Storm's Thunder

by Brandon Boyce

  “Or a circus tent, neither.”

  “Here, take that thing off.”

  I unbutton the coat and slide it off into Pete’s awaiting arms. I expect him to cradle it gingerly—like his father had—instead he flings it crumpled onto the nearby table. Pete marches toward a rack of suits hanging in the corner, his mind gearing into practical contemplation. “Now, what do you need this for, exactly?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The suit, what are you doing in it?”

  Never had a stranger question occurred to me, as anything I had ever draped onto my frame had but the utmost, singular utility—to be for any and all purpose called upon by life in high desert. But in thinking about how to answer him, I saw the benefit in such an inquiry.

  “I’m fixing to get on the train.”

  “Okay, that’s a good place to start. What else?”

  “Well,” and here I feel myself pause, as I was about to confess the true reason for my visit. “I want to look like I belong.”

  Pete’s eyes brighten. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You can’t board the Santa Fe looking like a Kansas clodhopper.” He turns to the rack, making quick work of each selection as he paws through them. “You thinking new money or old?”

  I fix on him puzzled and he elaborates of his own accord. “There’s different kinds of rich, different ways to wear it. New money is you just struck your claim. Old money? You struck your claim twenty years ago and it’s still paying off. Better yet, your granddaddy struck a claim.”

  I think back on the men I’ve known, the wealthy—and those pretending to be—or those who were, but wouldn’t be for long. “Rich enough where nobody ask questions.”

  Pete nods, thoughtful. “Old money it is. But with vision.” He keys open a special cabinet beneath the work table, and spreading the doors, reveals a cache of carefully folded clothes—trousers and waistcoats in the alluring colors of Earth and sky. Deep browns, lush greens, and the full spectrums of blue and gray. I know by the way he navigates the contents that what exists in that cabinet is a world entirely independent of his father’s.

  “Secret stash?”

  “Some projects I’m working on. Go ahead and shuck off that shirt, ’less you feel like trying out some coffins.” Pete turns back to the cabinet and I peel off the old shirt, standing there, bare-chested.

  “Union suit didn’t make it,” though not sure why I feel the need to explain.

  Pete shrugs. “We may have one in the back. I can check, but honestly, you can get them cheaper at the Five and Dime.”

  “Ain’t the first time I gone without.”

  “No, I suspect not,” Pete nodding, turning his attention back to the cabinet. “You got a nice pair of boots there, once you get them shined up. I want to start from there and build up. So let’s try . . . this.” He rises, unfurling a pair of mahogany-colored trousers. Smoothing out the folds, he nods to the corner. “Screen’s behind you, you’re feeling modest. But no one can see in.” Being rid of the last of his father’s touches can’t come fast enough, and I let the scratchy wool leggings drop to the floor.

  Since boyhood, I have run beneath the sun and stars without stitch or hide hanging from my bones more times than I can count. But confined indoors, a true state of nature always strikes me strange, unless lying horizontal in the company of another. Yet here I am, naked as the day is long, in a foreign room, for the second time in as many hours. Such is the drunkening power of the city—with its money and sex and blood. Even sharp as I feel of eye and ear, two bare feet firm against a cold plank floor, my head swims like a butterfly in the wind.

  Pete offers me the trousers and I take them from his hand. Sliding in, one leg and then the other, the fabric passes easy against my skin. “Nice, isn’t it?” Pete allowing a grin. “Flannel-lined, but on the outside, best wool a man can buy.”

  Buttoning up, I turn to the mirror, taken at once by the color, the elongating cut of the trousers. Pete moves to catch me in the mirror, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, like a fiddle player working out a tune, circling the notes he hears in his head, and then, after much sawing about, landing in a place of unexpected possibilities.

  “I think we’re on to something,” Pete stepping in with a soft cotton shirt set in light tan.

  “Thought shirts were supposed to be white.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Don’t know exactly.”

  “Mine’s not white,” pulling back his jacket. “It’s got a hint of blue, but I’ll bet you didn’t notice till I showed you.”

  “You’re right. I didn’t.”

  “That’s the idea. There’s white and then there’s, well, not as white.”

  “Navajo white.”

  “Oh, golly. Don’t remind me,” Pete blushing for an instant. Then he blinks, fixing those blues straight at me. “This whole thing is about drawing the eye to what works, and steering it from what doesn’t. Take me, if my eyes were green, I might weave a little kelly in somewhere, maybe even slate gray. But they’re not, they’re blue, so . . .”

  “So a bit of brown might do the same for me.”

  “Precisely. That and letting your build shine through. You cut a good line, no sense in hiding it.” I slip into the shirt and do up the buttons, the only sound the cloth through my fingers. Pete takes off his jacket, drapes it over a stool. From the pocket of his waistcoat he finds a measuring tape and falls in behind me, all four eyes on the mirror ahead.

  “How do you want this to fit?” Pete now the blue-ribbon champion of asking questions I never knew existed. But spotting the sharp angle of his shoulders, the waistcoat holding his frame with compact efficiency, he works his way around me like a bobcat up a tree.

  “Like yours.”

  “Okay, then,” Pete nodding, tugging the sleeves. I bring one knee up to my chest then switch to the other. “Trousers too tight?”

  He steps back to let me move and I drop to a squat. Rising, I remember Storm.

  “I need to be able to ride.”

  “A horse? Won’t be much call for that on the Santa Fe.”

  “I don’t put on clothes what I can’t ride in. Don’t care what I’m doing.”

  “I respect that,” Pete says, thoughtful. “A well-made suit should serve a man for any eventuality. I’ll see to it your trousers don’t rip should they find themself in a saddle. Anything else I should know?”

  “One more thing.” I snatch up my denims from the floor and dig out the stubby thirty-two. “This stays with me. On the quiet.”

  Pete opens his hand for the pistol and I place it in his palm. He hefts it, shaking hands with the gun for what may very well be the first time. He shows some instinct for iron, but there is a touch of boyish fantasy behind his eyes as he aims and guns down an imaginary bandit against the far wall, adding a “pe-CHAW, pe-CHAW” with every overly pantomimed recoil.

  “You every fire one of those?”

  “Only at tin cans. I hit ’em, though. How ’bout you?”

  “Usually hit what I’m aiming at too.” Holding out my hand for the gun. Pete returns it.

  “Something this small, I prefer a cross-draw,” I say, showing him the motion.

  “Okay,” Pete’s mind already at work on the puzzle. “What if you stuck it here?” He slips his hand into his own waistband just above the left hip. I tuck the pistol accordingly on my own trousers, the handle peeking out enough to grab clean, but plenty visible. “Don’t worry, a good waistcoat will cover that,” Pete shaking a finger as he returns to the cabinet, his brain plunking out the melody again, “but if we let it out just so,” now adjusting the rear buckle of the vest as he brings it toward me, a patterned velvet textured in deep scarlet and darkest brown, “you should find your draw unencumbered if things turn sour.” He helps me into the waistcoat as he talks, giving the back buckle the slightest tweak, but he’d pretty much eyeballed it dead-on. Rehearsing the draw again, my hand retrieves the pistol from its snug burrow every time withou
t fail or fumble, my sense of awe—not just at the sheer invisibility of weapon, but how the stark addition of such a vibrant color choice enhances the earthiness of the rest of the creation—is audible.

  “Ain’t that something.”

  “Little splash of color,” Pete’s confidence never in doubt. When he plucks an umber necktie from his private cache and hands it to me, I fix to tying it without hesitation.

  “Now on the jacket . . . Don’t expect them to match the trousers exactly. You’re not a sofa. The idea is to complement. But if my eye is right,” his gaze lingering on me as he walks to the back of the store, “you’re a forty-two long, which means this is our lucky day.” Pete disappears in the stock room and comes back a moment later, a proud glint in his eye, holding in his hands a ditto coat, sharply peaked at the lapels, the outer color like that of a rusted nail. Without a word, I turn and extend an arm, the silk-lined sleeve gliding over my elbow, up my shoulder. And then the other arm. The jacket falls into place like it was born there. Rotating toward the mirror, our eyes take the sight in unison—how perfectly the shades and fabrics work as one. A completed picture. The melody found. Pete’s verdict is simple.

  “Yes.”

  I tug on the sleeves, expecting an overflow of shirt cuff, but there is only a half-inch sliver, like icing on a cake. I shrug my shoulders, raise my arms, even throw a punch, all with freedom of movement that belies sculpted tailoring. “Feel like you got all the sizing dang near perfect.”

  “Harlan, you happen to have the exact stature of the best-selling mannequin in the entire Montgomery Ward catalogue. I knew there was something special about you. The prototypical male.”

  “The what?”

  “It means when a tailor dreams up a suit, it’s your body he builds it for.”

  Just then a clap of thunder splits my ears like a hammer blow. Glaring back at me in the reflected glass is a vision, bleak and violent—the fine suit a tattered version of itself, streaked with char and blood and shredded here and about to the bare skin. And the wearer, a hollowed ghost of man I don’t know. I turn away from the mirror, all this self-gazing and preening getting the better of me.

  “What a man dreams up ain’t always pretty.”

  “Eh, for some, I guess. But what’s the point of dreaming otherwise?”

  I leave his thought unanswered and set down in the chair to pull on my boots. “How much I owe you?”

  “You wearing it out of here?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  Pete finds a pad and starts scribbling, his brow furrowed, as if the tabulation of cost was more annoyance to his higher goal. But his mind is not finished. “You’ll need a couple more shirts.”

  “White, not so white,” I add, Pete laughing.

  “They’ll come in handy, I promise. And I’ll put in maybe three or four different ties, and a second waistcoat, black probably. All those combinations, it’s like an entire new wardrobe.”

  “Not like. Is.”

  “For everything,” Peter tallying the numbers, “comes to one hundred twenty. I need to cut the shirts, but I’ll do that tonight and drop them off at your hotel first thing. Where are you staying?”

  “Across the street at El Dorado, I’m hoping, if they got room.”

  “You walk in the door wearing that, head held high, they’ll make room. Shoot, old man Rawlings will be falling over himself to put you up.”

  There’s a doe-eyed innocence in the young tailor’s view, coupled with a healthy confidence in the power of his creation—two things in scarce supply around the Territory, but I find no heart to correct him, offering only, “My history has at times proved otherwise.” I parcel out a hundred in gold and find his hand, holding back the last two coins, but sure he sees them. “A hundred now. The rest on delivery.” Striding to the corner, boot heels clomping the plank floor, I ball the denims into a fist and stuff them into the saddlebag. These weathered bags—chapped and faded as my boots—look like they have been run over by a train. Here it is, the brushwork still damp on Pete’s canvas—the oils unset—and my two meager adornments dishonor it like a cheap, ungilded frame. I hoist the bags up, careful not to further sully the pristine jacket with a coating of desert dust, and loop my other arm through the strap of the Spencer—doubly mindful of dripping gun oil.

  “Harlan,” his clear voice breaking the silence. Turning back, I am soaked in the watery blue spill of his gaze. “Your history is whoever you say you are. So is your present. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “I won’t.”

  We part ways, tethered by something unspoken. I step out into the street, straight across the muddy wagon tracks and toward the warm gaslight of the El Dorado, where a tinkling piano beckons like birdsong. Night has fallen, blanketing, in its veil of darkness, the sorry state of my leather along with any reminders of my former self. Grateful for the masquerade, emboldened by its power, I see no reason to represent otherwise. I feel right duded up and square my Stetson accordingly. With every stride my spine lengthens until my head seems high as a lamppost, perched atop the broad shoulders of privilege.

  I am hardly to the spill of lamp light when a negro bellman, slouched against a podium, spies my arrival and perks to attention. “G’d evenin’, sir. Let me help you with those . . .” The paint is not dry on his words when I pass him the saddlebags, my eyes fixed beyond him to the lobby. A dollar flows from my palm to his, effortless. The Spencer I make no attempt to hide at all, hitching it, in fact, as I enter the hotel, the door before me held open by a second bellman, conjured from the ether.

  Moving with purpose, and yet unhurried by any man or notion, my presence elicits one of two disparate behaviors—one of avoidance, which sends ordinary patrons scuttling like roaches from the light, or that of attraction, as seen from the employees, who acknowledge my entrance with either a differential nod or a respectful “Good evening, sir.” Such is the case from the lowly shine-boy, his cherubic face brightening as I pass, to the owner himself, the aforementioned Rawlings, who gently pushes aside the attending desk clerk to service my arrival personally. “Never mind the ledger,” Rawlings says under his breath to the clerk, closing the leather-bound volume containing the names and addresses and room rates of those commoners whose lives would tolerate such aggravation. “A very good evening to you, sir. William Rawlings, hotelier, at your disposal. I see our bellman has your bags, how may we accommodate you this evening?”

  “A room with a hard bed and a good breeze. I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Rawlings turning to the clerk. “The Garden Suite, please, James.” A key in his hand almost instantly. Rawlings now stepping toward the grand staircase, gesturing to me to join him. “Please consider El Dorado your home, sir. Mister . . . ?” He holds out his hand, waiting expectantly for a name. For any name.

  “Harlan.”

  He bows approvingly as we start up the stairs. “Right this way, Mister Harlan.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I see you’re a hunter,” Rawlings half-looking back as we reach the top of the stairs. “Excellent year for game, I’m told. Do let us put together an excursion, all-inclusive, of course: gear, horses, picnic lunches. And you won’t find better guides in the Territory. They’re natives, obviously, mostly Navajo, a few Apache, but docile. All vouched for and properly tagged.”

  “Tagged, with what?”

  “Permission to leave the reservation. Can’t be too careful.” The third floor landing levels out and we start down a long, windowless corridor lighted by flickering wall lamps spaced too far apart to keep a consistent glow. “It’s better now than it used to be, but there’s still the occasional troublemaker wants to break for the border, or go celestial on one of the guests. Can’t have that, no. We weed out all but the best and most agreeable.”

  “Must be a chore,” I say, dipping the brim just enough to keep his eyes from mine as we pass from light to dimness and back to light again.

  “The trick, we have learned
, is to not give them whiskey, even though it is their preferred method of payment. The sportsmen who chose to share their bottles with the Red Man invariably return empty-handed and deeply disappointed.”

  “If they return at all.”

  Rawlings snorts a laugh, wagging a finger in triumph. “We haven’t lost a guest yet, touch wood. And I don’t intend to start.” As we pass the other rooms I notice a curious sight—pairs of boots and shoes, placed neatly outside each of the doors, just like I’d seen the Chi-nee do.

  “You take a lot of Chinamen, here?”

  “Not a one, sir.” Rawlings appalled at the suggestion. “You’ll find the clientele most upstanding, I assure you.” Reaching a double door at the end of the hall, he slips the key into the lock and pushes through.

  The air in the room carries the scent of cut flowers—roses, from a glass vase on the table by the entry—masking the smell of fresh paint and cleaning soap. The walls split between bright whitewash and a striped wallpaper of gold and turquoise. A breeze caresses the gauzy drapes of the open window, bringing, on its creosote air, the livening sound of traffic as it shifts from the day’s clattering wagons to the liquored merriment of evening.

  “Your bags will be here momentarily . . . ah, thank you, Moses.” The black bellman trundles in with the saddlebags and flops them on a folding stand near the wardrobe. “Will anyone be joining you this evening?” Rawlings clasping his hands before him, as if in prayer.

  “Ask me in the morning.”

  “Very good, sir.” Behind him, Moses fends off a smile and turns away to light the table lamp. “The restaurant serves supper until eleven and the bar is open until midnight.”

  “Tailor fella ought show up here with a mess of shirts for me. Ain’t sure when, exact.”

  “Any deliveries, we’ll have brought up for you.”

  “Funny about people touching my clothes.”

  “Of course. We’ll send the gentleman to your room, straightaway, sir.”

  “I want not to be disturbed otherwise.”

  I fish a five-dollar piece from my pocket and offer it to him. Rawlings holds his palms up, demurring.