*You are running from the destruction of your old worldview not from anything physical. You cannot outrun what you are now Elgin Campbell Chalmers the fourth.*
The world had gone very dark, and then ground in front of Elgin vanished and he was falling.
The unfolding wasn’t painful, just a shock, for a moment he was blind, then his eyes saw the world in black and white with far sharper detail than he had ever seen before, he was deaf to his own scream for a moment then he could hear the rocks creaking as they chilled in the night, his arms and legs were numb, then folded up against his body, his great claws sheathed but ready, his wings caught the wind with the crack of leather catching a gale and the silent scream of steel hawser muscles working against alloy tough bones.
The great flying creature that had been Elgin Chalmers dived for airspeed before curving away from the cliff as the ground rushed up. Then with a the clap of wings that sounded like a regatta of racing yachts tacking as one he flapped his wings, and his huge body shot up and away.
Head thrust forward he swept out over the great lake, eyes swept the shoreline and the mountains, searching for thermals to be taken advantage of, but in the cold night there were none. With a grumble, he set to work, wings the length of a small airliner’s flapped, accelerating and lifting tons of body higher and higher in a hunting gyre.
Now he searched for a meal that would fill his grumbling belly. He spotted cars and trucks on the roads that circled the great lake, but dismissed them, as he dismissed the metal tube far above his own flight level. He did not eat, did not even kill, conscious beings, except in the most exceptional of circumstances.
Then he saw the distant blots of heat against the ground, not people, a herd of some kind. A part of the Iffrit giggled as an idealized topographic representation of the land hereabouts came to mind. But the giggle did not say hold and wings folded into the diving position. The distant memory of the taste and texture of raw beef made his teeth ache and his mouth water. He ignored the flittering tickling touch of low frequency emanations coming from across the lake as he accelerated for the kill
-o-
Elgin woke up fully dressed, down to his boots and long coat, on his bed with the light shining in through the blinds. Humph was half lying on Elgin’s chest, which given the cat’s weight was enough to make breathing a little difficult.
There was an insistent buzzing nearby, which Elgin realized after a few seconds was his new pre paid cell phone. Humph was watching Elgin’s face with blue eyes intentness, and showed no sign of moving so Elgin reached for the phone and flipped it to life. “Chalmers.”
“Damn it Elgin I need you over here, two of the steers are missing out of paddock two, I need you to track them down.” It was Mitch from the CircleSBarS.
Rubbing his faintly aching head Elgin frowned, “The fence was firm the last time I did the circuit.”
“There ain’t a hole, I did the circuit, someone must have let them out, maybe rustlers.”
Elgin sighed, rustlers did still exist but not in these closed ranges in the mountains. It didn’t pay up here, though there were thieves who stole the occasional few beeves to stock their larder.
Then he sat bolt upright, catching the yowling Humph in his arms. Memories flooded back from the night before. He knew exactly what had happened to those two steers. As the memories of ‘his’ teeth crunching through the doomed beasts body he catapulted out of bed and to the toilet where he lost most of his previous night dinner, a ham sandwich, lots of lettuce and a bowl of tomato bisque soup, not two steers, hooves, horns, RFID tags and all.
An hour later he was trotting down the lane to the ranch buildings, having been dropped off at the road by an accommodating passer by.
Mitch was roaring back from the paddocks on his big ATV. He came across the graveled circle in front of the main house and out through the main gate at an excessive speed braking to a four wheel skid stop a few yards in front of Elgin. The big black bearded man had a furious expression, “Took your damned time Chalmers.”
“Sorry boss caught me unprepared.” Elgin hopped on the back of the ATV and Mitch spun the four-wheeler around and had it screaming across the ranch in the next second, almost leaving Elgin behind in his dust and spitting rock chips.
There was no real evidence to look at. The paddock had four gates, three generally for equipment access. All Elgin could see at any of them were the tracks of Mitch’s ATV and of past equipment and steer traffic. Nothing in between, which didn’t surprise him, since the steers had departed ‘by air’ not on the ground but he was not, ever, going to mention that option to Mitch.
The only one that might be mistaken for having any indication of other traffic was the main entrance. Mainly because there were so many it was really impossible to make any sense of them. On foot Elgin spent the rest of the day tracking set after set of markings, blanking his mind to the fact that it was utterly pointless.
What he wanted to know was what had happened to the two steer who’d been a comfortable warm lump in the flying monsters tummy the last he could remember. Had they folded away with the monster when the sun had come up? Was he some kind of were-monster, except the moon had been down and it was not full even if it had been up.
It was nightfall when he knocked on Mitch’s door and the girlfriend opened it, and gave Elgin the usual ‘come hither’ smile. “Hey Elgin, you ready for some grub?” she was chewing gum enthusiastically as she spoke.
“Thanks Betty,” he would have liked to refuse but didn’t want to piss her off, “Sure could do with a little something. Is Mitch back?”
She nearly sneered jerked her head back into the bungalow, “Back? He never went anywhere, he knows if you can’t figure it out he sure as fuck cain’t.” She did have the sense not to say that very loudly.
“I’m here Chalmers, you find something, I hope!?” Mitch bellowed, heaving himself out of the worn recliner in front of the fire and big screen TV that was showing a basketball game.
Betty moved back and Elgin slipped inside, his hat in his hands, “Fraid not boss, best I can make out is that they may have gone north and exited on the lane from the old quarry. But that’s more guess than anything, there are no clear signs anywhere, the ground’s real hard, especially at night, and if they had the tires deflated for max traction they wouldn’t leave much in the way of markings. By using the more heavily used tracks there’s no sign of them.”
“Damn injuns!” Mitch snarled.
“Could have been anyone boss, the Amerind’s aren’t that poor around here and a lot of them don’t like beef all that much.” Elgin replied quietly.
“Could’ve been anyone Boss!” Mitch whined back at Elgin, “Damn it you sound like a pansy PC fed.”
“I’m a cowboy Mitch, and about two thirds Amerind.” Elgin replied flatly.
The big man looked taken aback then sneered, “Found some papers that let you in on the tribal gravy train ehe?”
“Never taken a cent, Mitch.” Elgin ground out, Mitch took a part step back. Reigning in his anger Elgin continued much more quietly, “Let’s talk about the steers, and the owners.”
“They died in the winter, what’s to say.” Mitch drew in a breath, jerked his head at the door, “OK, well I suppose you did what you could, I’ll draw a check for your hours and you can pick it up tomorrow.”
Elgin turned, gave Betty a small smile of sympathy and left.
Outside he jammed his Stetson on and started to walk. The owners would want a vet’s death certificate on the lost beeves, but undoubtedly Mitch had some forged versions around. He’d forge a vet bill as well, and probably the checks to several nonexistent searchers as well. The manager didn’t let much get past him without shedding some dollars.
Flicking his phone open he called Griffith, “Mr TwoShoes, its Elgin Chalmers.”
“I’ve got caller ID Elgin, wouldn’t have picked up if it hadn’t been someone I wanted to talk to.”
Elgin grinned into th
e dimness, “OK Griff, hey sorry about today, Mr. Carpenter lost a couple of steer, wanted me to track em.”
“Any joy?”
“No, clean away, like they sprouted wings and flew off,” Elgin couldn’t help grinning at his own private joke.
“Eh, well maybe Lake Side spotted them.” Griffith chuckled at his own ‘in joke.’
“UH, don’t follow you Griff?”
“UFO sightings late last night, out over the lake. You know there’re idiot rumors about folks using floatplanes to land drugs on the lake. The feds set up a radar at the airport, it tracked something taking off from the lake last night. They tried to get a track on it but it headed off fast and low.”
Elgin’s mouth was dry, every little piece of evidence he picked up pointed to what might have just been a dream-nightmare being something, impossibly, that had really happened.
“Anyway that wasn’t what you called about, don’t worry about missing today, you had the garage well covered. You going to make it Wed?”
“Sure am, I’ll also drop in this evening to check up on the paperwork. But that wasn’t all. You remember we talked about what I’ll be doing during the warm months?”
Griff sighed, “Sure I do, I’d guess you’re telling me you’ll be elsewhere till next winter?”
“No Sir, I was going to tell you that I’ll either be arranging part time with the CircleSBarS or looking for other work, I want to continue managing the garage, though over time I plan on letting Ted, Stan and Sam take some managing load as well as the grease monkey work.”
Now Griffith laughed, “Damn, I have no idea what happened to you in those hills El but it’s great to be on the receiving end of the result. You got it, just keep me up on the plan eh?”
Elgin smiled, “Yes sir, certainly will.”
“Have a good night El.”
“You too sir.” Elgin flipped the phone shut and walked on into the cold wind with a smile.
-o-
Elgin had started visiting Beauty’s tiny public library most Sundays during its brief open period which had rather shocked the Sunday Librarian, Miss Wilkerson, who was also an English teacher at the Black Bear Lake County East High School. She had been Elgin’s teacher several times. Seeing him reading shook her head. He started with the car repair section, even going to the length of checking several books out. Then he started stopping in periodicals, first reading some car magazines. Then she caught him reading the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, when he checked out a book of Economist back issues she almost couldn’t resist asking him what had gotten into him.
Then he started to read science and technology magazines, and to use one or other of the computer terminals, though he had a painfully slow hunt and peck style. One day she passed him and couldn’t stop herself, “Elgin, you know there are better ways than hunt and peck to enter data.”
He turned to her, smiled, “Hey Miss Wilkerson, I know, but I don’t know how to get started, and its not fair to take up the terminal any more than I do already.”
“I know, but we have a computer lab at the high school that’s open to the public after hours Monday through Thursday, they have typing tutor programs and some adult classes in the common applications. Its all free, I know you don’t have a lot of money. I guess I should have minded my own business but it just makes my head ache seeing you make such rough a time of it, when you’re obviously trying so hard.”
He looked abashed, thankful, “Hey thanks Miss Wilkerson, I should have thought to ask, guess I’m too used to us being the back of the behind of everything, didn’t figure we’d have stuff like that.”
“The tribes done a lot of good things for the town and we’re attracting some folks with money and a few of them have kids or at least some of the other folks who are coming to provide services for those folks, have kids, and they want at least basic schools. And better schools attract more folk, which makes the schools easier to support.
Elgin smiled, “A virtuous circle as it were.”
“Elgin Chalmers! my word, you were listening!”
His smile twisted, “A lot more than it appeared at least Miss Wilkerson, and thanks for never giving up on any of us. We didn’t give you a lot of joy but you did make an impression. However small sometimes.”
She smiled and patted his shoulder as she walked away, hiding the fact that her eyes were damp.
-o-
Elgin sat on the saddle of the old Norton Commando and kicked the engine starter, the old motor grumbled to life with alacrity, the old British monster having absorbed a month of his spare time, Elgin felt some satisfaction. Motorcycles were rather looked down on by most Wyoming natives, they were impractical given the long winters, but they were popular with ‘immigrants’ who came to live here.
This beast had been the prize possession of an older immigrant who had died without ever riding it after unpacking it. And it had spent the last fifteen years in storage. It had looked a real wreck when it came up for auction, but its basic core had been almost pristine. He’d gotten it for a song and it hadn’t taken all that much in the way of money to get it back in running order. He could have done similar things with more modern bikes but the old twin was so simple and so common he could do almost everything himself if he needed to.
The cold months hadn’t ended yet but the snow had melted off the roadways so he could take a ride. The bike snarled away from the garage and accelerated for west and the main road, clicking up through the gears he was soon far beyond the legal speed, the wind chilling and invigorating at the same time. But at Great Bears Den bay, he slowed to a stop and pulled off at the state sponsored parking crescent with its view of the water, there was a coffee truck pulled off and Elgin swung off his bike, rubbing his reddened hands.
The coffee was good, he sipped it as he looked into the den, a nearly perfectly circular pool of water with a narrow opening to the main lake, The two arms surrounding the den rose steeply from the water, the rock and thin soil supporting a surprisingly thick forest on both side. The Den was one of the most contentious piece of property on the lake as well as one of the most spectacular.
The west ridge was owned by Collin Conkling who had made his fortune in the semiconductor business fighting Intel, his company had lost but he’d retired fabulously wealthy. His house was built into the north face of the outer curve, hidden from the land.
The east ridge was owned, or rather squatted on by the Evil Eagles Claw biker gang. The chieftain of the EEC was a half blood Indian and he had claimed the property as inheritance from a aunt by marriage. No one had been able to prove that the claim was false and the club paid the property taxes on time, giving the county very little to work with. The EEC was well known to run most of the criminal enterprises in Beauty from their lakeside camp.
The tribe claimed the whole of the den as tribal property and wanted to build a casino and resort here. Collin Conkling had bought his property and had a deed for it but the deed essentially dated back to the bad old days in the 1800’s when a series of Bureau of Indian Affairs secretaries had appropriated property from the tribes and sold it, Conkling had bought the title fair and square even though the last owner had at one time agreed to sign the property back to the tribe at the end of his life.
Elgin wasn’t that thrilled about the casino and resort but he figured that the tribe had the right to do what they wanted with the land and the plans he’d seen had looked spectacular. But they depended on controlling the Den and the tribe didn’t right now.
The ride back to the garage was just as exhilarating as the ride to the den had been and he was a little saddened at having to wheel the bike inside and lock it up, but it was really an extravagance not a practical vehicle.
The evening was drawing in and he was hungry, Elgin’s eyes narrowed, every time he felt hunger, he wondered if it was all him. And there was something about this hunger that was more than just a human need for food. He wasn’t sure it was hunger
in the sense of a need to eat, there was a sense of concern, a restlessness, a need to be elsewhere.
Tom was still there, he could close up with Winifred’s supervision. Elgin needed to go.
Ten minutes later he was walking down the road, waiting for someone to give him a ride if at all possible. But as he walked into the darkening dusk he realized the land around him was shifting subtly, the moon on the horizon had an orange rim and its markings were indecipherable, almost as if they were constantly changing. There were no cars on the road and there were campfires by the thousands in every direction, each with its own still figure.
The unfolding still caught him unaware, the ground fell away and that personality that was Elgin slipped from the singular to an odd sense of multiplicity, with the central element a thing of knife sharp senses, knowledge and decisions. A couple of running steps as the great wings unfurled lead to a leap no natural creature could have made and the monster that had been Elgin was in the air, a couple of shallow flaps to get altitude then the wings began to row the air powerfully, driving the creature higher and faster at every beat.
Then the flapping stopped and the wings were held out, slanted forward but they were still accelerating and climbing. Elgin felt energy flowing, saw the lines of force and resistance. The air that met the wing, compressed, and flowed across the wing, and then received a tiny pulse of energy, as it began to expand, providing a pulse of thrust before becoming part of the wake.
*The Iffrit is not a creature of flesh and blood as you and I think of it.* Cutter said softly from somewhere nearby, somewhere in the creatures skull.
*Iffrit, do you mean Afrit, the Arabic demon, winged monster, dragon.* Elgin had tried to figure out how the word was spelled, and the Arabic term had made the most sense.
*The oldest has been called many things, dragon is certainly one of them.*
*But dragons, iffrits, afrits are mythical magical monsters and there is no such thing as magic.* But then again, he had spoken with ghosts, had almost been eaten by the Basik, had died and been brought back to life.