Thunder Run

by Daniel José Older

  She stood again; everything ached but the pain seemed so far away now that she knew what she had to do.

  Up ahead, Drek stumbled toward her, flinching with each step. A dark stain spread along one of his pant legs. Sweat soaked his face and shirt. He was empty-handed.

  Magdalys closed her eyes and bright color splotches spun circles around her. She took a step to steady herself and reached her hands to either side. She wouldn’t fall.

  “What are you doing, Magdalys Roca?”

  Why? Because love. It had been there all along, right in front of Magdalys. The joy of her friends and her brother as they chatted in the bunks. The Squad, scattered and lost and perhaps soon to be leaderless — the way they trusted each other so quickly, they loved so easily.

  David and Louis and Cymbeline and Halsey and Wolfgang and Redd and Hannibal.

  Magdalys loved her people. It had been love all along that powered her. Love beneath the rage. Love beneath the sorrow.

  It had been love that lit the spark of Lafarge’s wrath all those years ago, and it had burned out of control and overwhelmed him.

  But love was not only the spark, not only the foundation. It was the exactness too, the containment.

  Lafarge didn’t think she could contain it, because he hadn’t been able to.

  But Magdalys wasn’t Lafarge. She’d lived a different life, in a very different world. And she knew how to pull with precision.

  She thought of her friends and family, their laughter and passion. Their power.

  And she thought of the dinos. The way they took care of her, of each other, the way they seemed to understand her without her explaining herself. The way they showed her the world. The way they came to her when she needed them most.

  It was love that would see her through, right till the end, till right now.

  Love would be the unstoppable spark, lighting her sorrow and rage together, and love would be the guiding force that kept her from destroying everything she cared about.

  She reached out, her whole body tingling with what she’d discovered, with what was about to happen. Felt the click of connection inside her, larger than any she’d ever felt before. For a trembling moment, Drek’s tenuous grip on the dinos held along with Magdalys’s. She could sense his anger, his love even, and something bristling and uncontrollable: fear.

  With a nod she brushed it all aside and then opened her eyes.

  “What?” Drek said mockingly. He was only a few feet away now. “You’re going to kill me with your bare hands, hm?”

  “No,” Magdalys said calmly as the ground began to rumble. “I won’t have to.”

  Drek’s eyes went wide. “You didn’t!”

  She smiled, ever so slightly. The shaking grew louder as the thunder of hundreds of pounding claws rose around them. “Of course I did.”

  Now she could make out growls and snarls and something else, very far away: a high-pitched noise just barely audible amidst all the other ruckus. Maybe … just maybe …

  “Why?” Drek gasped, taking a step back, knowing it would do him no good.

  Why? Magdalys had to laugh. It seemed so obvious now.

  If she turned around, she would probably see the tops of those gigantic heads cresting over the hill, those gnashing teeth. And then she might lose her nerve, or have second thoughts. This way was better. Sure, she was terrified, but the truth of what would come felt somehow perfect anyway. She trembled with it, but she had made peace with it too.

  “You stupid girl,” Drek blathered.

  “The last time someone called me that …” Magdalys said over the rising rumble. Then she just shook her head. “Never mind.”

  The stampede raced closer — any second now — but the high-pitched noise did too, an urgent kind of hooting.

  Magdalys blinked. Then she recognized it.

  Papeena!

  She looked up just in time to see a shock of fluttering color sweep across the sky. “Hyacinth!” she yelled as many tiny sharp claws grabbed her arms and shoulders. “YAAAAAAAA AAAAAA!!!”

  The tupus lifted her off the ground and into the sky. Down below, a wild rush of tyrannosaurs stampeded through where she’d just been standing.

  “Wait!” Drek yelled. “Take me t —”

  And that was the last the world heard of Earl Shamus Dawson Drek.

  There was only one thing left to do, Magdalys realized as she sailed over the snarling, stampeding river of dinos. She still held the connection with them, had somehow kept it even through her terror and the breathtaking wonder of being swooshed up into the sky at the last second.

  Love had been the spark, and now love would be the water that dampened the furious flames.

  I release you, Magdalys thought as searing pain and the heavy pull of unconsciousness began to sweep over her. I release you from all our rage and wrath, release you from our wars. Slow, slow, and disperse, and be free.

  And then everything became bright and the sun seemed to wipe away the world.

  “MAGS?”

  Magdalys blinked awake. Rubbed her eyes. Someone was shoving her. Mapper. No, Montez.

  Both!

  She sat up. “You’re alive! We’re alive!”

  The boys raised their eyebrows. “You’re alive,” Montez said.

  “Ah! She lives!” a voice said, and then President Juárez’s smiling face appeared between Mapper and Montez. “We were very worried. You did save my army, you know?”

  “I did?”

  Juárez chuckled. “She’s so humble. There’s coffee ready and arroz y frijoles heating up when you are ready to eat!” He walked off, shaking his head. “Qué chistosa.”

  Magdalys glanced around. The clink and clatter of mealtime reached her along with the fresh smell of a bonfire. The Mexican Army had made camp on the top of a wide plateau overlooking the valley. They’d taken some casualties for sure, but everyone seemed to be in pretty good spirits as they huddled around in small circles, eating and talking about all that lay ahead. The Louisiana 9th wasn’t far away; Reconnaissance Briggs was going on about some wild feat that may or may not have happened during the battle. Redd had joined them, Magdalys noticed with a smile, and was cracking up beside Bijoux, who still had Milo perched on one shoulder.

  “These guys brought you in,” Montez said, nodding at the cluster of tupus flitting around Dizz and Beans, clearly annoying them.

  “Hyacinth,” Magdalys said.

  “Who?”

  “They saved me.” Magdalys sat up. “What happened?”

  “The T. rexes changed course,” Mapper said.

  “And once the Imperial Army realized what had happened, they pulled back,” Montez added.

  “Back?”

  “All the way back,” Mapper said.

  Magdalys blinked. “Like … to France?”

  “Ha!” Montez shook his head. “Not yet. But still — they went into full retreat and holed up in Mexico City. So that’s something. Which means —”

  “The US Army won’t have to fight a war on two fronts,” Magdalys finished. “They’re safe.”

  “For now!” Montez said.

  She nodded. “Are we?”

  Montez and Mapper glanced at each other.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, the Imperials being gone is a big help,” Mapper said. “But Júarez’s scouts report that something huge is coming our way from the west.”

  Magdalys cocked her head at him.

  “We don’t know what it is,” Montez said. “Not yet anyway.”

  “Is it —”

  “Not a dino, no. Some kind of machine, they think. It’s still a few days out, and we don’t even know what side it’s on or if it’ll maintain course.”

  “Also,” Mapper said, “Banks’s army finally made it to the border, and they’re making their way toward us too. We’re all supposed to meet up in a kind of no-man’s-land area thirteen miles northeast of here, which’ll allow them to not have technically made an incursion onto Mexican soil if an
y trouble erupts.”

  Magdalys rolled her eyes. “Late and obnoxiously bureaucratic. Super on brand.”

  “Also, also,” Montez said. “There’s a community of Apaches nearby, and no one is sure what they want or what they’ll do, but they’re well-armed.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Hm?”

  “Are we safe?”

  Montez and Mapper looked at each other again, each weighing the world around them. “Yes,” Mapper finally said.

  “For the time being,” all three of them said at once.

  Safety was always a fleeting thing, it seemed. When would it be over? Did a world even exist where she would know true safety? Where Magdalys could just be a kid instead of a dinowarrior, barely snatching victories from the jaws of utter destruction again and again? Maybe that world didn’t exist yet, but it would one day. And she would fight to make it real — if not for herself, then for the next generation of kids. Or maybe the one after that.

  However long it took, Magdalys knew what she had to do: She would fight, and she would win. Whatever it took.

  All together now, say it with me: There were no dinosaurs during the Civil War era! In fact, there were no dinosaurs at any point in time during human history. The Dactyl Hill Squad series is historical fantasy. That means it’s based on an actual time and place, events that actually happened, but I also get to make up awesome stuff, like that there were dinosaurs running around. So some of the people, places, and events are based on real historical facts, some are inspired by real historical facts, and some are just totally made up. Throughout this note, I’ve given some recommendations on books that helped me pull all this together; some of them were written for adult readers, so make sure they’re the right ones for you before diving in.

  Magdalys Roca and the other orphans are not based on any specific people, but there was indeed a Colored Orphan Asylum, and their records speak of a family of kids mysteriously dropped off from Cuba without much explanation. That was part of the inspiration behind this book. You can read those stories and more about the Colored Orphan Asylum in Leslie Harris’s book In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863.

  Cymbeline Crunk and her brother, Halsey, are inspired by Ira Aldridge and James Hewlett, two early black Shakespearean actors who performed in New York City. Hewlett cofounded the African Grove Theater, the first all-black Shakespearean troupe in the United States. Halsey and Cymbeline Crunk are entirely made-up characters. You can read more about Hewlett in Shane White’s book Stories of Freedom in Black New York and more about Ira in Ira’s Shakespeare Dream, by Glenda Armand and illustrated by Floyd Cooper.

  General Ulysses S. Grant was the leading commander of the US Army by the end of the Civil War and went on to become president of the United States. During the war, he quickly became one of President Lincoln’s favorite generals for his unwavering commitment to victory and his determination under fire. While he was never known to have an allosaurus named Samantha or a microdactyl named Giuseppe, he did spend time in New Orleans just after the fall of Vicksburg and suffered a riding accident while reviewing troops that left him bed-bound and in a cast at the Saint Charles Hotel for several days.

  Both the Louisiana 9th and the Louisiana Native Guard were all-black divisions of the US Army. The Native Guard didn’t fight at Milliken’s Bend but were involved in a famous assault at Port Hudson. While the soldiers we meet here are entirely made up, many of their names are taken from actual soldiers who fought in those units, including Cailloux, Octave Rey, Hannibal, and Solomon.

  In the case of the Louisiana Native Guard, the word Native refers to natives of Louisiana, not Native Americans, as Amaya at first thinks. It’s unclear when the word Native became commonly used for Indigenous people. At this time in American history, the US Government was fighting a war of extermination against the many Indigenous nations, many of whom they’d already forced to relocate during the Trail of Tears a few decades earlier.

  You can read about the Native Guard in The Louisiana Native Guards: The Black Military Experience During the Civil War by James G. Hollandsworth Jr.

  General Ely Samuel Parker was a real-life Seneca lawyer, engineer, and diplomat. Both Harvard University and the New York Bar Association refused him entry because of his race. He eventually went on to become a key engineer and general during the Civil War and one of General Grant’s right-hand men. After the war, he went on to be the first Native person to hold the position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

  General Nathaniel Banks was one of the first “political generals” appointed by Lincoln during the Civil War. After a series of defeats on the battlefield, Banks became the commander of the Department of the Gulf, which put him in charge of New Orleans and the Mississippi River.

  Rose Nicaud, also known as “Old Rose,” was the first New Orleans street vendor to offer fresh coffee. She purchased her freedom and then began selling her famous baked calas and café au laits in the French Market in the early 1800s.

  The famous Café Du Monde was founded during the Civil War — coffee shortages caused Creole chefs to mix their beans with chicory, creating the delicious blend that New Orleans has become known for. Café Du Monde was segregated for the first hundred years of its existence and didn’t serve black customers until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed.

  Benito Juárez was a Zapotecan lawyer from the southern state of Oaxaca who became the president of Mexico in 1857. He fended off various attacks on Mexico, including by the French, and maintained his role as president even when forced to flee the capital with his cabinet. Eventually, the French were defeated and the Republic of Mexico was fully restored.

  Andrew Jackson came to fame as a general during the Battle of New Orleans. As president, he presided over the forced removals of tens of thousands of Native people, including most of the Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Muscogee nations, in what would become known as the Trail of Tears, resulting in many thousands of deaths.

  Allan Pinkerton founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850, and the organization went on to serve as President Lincoln’s bodyguard and intelligence service during the Civil War. It later became the largest private law enforcement agency in the world, and was notorious for violently disrupting the Labor Movement.

  Elizabeth Crawbell is entirely made up, though she was inspired by two real-life Confederate spies: Belle Boyd, a teenager who became a famed courier and secret agent, and the widow Rose O’Neal Greenhow, who monitored Union troop buildups and coordinated spies from her Washington, DC, residence. Both were captured by the Pinkertons. You can read more about them and two women who worked for the Union side, Emma Edmonds and Elizabeth Van Lew, in Karen Abbott’s Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War.

  Lafarge, General Zalaka, Earl Shamus Dawson Drek, and his crimson dactyl are totally made up.

  Dactyl Hill is based on a real historical neighborhood in Brooklyn called Crow Hill (modern-day Crown Heights), which, along with Weeksville and several others, became a safe haven for black New Yorkers escaping the racist violence of Manhattan. You can find out more about Weeksville at the Weeksville Historical Society and in Judith Wellman’s book Brooklyn’s Promised Land.

  The Colored Orphan Asylum was on Fifth Avenue between Forty-Second and Forty-Third Streets in Manhattan. It was burned down in the New York Draft Riots. All the orphans except one escaped, and the organization relocated to another building.

  By the second half of 1863, when this book takes place, the Union Army had just achieved two major and decisive victories after two and a half years of the Civil War. At Gettysburg, the newly promoted General Meade repelled General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, effectively ending the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania; and in Mississippi, General Grant sacked the fortress city of Vicksburg after a prolonged siege. Starting earlier that same year, the US government finally allowed black soldiers to be mustered into s
ervice, although they insisted on paying them significantly less than their white counterparts. From Maine to the Midwest all the way down to Louisiana, many thousands answered the call anyway. Besides fighting valiantly in combat, they agitated successfully for equal pay, and eventually made up 10 percent of the Union Army. You can read more about the famed Massachusetts 54th and 55th regiments in Thunder at the Gates by Douglas R. Egerton and Now or Never! Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Infantry’s War to End Slavery by Ray Anthony Shepard. A History of the Negro Troops in the War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865 is also a fascinating historical overview written twenty years after the war by a former soldier and one of the first African American historians, George Washington Williams. There are numerous other books about the Civil War, but one of the best is Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson.

  The Battle of Chickamauga took place over several days (not one like it does here), just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. While some of the details depicted are made up, a few major parts really did happen that way, including the wider strategic questions the Army of the Cumberland faced once they’d chased General Bragg’s Confederate forces out of Tennessee. After a vicious back-and-forth, the near-stalemate was broken when a miscommunication on the Union side led to one regiment being moved out of the way just as the Confederates charged, which then divided the Federal forces in half and collapsed their front lines. General Thomas famously held out, covering the retreat of the other units, a feat that earned him the nickname “The Rock of Chickamauga.” General Sheridan’s division was cut off from the rest of the army during the rout, and then regrouped and made their way back to try to reinforce Thomas as night was falling, although it’s unclear how much help they were able to provide.

  The Battle of Milliken’s Bend, which Montez was wounded in, was indeed an important moment in the victory at Vicksburg, as the 9th Louisiana Regiment of African Descent and others repelled an attempt by the Confederates to reinforce their besieged troops.