N. Wilson: The Dragon's Tooth

For James Kenneth Thomas III ,

without whom, not a chance

Please declare aloud: I hereby undertake to tread the world, to garden the wild, and to saddle the seas, as did my brother Brendan. I will not turn away from shades in fear, nor avert my eyes from light. I shall do as my Keeper requires, and keep no secret from a Sage. May the stars guide me and my strength preserve me. And I will not smoke in the library. Translation approved, 1946.

NORTH OF MEXICO, south of Canada, and not too far west of the freshwater sea called Lake Michigan, in a place where cows polka-dot hills and men are serious about cheese, there is a lady on a pole.

The Lady is an archer, pale and posing twenty feet in the air above a potholed parking lot. Her frozen bow is drawn with an arrow ready to fly, and her long, muscular legs glint in the late-afternoon sun. Behind her, dark clouds jostle on the horizon, and she quivers slightly in the warm breeze pushed ahead of the coming storm. She has been hanging in the air with her bow drawn since the summer of 1962, when the parking lot was black and fresh, and the Archer Motel had guests. In those days, the Lady hadn’t been pale; she had been golden. And every night as the sun had set, her limbs had flickered and crackled with neon, and hundreds of slow cars and sputtering trucks had traveled her narrow road, passing beneath her glow. When young, she had aimed over the road, over the trees, toward Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Now, thanks to the nuzzling of a forgotten eighteen-wheeler, her glow has gone and she leans back, patiently cocking her arrow toward the sky, waiting to ambush the clouds.

The motel is nothing like its proud lady archer. While she stands tall, it sags, shedding yellow paint like an autumn maple casting off its leaves. The walkways are powdered orange with rust. The cracks in the small courtyard are thick with thistles. Behind the motel, a battered and split chain-link fence imprisons a swimming pool too small for a diving board even if its cracked bottom could have held water. Behind the pool and the fence, a thick and tangled barrier of brush and stunted plum trees protects the motel from sprawling unused pastures, murky streams, and the gray peaks of distant cattle barns.

To a traveler’s eyes, the motel is dead and useless, a roadside tragedy, like the remains of some unfortunate animal in a ditch — glimpsed, mourned, and forgotten before the next bend in the road. But to the lean boy with the dark skin and the black hair struggling in the thick brush behind the pool, the motel is alive, and it is home.

Branches snapped as Cyrus Smith grunted, fighting the many fingers that held him in place. He had paths. He had tunnels through the hedge that he could follow doubled over with his eyes closed, hollows hidden from the outside world, floored with beaten earth and plum pits. To him, the hedge was no obstacle.

Unless he was carrying a tire. And today, he was carrying two.

Gritting his teeth, Cyrus surged forward. Wet rubber dug into each arm. Water sloshed out of the tires onto his sides. His schoolbag snagged on a branch behind him. He was close. The branch snapped and he was closer. Brittle wood clawed at him and gave way.

Cyrus lunged out of the hedge and let the tires fall from his arms. Panting, dripping, he leaned his back against the old rattling fence, braced his hands on his knees, and looked around. His hair was more than black. Wet with sweat, it glistened like obsidian — like his eyes. His legs and arms were smeared with mud. The tops of his shoes were hidden with silty muck from the bottom of the stream where he had found the tires. He kicked off his shoes and let his toes splay in the scraggly grass, breathing hard, listening to a team of cicadas electrocute the air from the brush behind him.

He didn’t know what time it was. Dan and Antigone might be back. Might not. He didn’t care how late he had been; they shouldn’t have left him. Skipping out of school had thrown him off, and he’d gotten back to the motel just in time to watch the red station wagon disappear.

And then the front-desk phone had started ringing. He shouldn’t have answered it, but he’d been irritated. His days were always filled with shouldn’ts.

“Archer Theme Park and Resort,” Cyrus had said. And then, though he wasn’t sure why: “This is Dan.”

A throat had cleared on the other end. “Cyrus?” The man’s voice was low, his breath thick, like he was underneath a blanket.

“I’m Dan,” Cyrus had said. He couldn’t sound that different from his brother. He lowered his voice. “What can I do for you, sir?” Totally Dan. Nice. Patient. Groveling.

“Well … Cyrus Lawrence Smith … I need a room.”

Cyrus had squirmed. “We’re full,” he’d said quickly. “But please try us again sometime.” He should have hung up. Right then.

The man breathed in slowly. His rusty voice sharpened. “Listen up, kid. I’m just a few miles down the road, and tonight I’m sleeping in one-eleven. Not one-ten. Not two-eleven. Room one hundred and eleven. You understand? That’s my room. Tonight. I don’t care who’s in it. Clear them out, or I will.”

The line clicked dead.

“Whatever, old man.” Cyrus had dropped the receiver and exhaled, trying to ignore the tightness in his throat, the sound of his own voice. Had the man watched Dan leave? Did some stranger really know his voice? He couldn’t be scared. He wasn’t that kid. He survived school by not being scared. By not seeming scared, at least.

Still, he wasn’t going to hang around alone. Instead, shouldering his schoolbag, he had locked the front door and tromped out into the pastures to burn daylight. Dan shouldn’t have left him behind. Waiting around for psychos wasn’t his job, and he wasn’t about to clean a room. Not any room. Especially not 111.

Two tires. Blinking away sweat, Cyrus nudged them each with a toe. Not bad. He’d never managed two at once. He’d never even found two in the same week, let alone in the same muddy stretch of stream. He dragged his arm across his forehead. Had the kook already shown up? Why would anyone insist on a particular room at the Archer? It wasn’t like any of them were mold-free or had Jacuzzi tubs or uncracked mirrors.

Cyrus pulled up the hem of his shirt and ground his face into it. The white cotton was already soaked with tire slosh, but it was better than nothing.

California had never been like this. Warm, sure. Sunny, always. Well, almost always. Not during the winter storms. But muggy? Never.

Cyrus closed his eyes and tried to picture the cliffs of Northern California falling away beneath him, the slow-rolling white lines of surf breaking off of the points, ruffling the kelp beds, tumbling the tourist surfers.

It didn’t work. There would be a cool breeze coming in off the ocean. Sweat wouldn’t stick to him like this. He’d been ten the last time he felt that breeze. Two years ago, and still his skin remembered.

Cyrus glanced up at the dropping sun. He’d been in the fields for a while. Dan and Antigone might be back. Sighing, he bounced slowly against the chain-link fence and then straightened. He needed a storm, something to break the heat’s stranglehold on the day. There was supposed to be one, but he’d go crazy if it didn’t break before dark. He bent over, grabbed the closest tire, heaved it to his shoulder, and launched it over the fence. It hopped on the concrete lip and flipped, scattering drops of filthy water, bouncing into the pool, where twelve other tires and two twisted bicycles waited. The pool was a mass grave for worn rubber. An open grave. Someday, when Dan wasn’t around, he’d try to melt them all down. Maybe with a black rubber bottom, the pool would actually hold water. Or not. Things would find a way to go wrong.