Chapter 6 - Keeper

  Day 4 Past Mid Day

  Well, we ain't flying back to my escape pod, that's for sure. We're going the wrong way. The compass is pointing south but that doesn't mean much. Well it means there is a magnetic field on this world but inferring anything more would be conjecture. All I know for sure is that the needle was pointing north when I faced towards my island while standing next to Will Shen's escape pod.

  I try to look around more but, seriously, the wind makes it difficult. I wish I had some nictitating membranes. It is easier to just stare up at the dragon scales.

  It is not all rhythmic wing beats however. Sometimes we stop to catch a thermal, soaring upwards, and then glide a long ways with minimal energy expenditure. The dragon does, I mean. I'm just along for the ride. Whether the dragon is optimized for aggressive flight like a falcon or endurance like an albatross, I leave for the xenobiologists of the future. Get onto it reader from the future!

  We are closing on yet another island and the dragon is not one to waste time. It attempts to get more words out of me but it is hard. We can't exactly play charades up here in the sky. We don't make any progress.

  I note the lack of anything that could be considered infrastructure as we glide in for another landing. The dragon performs enormous reverse sweeps of its wings to kill its speed and comes to rest on a grass clearing.

  Thank you for flying dragon air.

  I roll out off its paw and hug the ground. I love you solid ground. I don't answer the dragon when it asks about my actions.

  I sip water from the camel pouch in my backpack and look around.

  There is a pile of stones, thin, narrow, and high reaching, running the length of this clearing. We are surrounded by trees. Vines grow between the rocks, lending the formation stability. The stones are not a natural formation. I jog forwards, ascending. From the top I see that they form a dividing line between wilderness and a field full of Capy. The rifle lies flat across my chest.

  The dragon walks up to the stone wall. Thanks to the height affordance we are eye level.

  “Capy” I say, pointing at the giant-rodent-goat thing.

  “Kapee… ??§§??” replies the dragon.

  That is our little system we’ve got going. Human word. Dragon word. Dragon remembers. George forgets.

  "??∩ ????? ???§? ????? ∥? ??? ??? ???? ??? §§?? ??∩ ???? ∩??? ???? ??? ????????? ??? ???§? ????? .§????? ∩??? ????????? ?? ??? ??§§??"

  Yeah. George definitely forgets.

  I actually caught a draconic utterance of Capy that time amidst the vocal churn. The dragon must be telling me about the them. All I’ve learned about them so far is that they’re chill dudes… and that is still all I know.

  From atop the stone wall I wonder. Are they the same as the ones on my island? Or has geographical separation created a sub-species? I look for little changes in phenotype. I want to get closer to them.

  I step down into the field, careful not to slip on the stones. Some rocks don't look weathered at all, like they have been fresh cut.

  From behind the dragon makes that keening noise again, the same one it made when shown the square root of two; the sound it makes when confronting irrationality.

  The dragon hops the stone wall and picks me up like a toddler (without my consent this time). While holding me the dragon uses its wing toes and hind paws to climb back over the rocks.

  I am safely deposited on the other side and the tail is defensive placed between me and the wall. I still don’t understand the growls and such, but I think the dragon is giving me a stern talking to.

  The message is clear. Don’t go into the Capy field.

  But I’m not sure why.

  I am on the dragon’s turf however, so I will respect its wishes. Only I shall endeavor to ask it what that was all about once we have the vocabulary for it.

  But the tour continues. The tail taps me on the shoulder, urging me to follow along with the dragon as it walks away, leaving the strange incident behind.

  Day 4 Supplemental Notes

  Something finally clicked while I was walking along with the dragon.

  It wasn’t when we passed two more identical-ish looking fields, each with its own cobbled together stone wall and vines, each one filled with more Capy.

  It wasn't when we came across a third with a break in the line. When there the dragon began to shovel the stones back into position with its paws and tail. Not when I joined in the effort, contributing one handful at a time, noting the dragon's frustration.

  It wasn’t when we passed several neat and orderly rows of plants, the same plant I saw the Capy eating during our first encounter; plants which I suspect are crops watered with an irrigation ditch (of that I’m sure), whose flow was regulated by a dam constructed from felled trees.

  It wasn’t any of those things.

  It was when we found two Capy wondering along the path of flattened grasses the dragon was guiding me along. The Capy both skedaddled upon seeing the dragon, disappearing into the tree line.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  That was when I realised this dragon is a rancher. Realised that these Capy are its cattle.

  Because I’ve seen that expression before. The one the dragon made. I know it well. That is the look of a pissed off rancher who knows they are in for a fun afternoon of wrangling escaped livestock.

  Some things really can be universal.

  I know uncle James is long since passed, doubly so now with you, log reader, recovering my testimony.

  But he always told me: “No one wants a smart cow,” especially after he’d spent three hours trudging through the worst dark green bush and black mud you can imagine, recovering the four-hoofed-offender in the middle of the night and the middle of the rain — the neighbors screaming bloody murder over their killed-in-action flower bed — with me there holding the flashlight so he could see better.

  Man those were some fun sleep overs.

  Does the dragon feel the same way about ‘smart’ Capys?

  The keeper of Capy. That is what you are, aren’t you, dragon?

  That will be my name for you.

  Keeper.

  Keeper says nothing as they crash into the trees, chasing after the Capy. I stand still and wait. Ranches often have many hazardous areas to laymen. Alien ranches even more so. I don’t want to get lost on an alien ranch.

  I remember a time at James' place. We were moving rocks in his truck off a hill one might call a quarry down to a stream bed. We placed the stones down to form a kind of bridge so that the stream may be traversed when the waters returned. There was drying firewood on the other side.

  My time on dragon ranch reminds me of it a lot. Was James using me as unpaid labor? Maybe. But we did get to go shoot some guns in the field afterwards and that is payment enough in my books. I expect nothing from the dragon. Not killing me, the stranger on its land, seems payment enough.

  So it’s an hour and thirty six minutes later when Keeper returns (I timed it), flying through the air with a Capy held in its paws. The furry brown thing is deposited back in the enclosure with the others. It acts like nothing happened, intermingling with the other Capy who seem equally disinterested in their pal who was airborne just moments ago. Keeper circles back around. Another memory escapes me. I hate when when you can almost remember something important. It is right there on the edge.

  When Keeper lands next to me I see the scales around its mouth are stained red. The forked tongue darts out to lap up the glistening red splotches.

  I guess the other feller has yee’d their last haw. Such is life on the ranch. Who am I to judge? Uncle James' ‘smart cow’ ultimately met a similar fate after escaping one too many times.

  This all raises an interesting question.

  If this is the ranch, then where is the homestead?

  I look at Keeper and I guess our non-verbal communication is improving faster than our verbal because the dragon holds out its paws again, inviting me to climb onboard once more.

  Keeper must be really excited because their lips are pulled back, exposing their teeth in a crude mockery of a smile, except unlike a human smile where the lips are pulled upwards, Keeper’s are pulled downwards. I see a second row of retractable teeth that curve inwards for gripping prey. Not all of them are clean.

  A draconic upside-down-smile-frown.

  At least the tail taps are unambiguous.

  "Keeper," I say pointing at the dragon. I point to the Capy and repeat their name, then I point at the dragon and say Keeper again.

  "Yes, Keeper," replies the dragon. It's tail points back at itself. Keeper has never smiled like this before.

  Glad we could finally get acquainted properly.

  George and Keeper.

  I step unto the black scaled palm once more and brace for lift off. We fly up and away from Dragon Ranch. Not to be confused with any other Ranches of dubious nature.

  When the ground beneath gives way to water, the memory that has been tugging at the periphery finally breaks through. And what a thought it is!

  Roswell, New Mexico, 1947, rancher Mac Brazel claims that a UFO has crash landed on their property, sparking a UFO craze that persists in the region to this day.

  Island Chain, 2056, Keeper the dragon rancher claims that a UFO has crash landed on their property.

  Only this time the crashed UFO is real and not a cover up for a classified spy balloon program for keeping tabs on Soviet atomic testing (you can look that up by the way, it has been declassified for decades when I wrote this log. It was called Project Mogul.)

  I can see it now. Keeper going to their friends and claiming a flying saucer, two of them in fact, have crashed on their property.

  And I'm the alien!

  It all makes too much sense and I can't stop myself from running wild with follow on conclusions.

  I have landed in the middle of bumfuck nowhere farmer's country. That explains all the wilderness. There must be a dragon society far from here. Perhaps that is where we are flying to now. And if we are going to rhyme with our own history this day, then I wonder even more:

  If I was a dragon, what kind of cover up would I use to hide an alien spacecraft from the public? Do dragons have weather balloons? Alien Area 51 probably exists, doesn't it?

  No offense to farmers by the way. They make the world go around. Without them they world would starve in just three months. Humanity living on the edge. Without them people would do vicious things for their family.

  I look up once again at the dragon's underside.

  I wonder if Keeper has a family.

  Day 4 Returning Home

  Dawn Watcher found the creature's response to its brethren most odd. Does George not experience grief? Dawn Watcher should be careful to ascribe such draconic emotions to this 'human'. For what seems the oughth time today, it was not what she expected. She still knows almost nothing about the stranger. The fact frustrates her.

  Maybe it is full of grief though. How else could you explain its behavior around the mollis? Insanity? George having a death wish might also be a valid interpretation. Wondering into the mollis enclosure like that? The little thing could have died if Dawn Watcher did not intervene.

  Many of her kin would recoil in horror if they had been asked to enter a mollis field, but the human hadn’t been asked, it just did!

  George even had a name prepared to share with her for the mollis, so it must know what they are, must know how dangerous their poisonous claws are, right? She expects Sky Catcher will back her up on this.

  And even if it didn't, she gave George a talk and everything! Told him about the claws. It needn't understand all the words but Dawn Watcher hopes George is at least picking up some of them by now.

  She will ask Sky Catcher whether he thinks it is grief or insanity. Maybe he will say George is very brave.

  Of the escaped mollis Dawn Watcher saw in the strange light that one was hotter than normal. Because normally mollis don't show up in the strange light at all!

  Hence the difficulty in finding the escaped ones. They are hard to see!

  She was lucky those two stumbled out in front of her and George. A hot mollis is a sick mollis. Spreading illness within the herd is unacceptable, and so it had to be euthanized.

  Dawn Watcher is not one to pass up a delicacy however. She imagined that the thing-that-smelled-good must taste something like mollis. The scent of both is still stuck on her tongue.

  George did many strange things around the anomaly. Crawled around inside it like a child hungry with their first meal. And that wasn't all George has done. It even helped her with a broken fence! Though from the scents she can tell it wasn't the vandal this time, perhaps her fence craft could be better.

  And a name for her!

  'Keeper'

  It took George long enough. No clue what it means, though she likes the way it sounds.

  Whether George will refer will refer to Sky Catcher and her son as Keeper as well, or present them with different names, remains to be seen.

  Dawn Watcher knows she won't have to wait long to find out.

  She puts extra effort into her wing beats.

  It is not far now.