Meanwhile, things were quiet outside and Fluffy was exhausted. So Moira lay down in the parking space and drifted off to sleep.
Fluffy was big enough to fill up the parking space, but down on all fours he wasn’t visible over the cars on either side. Incautiously the dragon let his tail trail out behind him, making him longer than the parking space. If Moira had thought about it she would have tucked the tail back around Fluffy’s body. But she was dead beat from all the walking, ill from the effects of being a magical creature in a non-magical world, and generally not thinking very well. All she wanted to do was to curl herself into a little ball of misery and let the body relax.
Moira wasn’t the only one who felt that way. The couple in the Mini-Winnie had driven straight through from Los Angeles and the driver wasn’t as awake as he might have been. Besides, he was distracted by the simmering argument with his wife over finding a campground. As a result he didn’t see the thing lying in the parking lot until it was too late.
The motor home ran over the dozing dragon’s tail and all hell broke loose. Fluffy jerked up with a roar of pain and rage. Moira was slow to regain control of the body so, for the first critical seconds, the dragon reacted out of instinct.
Unfortunately the dragons instinct was to lash out at his tormentor. Fluffy’s tail slammed into the side of the motor home again and again, caving in some of the thin aluminum paneling and rocking the vehicle so violently it teetered on the brink of overturning.
Moira quickly discovered she didn’t have as much control over the dragon as she thought, especially when the dragon was frightened or angry. Although dragons are physically tough, the young ones are more vulnerable psychologically. In general they do not take well to new experiences and they are somewhat skittish in strange circumstances. Fluffy had been a pampered pet almost all his life. Again and again the dragon lashed the motorhome with its tail while the occupants screamed and Moira tried desperately to regain control.
Jerry and Bal-Simba came running out of the store into a scene of complete and utter chaos. There was already a small crowd gathered at a safe distance and almost as soon as they stepped out of the store the first police car arrived, quickly followed by two others. The lights and sirens did nothing to calm the hysterical dragon.
Shotguns at the ready the officers advanced to the rescue.
By this time Moira had gained partial control and Fluffy lay panting on the pavement.
Jerry held his breath. If they could just get the situation calmed down, then maybe: An odd corner of his brain wondered what it would cost to bail out a dragon.
He never had the chance to find out.
The cops were understandably nervous. Even lying down, a dragon looks dangerous and there were a lot of civilians around to protect. When Moira suddenly heaved the dragons body back on his feet the logical conclusion was that it was getting ready to attack, especially since the dragon’s open mouth was treating the cops to a spectacular display of fangs.
One of the cops with a clear shot pumped a load of buckshot into Fluffy at close range.
This was a spectacularly bad idea. The shot was #6, enough to drop a deer or a man in their tracks, but only enough to sting the scaled hide of a dragon. The results were equally spectacular. With another steamwhistle roar, Fluffy went berserk, charging directly at the police officers closing in. Two more rounds of buckshot did nothing to stop him. A lash of the scaled tail and the policemen went flying like tenpins. A few of the spectators applauded, it being that kind of neighborhood.
"Get animal control. We need a tranquilizer gun," one of the officers yelled into his microphone.
"Tranquilizer, hell!" one of the other cops shouted. "We need a goddamn tank." One of the officers, with more courage than tactical sense pulled her police cruiser into the parking lot to block the dragon’s escape. Fluffy stopped, hissed in breath, drew back his head and for the first time in his life, breathed flames.
It wasn’t much of a blast by dragon standards, weak and low temperature, but the gout of yellow fire did quite a nice job of igniting the police car. The officer bailed out the driver’s door as the opposite side of the car erupted in fire.
"Act inconspicuous," Jerry hissed "Us they can arrest."
Bal-Simba leaned nonchalantly against the side of the building. The effect wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, but it wasn’t that out of place either. The best thing Moira could think of was to get out of there. Since that accorded perfectly with the dragon’s instincts, she had no trouble commanding the body to run. Moira put her head down and galloped straight at the crowd.
One spectator decided this was the Las Vegas version of the running of the bulls and stepped in front of her waving a jacket with a red lining like a bullfighter’s cape. For his pains he got thrown nearly ten feet by a quick toss of the dragon’s head. No one else seemed disposed to follow, not even the police.
Jerry nodded to Bal-Simba and the two of them drifted off around the other side of the building. Once they were out of sight they ran after the disappearing dragon.
They found Moira in an alley a block and a half away, leaning against a fence, her sides heaving.
"Are you all right?" Jerry asked.
With an effort Moira raised the dragon’s drooping head"I am sorry, My Lord I could not control this body."
Jerry looked back at the glow from the burning police car. "Well, thank God no one was killed. Now come on."
They made their way down the alley and paused in the shadows at the next cross street until there were no cars coming. Then the two men and the dragon sprinted across the street and into the next alley. They did it twice more before they ran out of alley at the blank rear wall of an apartment building.
"I take it we are not yet out of danger," Bal-Simba said as they made their way back to the mouth of the alley.
"They’ll be searching the whole city for us and we’re not exactly going to be hard to spot. We can’t keep walking around, not with the cops looking for Moira."
"Is there someplace we can hide?"
"Well, we could stash her among the life-size animated dinosaurs in the Las Vegas Museum of Natural History, but we’d have to get her there first." Jerry frowned. Then his frown cleared and he looked past Bal-Simba out of the mouth of the alley.
"Wait a minute. I think I see the answer to our problem."
The guy at the truck rental place was remarkably uninterested in his customers. All he wanted was a driver’s license and a cash deposit. Fortunately Jerry’s California license hadn’t expired yet. Gotta find some way to get that renewed, he thought.
"Just make sure you bring it back clean," the clerk said dubiously, eyeing the dragon.
"Don’t worry, she’s housebroken," Jerry assured him. Moira only sniffed. In just a few minutes the contract was signed, Moira was loaded into the back of a twenty-four-foot truck with the slogan "Land of Enchantment" and a picture of New Mexico scenery painted on the side.