Haneb ducked his head and, without picking up any more of his breakfast, scuttled away toward Mr. Walkwell’s table. Once seated, he began to eat quickly without looking up.
Tyler hissed at her. “Jeez, Lucinda, treat that guy like Frankenstein much?”
She stared at him, embarrassed but also angry. “It surprised me, that’s all.” She turned to Colin. “Poor guy! What happened to him?”
“Burned.” Were these children going to blunder and crash through every little private matter on the farm? If so, it was going to be a very long summer.
“Whoa,” said Tyler, interested for the first time. “Really? What burned him?”
A shadow fell over them-a large shadow. “Come along, you young ones,” Ragnar said. “The sun is almost at noon!”
Tyler looked at his watch. “It isn’t even six thirty yet!”
“On a farm that is the middle of the day,” Ragnar said cheerfully.
“Has anyone decided what chores these children are going to do?” Colin asked. He had a sudden horror that Gideon was going to expect him to entertain these barbarians, to play with them or some other impossibly childish idea.
“Work?” Tyler blinked. “Can’t we see the dragon again? What was her name?”
Ragnar grinned. “Meseret. You like dragons, do you? Then you have never met one on a windy mountainside with nothing but an ax in your hand.” He laughed. “I do not think you will see more of the great she-worm today-she has been ill. But there are other things worth doing… and seeing. I have good news for you, young Master Tyler. There shall be no work for you today.”
“What?” said Colin. “But everyone has to work!”
“Not today,” said Ragnar firmly. “Gideon has decided that the safest thing is for the children to be taken on a tour of the farm, the better to stop any more unfortunate explorations.”
Colin’s mouth fell open. Could anything be more unfair? “But… ”
“As for you, young Master Needle, Mr. Walkwell asks me to remind you he needs his feed budget, and will you please work with your mother to get it to him by the end of the day.”
So the children would get a tour of the farm while he was stuck with bookkeeping? “Really?” Colin asked miserably. “Today?”
“Today.” Ragnar laid a big hand on Colin’s shoulder, squeezing hard enough to make his point. “You know Mr. Walkwell does not joke.” He turned to Lucinda and Tyler. “No more wasting time,” he said. “Let us go.”
“Bye, Colin,” said Lucinda.
Her brother grinned at Colin. “Yeah. Enjoy yourself.”
The three of them walked away. Simos Walkwell and the farmhands filed out to their various jobs. His mother went off with the kitchen workers to supervise the making of the week’s shopping list. Colin Needle was left alone with his oatmeal.
It had gone cold.
Chapter 7
M r. Walkwell sat waiting for them in front of the house. He had hitched two horses to the ancient wagon this time, the brown mare that had brought them back from the train station and a spotted gray, perhaps to help with the extra weight of a rusty old two-wheeled trailer piled with feed sacks that had been attached to the back of the wagon. The whole thing had the look of a small and not very exciting parade.
Haneb, the slender man with the scarred face, sat in the wagon, staring down at his feet. Three other farmhands sat with him among the feed sacks, short, squat, tan-skinned men who looked as if they might be Asian. They touched the brims of their odd hats and smiled shyly at the children.
“It’s the Three Amigos,” Tyler said quietly to Lucinda, but she either didn’t remember the movie or didn’t think it was funny enough to laugh.
Mr. Walkwell didn’t say a word as the children and Ragnar climbed on. When they were settled atop the feed sacks he clicked his tongue and the horses started around the driveway, wagon wheels scrunching through the hard-packed gravel. He was no more talkative when Tyler asked questions about the previous night, the dragon, or the day’s itinerary.
“Simos could beat standing stones in a staring contest,” said Ragnar, smiling. “You’re wasting your time, boy!”
They drove for almost a quarter of an hour across the farm to their first stop, which surprised Tyler: he would have guessed all the animals would be close to the house. When they had reached the base of the hills and the house was almost out of sight behind them, they came to a halt at a chained gate. On the gate’s far side a trail led away down the straw-colored hill.
Mr. Walkwell unlocked the gate. “You two children stay with us,” he said, suddenly and sharply. “If you disobey or anger me you will go back to the cart to wait.”
The Three Amigos (whom Ragnar had introduced as Kiwa, Jeg, and Hoka) got down and began to pile feed sacks on their shoulders until each was carrying three. Mr. Walkwell took four (Tyler felt secretly certain by the ease with which he lifted them he could have carried more) and massive Ragnar took three on each shoulder. Without being asked, Tyler helped Haneb lift a sack onto his shoulders. The scarred man did not meet his eye, but mumbled a thank-you in accented, liquid-sounding English.
“More dragons?” Tyler asked Lucinda quietly as they fell in line behind the Amigos. “Do you think this is where they live?”
Lucinda pulled up, horrified. “You’re joking, right? We’re not
… I’m not going near a bunch of wild dragons!”
Mr. Walkwell growled as he almost ran into them from behind. “Keep walking, you children. If you trip me and I drop these sacks on you, you will not thank me.”
But Lucinda was not moving. “Are we going to see a bunch of wild dragons? A herd or whatever? Because I don’t want to do that.”
The wiry old man made a snorting noise. “Do you think the world is so full of these most ancient ones that they roam about in flocks, like pigeons?” He shook his head. “No-they are special and rare. We have two dragons here on the farm. You saw one in the Sick Barn-Meseret, the female. Her mate is named Alamu. We will not see him today.” He made a strange noise in his throat. “If we are lucky.”
“I don’t understand,” Lucinda said.
“No, you do not,” Mr. Walkwell agreed. “Walk faster, please.”
Tyler said, “You let the male dragon, like, roam wild? Is that safe?”
“He would kill himself trying to get out of a cage or barn, but if he is well fed Alamu is perfectly content to stay near Meseret, hiding in the high rocky places. Naturally we keep him very well fed.”
When they reached the bottom of the hill they found themselves in a woodland of madrone and oak trees, so that instead of the hot sun they walked through ragged patches of shade. The farmhands stopped and began dropping the sacks in a little clearing where a long-dry pond had become a shallow bowl of green weeds and yellow grass. Metal troughs stood at the base of several of the trees. The men began cutting open the bags and pouring dark green pellets that looked like giant rabbit food into the troughs. Tyler stepped forward to have a closer look.
A long brown hand descended on Tyler’s shoulder, stopping him as if he’d run into a wall. “Stay here, boy,” Mr. Walkwell said. “They are easily startled.”
Ragnar, standing at the center of the clearing, lifted his fingers to his mouth and whistled three loud, shrill notes. They all waited, Haneb and the other farmhands standing close to Ragnar, as if a rainstorm was coming and the blond man was a tall, sheltering tree.
“What are we waiting for?” Tyler said at last. “And why isn’t it coming?”
“Not one but many,” Mr. Walkwell said. “And they are coming, child. Likely they were far away. Listen!”