and took a liquorice stick out of one of the jars. He handed it to Jake and said, ‘Why don’t you go and sit in the cart while we load her up? Lem can put this on my bill.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Jake, and left the mercantile. Nathan McKenzie made him feel uneasy, and it was clear that the blacksmith didn’t like him any better. He also had mixed feelings about Trapper Watkiss. Jake knew Pa Watkiss’s bite had been every bit as bad as his bark and decided that the same must be true of his brother. Still, the connection might prove important in finding his family.

  The cart was soon loaded, and Garret thanked Lem for his help and took up the reins for the ride home.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Garret asked Jake. ‘Did Mr McKenzie bother you?’

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Jake, chewing on his liquorice.

  ‘McKenzie’s Prospect is named after him,’ said Garret. ‘He was a trapper, before he set up a trading post right here, on the bend of the river. He was working for the Hudson’s Bay Company, still is. You’ve heard of them, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jake.

  ‘He’s got a finger in every pie in the county,’ said Garret, ‘and he’s always looking for new ways to bring folk to town and make money.’

  ‘Is that good or bad?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Probably a bit of both,’ said Garret. ‘His new scheme’s got a lot of folk hot under the collar. He claims there’s gems in the mountains, and he’s looking for prospectors to set up camp and start mining.’

  ‘Is that what Trapper Watkiss does?’ asked Jake.

  ‘McKenzie used to work alongside Trapper, until the accident,’ said Garret. ‘I suppose you noticed McKenzie’s walking stick?’

  ‘Yes. He’s got a bad leg,’ said Jake.

  ‘Trapper rescued McKenzie from a grizzly bear. Frightened it off by wailing at it, they say. Carried McKenzie with his half-chewed leg all the way to a doctor. Saved his life, although his leg hasn’t been much use ever since. Give him his due, McKenzie always makes sure that Trapper is well looked after.’

  ‘Is he still a trapper?’ asked Jake, wondering if Trapper Watkiss might be able to track down his family.

  ‘He’s mostly just an old man,’ said Garret. ‘He spent so long in the mountains alone that some folk think he’s half mad with cabin fever. What’s all this about his brother now?’

  ‘I mistook his voice for someone I used to know,’ said Jake. ‘We called him Pa Watkiss, and he had red hair too. I suppose I hoped he’d surviv
ed the fire. I saw his wagon explode.’

  ‘Old Trapper tells tales about the Natives,’ said Garret, changing the subject. ‘Back in the old days, him and his crew got lost on an expedition. He was the only one that came down off the mountains. Some say he ate the other trappers to stay alive. He had a fever when they brought him down, said he’d seen dragons. Still claims it’s true when he’s got a drink inside him.’

  Jake looked around suddenly at Pius Garret, clutching his arm.

  ‘Dragons?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what he says,’ said Garret, smiling at Jake. ‘Says that bracelet he wears proves it.’

  ‘Bracelet?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Of course, the old man talks a lot of nonsense, but he’s got some old Native beads on a thong around his wrist. He’s a superstitious old goat and still searches the mountains for the Thunderbirds … the dragons, as you call them. You see, you’re not the only dreamer in these parts. Just you remember, though, young man: it is all just dreams.’

  Jake sat quietly next to Garret and chewed his liquorice, thinking all the time about Ma and Pa and Emmie, and about the dragons and the wagon train. Somehow, it all had to add up to something.

  Garret kept an eye on the boy, but assumed that he was just exhausted from the day’s outing.

  When they got home, Mrs Garret said that Jake must go to school with Eliza and the twins the next morning. It was a half-day holiday so a morning of school shouldn’t be too tiring, and it would get him used to the idea. Jake was prepared to do as he was told because the Garrets were so kind, but he was determined not to stay in McKenzie’s Prospect for long. He was adamant that he would find the dragons responsible for the wagon-train fire and work out exactly what had happened to his family.

  The next day, Jake walked to the schoolhouse with David and Michael. The twins had always been inseparable, and they used to follow their brother Daniel around like a pair of puppy dogs. They wanted to make sure that Jake was taken very good care of.