This follows Branson Gulch Blues, Part II, and Part I…
Rory sat on the edge of the overlook, his new shiny bike parked against the stout rock and mortar wall. His feet dangled out over the space of the grasses, shrubs, and occasional cotton tails that clumped together in the old lake bed. The cotton tail heads were bent, broken, and splayed, most of their dark brown fluff lost to the wind.
Mrs. Givins walked up slowly as not to startle the boy, her cane clumped and her orthotics crunched over the gravel path. She could move fast when she needed to, but she was feeling her one hundred and forty two years today. The air had the snap of autumn, the end of the harvest season was drawing to the close, and the elderly like Mrs. Givins often felt the coming of winter like death was standing near, looking on in empathy.
As it was, Old Cross was always in the corner of her vision now, his arms interwoven with each other across his chest, a soft sad smile on his face. He never waved, he never changed his expression, as if the image was a moment in time hidden within the waters of time, and her perception was just the same moment carried forward like a burst of light that never faded away from her vision.
Odd thought that.
That timelessness was nothing but a single moment to her as she was stuck within the flow of time. Old Cross would probably think it funny. He was a bastard. A kind bastard, no doubt, but still a force of nature as harsh as a storm and unrelenting as the tide. Mrs. Givins had spoken to him twice before. Once when her Gerald had passed, and again when her own son Michael had lost his battle. Both times Old Cross had sat there, or stood there, and allowed her to speak with him. She did not see her husband or her son behind him, but she knew. She knew they were there. And yet, she could only pierce the veil so far. There was a limit, even for the ones that Touched the fabrics of reality. Because human nature was both human and nature. An indelible connection that could not be broken… until it was. And Old Cross would be there to take your hand and lead you onwards.
She did not want Old Cross to get this boy. And Wella could give a shit less if the boy was innocent or not. Wella could be hungry, and an easy meal is an easy meal. The boy needed a reprimand, even the edge of the wall was not safe. He had to be on this side of the curtain that hung over the Gulch.
Mrs. Givins prepared her admonishment, opened her mouth to say something, and then stopped dead.
Rory was different today. His center field had shifted downwards, attuned and aligned to the earth. Mrs. Givins felt a smile spread across her face. Vera must be ecstatic! After all these years! Why did it take so long? The boy was nearly ready to hit puberty? And the Touch manifested now!? An oddity out of all the oddities in Branson Gulch to be certain.
She let her well formed criticism fade from her mind and instead tapped her cane against the bench to get his attention.
“Rory, child. Be a dear and get off the wall.” She smiled warmly as he turned and made eye contact. He was so young.
Was she ever that young?
Old Cross nodded once out of the corner of her eye. She had been, a long time ago. On a different continent, in a different country, looking on a field of green where a herd of sleeping Axaoras drowsily nibbled on the leftovers of their recent livestock kill. She loved watching the black dogs with the faces of hooked tentacles hunt in those early days of her life. With a pang of remorse, she remembered that they had been extinct by the time she had married Gerald. Such a shame. Beautiful creatures. Proud. Strong. But not survivors. The world had changed too fast.
Rory spun around, and yet stayed on the wall as if performing a level of defiance that was new to him. “Hey Merry. So… you are like my Nana.”
Mrs. Givins slowly lowered herself to her bench and exhaled heavily. The cold was quick to leave, but for a moment, her butt felt a chill like she had just sat on a block of ice.
“Yes, I am.”
Rory looked over his shoulder at the stands of trees that populated the old lake bed, covering it from end to end. “I keep looking for Wella, but I haven’t seen her.”
“She is in there, I assure you. Just quiet for a key reason… but near the solstice, her calls rattle the trees. Her species, Draconis Galliformae, have a unique adaptation for surviving both harsh winters and sweltering summers. Can you guess what that is?”
“Uh…” Rory thought through some guesses. “They hibernate?”
“Ah! Very close. It is very similar to hibernation, but instead of reducing their metabolic rate where they fall asleep for months, her species shifts their blood chemistry to a point of being either cold blooded or hot blooded. Cold blooded, or ectothermic, creatures like snakes, lizards, and the like rely on their environment to help regulate their metabolic rate. Endothermic creatures…”
“So warm blooded?” Rory added as if on cue.
“Right. Endothermic creatures self regulate their metabolic rate, so they maintain a level of a steady body temperature, like you and I. Wella is in a near ectothermic state with the change of seasons, so she is feeling lethargic.”
“Lethargic?” Rory jumped off the wall and walked to the bench to sit next to Mrs. Givins.
“Sleepy. She is going to shift from ectothermic to endothermic, typically once the nights get cold enough that her two eggs are at risk. Any day now.”
“Then she won’t be slow and sleepy.”
Mrs. Givins nodded at the boy. He was intelligent. “That’s right. She will actively hunt, and populations of other creatures in the area will drop until they can replenish their numbers in the spring. Hibernation, for them at least, is a survival benefit. Hibernating creatures won’t fall prey to a hungry cockatrice.”
“Does she hunt… us?” Rory asked timidly.
“You mean children, dear? Or just people in general?”
“People in general, I guess.”
Mrs. Givins shrugged, and out of the corner of her eye, Old Cross nodded enthusiastically. “Not so much. If she gets a person it is because that person did not follow the warnings.”
“Like staying on the path.” Rory’s voice dropped.
Mrs. Givins realized her admonishment was not needed after all. He understood intuitively. The flows were waking up within him. “That’s one of them. One should stay on the path. Wandering into that stand of trees would be a one way ticket.”
“Ooh, ooh! Does she breathe fire?” Rory’s eyebrows were high.
“Not her species. She lacks both the organs that can digest the fuel and create the gaseous or viscous flammable materials. She also lacks the tongue.”
“What does the tongue have to do with it?”
“The source of the flame is not from the dragon. They produce the flammable materials, depending on the species, but all of them have to create the spark. Can you imagine walking around with fire inside of you? Even for hardy creatures, maintaining any temperature above a certain point would be evolutionary suicide. Its all in the tongue.” Mrs. Givins flicked her hand out like she was snapping a towel. “The sides of the tongue lay down a crystalline lathanide over time. They flick their tongue against their rear teeth and that material flakes off and oxidizes very rapidly. Sparks! A heavy exhale, and fwoosh! Fire!”
“Wow,” Rory’s eyes were wide. “You know a lot about dragons, Merry.”
“I should. It is my life’s work.” Mrs. Givins smiled. “I have been studying and protecting them for a very long time.”
“An ecologist?” Rory said. “Like my grandpa?”
“Ah, yes. I am an ecologist. But no… your grandfather does something even more important. He is a Ranger. They go out and find the ones that need protecting. It is hard work. Dangerous work. What I do is simple in comparison. I am a scientist. Studying. Making notes. Observing. Your grandfather is out there doing a bit more than that. Most of us conservationists are very boring in comparison.”
“And this is the only dragon you study?”
“At the moment. She has a special place in my heart. My father helped raise her mom, Ember. She had been abandoned as an egg, and my father took it on himself to help her hatch. Crazy man. But somehow he was successful. And Wella out there is alive because my father decided to help a poor creature on a cold night. So I… guess… watching her connects me back to my own dad in a way.”
“You have studied others… not just Wella and her mom?”
“Oh, yes. I am a draconist by trade and I spent decades helping the conservation reserves get built and then populating them with complimentary species.”
Rory grinned. “That sounds cool.”
“Oh it was quite ‘cool’. Best job ever. But it was hard work, hence the limp.” Mrs. Givins tapped her cane against the bench again. “You have a lot of questions today. You rode off in such a hurry yesterday, I thought I had scared you off permanently.”
Rory laughed nervously. “I, uh, was a little scared.”
“A little?”
“Yes, just a little,” Rory said defensively. “I thought you were teasing me about Wella, and then hearing that noise, it made me jumpy.”
“I would say.” Mrs. Givins agreed. “She is a big girl.”
“How big is big?”
“Sixteen feet in wingspan, half that in length from beak to tail, and probably about four hundred or so pounds at this point in her brooding cycle. We can estimate her size well enough, but it is just an estimate. Her species is protected, meaning that we don’t get close to her unless absolutely necessary. We have protocols not just for our safety, but mostly hers.”
“I wish I could see her.”
“Oh you will. Most folks don’t. You will. It’s inevitable.” Mrs. Givins stated matter-of-factly. “You will see her because you are looking for her. On the other hand, we can direct behavior of these creatures and the ones that aren’t looking, but it takes time and effort. It takes patience and hard work to protect them from the plebians and vice versa.”
“Plebians? Is that another kind of dragon?”
Mrs. Givins laughed, a deep chuffing sound that was nearly a cough. “Oh my goodness, no Rory. Those are all the humans. The people. The terrible masses that cover the world.”
“But I am people?”
Mrs. Givins sighed. “We all are. The problem isn’t that we are human, Rory. The problem is that we aren’t one tribe. We all have different experiences that lead to different beliefs and opinions, and that is why the plebians do what they do… and ultimately that is why we do what we do.”
Rory silently sat in the sunlight, watching the stands of trees next to Mrs. Givins. Birds twittered in the distance, and the occasionally there was a buzz of an insect on the air.
“Do you have a caduceus?” Rory asked, breaking the easy silence.
“Of course I do. Its my cane, silly.”
“But… I can see your cane?” Rory observed.
Realization dawned on Mrs. Givins face. “Oh, the actual rod… that is inside the cane, dear.”
“So I really can’t see them? I thought Nana was pulling my leg.” Rory sighed.
“How much did your Nana explain? I don’t want to misstep here, Rory. Your grandmother is one of the best, you should listen to her.”
“One of the best? Best what?”
“We each have our roles to play, Rory. Some of us study and document. Others go out and preserve. And some of us… teach. Your grandmother has been teaching the Society’s talented for many decades.”
“I didn’t know she was a teacher. I guess I never thought about it. She is just my Nana.”
“Ah well… I suppose that is about to change, isn’t it?” Mrs. Givins nudged Rory. “Lots to learn now.”
“I guess? My mom and dad are on vacation, but they are coming to Thanksgiving and then I think we leave to head back home. Our flight is on Friday night I think. I don’t know how much she can teach me in three days.”
“You have the rest of life to learn, Rory. And…that could be a very long time indeed.”