Raising Dragons (14 page)
Billy waited for a reply but could only hear static once again. He looked back at his father. His mother crouched over his dad’s quivering frame, and she pressed a towel on the wound. Blood oozed through the towel and over his mother’s fingers.
Dad’s blood!
Billy’s throat tightened again. He squeezed his eyes half-closed, fighting the tears. His father . . . his dad . . . lay mortally wounded. The tears flowed. There was no way to stop them.
His mother rocked her body and nodded her head in rhythm with her sobs and the bounces of the plane. “Jared,” she cried. “I don’t know what to do. Help me.”
He breathed out a faint whisper, his voice gurgling as he spoke. “Para . . . chute . . . behind . . . seat. You . . . and . . . Billy.”
She jerked her head around and yelled. “Billy, check behind Dad’s seat! Is there a parachute?”
Billy jumped up and lunged toward the rear of the pilot’s seat. He could barely choke out a reply. “Yes!” he said, desperately trying to hold back his sobs.
His mother’s expression softened and her tone calmed. “Bring it here . . . please.”
Billy had found the chute in a space behind and under the seat. It was stuffed in tightly, but a quick tug dislodged it. There was no use trying to steer the plane, so he left the cockpit and brought the bundle to his mother. With one hand on her husband’s wound, she used her free hand to fumble with the parachute straps.
“Do you know how it goes on?” she asked.
Billy took the chute again and separated the straps. With his heart racing, he stumbled through his words. “I’ve seen—seen Dad’s jumpers put them on. . . . H—Here.” His mother had to release the pressure on her husband’s chest while Billy hoisted the pack over her shoulders and tightened the straps. “It’s just an emergency chute,” Billy explained, “there’s—there’s no backup.”
“It’ll have to do. Do you know what to pull?”
Her calm demeanor helped him speak more easily. “Yes. We’ll have to hold each other, but I’ll be able to reach the cord.”
Billy’s mom leaned over and caressed her husband’s face with a tender, open palm.
He whispered into her ear. “No . . . time for . . . good-byes. I can’t . . . die yet. The prophecy . . . must be fulfilled.”
Two large tears splashed onto his chest, mingling with the spreading blood that had painted his shirt crimson. She kissed him, her trembling lips only managing a weak peck on his deathly pallid cheek. Billy helped her to her feet, and the two crossed the few steps to the open door. The wind buffeted their faces and dried their streaming tears.
Billy and his mom grasped each other. He felt her arms squeezing tightly around his back, and he held the ripcord with his right hand while wrapping his left arm around her shoulders.
He tried to stop trembling, but even his mother’s tight embrace did little to calm him now. Was his fear for his father’s safety or for his impending jump? He honestly couldn’t tell; everything he had ever known was falling apart before his eyes, and so quickly that he couldn’t take it all in.
His mother’s soothing voice whispered in his ear. “Don’t be afraid, Billy. We can do this.”
His only answer was a tighter squeeze with his arm, and he laid his head down on her shoulder. With his mouth so near her neck, he didn’t want to risk burning her skin. He really had no idea what to say, anyway.
Billy looked back at his father’s writhing body. He could barely spit out the words, but his emotions forced his shaking voice to push forth his tearful lament. “Good—good-bye, Dad. I—I love you!”
There was no answer. His father’s tall frame lay deathly still.
After briefly looking down at the slowly spinning cloud bank, they jumped.
Let me go!” Bonnie screamed. Although the rushing wind drowned out her cry, her struggling arms and kicking feet relayed the message.
The slayer shouted into her ear. “I should have known you’d be strong.” He held her tightly from behind, both his arms wrapped around hers. The parachute had already opened, and they had penetrated and passed the gray wall of clouds that acted as a blanket to hide the ground below. Now they could see a mass of dense treetops drawing closer, and the shifting wind made their eventual landing point impossible to predict. With each heavy gust, the wind jerked the chute, dragging Bonnie and the slayer at random angles, and the slayer had to reposition his arms to keep his prisoner in check.
Bonnie decided to rest for a few seconds. She had to gather her strength to be ready to kick and struggle with all her might at the next gust of wind.
Maybe, just maybe . . .
She didn’t have to wait long. A gust hit the chute and threw it to the side, and just as she sensed the pull, Bonnie thrust her elbows into the slayer’s ribs and bit his right hand. With a mighty two-legged kick and another thrust with her elbows, she felt his grasp slip over her head. She was free . . . and falling.
She tried to flap her wings. She was almost in flying position, facedown and body in a horizontal spread, but something was wrong. Somehow her wings were stuck. The sweater! She was still wearing the sweater! She reached down and yanked at the hem, trying to rip it over her wings in the back. The trees raced toward her from below. The stinging air brought tears streaming back toward her temples. In a few seconds her body would be dashed against the branches.
She pulled at the front of the sweater and snatched it over her head, then after two quick tugs, each arm was free. She wasn’t able to reach to her back, so she flapped her wings ferociously, hoping they would throw off the sweater. The trees were so close, she could distinguish individual twigs, and she could almost feel sharp branches thrusting into her body, impaling her, leaving her dangling as a morbid decoration in the lonely forest.
She flapped again with all her might, knowing the next second would bring the first stabbing knife. A splash of color rushed at her face. Branches scraped her legs, snagging and pulling her jeans as her failing wings thrust her body horizontally across the deadly spikes. A stream of twigs and leaves flashed by her eyes, threatening to slice her face. “Ohhhh! Help!” With a pain-filled gasp she pulled through a desperation flap. She caught a gust of wind and vaulted just above the treetops.
Pain stabbed the top of her left wing near her back. The outside half collapsed, spinning her to one side. Spying a narrow gap in the trees, Bonnie lunged for it. After brushing against an outstretched hickory branch with her injured wing, she swerved to avoid the other wooden spears and fly into the treeless gap, a rainwater trench in the mountain slope.
Bonnie spread her wings to slow her descent and hoped for the best. Barely missing a few more protruding limbs, she resembled a huge falling leaf, zigzagging downward on the ever-shifting cushion of air. Finally, she crash-landed into the trench, tumbling forward along the downslope, face-first into the dense floor of decaying leaves.
Chapter 12
It’s okay, Mom. The parachute opened. We’re going to be all right.” Billy’s voice trembled as he whispered into his mother’s ear while trying to avoid breathing on her. He was locked tightly in her arms, and he had his own arms wrapped around her, careful to avoid the parachute lines.
She didn’t answer. Billy followed her line of sight and spied their falling plane, still making a spiraling descent. Since they were now floating more slowly downward, the plane passed them by, missing them by several hundred feet. As the wind blew them in the opposite direction, Merlin grew smaller, and the tiny airplane disappeared into the trees, hundreds of yards away. Billy’s mother stifled a sob, and he could feel her arms grow ever stronger around him. “He said he wouldn’t die, Mom,” Billy said tenderly. “I believe him.”
“I do, too, honey. If I didn’t, I don’t know what I’d do.”
They stayed quiet for a few moments, but their reverie was cut short. The treetops below rushed toward them, their spiny fingers reaching to catch their prey. “Mom,” Billy called out. “It looks like we could get scratched up.”
“Close your eyes and pray!” They both squeezed their eyes shut and hoped for a narrow, vertical entry into the forest. The idea seemed to work. Billy felt twigs lightly scratching his arms, and he heard the pops and groans of bending branches, but he felt no pain. A strong tug from above and a swinging sensation finally signaled the end of their fall.
Billy opened his eyes and looked around. They were suspended in midair! Their parachute had entangled itself in the arms of a tall oak tree, actually two trees that grew side by side, and the two jumpers, still clutching one another, bobbed slowly up and down like a dying yo-yo.
His mom spoke up first. “Now how are we going to get down from here?”
Billy looked below. There was nothing between him and the ground except for a few skinny limbs that were much too far away to reach safely. “I’d guess we’re about fifty feet up. Too high to jump.” He looked around again. Since he couldn’t point, he had to gesture with a nod of his head. “But if we can swing to my right, toward the big tree over there, I might be able to catch that branch and drop to the limb just below it. Then maybe I could pull you toward it.”
She clenched her teeth. “I see it. It looks too dangerous.”
“Do we have any choice?”
“I guess not.”
At first they moved in opposite directions, but within a few seconds they were rocking in sync, waving back and forth, suspended in space. Their motions sent a cascade of leaves raining down on their heads, the stubborn ones that had not yet succumbed to the cold weather. Billy heard a slight cracking sound from above, but the branches held firm.
Billy and his mom pulled and pushed through a fourth swing, then a fifth, drawing closer and closer to the protruding branch. They spun around like a twirling pendulum, first clockwise until the parachute lines wound up, and then counter-clockwise. Billy wondered if he would be closer to the branch than his mother would when the time came to make a lunge for it. Would he have to reach in front of himself and around her or would his back be toward it?
The cracking sound grew louder. On their next swing the branch came within reach, directly behind him. He released his mother with his hands but kept a firm grip on her with his legs as he twisted to stretch toward his target. There was no room for error. The slightest miscalculation would send him downward, dangling with his legs around his mother’s hips, at best, and at worst, diving headfirst into who knows what below. He reached high, knowing he would start falling as soon as he let go of his mother, and he thrust his whole body outward.
He did it! His hands struck the branch! His left hand slipped away, but he hung on with his right, stubbornly refusing to lose this chance. A loud pop sounded from above and a dozen small crackles. “I got it, Mom!” he grunted.
“You’ll never make it unless you let me go!” she called back.
“Okay. I’ll drop down to the limb and you can swing back to me.” He pulled with his right arm and threw his left hand up again to get a double grasp on the branch, then, after releasing the scissors grip he held on his mom with his legs, he yanked his body upward to get a better hold. His fingers screamed in pain as the extra weight dug the bark deeper into his hands.
He spun his head to see his mother swinging wildly away in the other direction. The branches snapped her up higher, and when she came back down, they finally gave way, sending her plummeting toward the ground. Billy could only watch in terror as she alternately fell and stopped with each snag of the parachute. Her legs swiped against small branches twice, but her head cleared all the deadly obstacles. She finally reached bottom with a sickening thud, and Billy leaned forward to try to see through the tangled mesh of woods.
Still dangling, he screamed toward the ground. “Mom! Can you hear me? Are you all right?”
There was no answer.
He had no time to lose. He had to get down, now! But how? That limb underneath was close, but not close enough. Dropping straight down to it was possible, but if he missed, the next step was about another fifty feet away, ground zero . . . and zero chance of surviving.
Ouch! My fingers! They’re slipping. Gotta go for it.
He let go with his left hand and watched his shoes stretch for the limb, maybe five feet down.
Here goes!
He released the branch, and when his shoes slapped against the limb, he bent his knees to absorb the shock. With a quick turn toward the tree, he dropped down to straddle the limb and then slid his body across the bark until he could grab the trunk.
He took a deep breath and rested, but just for a second. There was no time for a break. He looked down. The trunk stretched to the forest floor without more than a gall and a few knots in its rough skin, hardly anything to grab with his hands or to use for foot support.
With a surge of adrenaline, he hugged the supporting limb, swung down, and clutched the trunk with his legs, giving him the grip he needed to release the limb and wrap both arms around the tree’s middle section. From there, he shinnied down the trunk like a monkey racing down a palm tree. A sharp knot dug through the skin of his hand, sending a trickle of blood into his palm, but he couldn’t worry about minor wounds—not now.
The downward slide seemed an eternity, but when his feet finally landed in the crunchy matted leaves, he broke into a cold sweat and his legs turned wobbly, two strands of cooked spaghetti struggling to hold up a desperate boy. He didn’t have time to wait for them to recover. He lumbered through the leaves toward where his mother had landed. Grabbing armfuls of the torn parachute, he called feverishly. “Mom! Mom! Where are you?”
He finally found her lying faceup, partially covered with leaves. Her eyes were closed. Billy fell to his knees next to her body. “Mom! Can you hear me?”
He put his hands on her cheeks. They radiated soft warmth against his cold fingers, and her face winced. Billy started crying. “You’re alive! Thank God! You’re alive!” He could feel tears streaming down his cheeks, but he didn’t bother to wipe them. He placed one cold hand on her forehead and one on her throat to try to revive her.
She finally opened her eyes. What a welcome sight that was! Two eyes had never been more beautiful.
“Your face is dirty, Billy.”
Billy smiled through his tears. “Mom, do you know where you are?”
She nodded. “Somewhere in the West Virginia mountains. But that’s about the best I can do.”
“Can you get up?”
She braced herself against the ground with both hands and pushed while Billy cradled the back of her head to help. She sat and stretched her neck to each side as if trying to get a crick out. “Ohhh! I feel awful.”
“Did your head hit the ground? Do you think you might have a concussion?”
“I don’t remember. I know my feet hit first, but I don’t remember after that.” She reached her hands forward to signal for her son’s help. “Let’s see if I can walk. We have to find the plane right away.”
“Right! The plane! How could I forget?”
He hoisted her to her feet, and she tried to walk. On her first step she lost her balance, but she caught herself on Billy’s hands and stood on one foot. “Owww!”
Billy helped her sit down again, and she rolled up her pant leg to reveal a swollen ankle. “That’s the same one you hurt in the car. Do you think it’s broken?”
“I can’t tell. I’d better not try to walk on it, just in case.”
Billy stood up fully and raised his arms in the air. “Then how’re we gonna find Dad?”
His mother pulled on his pant leg and brought him down to his knees. She spoke softly and slowly. “You’ll have to hunt for him by yourself; I’d just slow you down.” She turned her head and pointed to a place higher on the hill. “Help me up to that clearing, and I’ll try to signal for help if anyone comes looking for us from the air. When you find your dad, then both of you can come back and find me.”
“You mean if he’s still alive.”
She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it tenderly. “He’s alive. He has to be.”
He watched his mother rub her ankle deeply with her free hand. She really believed! So shouldn’t he believe, too? And what about the slayer’s words? Was Dad really a good dragon? Just a few days ago he would have sided with his father no matter what. Now, with his father snatching away his foundation like it was just a thin, ratty carpet, he didn’t know what to believe. And besides, why should he trust in a fifteen-hundred-year-old prophecy, especially when it lived only in the memory of the one who relied on it?
Billy placed his hand over his mother’s and stroked it. His fingers trembled over her cold skin. “Mom, do you really think it’s true? He looked real bad, you know.”
“I know, but I’m not ready to consider the alternatives.”
“Okay, then. What about Bonnie? If we know Dad’s going to live, shouldn’t I look for her first?”
“You’ve got a point.” She shrugged her shoulders. “But I guess it doesn’t really matter. We don’t know which way to go in either case.”
“Then what do we do?”
She looked around and then stared, and Billy followed her line of sight. Downslope he saw hundreds of various sized trees, both standing and fallen. They were sparse enough to get a view of much of the mountainside. Everything looked the same, no matter which way he turned, tall, white and gray trunks, bare and skinny, with their shed leaves covering the ground as far as the eye could see. Although some of the leaves still held their autumn shape and yellow hue, most were flat and brown, creating a matted carpet that shifted with each gust of wind. He listened to their faint whisper and took in the mountain’s scent, a sweet, woodsy aroma, clean and cold, biting gently into his nostrils. He turned back to his mother and waited for her to answer.
“I suppose you should search for the road,” she finally said. “Getting help may be our best option.”
“Yeah, I don’t know if anyone on the radio understood my call. Maybe no one’s even looking for us. I saw the road while we were floating down. I think I can figure out which way to go.”
“Then you’d better get going. Your dad usually flies pretty close to a highway if he can, so it shouldn’t be too far. And you’d better hurry. It’ll be getting dark soon.”
Walter Foley loved the city’s fall festival. For him, next to Christmas, it was the most fun day of the year. As was his custom, he arrived at the park early to help with setting up the Boy Scouts’ dunking booth. Being a high-ranking scout in the local troop, it was his duty to help manage the festivities, but it was also his pleasure. Where else could he play carnival barker and poke fun at the various teachers who had bravely volunteered to become the objects of ridicule and the victims of an icy dip in a big washtub? But they knew the risks, and Walter had assured them that there were enough volunteers to make each chilly turn on the dunking platform a short one.
Walter grabbed one of the softballs out of a wicker basket and repeatedly tossed it a foot or two in the air, catching it in the same bare hand. Each smack of leather on flesh stung a bit in the chilling late afternoon, but it was a good sting, one that promised lots of fun.
As usual, the city council had timed the festival to coincide with the approach of Thanksgiving. Long ago, the founders of the city designated a community feast two Fridays before Thanksgiving; nobody alive today knew why for sure, but local legend tells the story of an early settler who fell off his horse on this very weekend over a hundred years earlier. He slid into a deep pit, and for six days he sat at the bottom eating nuts and berries that sympathetic chipmunks dropped in. Finally, a passing hunter noticed a gathering of chipmunks around the hole and investigated, finding the settler at the bottom, covered with berry stains, but very much alive.
The town celebrated the weekend of his rescue every year, hauling out a three-foot-high bronze chipmunk and placing it at the park entrance for six days. Everyone patted it on the head as they passed by or placed acorns at its feet in memory of the friendly chipmunks that kept the poor settler from starving so long ago.
This year, cold air dominated the weather, but not unusually cold for West Virginia in November, just chilly enough to give the festival its late autumn flavor. Somehow the sight of everyone bundled up made the evening more like a family get-together. Ladies in double-thick sweaters and men in lined jackets strolled from booth to booth, sometimes attached glove-in-glove and trailed by prancing children in knit ski caps carrying corndogs or half-eaten plumes of cotton candy. White puffs streamed out of red noses, laughter became contagious, and people ate, talked, and played together late into the evening.
Walter’s enthusiasm this year, however, was tempered by the worries of the day. With the strange bat creature at school that morning, and with Billy’s house burning down, people seemed on edge. Gossip buzzed around town. The police had interviewed Walter right after the firefighters finished saving what was left of the house, and they talked to everyone at school who knew Billy. The police wanted to interview Dr. Whittier, but nobody knew where he was. Walter told them that Dr. Whittier had gone to the airport while his goons burned down the house, but the rumor mill said there was no sign of him at the airport. Not only that, the Bannisters’ plane had taken off without leaving a flight plan.