Emma, the Bad Sorcerer, and the Dyspeptic Earth-Dragon
Emma Dog and I just got back from a walk along the clear ditch by the Río Grande Nature Center. Beautiful, warm, clear autumn afternoon.
As we turned down the path back to the end of Candelaria the pumping station there, which I think gives water seeping down from the city’s storm drains its final kick to the Río Grande, belched loudly and then released this vast, gurgling slosh. It sounded … obscenely biological, but on a truly industrial scale. It put me in mind of some kind of subterranean Chinese dragon suffering a seriously liquid gastric upset.
Emma jumped right up in the air and spun around to glare in the general direction of the noise. At that moment a man emerged from the path to Candy: a skinny old gent in shorts and tennies, with RGNC badges and patches on his ball cap and vest. He resembled an extremely elderly bloodhound. I think he was one of the Bird Nerds who volunteer to answer questions from visitors.
Immediately Emma transferred her alert stare to him. Clearly she suspected he was responsible for the awful gurgle, and hence a Bad Sorcerer.
I told her to cool it. First, he probably wasn’t a Bad Sorcerer. Second, there will be no maiming of Bad Sorcerers, or anyone else, without my permission. Third, in the unlikely event he really was a Bad Sorcerer, messing with him would probably be a bad idea. If Emma and I turned up back home as field mice, the cats might get ideas.
Poor Emma. She’s my self-appointed bodyguard. She takes the job extremely seriously. And she’s totally convinced that every time we venture forth we encounter myriad lethal threats I don’t take seriously enough. (”No, sweetie, I really doubt the old lady in the wheelchair we just passed is going to whip out a MAC-10 and fire us up. You can’t hit squat with one of those things at this range, anyway.”)