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Chapter 5

V

“What’s that?” Balto asked as they came to a halt just a few minutes outside of Clifford. It took Balto a moment to realize where they were, having spent the majority of the ride looking at endless farmland and losing himself in daydream battle again, but quickly recognized the train tracks he had flown over so many times before. However, Balto had never been so close to a train before. It moved so loudly and quickly up close. It looked so slow from above and was so quiet, but only a few yards away from the roaring metal machine, Balto’s ears ached from the noise.

He yelped fearfully as a distant steam whistle sounded off.

“Yeah, I hate how loud they are too. I can hear it from home sometimes and I hate it.” Lee looked at Balto’s pain expression in the mirror and added, “I don’t have sensitive dragon ears though. I’m sorry. It’ll pass soon.”

“It’s just...kinda scary, ya know? Why is it so loud?”

“Well, it’s to let people know it's coming. Trains have to go from one side of the country to the other without stopping most of the time. They have to cut through towns and road and people need to know that they’re coming or they'll get run over.” Lee looked at a passing train car closely and added, “I think this one’s Washington.”

“Have you ever been there?” Balto asked, poking his head around Lee’s window again to hear his words easier.

“I have.”

“What’s it like?”

“Well, I have a lot of family up there. I haven’t talked to a lot of them in a while. Mostly aunts and uncles.”

“But what is it like? Does it rain a lot? Is it cold? Winters here are really cold. I have to wear so many layers that it makes flying a lot harder.”

“It rains a lot, but from what I remember, there’s a public transit system. Buses and trolleys and the like. No one gets caught out in the rain there.”

“Well, who delivers people’s mail then? Buses can’t stop everywhere a mail-dragon has to stop.”

“There’s a bunch of mailmen and dragons...well, not so many dragons anymore. Certainly not just one little guy like you to cover multiple towns.”

Balto looked confusedly at the train cars as they passed. “You mean...more than one person does the mail?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. Where I lived before...before I came back...I had three different mailmen. Was pretty good friends with one of them. His name was Todd and could make the best damn macaroni salad you’d ever have. Jessica…” Lee became silent for a moment. A long moment. Balto felt Lee’s melancholy seeping into his own mood. “She liked it a lot.”

The dragon watched quietly as the final train car passed. He eyed Lee for a moment before asking, “Do you ever think of going back there?”

“Back where?”

“Washerton?”

“Washington,” Lee corrected, “and yes, sometimes I do.”

“I want to visit there one day, I think.” Balto thought about Strider’s many travels before discovering the Hobbits' quest. He’d like his own adventure too.

Lee noticed the wanderlustful look in Balto’s eyes as he looked into the sky and towards the horizon of distant houses and buildings.

“You can go there one day. Might even run into each other when that happens. Who knows?”

Lee drove them onward towards Clifford.

+++

Balto, feeling rested enough and in little enough pain to allow it, asked Lee to return home for the time being while Balto made his usual route around Clifford, delivering mail to the waiting denizens. Lee relented after a few moments of watching Balto walk. He was obviously in pain, but he could walk still and Lee wasn’t comfortable making demands at the dragon.

Balto seemed intent on walking.

He kept his harness and pouches loosely atop his back but still within easy reach. The dragon made his usual route, sliding letters into mailboxes and into grateful hands. It felt nice to receive kind looks again. Balto smiled back and feigned ignorance when asked why he looked so rough.

Clifford didn’t take long luckily as Balto’s hind leg was beginning to throb once more, but the young drake had one final place he wanted to stop at before returning to Lee’s home. The dragon found Four-One-Seven West Street.

The courier steeled his nerves on his approach, lifting the gate latch and making his way onto the property. He listened bravely to the quiet bang bang bang of the shutters again, feeling them reverb through his bones like they had before. He crossed the lawn, walking carefully on the stepping stone walkway.

Balto, heart thundering in his chest again, pulled open the mailbox lid. It shrieked to life, rusty axle hinge scraping itself painfully.

An excited chirp burst from Balto as he yanked out the package meant for Ms. Fitzgerald and clutched it to his chest.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Balto’s head snapped up and faced a man at the door of Four-One-Seven West Street. The man wore coveralls that had not a single smear of grease on them. The uniform was in mint condition but looked rather worn at the joints, like the man had worn them many times before. In his arms, cradled like a baby, was a long tube with some attached to it. Balto didn’t need to have seen one to know what a shotgun was...or how dangerous they were. He looked at the man fearfully, ears flat and tail shaking violently. His body failed to move.

His mouth failed to speak.

His eyes fixated on the weapon.

“Answer,” the man commanded. “Or I’ll assume you’re a thief.”

“I gave you this package by mistake yesterday,” Balto blurted out in one breath, adding, also in a single breath, “I’ve come to retrieve it and deliver it to the appropriate recipient.”

The man stroked his beard with one hand while he put his free hand around the shotgun’s handle, finger hovering above the trigger guard. The dragon stared at it more, unsure of what to do or say to the man anymore.

But he spoke anyway, putting on as much false bravado as he could muster.

“I...I have a duty to…”

“Didn’t you ride in here with Lee earlier?” the man asked, cutting Balto off suddenly.

Balto nodded fervently, mouth still open and mid sentence. The man spit loudly off the side of his porch and sneered at something Balto couldn’t be sure about. It didn’t feel directed at him, but the shotgun sure made it feel that way.

The man snarled out a grunt and snapped, “Get a move on. I don’t want to find scale-shed in my lawn.” Without another word, the man retreated inside, taking his terrible weapon with him.

Balto nearly fainted once the door shut. After the first couple of steps backwards, he spun around, stumbled, and staggered off the property, leaving Four-One-Seven West Street behind. The dragon sighed and didn’t dare look back.

Instead, he ran as fast as he could towards Four-Two-Seven West Street, handed the package to Ms. Fitzgerald, who looked more like her father than Balto thought was normal, and hurried off to Lee’s.

+++

“Yeah, that was Murdock. He’s a mechanic, I think.” Lee poured Balto a small cup of tea after listening to Balto’s story of the shotgun wielding man and his dreadful looking home. “He moved in a few weeks ago. “I think he wants to renovate the place. I can’t be sure. We’ve only talked in passing. He seemed nice enough.”

“He was really scary…”

“That was probably the shotgun.”

Balto shrugged, dipping his tongue into the drink. He let out a contented sigh, felt a shiver run all the way down his body, and smiled into his cup.

“After that cup, are you ready to go home?”

Balto looked off the porch, saw the height of the sun, and...almost answered with “yes”. The dragon looked around Lee’s beautiful lawn, felt the warmth of his cup in his paws...enjoyed the feeling of sunlight touching the parts of his back that usually had leather on them. He looked at the variety of flowers sprouting from every part of the yard.

“Does Washington look like this?” the dragon asked wistfully.

Lee shrugged. “I haven’t been there in a long time. I’m sure some people have gardens like this. I doubt entire yards though. This was specifically something my wife wanted to do.”

There was another quiet sadness lingering between them, but Balto didn’t let that deter him.

“Is...is Washington far away?” Balto asked. “Do you think I could fly there on my next Sunday? I...I want to go there…I want to go...somewhere...anywhere…”

Lee looked over Balto’s longing expression and said, “When I was eighteen, I ran away from home.” Balto gave the man a confused and worried look. “My extended family was--and probably still is--extremely traditional and I just didn’t want that life for myself. So...so I hopped on a train with only the clothes on my back and about fifteen dollars.”

“You rode a train?”

Lee nodded. “You can always find an open and empty train car if you wait for it to come by. It’s how I made it out this far east. Jumping from one train to the next until I found a place I thought was nice enough to plant my roots and not just my family’s.”

The dragon looked at the ground blankly, lost in adventurous thoughts and all the worries that came with those thoughts.

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“I can’t leave my family though. They need me,” Balto muttered. “Clifford needs me...Carville and Newman and…”

Lee held up his hand to stop the dragon’s speech. “I’m not trying to convince you to run away. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and I got lucky. I could have died or been kidnapped or any number of terrible things.” Lee placed a hand on Balto’s shoulder and said, “You’ll find your way. It’ll take time for you to figure it out, but you’re young and have the time. You’ll figure it out.”

Lee snickered to himself before adding, “Just like the real Balto did.”

Balto the dragon smiled and felt his tail slap the porch happily.

“I think I’m ready to go home now.”

“You sure? You can stay a little longer if you’d like.”

He nodded and gently set the empty cup down, unable to recall actually finishing it but remembering that he hadn’t asked for milk. He contented himself to knowing he’d ask the next time he came around.

+++

Lee needed several directions and some helpful guidance from his passenger to find his way to the estate. It was a confusing trip that made Lee admit his unfamiliarity with the area.

“Turn here,” Balto commanded, looking over the roof as Lee drove slower. The dragon had to look over the tops of fields to find familiar looking roofs and the occasional windmill that dotted the landscape, but once he spotted them he knew instantly where they were and which direction to head.

Lee, trusting Balto’s directions, turned down the road and saw it: Balto’s home. Even if it hadn’t been the only house for miles and miles, the happy dance Balto did at the sight of it told Lee all he needed to know. It was a brickwork mansion with aged and weathered columns of stone flanking the front entryway. The windows were glossy and perfectly transparent, showing the silk-like curtains behind them nicely. Security bushes lined the front of the house neatly, shielding the foundation from view while a wall of stone surrounded the estate neatly.

“You have a nice house,” Lee said. “Your family has really prospered, huh?”

“Yeah,” Balto replied beaming proudly. “Father said he was really proud of buying this place. I was too young to remember where we lived before that.”

Lee looked at the front gate impeding their entry and asked, “So how do we get in?”

The dragon shrugged, unseen and still above the roof. “I usually fly over it.”

Balto stumbled out of the truck and made his way to the gate, tugging on it loosely and inspecting the ironwork for a moment. The gate opened inward without much resistance, letting Balto wave for Lee to enter.

“I think I’d better head home now,” the man said. “I don’t think your father will be happy that a stranger gave his son a ride home.”

“No, it’ll be alright! Father knows who you are and he can meet you!” Balto waved his paw once more for Lee to follow. The man looked inward, sighed, and spun this steering wheel quickly. The dragon watched excitedly as Lee pulled into the driveway. The dragon rushed over to Lee and pranced around excitedly, unhindered by the subtle limp in his hind. “I’m so excited! I’ve never had a friend over!”

Lee looked worriedly at the dragon and muttered, “That’s...not…appropriate phrasing...”

But Balto was hardly listening and was already rushing to the front door. Lee was slowly approaching by the time Balto was crying for one of his parents.

The dragon ushered a woman out of the front door. She was cradling an infant tightly to her bosom.

“Oh…” the woman whispered, staring at Lee. “I was expecting...another dragon…”

Lee stared back. “Me too.”

“Uhm...well...would...would you like to come inside, Mr...?”

Balto nodded rapidly from behind his mother until Lee nodded in return, still wide-eyed and confused.

“Yes, yes, my name is Lee Watson. I lent a book to Balto yesterday and a string of events has led me here today.”

The woman headed inside and Lee followed, flanked by Balto. She said, “It sounds like a story. I love stories. Would you mind telling me while we wait for my husband?”

The dragon slapped his tail on one of the living room sofas, gesturing for Lee to take a seat there. The man sat down, folded his hands together, and looked blankly around the room.

“Balto, would you be a dear and retrieve your father while I talk with your new friend? I think he is out back.”

“We’re not…” Lee started but the woman held up a finger to her lips and gave him a knowing smile.

The young drake nodded and bounced towards the back of the house, slithering his way down the hall, out the back door, and sprinting towards his shed. After dropping off his pouches and torn leather at the door to his shed, he found his father around the back, crouched low and drawing numbers into some of the wooden planks of his shed.

“Hello, Balto,” Father spoke, looking up at the sky. “Is it time for you to be home? And what happened to your head?” Father reached towards the dragon, who quickly weaved out of reach on impulse. “Stop it!” he snapped, lunging for one of Balto’s horns and pulling him forward.

“Ow!” Balto shrieked, moving forward. “I hit my head is all! I’m okay!” The dragon wrenched his head and horn free from the man’s grip and rubbed the horn gently. “I have a friend I want you to meet.”

“A friend?”

Balto nodded. “Come on! He’s inside!”

Father gave Balto an apprehensive look and snarled, "Who gave you permission to have a guest over?"

The dragon's ears fell, as they had many times that day, and responded with a half-hearted, "No one…"

Father glared at Balto a little longer before sighing. "I'm sorry, Balto, that was rather rude of me." As Father began to stand, Balto’s ears perked back upright and he listened with giddy excitement as his father continued, “Let’s go meet your new friend!”

Inside, after Balto spent the short walk from his shed to the house talking rapidly about trying tea and wanting to visit the land of “Washerton”, Father came face-to-face with Lee Watson. Balto leapt towards Lee and announced excited, “Father, this is Mr. Lee Watson. He gave me a ride after I hurt my leg and he lent me that book and let me try tea and…” Balto silenced himself before he mentioned the arrest.

Lee stood up with his hand outstretched for a shake.

But Father squinted at Lee.

Balto let the excitement of introductions get the better of him, otherwise he might have noticed Father’s expression towards Lee. He would have recognized the anger in his father’s eyes.

He would have seen what Lee saw as he met the patriarch’s gaze and what made him lower the hand held out.

“So you helped my dragon home?” Father asked slowly, seating himself in his usual chair.

“Yes, sir, I did…” Lee replied, blankly looking into the man’s eyes.

“And gave him that book of monsters and witchcraft and demons…”

Balto interjected suddenly with a bouncy hop in the middle of the living room. It shook the room but little Leslie giggled and held a littler hand towards the dragon. Balto look at his father, eyes beaming, “Yeah! And warriors too! Warriors and hobbits and cloaked monsters chasing them!” The dragon spread his wings slightly to show some form of intimidation. “And they ride on horses blacker than night and were kings! Kings corrupted by the power of…”

“That’s enough,” Father snapped, not even bothering to look at him. The young drake made a little whimper noise. “Would you mind retrieving the book for me? I’d like to look at it.”

The dragon’s momentary lapse in excitement from the sharp interruption from his father returned in full. Exuberated, Balto dashed out of the living room once again, galloping to his shed as fast as he could.

The shed door whipped open faster than it ever had before, the rusty hinges angrily groaning. Balto made a single leap from the entrance to his nest, picked the book up with his tail, and leapt back out. He slid on some grass and soil and some of the tattered leather of his harness, but didn’t let that slow him down much. The dragon returned to the living room with a smear of grass coloring under his chin and on a chest scute.

Balto looked around frantically for Lee but found that the living room was empty with the exception of himself and Father, who stood near the front window looking out.

“Where’s...where’d Lee go?”

“You don’t need to be talking to that man anymore,” Father said, pulling away from the window and fully shutting the curtain.

“But...but why?”

“Because I said so!” Father shouted impatiently. “Give me the book!”

Balto took the book from his tail and clutched it to his chest.

“Do as I say, dragon…”

“No…” he whimpered, defiant but scared.

“Drop it!”

Balto dropped the book at his feet, lurched sideways, and hid behind the couch.

“This Godless thing is not allowed in my house,” Father snarled, taking the book off the floor.

“Please,” Balto begged, looking over the top of the couch. Leslie cried from somewhere in the house. Balto’s ears thundered and his blood boiled. He watched on as his father opened the book and grabbed a handful of pages. The man stared at Balto as he tore them from their binding. “No!” the dragon gasped.

“These are the words of a Godless man writing for Godless people…given to you by a Godless man…”

“No,” Balto muttered, watching helplessly as Father ripped more pages out in his show of power. Rage burned in the dragon’s chest. It threatened to set him ablaze.

“I’ve fought men like him before and they’re nothing but rapists and commies!”

“No!” Balto shouted back, rising from behind the couch.

Father dropped the book at his feet, pages fluttering to the floor in shredded beige spirals. The sound it made as it hit the floor deafened both the dragon and himself. The man stepped backwards quickly as the young drake moved to catch the fragments, mumbling to himself about needing to fix it and finish it.

The dragon didn’t bother looking at his father until each ripped page was collected and safely tucked away where they had been torn free, but he only gave the man a passing glance.

“Don’t you raise your…!” Father started but Balto was already racing to the kitchen and scrambling through drawers until he found Scotch tape. The dragon set himself to putting the pages back together again, careful not to read anything he hadn’t yet. “Listen to me!”

But Balto was in a deaf frenzy, unable to listen. He had to fix the book, if not for himself then for Lee. It was his after all, not Balto’s and especially not Father’s.

Father was on Balto before even the first page was finished.

Balto screamed in agony as his horn was wrenched this way and that, twisting his head in all kinds of uncomfortable directions, until he obeyed the pulling that came with it.

“You don’t ignore me dragon!” the man screamed.

“Ow, ow! I’m sorry!”

“You weren’t sorry when you shouted at me! Or when you ignored me!”

“I’m sor...EEP!!”

Father had brought his fist up, ready to strike the dragon in his rage. Balto’s wing covered his head quickly, but the blow never came down. He looked up and saw Father standing over him triumphantly.

“Don’t ever forget,” Father sneered, “that I own you. Don’t you ever ignore me when I give you a direct order. Understand?”

Balto nodded fervently.

“Speak dragon!”

“I understand, sir!”

“Who owns you?!”

“You do!”

“WHO OWNS YOU?!!” He feigned another strike that made the young drake flinch and clenched his eyes shut.

“You do, sir! You own me!” Balto shriveled into himself, feeling much smaller than he had ever felt when being attacked by the West brothers.

Father snatched the book off the counter and all of the partially taped shreds of paper and tossed them into the nearby trashcan.

“If I ever see that book on my property again or being read by my property, I will make sure you never fly again. Understood?”

“Yes, sir, I understand, sir.”

Balto kept his eyes clenched.

Father left the cowering dragon behind, retreating up to his office. The dragon looked around for a moment until he was certain that his father wasn't coming back. He crawled on his belly to the trashcan and, as quietly as he could, retrieved the corpse of the book and all of its torn out pages. Balto snuck out of the house quickly, brought his harness into the shed, and replaced his book of stamps in the rafters with Lee's book of monsters and magic, putting his stamp collection on his workbench with the rest of the days mail.

Balto looked outside towards the house, specifically at Father's bedroom window. Mother moved back and forth with Leslie in her arms. The dragon mewled to himself, desiring any kind of affection, but shut the door to his shed anyway.