The Dragon Keeper (5 page)

“This is how the genes would normally look if it were a typical birth with a father and a mother. You end up with half boys and half girls.”

The kid’s forehead wrinkled up. “I thought boys were XY and girls were XX.”

“That’s for humans. Komodos have the ZW genes, and they’re just the opposite of us. So a male has the same pair—ZZ—and the female has the opposing pair—ZW. Now, this is what happened with our Komodo.”

“See? The DNA simulates fertilization by making a copy of itself, so you get either boys or nothing.”

The kid didn’t seem that impressed. Meg handed back the map and smiled at the woman standing next to him. “You take that in to your science teacher. I’ll bet you get some extra credit points.”

Turning around, her soft smile faded, and she replaced it with something closer to bared teeth. “Now, that concludes the tour of the Reptile Kingdom. There’s a tour of the Mammal Kingdom in half an hour, if you head straight out the exit and take a left at the river. Does anyone have any questions?”

Only a few people lagged behind, and Meg breezed through most of the stock questions with stock replies.

Yes, every day.

As much as we can to keep them healthy and active.

No, we don’t wrestle the crocodile.

Rats and turkey parts. Yes, the bones too.

Only if a stray bird flies into the building.

The closest ones are in the cafeteria; go through the door and circle back to the round building on your right.

She smiled, spoke briefly, and took small, prodding steps toward the exit door. If she was lucky, she’d be back to shoveling shit before lunch.

~

Later, she waited in the damp concrete corridor that connected to the staff side of the reptile exhibits, with one leg propped against the wall and a bucket of raw turkey pieces at her side. The tour had gone pretty well today, though the secret shoppers never seemed happy. It was all a matter of appearances, and Meg knew how she came off to strangers. She mostly ignored the kids, didn’t try to sell the animals, and refused to point out the best photo ops. Call it de-marketing, whatever. Her beige uniform was clean but wrinkled, and six years of wear had started to fray the American flag appliquéd in the center of the back. Secret shoppers liked the keepers who came in pretty and accommodating packages, like Gemma with her neat, blonde braids and easy manners. Gemma’s tours brought the words
all God’s creatures
to mind, all crocheted and gaggingly cute on some farmhouse wall, while Meg only inspired inquiries about the bathrooms and, now, animal stereotypes regurgitated from the media.

It was almost one o’clock. The door into Jata’s holding area was directly in front of her, and through those steel barriers she knew a crowd had started to assemble. Ever since the news of the virgin birth had hit the papers, Jata’s feedings were as popular as the dolphin show. People loved to watch the contrast between the giant lizard and the small woman, as thick, impenetrable scales swaggered up to vulnerable flesh with only the smell of raw meat between them. It made their bored, predatory pulses race. It made them think,
What if?

That’s why the attack stories were so popular. It didn’t matter what kind of attack—a tiger jumping out of its exhibit and biting teenagers, a grizzly mauling campers in a state park, a killer whale who (go figure) killed a trainer—the public ate up every juicy, horrible morsel. The woman from today’s tour group was no different. She hadn’t charted the town relative to the Komodos’ known habitat. She hadn’t visualized the circumstances or thought about the physiology of that boy—just a young boy, weak and skinny—and what he looked like to a starving dragon.

Ben had found a picture of him from one of the news wires. He was cute, a sunbaked, grasshopper-legged kid who woke up one morning and wanted to go fishing with his uncle. No harm in that, right? Except this kid lived on Indonesia’s Komodo Island.

There was only one village on the island and, because the national park reserved the rest of the land, the town was bursting at the seams. Every year, more people poured into Komodo Village for the fishing and tourism jobs. The houses were a smashed-together mass of wooden gabled roofs and stilted legs that edged out over the ocean. Every building on Komodo had stilts, which looked kind of funny until you realized that these people lived with dragons. There were no walls between the park and the people. Dragons walked through their backyards, dragons ambled onto their beaches, and dragons attacked their goats and other livestock. The fact that the dragons were there first didn’t translate all that well.

Meg had read the story over and over, every version in every paper Ben could find. The kid and his uncle were walking toward the water, loaded down with their fishing nets and bait, sweating in the already roasting air, when the boy made the last decision of his life. He asked to pee.

He went to the ditch on the side of the road to do his business, but he wasn’t alone in the long grasses. The dragon attacked, seizing the boy by the stomach with jaws like a shark, row upon row of serrated teeth designed for tearing flesh and bone apart, and dragged him into the underbrush. It was the dry season, and without water all the dragon’s natural prey had vanished. There were no deer or pigs—none that hadn’t already been poached, anyway. It had probably been weeks since the animal’s last meal, and hunger made him desperate.

The boy’s uncle intercepted them, pelting the dragon with his fishing gear. Drawn by the screams, the villagers rushed out of their houses and armed themselves with rocks and sticks. Together they beat the dragon back into the park land and away from the small, mangled body. They took the boy away, but there was no medical clinic on the island, and he’d bled too much. A dragon’s bite was poisonous, and the lethal mix of saliva, venom, and bacteria had already seeped deep into the lacerated remains of the boy’s stomach. He died within a half hour. He was eight years old.

“Ready to tame the beast?”

“Shit!” The foot Meg had propped against the wall hit the floor with a jerk, and her heart stuttered. She shook her head a little, clearing the attack vision from her brain, and took a deep breath. The concrete walls of the keeper’s hallway came back into focus. Gemma stood fewer than two feet away with Desmond just behind, his uniform unbuttoned down to a sweat-stained undershirt.

“What is it?”

“A little jumpy, huh, Yancy? You on probation again?” Desmond rubbed his chest and grinned. The three of them ran the Reptile Kingdom, but each had their own niche. Meg handled the lizards, and Gemma specialized in turtles. Desmond was the snake man, and after years of the same gig, he was actually getting slithery around the eyes.

Meg ignored him, looking at her watch. “Is it time?”

“Yeah, you guys go ahead and suit up.” Gemma grinned.

“What, me?” Desmond looked at Gemma, surprised. “You said you wanted to talk about something.”

Meg hid her grin. Ever since Gemma started working at the zoo, Desmond had been hitting on her. At first it was earnest—invitations to dinner or some event going on at the mall; he even bought a stuffed animal for Gemma’s daughter once—but after getting the brush-off for months, he’d eventually slid back into the more familiar dirty jokes, hisses, and whistles that everyone else expected from him. He acted as though he didn’t care anymore, but everyone knew he would trip all over himself to follow Gemma if she asked to speak to him in one of the dark, back hallways of the zoo.

“Meg and I—we wanted to talk to you about assisting with Jata’s feeding. Today. Right now, actually.” Gemma reached her arms up into the air and stretched, leaning to one side and then the other. She always looked as if she were in the middle of a yoga class.

Meg opened the supply closet and handed Desmond a fiberglass shield and a pair of industrial, elbow-length gloves. She’d just started pulling on a pair of safety boots when Desmond cleared his throat.

“Why the hell am I assisting you with the feeding?”

Meg pulled on her own gloves and stretched her fingers. The material was so damn inflexible, she might as well be wearing chain mail.

“It’s not that I’m not comfortable in there. I mean”—Desmond hopped around on one leg, trying to get his boots on—“I’m not afraid of her or anything.”

“Of course you’re not.” Gemma smiled, arching backward now.

He picked up the shield and tested it, making the veins pop on his forehead, then glared at Gemma. “But assisting is your job, sweetheart.”

Meg shut the supply closet and picked up the bucket of meat. “We need to expose Jata to a variety of different keepers, so she becomes familiar with our scents. Then if I ever drop dead…” Meg shrugged. “So far, she knows me and Gemma pretty well. Rodríguez is familiar to her, but he’s a vet. So you’re on the rotation, champ. Think you can handle it?”

“Are you kidding?” Even with the fiberglass shield between them, Meg could tell he was rubbing his chest again. “You’re talking to the keeper of the ten-foot python.”

“Do you know the feeding procedure?” Meg choked up on her shield and opened the outer door to the holding area. They filed inside as Gemma waved good-bye, a finger-wagging little parade wave, and Desmond slammed the door on her, turning away from the muffled laughter. It was a cramped room for two people, jammed full of cleaning supplies, bags, and the wooden restraint box. Somewhere water was dripping. On tiptoe, Meg glanced through the window into the exhibit. Jata had moved from her basking rock to the lagoon on the opposite side of the exhibit from the door.

“I, uh, think I remember. No sudden movements, no loud noises, and … damn, what was the last thing?”

“Stay away from her teeth.”

Meg unlocked the door and stepped inside.

Jata swiveled her head and licked the air, smelling the arrival of her dinner. She pulled herself out of the pool, and the vague, swimming shapes of her body emerged into powerful forelegs, a torso that was shedding in flaky blocks along her sides, the round girth of her stomach—held regally above the ground as she ambled forward—followed by the thick, sweeping tail. Water dripped off her body as she headed toward Meg. Her tongue darted in and out, drawing closer with every second. Desmond said something, but Meg wasn’t listening. The crowd of people on the viewing platform above them faded into a dull blur. She cleared her mind of everything but the bucket of food and Jata.

“Jata, Jata, chow time, Jata.”

The words stretched like taffy out of her throat, long and low syllables that reached out across the mulch and sand. This was how they began. She chanted, and Jata licked the air, both of them closing the space toward the slanted rock ledge in the center of the exhibit. Jata knew the call, tasted the deep notes that never changed, and moved eagerly toward the rock. She stopped at the base of the incline, where the teeter-totter ledge touched the ground, and darted her tongue toward the keeper’s door.

“What’s it gonna be, turkey parts or Desmond parts? Tough choice. Hard to say.” Meg’s voice was easy and low as she focused in on every nuance of Jata’s posture. Flat spine, relaxed tail, neutral neck. Her tongue worked in flickering swipes, processing the trace chemicals of Desmond’s stink.

“Shut up, Yancy.” The quiver in his voice was so satisfying, but she didn’t want Jata to get too curious. Besides, a nice, long whiff was all anyone really needed of Desmond.

She took up the low call again—“Jata, chow time, Jata”—and shook the bag in her left hand. Easily diverted, Jata swung her head back around and resumed her climb up to the peak of the rock.

The rock itself was a stipulation of the public feedings and, like everything else at the Zoo of America, it had hidden purposes. The slant of it looked like a Spinal Tap mock-up of the Lion King. Even as Jata reached the edge facing Meg, the tip of her tail still swept against the dirt and mulch on the exhibit floor. The height brought Jata’s head even with Meg’s shoulders and, along with providing a killer view of her entire, massive profile, gave the crowd the impression that Jata was in a dominant position over Meg. Actually, it was the complete opposite. Komodos didn’t hunt from above; they hid in long grasses, completely invisible in less than two feet of foliage, and struck their prey from below. That’s how the boy on Komodo Island was attacked. Really, if anyone thought about it, no one ever saw a three-hundred-pound lizard dive-bombing a deer from some obscure vantage point on a cliff. And if the crowd was really paying attention, they would see that the sides of the feeding rock rose up into a small ledge that would trip Jata if she tried to lunge forward or to her right or left. Basically, the only way off the thing was back.