“What are you doing?” Isabella asked. “Get back up here!”

“She’s hurt,” Alijandra said. She was about halfway down the side of the arroyo, squatting beside the little green dragon. Her feet had sunk almost to her ankles in the mud. More mud spattered the hem of her dress. “We have to help her.”

“Whatever that thing is, don’t touch it,” Isabella said. Carefully, she started down the side of the arroyo. Ugh, she thought, as her feet also sank into the mud. “It probably has all kinds of diseases.”

“No, she doesn’t,” her sister replied. “She’s just hurt. Look, she’s bleeding,” she said, pointing to the trickle of silvery goo puddling under the dragon.

“That’s not blood,” Isabella said, bending down closer. “That’s—I don’t know what that is. But blood is red.”

“Maybe her blood isn’t red,” Alijandra said.

“Well, leave it alone and help me find the other sheep. That thing’s dead.”

“She is not dead,” Alijandra said, pointing to the dragon’s side, which slowly rose and fell just a little. “See? She’s breathing.”

“How do you know it’s a girl?” Isabella asked. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s just some kind of weird lizard. It probably got hurt in the storm. Now, come on, before we both fall down and land in the water and hurt ourselves.”

“But we need to help her,” Alijandra said. “We can’t just leave her here. She’ll die.” 

Bella. Ali. Faintly, they heard their mother calling their names.

“We have to go,” Isabella said. “Mama is looking for us. Maybe she found the rest of the sheep. That other one, the one I found—it was dead. I think it fell in and drowned.”

“Our poor sheep!” Alijandra said. “Which one was it?”

“What do you mean, ‘Which one was it?’”

“It wasn’t Melania, was it?”

“Our sheep don’t have names, Ali.”

“I gave them names! Was it the one with the black patches around her eyes?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Bella! Ali! Louder now.

“Come on!” Isabella said. “Mama will think something happened to us.”

“Something has happened to us: we found her!” Alijandra said, pointing at the dragon. “And we have to save her.”

Isabella chewed her lip for a moment. “All right, we’ll at least show her to Mama. Maybe she knows what to do with this thing. You climb back up. I’ll pick up her up and carry her.”

“I want to carry her!”

“You can’t carry her and climb up at the same time. Now, just do as I say, will you?” 

Isabella squatted and gently slipped her hands under the dragon, mud squishing into the space between her fingers. Its skin was hot and the dragon lifted its head and opened milky white eyes with no pupils. Its lip curled to reveal dozens of short, pin-like teeth as it hissed weakly. Don’t bite me don’t bite me if you bite me I’ll throw you in the water I’ll drown you you little monster, Isabella thought. Then it closed its eyes and went limp. Slowly, she stood up, mud slopping off her hands. 

“Isabella, come up here right now!” Mama said. Isabella looked up. Mama and To-Ho-Ne and Jack and Alijandra were peering over the rim of the arroyo.

“I’m coming, Mama,” Isabella said. “Ali found this…thing. And it’s hurt. We didn’t know what to do with it.”

“She’s not an ‘it,’” Alijandra said. “Is she going to die, Mama? I don’t want her to die.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” Mama said, as she carefully sidestepped down the wall of the arroyo. “Hold out your arms, Bella,” she said, and she gently but firmly took hold of Isabella’s upper arms. “There, I have you. Climb up, climb up. Careful. It’s very muddy. Don’t slip.”

They got back up to the top of the arroyo. Alijandra had taken off her apron and spread it out on the ground. “Put her here!” she said. 

Jack intently sniffed the dragon as Isabella squatted and gently laid it on the apron. Then she stood and shook her hands, flinging off mud and silver goo. “Ugh.” She wiped her hands on her own apron. “What is it, Mama? Some kind of lizard?”

“I don’t know,” Mama said. “I’ve never seen any animal like it. That silver stuff—is it blood? Or something else?”

To-Ho-Ne crouched and slowly ran her hand over the dragon, feeling its head, its side, its webbed spine, its legs and tail. “Blood, I think. Ali is right: it is hurt. One of its legs is broken in several places. It has a deep cut in its belly. I don’t know if it will live.” 

“Do you know what it is?” Mama asked.

“It is not a lizard: feel its skin. Lizards are cold. If it were not so small, I would say it was some kind of dragon. But if it is a dragon, it’s not any kind that lives around here. There’s no dragon like this in the high desert.”

“Maybe it was the big dragon’s baby,” Alijandra said. “You know, the dead dragon we saw this morning.”

To-Ho-Ne shook her head. “The big dragon was a venomdrake, and their young look like red and purple snakes.”

“It can’t be a dragon,” Isabella said. “Dragons have wings and can fly. Papa said so.” 

“Right now, it doesn’t matter what it is,” Mama said. “It’s hurt and it’s one of Our Mother’s creatures and it needs our help. Let’s take it home and see what we can do for it.”

“Let me, Princess,” To-Ho-Ne said. She bent and gingerly gathered up the apron. The dragon’s tail twitched and the dragon whined mhrrr. 

“Don’t hurt her!” Alijandra said. 

“I will try not hurt it, little cub.”

“She’s not an ‘it.’ She’s a ‘her.’”

“We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl,” Isabella said. “But I hope it’s a girl.” 

“It is not a ‘girl,’” their mother said. “It may be male or female but it is certainly not at all like a ‘girl’ or a ‘boy,’ or anything at all like a person. So don’t think of it that way—and don’t like of it the same way you think of Jack.” 

“Why not, Mama?” Isabella asked. 

“Jack is tame: he lives with us and eats food that we give him and loves us and works for us. This animal is wild: it lives outside and gets its own food and feels nothing for us. It is not a pet. We will not be keeping it long. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, Mama,” Isabella replied.

“Yes, Mama,” Alijandra echoed.

“Good,” Mama said. The dragon stirred for a moment, its claws feebly clenching and unclenching, then it lay still. “Are you all right carrying it?” Mama asked To-Ho-Ne.

“It is very light,” the old Diheneh woman remarked. 

They went back the way they came, past the carcass of the larger dragon, where the vultures roosted, tearing at it and squabbling with each other. This time, Jack let them be. 
 
 

“Not on the table,” Mama said. “On the floor.”

Gingerly, To-Ho-Ne set the apron with the dragon on the floor, next to the table. Jack nudged his way past their legs and started sniffing the dragon again. The dragon opened its eyes and gurgled. Jack jerked back and barked once.

“Jack, go find something else to bother,” Isabella said. Jack skulked back a few steps, behind their legs, but his nose kept twitching.

Alijandra squatted near the little dragon as it turned its head this way and that. Mhrr, it croaked, then closed its eyes again. The apron underneath it was wet with the silvery slime. “What do we do now?” Alijandra asked. 

“Heat some water on the stove, To-Ho-Ne,” Mama ordered. “Isabella, put your father’s ape of a dog outside. Alijandra, get a washing cloth.”

Mama sat on the floor next to the dragon, whispering to it, as the others did these things. When To-Ho-Ne brought the tin bucket of warm water to her, their mother took the washing cloth from Alijandra, soaked it in the water, and said, “To-Ho-Ne, I am afraid it might try to bite. Hold it still for me as I clean its wounds.”

“Let me, Mama,” Isabella said, squatting on the floor next to her mother. “I want to help.”

Her mother pondered her for a moment, then said, “All right.” She looked up at To-Ho-Ne. “Get some towels for Isabella to wrap her hands in and to dry off the…little thing. I don’t know if it really is a dragon, but for now, I suppose we can call it that.”

A few moments later, the old Diheneh woman was back with two towels. After Isabella had draped the smaller towel over her hands, she looked up at her mother. “I’m ready,” she said.

“Good,” Mama replied. “Slowly, gently reach down and put your hands on the top of the dragon’s neck, near where it meets the head. When you do, the dragon might jump or wiggle, or even snap at you. Gently hold its neck down where I told you so it won’t bite you—or me.”

Isabella nodded. “I’m scared,” she said.

“I’m scared a little bit, too,” Mama said. “But we must do this.”

“Why would she try to bite?” Alijandra asked.

“Because it is not used to a person touching it,” To-Ho-Ne said. “It will think we are trying to hurt it.”

“Are you ready, Bella?” Mama asked. 

“Yes.”

“All right, let’s start now. Remember, slowly and gently.”

Isabella reached down and put her hands on the dragon’s neck. It hissed and its tail flicked once, twice, and then stopped. Its ribs rose and fell faster. 

“Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?” her mother asked. “Now, my turn.” She dipped the washing cloth into the bucket, soaked it for a moment, pulled it up and wrung it out over the bucket. Tenderly, she dabbed the dragon’s side. It opened its eyes and hissed again, but it lay still. 

“Good dragon, good dragon,” the girls’ mother whispered, swabbing the little creature. The dragon’s blank white eyes followed the woman’s hands as she wiped each wound, then dunked the washing cloth in the bucket, rinsed it, wrung it out, and reached out to wipe another wound. 

Behind them, Jack began to growl. 

“How did he get inside?” Mama asked.

Isabella looked over her shoulder at Jack, her hand easing its grip on the dragon. “I put him ou—OWWWW!” 

“Bella!” To-Ho-Ne shouted, but it was already too late. Snarling and writhing, tail lashing, claws slashing, the dragon chomped down on the skin between Isabella’s thumb and forefinger. 

“Ow, ow, ow, owowowowowOWW!” Isabella shouted, scrambling to her feet and shaking her arm, but the dragon wrapped itself around her arm, gnawing her hand, scratching her arm. Mama dropped the cloth and grabbed the dragon. Jack sprang forward, barking furiously, To-Ho-Ne trying to restrain him. 

“Don’t hurt her! Don’t hurt her!” Alijandra shouted.

“Get Jack!” Mama called. “Get him out of here!”

“I’m trying!” To-Ho-Ne said.

Searing hot needles of pain shot all the way to Isabella’s shoulder. Let go of me, let go of me, LET GO OF ME YOU LITTLE MONSTER, she thought, and with her free hand, she smacked the dragon once, twice, and finally it fell to the floor, flailing. Her mother pulled her away as the dragon went limp and lay still, whining mhrr, mhrr. Jack broke free from To-Ho-Ne and stood, growling, over the dragon.

Isabella’s thumb was bleeding and her arm had seven long scratches running from her elbow to her wrist. “Let me look at that,” her mother said, taking Isabella’s hand. “It’s a deep bite. To-Ho-Ne, heat up some more water and let’s wash this.” She wrapped her arms around her daughter. 

“It hurts, Mama. It hurts.” I will not cry, she swore, squeezing her eyes tight.

“I know it hurts, dear heart. It will be all right. It will be all right.”

Alijandra knelt beside the dragon and stroked its side. “Why did you do that?” she asked it. “Bella was just trying to help.”

“Ali, stay away from that thing,” Mama warned. 

“It’s okay, Mama,” Alijandra said. “She won’t bite me.” Alijandra hugged Jack around his thick neck and he licked her face. 

By the time To-Ho-Ne had heated more water and brought a fresh cloth, the pain had subsided. They sat down at the table and her mother cleaned Isabella’s wounds and wrapped her thumb in a bandage. Jack circled over the dragon, growling when it moved. Every now and then, the dragon whined, but mostly it lay silently on the floor, eyes shut. 

“Now what?” Isabella asked. 

“I will make a paste to stop the dragon’s bleeding, and to keep disease out of its wounds,” To-Ho-Ne said. She went into the larder. 

“We need to find something to keep it in,” Mama said. “We can’t just leave it here on the floor, to get stepped on.”

“Why don’t we just get rid of it?” Isabella asked. “Let’s take it outside and leave it somewhere.”

“You can’t do that!” Alijandra exclaimed. “It’s not her fault she’s mean. She’s hurt and doesn’t feel good. Poor little thing.”

“’Poor little thing?’” Isabella asked. “It’s a monster. I wish we had left it back at the arroyo.”

“When she gets better, she’ll be friendly. You’ll see,” Alijandra said. “She’ll be so friendly that Mama will let us keep her.”

“I don’t want to keep her—it. I wish we had never found it. It’s ugly and mean and I hate it.”

“We are not keeping it,” Mama said. “As soon as it’s better, we’ll let it go. Unless it really is a dragon. In which case, we’ll keep it until your father comes home. He might find it of some value.” 

“You think Papa could sell this?” Isabella asked.

“Perhaps,” Mama said. “But I don’t know what it could be taught to do. Or who would buy it. It’s very small. And that assumes that it lives.”

“She’s not going to die, is she?” Alijandra said.

“I would like to say, ‘no,’ Ali,” Mama replied. “But I’m not sure. We’ll see.”

To-Ho-Ne came back from the larder with a handful of dried grass and herbs. She was chewing something. She sat down on the floor next to the dragon, took a mushy wad from her mouth, and pressed it over one of the dragon’s cuts. Then she plucked some grass and herbs from her hand and started chewing them.

Ugh, Isabella thought. “Come on, Ali,” she said. “Let’s go find something for your little monster to stay in.”

They went outside. Jack followed them. “What are we going to keep her in?” Alijandra asked.

“I don’t know. I was thinking about a basket or a pot, but we use all the ones we have, and it would take To-Ho-Ne a long time to make another one. We need something now.”

“Maybe she could stay with our chickens in their house,” Alijandra suggested.

“I don’t think the chickens would like that very much. And for all we know, that thing eats chickens.” She kicked a stone. “Then we’d have no sheep and no eggs. I guess we’d just starve.”

“We’ll find the sheep,” Alijandra said.

“No, we’re not. They’re gone. And without them, we don’t have any wool to trade, so how are we going to buy food?”

Alijandra just looked at her sister. “What does that have to do with my dragon?” she asked.

“Never mind,” Isabella said. “Just look around and see if you can find something.”

They split up, Alijandra and Jack going one way, Isabella going the other. She went behind the house, to the chicken coop. The chickens came running over to see if she would feed them. Maybe we could use wood to make a room inside there for the dragon? Isabella wondered. It would only be for a little while. 

Behind the coop, between it and the house, was a metal box. Last night’s rain had washed away whatever spider webs might have been there and had left a huge puddle beneath the box. There could be snakes, Isabella thought. She found a long stick and used it to push the box out into the open.

The box was old and dented and had rust along the edges and a seven-pointed star on its side. She pried open the lid. Nothing inside but a thin layer of dust on the bottom. The rain didn’t get in it, she realized. It must be in good shape.

 She straightened. “Ali!” she called.

“What?” Alijandra yelled back. She seemed to just be on the other side of the house. Isabella brought the box along with her. Alijandra was sitting on a dry spot of ground, the chickens milling about her.

“You’re supposed to be helping me find something to keep the dragon in,” Isabella said.

“They looked hungry,” Alijandra replied, “so I gave them some of my tortilla from this morning.” 

“I found this,” Isabella said, holding up the metal box. 

“That will be great!” Alijandra beamed, springing to her feet. “I’ll get something to put inside to make a little bed for her. Maybe she’ll want to sleep with something, too, to keep her company, so I better find something for that, too, and—”

“Come on, blabbermouth,” Isabella said. She headed for the door of the house.

“I’m NOT a blabbermouth,” Alijandra objected. “It’s not my fault that I just get excited sometimes and I can’t—”

“Keep talking,” Isabella said. “You just prove me right.”

Alijandra scowled.

They went inside. To-Ho-Ne was still sitting next to the dragon, gently stroking it and singing softly to it. Mama was standing on a chair under one of the holes in the ceiling where water had poured in the night before. “Mama, I found this for the dragon,” Isabella said, showing her the box.

Mama came down from the chair and took the box. “Yes, I suppose it will do. Clean it out, please, and find some rags or something to put in it.”

“Yes, Mama,” Isabella replied. “I found it behind the chicken coop. What’s it for, anyway?”

“It’s one of your father’s old ammunition boxes,” Mama said. “From when he was in the cavalry.” 

“What’s the cavalry?” Alijandra asked.

“That means he used to ride horses in the army,” Mama said. “Before he met me.”

“Like those men in the red jackets?” Alijandra asked. “The ones we met in town?”

“Like them, yes,” Mama said. “Now please finish making someplace to keep this dragon. I have to see if I can fix this leak.”

“She could just keep using my apron for something to sleep on,” Alijandra said.

“No,” Mama said, climbing onto the chair. “You need your apron to carry things in. Find something else.” 

“I have some rags in the larder,” To-Ho-Ne said. “Go find them.”

The girls found a few dirty pieces from one of their father’s old shirts hanging from a peg behind the larder door. They took them and the metal box outside. They used the rags to wipe out the inside of the box, then pumped some water into a jar and scrubbed the rags as best they could with the bit of soap they had. Then they rinsed off the rags and draped them over the corral fence to dry in the hot sun. 

By then, Mama had found some chores for them to do: gathering firewood, of course, and going to pick juniper berries. When they had finished those, the rags were stiff and dry. The girls brought them and the box inside. Mama was still working on the hole in the ceiling, smearing pinion pitch on some dried grass she had stuffed there. To-Ho-Ne was mending a rip in one of Alijandra’s dresses, using the spiny tip of an agave plant for a needle. 

The dragon’s eyes were closed and its sides feebly rose and fell. To-Ho-Ne had made a tiny wooden splint for its broken leg and the herbal paste she had made had dried into greenish-brown crusts over each wound. 

“Is she all right?” Alijandra asked.

To-Ho-Ne shrugged. 

Quietly, the girls sat on the floor, set the box beside the dragon, and lined the bottom of the box with the rags. “How are we going to get her in the box?” Alijandra whispered.

“Just stay back and let me put her in,” Isabella replied, also whispering. “I don’t want her biting you.”

“I want to help. She won’t bite me—or you again,” Alijandra replied. “She didn’t mean to before.”

Isabella considered this for a moment. “All right.”

Slowly, very slowly, the girls slid their hands under the dragon. Its skin was hot and Isabella could feel something frantically tapping inside the dragon. Is that her heart? she wondered. Does it always go that fast? Or just because she’s hurt?

Slowly, very slowly, the girls lifted up the dragon. A bit of Alijandra’s apron was stuck to the base of its tail and started to come up, too. To-Ho-Ne leaned over and gently pulled off the apron. “The blood made it stick,” she whispered. 

Slowly, very slowly, the girls lowered the dragon into the box. It didn’t stir.

“Nicely done,” Mama said, coming down from the chair. “I’m sure it will be very comfortable there.” 

“When she wakes up, she might be hungry,” Alijandra said. “I’m always hungry when I wake up.”

“You are not,” Isabella said.

“Nevertheless, that’s a good idea, Ali,” Mama said. “Why don’t you two see if you can find something?”

“What do dragons eat?” Isabella asked. 

“Most of the dragons in these lands live on sun and wind,” To-Ho-Ne said. “Some of them eat stones. Venomdrakes like to eat little children, especially girls,” she added, grinning. “But this dragon is not from here, I think, so I don’t know what it might eat.” She put down her mending, stood up from where she was sitting, and got a round, shallow basket from a shelf on the wall. “Take this,” she said, giving it to Alijandra. “Go find something you think the dragon might like.”

The girls went to the larder first. “We’re just trying to find out what it will eat,” Isabella said, “so we need a little bit of a lot of different things. There’s no point giving it a whole potato if it won’t eat more than a bite.”

“All right,” Alijandra said. She plucked a small handful of pinto beans from a clay jar. “How about this?”

“Too many,” Isabella replied. She plucked three from her sister’s hand and put them in the basket. “Find some other stuff.”

They put in a coffee bean, a pinch of cornmeal, a pea pod, a small wad of uncooked yellow rice, two juniper berries that they had picked a few hours before, some pinion nuts. Isabella cut a small sliver of smoked ham and nicked off a chunk of potato. 

“What about some of this?” Alijandra asked, holding up a yellow squash. 

“Maybe later,” Isabella said. “I think we have enough for now.”

“Do we have any eggs?”

“Have you found any lately?”

“No,” Alijandra said.

“Then we don’t have any,” Isabella told her.

“This is food that people eat,” Alijandra said, “but what if she doesn’t like it?” Alijandra asked. 

“We’ll get some other things,” Isabella said. “Things she might like. Think like an animal. If you were an animal, what might you eat?”

They went outside and plucked tall, brown wild grass and tiny yellow wildflowers. Isabella plucked some leaves off the scrawny trees by the house. Alijandra gathered some pebbles.

“What are those for?” Isabella asked her.

“Maybe she likes to eat little rocks,” Alijandra replied.

“No one eats little rocks.”

“Our chickens do.”

“They swallow some sometimes to help their stomachs grind up their food.”

“Yes, but they eat the little rocks.”

“But the rocks aren’t food for them. If they only ate rocks, they’d starve.”

“But maybe rocks are food for her.”

“Rocks aren’t food for anyone.”

“To-Ho-Ne said that some dragons eat rocks.”

“All right, you win,” Isabella said. “Put the rocks in.”

The girls looked around some more. To-Ho-Ne makes prickly pear jelly, Isabella thought. Could the dragon eat a prickly pear? Just then, Alijandra came running past, stopped, lunged down to grab something on the ground, ran again, stopped again, grabbed again.

“What are you doing?” Isabella said. She couldn’t see what her sister was going after.

“Trying to catch hoppers,” Alijandra said. She lunged again and several of the fat, brown insects bounded away from her. 

Ugh, Isabella thought. “Let’s see if the dragon will eat what we have before we try to catch bugs for it.”

“All right,” Alijandra said. She spotted a twig on the ground, ran over, picked it up, and brought it to Isabella. “Maybe she eats wood,” she said. “Maybe she’ll eat our house!” she giggled.

“That little dragon can’t eat a house,” Isabella said. “And the whole house isn’t wood, anyway. Just the frame. Come on: let’s see if it’s awake and wants to eat anything.”

The girls went back inside, but the dragon was still sleeping. “Let’s leave her food for her,” Alijandra said.

The basket was too big to fit inside the box, so Isabella carefully tipped the box over on its side. The dragon’s eyes flicked open for a moment as it slid, then closed again. “There,” Isabella said, taking the basket from Alijandra and setting it on the floor just outside the open end of the box. “If she’s hungry, she can crawl out and have some food.”

“What if she’s too hurt to crawl?” Alijandra asked. “She broke her leg, remember?”

“If she’s too hurt to come out, then we’ll have to feed her.”

“I want to feed her!” Alijandra exclaimed.

“We’ll see,” Isabella replied. “Let’s get her some water.” 

They got a small clay bowl from To-Ho-Ne and poured some water from their water jar into it. They set the bowl on the floor by the basket.

“Let’s see if she’ll eat,” Alijandra said.

‘If you’re done with the dragon,” Mama said, “I have some work for you to do.”

“But we wanted to see what she’d eat,” Alijandra said. 

“If the dragon is like most animals,” Mama said, “it will want to sleep for a long time before it feels well enough to eat. Now, to work, you two.”
 
 

Mama was right, as she usually was. The dragon slept the rest of the day, and through supper, as well. She slept while the girls played outside, chasing each other in the cool of the evening. She slept while they changed into nightclothes and scrubbed their teeth and To-Ho-Ne braided their hair. Food and water sat untouched beside the box where she lay. 

“We’d better put the box up so she can’t crawl out in the middle of the night,” Isabella said. She tipped the box the other way, onto its bottom.

“Leave the lid off so she’ll have enough air,” Alijandra said. 

“Of course,” Isabella said. And the girls settled down on their mats to sleep.

Late that night, Alijandra woke up. The light of the twin moons was spilling in through the windows. Outside, the hoppers sang to each other.

Slowly, quietly, Alijandra rolled off her sleeping mat. Slowly, quietly, she crawled across the cool floor to the box. Dozens and dozens of brown ants milled over the food in the basket. 

She got on her knees beside the box and peered inside. The dragon was curled up in a moonbeam, still asleep. 

“Hello,” Alijandra whispered.

Nothing.

“I thought you might be lonely,” she said. 

The dragon opened its tiny eyes and held Alijandra’s for a long time before closing them again as it settled back to sleep.

“You have such pretty little eyes,” Alijandra whispered, “like the pearls on Mama’s bracelet. Can I call you that? Can I call you Pearl?”
 
 

© Kenton Kilgore, December 2007