Even if the dragons flew to a remote part of the wildlife reserve, to have a break from pesky tourists they weren't even allowed to eat, there were inevitably eager dragon watchers with binoculars somewhere in the park, tracking their upward flight.
Up, up, up... into the clouds.
"So, where to from here?" asked Bitar.
"Dunno. Thought you did."
"It's north."
"So which way is that?"
Bitar thought about it for a moment. "Let's ask someone."
Dragon have keen eyesight. It's useful for spotting prey from a great height. Good for spotting a really well camouflaged greenhouse in the woods, too.
Carl Frederick, cultivator of the fine green product known variously as purple haze, ganja, weed and, lately, thanks to his new English girlfriend, by the charming epithet "skunk," owed his skill in camouflage to time spent in the 101st, prior to his not-entirely-honorable discharge. He owed his survival over the next few minutes to being too stoned to care. He just sat there and smiled vacantly.
There was no other reasonable way to treat a seventy-five-foot dragon landing on your greenhouse. Especially when his brother dragon is investigating your ear with his tongue.
"We need to get to Fort Campbell. How do we get there?"
It was not exactly a destination Frederick thought he'd ever see again. Or had any desire to. "Hey man, that is not a cool place to go."
"Good. We like warm places," said the dragon, happily. "Got any food?"
"Besides you, that is," said the other dragon. "You smell funny. Like those Lotophagi."
"Wouldn't want to eat him then," said the first one. "They made my tummy feel odd. Like it was flying without me."
"We could nibble a bit and see." One of the dragons licked his small but very sharp-looking teeth with his forked tongue. He took Carl's arm into his mouth and the grower of the green product felt the illusion's teeth. He shrieked and pulled his arm away. "Hey man, you can't eat me!"
One of the dragon looked at the other, wrinkling his forehead. The other looked equally puzzled. "Why not?" they asked in unison. It was, plainly, a serious question.
There is nothing like the blood trickling down one's arm from a number of razor-like teeth to focus even the most stoned of minds. Even if they were hallucinations, he'd still better humor them. "Because... because I won't be able to show you the way to Fort Campbell."
"Hmm, true. But I'm still hungry. Can't we just eat half?" said the first dragon.
His companion agreed eagerly. "I'll have the left half, you have the right."
"But two halves make a whole," protested Carl.
The dragon nodded. "I hope it'll fill the hole where my tummy used to be."
"But, but that's the whole of me," said Carl. "I'd be the whole that you ate."
"No you wouldn't. I'd only have eaten half," said the dragon with impeccable logic. "Half a whole would only half fill the hole."
"And if you were a whole," said the other dragon professorially, "there'll be no point in eating you because you can't fill a hole with hole."
"So you can't eat me. I'm whole," protested Carl.
The two dragons looked at each other. "We'll have to dismember him before we eat him," they said in unison.
Frederick clung to the only straw in this whirlpool. "But then I can't show you the way."
"Well, that's true," said the first dragon grumpily. "You carry him first, Smitar. We'll have to find something to eat along the way."
"Road-food always gives me gas," said the other dragon.
"Good. We'll need it," said his companion.
Carl found himself in the airborne again, despite the not-entirely-honorable discharge. Well, airborne again, anyway. Without the benefit of a parachute. "Take us to Fort Campbell," instructed the dragon.
This had to be the strangest weed he'd ever grown. "Man, it's more like you're taking me."
"Which way?" asked the dragon carrying him.
"Uh. Northwest," he answered.
"Northwest it is," said the dragon obligingly. "So which way is that?"
Swales was a small town. It wasn't entirely true to say that it was a one horse town. The horse had died some years before, but Beth Camero had some nice pictures of it. Now it briefly became a two dragon town instead. Well, the diner on the edge of town became a two dragon diner. A two hungry dragon diner.
"What's that?" asked Bitar, pointing to the billboard with a faded burger painted on it.
"It's a hamburger," said Camero, who had emerged from the diner with a shotgun for company.
"Can you eat it?" asked Bitar, tasting the edge of the billboard.
"I make ones you can eat. Cheeseburgers too." Beth swatted his nose away from her sign with the shotgun.
"What about maiden-burgers?" asked Smitar, keeping a coil around their guide-captive-half-meal.
"You big snake! Mind what you say to a lady." Camero was acting as if dragons landed in her diner's parking lot every day. "Now, what'll it be?"
"Food," said Bitar.
"Lots," said Smitar.
"With ketchup!" said Bitar licking his chops, studying Camero's bright red hair. "Now that you've reminded me."
"Lots," agreed Smitar. "Lots and lots of ketchup."
Beth leaned the shotgun against the wall and put her hands on her hips. "And who is paying for this 'lots'?"
"What's paying?" asked Bitar.
"You know," said Smitar. "Giving something in exchange for dinner instead of catching it. They use gold sometimes."
"Gold's not very tasty. No crunch to it," said Bitar, dismissively. "So you get captive dinner. We've got that."
"Turn him upside down and see if he has any gold," suggested Smitar.
Bitar did, and shook him. A wallet, a packet of cannabis and some keys clattered to the ground. "No gold," said the dragon, dolefully. "I like the way it shines, even if it has no crunch to it."
"Anyway, he's a captive already. No use paying for him," said Smitar.
"Never mind," said Camero, picking up the wallet and opening it. She smiled cheerfully after examining the contents. "Food and ketchup it is. I don't get that many customers dropping in that I can afford to turn two big eaters down, I reckon. You eating too, mister? Seeing as you're paying."
An hour and one hundred and fifty-four half-pound burgers with cheese and all the trimmings, twenty-four hot dogs and all the mustard and ketchup in place—and an empty wallet—later, they rose, slowly, heading northwest.
"Say, what's your name, half-dinner?" said Smitar
"Carl Frederick," answered the man.
The dragons peered at him suspiciously. "Have you been to Colchis?"
"Never heard of the place, honest."
"Ach. What did Mac say they called it these days?... ah! Georgia."
"Uh. Yeah," admitted the good-ole-boy from Georgia, USA, in cheerful ignorance of any other Georgia.
The dragon wrinkled his nose in distaste. "You keep those golden fleas to yourself, now."
"They got under my scales last time," agreed the other dragon.
It was just after three that frantic wildlife officers got their first lead on the two missing rare and endangered animals. In response to their radio broadcasts and TV appeals, someone named Beth Camero from a small town forty miles from the Tennessee state line called in. A state trooper was dispatched immediately to the spot.
The state trooper looked at the wallet. "I'll be damned. Carl Frederick." He shook his head. "We've been trying to get our hands on that drug-dealing son-of-a-bitch for a while now. So which way was he heading with those dragons, ma'am?"
Beth pointed. "And I'd offer you boys a burger and a cup of coffee, but they ate everything I had."
Back in the patrol car, the officer called in. "You can tell the Fish and Wildlife guys that it's not strayed dangerous animals any more. It's poaching. Frederick. The local weed king? Yeah, well, the bastard's decided to move from trafficking dope into trafficking wildlife."
Beth Camero went on painting her new sign. Dragons' Rest Road House.
"That's the perimeter fence. You just follow it and you'll come to the gate," said Carl. "Look, can't you let me go here? I'm... uh, not really welcome there." The thought of the base MP's reaction to his arrival, even on dragon-back, was not a comfortable one. "You don't need me. And you've damaged my life enough. Couple of damn muggers, what you are."
The dragons were still full, and bulgingly good tempered. "I suppose we are here. And you have fed us," said one.
"But what have we done to you?" said the dragon, setting him down.
"You destroyed my livelihood. Landed on my crop," said Carl righteously. "Not to mention robbing me blind."
The dragons looked at each other. "It's only fair that we make it up to you."
Visions of dragonback bank raids flashed through Carl's mind. "That lot of skunk was worth easy... half a million bucks."
"That's a lot of buck." said a startled dragon. "A whole herd."
"You grew skunk?" asked the other.
"Yeah. The best," boasted Frederick.
Both dragons undulated off. "Back there," said one, sniffing.
Moments later he had two black and white—and frightened and angry—contributions from above. "A fresh start for you," said the dragon.
"Enjoy!" said the other, as the skunks lifted their tails.
Having fled through the bushes, Carl was running headlong down the road when the patrol car spotted him. Never had he been so grateful to see cops. They could shoot the skunks or the dragons.
"Carl Frederick, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent..."
"But I haven't done nothing!" He was as clean as a man could be. Not an ounce of skunk on him. Well, except for the bouquet that was making the deputy's eyes water.
"Illegal trafficking in endangered wildlife."
Carl sat down on the road and wept. So did the deputies who handcuffed him. But that was probably the smell... Or maybe the thought that he would be going in the back of their patrol car.
Of the dragons there was no sign. It was only a little later that a conservation officer put two and two together about the location, so close to the Fort Campbell perimeter fence. "They probably went looking for their former owner, once they got away from the dragon-napper!"
Someone was dispatched at once to Fort Campbell to see one Sergeant Cruz and his wife Medea. To be met with zero co-operation from two PSA agents. Who, under pressure, had to produce PSA IDs. It was just about the same time, 10:00 PM, as the story of Throttler's mysterious removal from Las Vegas—by PSA agents—hit the news channels.
America liked having the world's only living dragons. Until the story hit the wires, the politicians had been unaware of just how much the public fancied the idea.
Instructions came at 4:00 AM to move the detainees to a more secure secret location, while the dragons slept peacefully on the firing range. Not even the arrival of a cold front disturbed them.