Storm's Thunder

by Brandon Boyce

  “I couldn’t possibly, Mister Harlan. It’s my pleasure.” With that he bows his head and backs out the door, shutting it soft behind him. Moses gets the lamp going and puffs out the match.

  “Moses, you ever see man say no to five dollars?”

  “What I seen up and outta these rooms don’t mean I ain’t left rubbing my eyeballs raw tryin’ to make heads or tails of it.”

  “More for you then.” I hold the coin his way and he takes it with a grateful nod.

  “Thank you, suh.”

  “I guess the man figures he’ll get the money out of me one way or another, no sense gutting me on the first hand.”

  “That he do, suh.”

  I sit on the bed and start to pull off my boots. “I probably should have asked what this room cost.”

  “I’ve seen high-cotton guests like yourself stay two weeks never so much as look at a bill, and that’s drinking French champagne at breakfast. They don’t ask, Mister Rawlings ain’t offerin’.”

  “If you have to ask . . .”

  “Yes, suh.”

  My boots fall heavy on the floor and I lean back on the bed. The mattress is hard and squeaks from the weight, but it feels good. And I remember why sleeping on the ground suits most regular folks disagreeably.

  “Be anything else, suh?”

  “Where’s a fella like me go after midnight?”

  Moses must see a flash of devil in my eye, because he tilts his head to the window. “’fore midnight or after, don’t hardly matter. I reckon you’ll find all you can handle down the Blue Duck. Just up the way yonder. You head out the door, your ears do the rest.” Moses goes out and I pull my hat down over my eyes.

  * * *

  When I open them again the room is dark, save for the orange spill of the lamp. Blackness fills the windows, and out on the street, men’s voices shout to be heard over competing pianos and ripples of unguarded laughter. I rise from the bed, my mouth thick with sleep, and pour a glass of water from a pitcher left on the table. I drink deeply, emptying the glass, and set it down to refill again when I catch the suited reflection in the mirror. The image freezes me—a foreign, costumed intruder—as my mind uncouples from the dreamless void and regains its bearings. The man upstanding before me strikes an imposing figure, brimming with the easy grace of grandeur. He looks equally game to answer the seductive call of the city. The clothes, even slept in, hold true their shape and character. A little tug of the necktie, a smoothing of the lone crease in the jacket sleeve, nearly return the design to full potency. I drop the hat into place, square it, and the effect is complete.

  * * *

  I head downstairs—the small pistol hidden against my waist—and take a table in the restaurant. Rawlings seats me himself, brushing the cushion with his bare hand as I sink into a small banquet facing the window. I order a beefsteak, charred and rare, and when he proposes a dry sherry to wash it down, I decline—rejecting his first suggestion as a matter of course. I wave off the idea of whiskey as well—although the mention of it uncovers an itch I’ll be looking to scratch in short order—finally allowing him to bring me a dark, German stout shipped in from Bavaria at considerable expense. The steak arrives, thick and sizzling beside a golden mound of roasted potatoes. My backside facing the staff, I take a discreet moment to reacquaint myself with the proper pageantry of fork, spoon and napkin, anticipating that in the company of my fellow riders aboard the palace car, nothing would call me out as a trussed-up alfalfa faster than slurping up beef stew with an eight-inch Bowie knife. I chew the meat slow, savoring my first meal in a month not cooked on a stick, and witness the parade of the city unfold out the window.

  At first glance, the citizenry of Santa Fe, what there is of it, appears nearly devoid of women, at least any what venture out after dark. And the scant few passing by at this hour reside in the close company of grim-faced husbands who dare not slow their wagons. Only once does a female stroll past on foot—a proper lady in full dress—guided with both hands by a gentleman husband who steers her into the hotel. Within seconds the couple appears at Rawlings’s podium, at home in his obsequious attention as he ushers them to a round table set for five in the center of the room. A bottle of tawny port sits waiting for them, Rawlings receiving an instruction from the woman as he fills their glasses. He relays the order to a male waiter, who spins on his heels and disappears out the restaurant and into the hotel in hasty execution of the directive. The woman removes her gloves with an exhausted sigh as her husband sheds his bowler and hands it, without acknowledgment, to Rawlings, who carries it to a hat rack behind the podium. Their manner rings of Eastern breeding, with the gentleman, through the travel of business, having gathered a workable familiarity with the rough edges of the frontier. But the wife wears the shocked disbelief of a boy soldier pinned down by enemy cannon fire. And for that her husband keeps a reassuring hand about her shoulder, tethering her in the tempest until the port wine takes effect. She looks all of thirty, a good fifteen years younger than her husband, whose receding hair is peppered gray above the ears.

  Only when her children arrive does the woman find cause to smile, although the children do not. Trailing a young nanny and the male waiter, the children arrive combed and scrubbed for a supper that is far past their usual bedtime. The girl looks about twelve, fairing better with the hour than her young brother, who climbs groggily into his mother’s lap. The family settles into a tableau of such unguarded domesticity that to continue my observation would constitute an intrusion.

  Across the street, behind the drawn blinds of Cullen & Sons Fine Clothing, a lantern’s glow betrays the presence of late-night labor. I imagine Pete, at his workbench, stitching with care and purpose, and doubt if he would consider it labor at all. A gust of piano music rattles the window, accompanied by a rising chorus of voices that overtakes the instrument in both fervor and volume. The song ends, devolving into an exultation of hoots and whistles that I take as my cue to further investigate the evening. I march to Rawlings’s podium, his eyes meeting mine with a dose of apprehension.

  “Mister Harlan, is everything satisfactory?”

  “Time to be getting on.”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll simply add your dinner to your final bill—”

  “Let’s have a look-see, long as I’m standing here.”

  “But of course, sir . . .” he says, drawing his notepad and scribbling in some numbers. He pauses at a calculation, makes quick work of it, and fills in the total. Passing the slip to me for review, he adds, “I hope the meal was to your liking?”

  I take a long stare down at the numbers, affecting a facility for figures to rival his own and, pausing at a number selected at random, turn my gaze pointedly at Rawlings. I tap the number, my lips formulating a question I am certain he will beat me to. “We add the gratuity for your convenience, Mister Harlan. Ten percent, as is customary. Did you wish to alter it in . . . either direction?”

  “Ten’ll do,” I shrug, scratching my mark at the bottom of the paper, confident that I’ll have no creative arithmetic or phantom charges for the remainder of my stay at the El Dorado.

  “Our pleasure to serve you, sir,” Rawlings bowing his head. I depart without a word, crossing through the lobby, where Moses changes direction to reach the heavy brass door handle before I do. The only metal I touch is the dollar I flip him for opening the door. “You enjoy yourself, Mister Harlan,” he says as I head out into the night.

  * * *

  “Clear the stool for a paying gentleman, you feckin’ derelict,” the Irish barman swatting the drunk from his perch like a pestilent fly. He had me spotted, the Irishman, the moment I stepped foot into the hard gas-lamp glow, and judged me worthy of his finest bottle, from which he began to pour before the warmth of the previously rousted occupant had dissipated from the padded leather seat. “Get you a taste of this, sir. Compliments of the Blue Duck.”

  “Obliged,” rapping a knuckle against the dark lacquered bar to punctuate, but not overstate, my
gratitude. Funny thing about whiskey—the amber liquid fanning the bottom of the glass and rising like a dry creek bed in summer rain—that first assault upon the senses, no matter how long its absence, settles as right and natural as a woman’s kiss. The Irishman nods and backs away, keeping an appraising eye how well the shot goes down. I drank whiskey every night out-country—two fingers with supper, a quick pull before bed—and when the bottle ran out, I poured from the bottle of memory. And now, as the trilling cascade of the piano seems, in a single swallow, to magically brighten, as the feverish limelight trained on the stage betrays, all at once, the true age of the woman gyrating beneath an overworked corset and glazing cosmetics, I am assured of how accurate I remembered the liquor’s promise.

  Even with the peaty richness luxuriating through my nose and palate, none of the saloon’s competing aromas escape my detection—not the dogfight of stale-versus-fresh beer, or the unwashed rankness of too many patrons, nor the perfumed adornment of too few. All senses stand on heightened alert. My skin tingles alive. From sheer periphery I catch the Irishman nod to himself, pleased that his instinct about me proved correct and his largesse unsquan-dered. He holds the bottle down by his side, as if setting it in plain view would inspire more controversy than convenience, and with his other hand fills two beer glasses at the far end of the bar. When I turn to catch his eye, I need hardly raise an eyebrow toward my empty glass to engage his return.

  “You appreciate a fine whiskey, sir,” and then lowering his voice, “I’d know better than to serve our usual rotgut to the likes of a proper gentleman. My private reserve, of course. Two dollars a go, but if I charged any less this lot would use it as aftershave.”

  “I’ll take what’s left.”

  “Why, there’s near a quarter bottle,” his eyes widening.

  “Well, no sense in making you dance about one-handed just to prolong the inevitable.” I thumb out an eagle and an extra five for his trouble. He sets the bottle down in front of me and slides the coins into his palm.

  “You need a fresh glass or anything a’tall, you give old Seamus a holler.”

  “Hey, I’d try a drop of that,” says the beer-drinker at the far end, his mouth barely visible beneath a bushelled gray beard.

  “Kep Wilder, the day I’d waste a drop of fine Dublin mash across your diseased tongue is the day I dance a cancan with me own dead mother, God rest her soul.”

  “Aye, Seamus, you don’t have to get downright nasty about it,” Kep Wilder turning upon his stool to offer Seamus his affronted backside.

  “You see what I’m dealing with, here?” Seamus says, pocketing the coins.

  The piano slides back into a final chorus as the dancing girl spins to the front of the riser, one of her hair barrettes having given up entirely. She exhales deep to shoot the offending strand of hair from her sweated brow, and with a coquettish sneer, flashes a biscuit of bare ankle flesh to the indifferent crowd before vanishing behind the curtain as the music pounds to a stop. A ripple of applause seems to convey more gratitude that she is finished than genuine appreciation at being entertained. Had this been the amusement-starved Bend, every unwashed poke in attendance would’ve clawed that curtain to shreds and caved in the skull of his own brother to get to that woman. But here in the city, an uninspiring female is bottom-of-the-bill. The piano player tips his straw hat and tells the tables closest to him that he’ll return after a short break. That wouldn’t play in the Bend either. Merle once tried a fiddler player down at the Jewel. When the fella attempted to go out for a smoke, a couple of toe-tapping gamblers—itchy triggers, both of them—got him to rethink his position. The fiddling start up again straight away. Finally after about eight hours, Merle had to escort the man out back under shotgun protection before his bladder exploded.

  I pour another whiskey and feel the closeness of bodies tightening around me. In the absence of music, a handful of patrons who had been seated near the stage find cause to descend on the bar. Seamus fields the onslaught with unruffled grace, collecting two or three orders at a time and then completing them all at once. He places a glass beneath the tap and pulls the handle, letting the glass fill unattended as he works down the row, making change for one customer and topping off another before returning to the rising beer just as the foamy head draws even with the rim—all without spilling a drop. The artistry of the town burns bright, even within her over-lighted halls of debauchery.

  A hand comes down on my shoulder and the thirty-two is out of my waistband and halfway into my palm before I turn, meeting the eyes of an older white man. His clever gaze rings familiar, but I am unable to place it at first. Sensing his overstep, he follows straight away with a mellifluous declaration that recalls our meeting this very day upon my exit from the madam’s. “It would appear, since our previous interaction, you and I both have scrubbed up into what might pass as gentlemen.” I return the pistol to its hiding place and reply to the overture with as few words as possible.

  “Evening.”

  “And a fine good evening to you, sir,” the man enveloping the stool next to mine, his sturdy frame bedecked neck-to-ankle in a tailored suit of brilliant white. “You will forgive my impertinence in addressing you so forward, but as you may have gathered, I am not native species to frontier country. Hence I find myself underserved on both custom and camaraderie.”

  “Well, for starters, most fellas ’round here don’t much care for being touched, least of all by strangers.”

  “Yes, point taken, sir. By and large the men of this territory have exuded about as much warmth as a stone at the bottom of a river. But allow me to remove the word ‘stranger’ from your appraisal. Shelby J. Ballentine, Esquire, at your service.”

  “Name’s Harlan. Good to meet you, Mister Squire.” I take the hand offered to me beneath his blank stare. Then he shakes his head, and I know I have said something foolish.

  “No, es-quire, I’m an attorney. We needn’t fuss with titles. My friends back home call me Spooner.”

  “Spooner?”

  “That’s the South for you, Mister Harlan. A name gets to sticking and folks don’t much dwell on the origin.”

  “All right, then. Spooner it is.”

  “Except in matters of jurisprudence, mind you. Then propriety requires ‘Mister Ballentine’ to make himself known. But I can’t say I see any judges in this establishment.”

  “No, different kind of law out here.”

  “My observation as well, Mister Harlan. Such creative application of the law would not hold in the Commonwealth of Virginia. But I must say, for every perilous lapse in legality I have encountered on the frontier there are a dozen more I will admit to enjoying. Although it took half an hour to scrub a red ring of Chinese lip rouge off my John Thomas.” And right then I know the madam had laid the painted-up laundress on him and he had not complained.

  I flash a deuce with two fingers toward the Irishman. A second little glass appears in an instant. “It’s the good stuff. Keep it quiet,” I say, pouring a proper slug for the Southern gentleman. Any man who would confide what he just shared can drink from my bottle anytime.

  “A well-met accommodation.” I watch him slide the liquor down his throat, the quality of it registering in his eyes as he swallows. “Sweet mother Mary. My heartiest gratitude, dear friend.”

  Somehow his overstating our acquaintance does not bother me. In truth, I have found friends in short supply these last few months, and how better to begin anew than with one who only knows what he sees in front of him. I pour us two more. “To Santa Fe,” he says, touching glass. “May we escape in one piece.”

  “Sound about right.” The soft warmth of the whiskey settles my brain as the piano begins up again, less urgent than before, as if to offer a setting of conversational mood in the calm before the next wiggling songbird returns attention to the stage. The throng of patrons, now laden with fresh drinks, filters back to previous tables and benches along the far wall.

  “Ah, Owens!” Spooner says, fla
gging a new arrival at the door. The stranger removes his bowler, and I recognize Owens as the very gentleman I witnessed dining with his family at the hotel restaurant. He finds Spooner’s eye and proceeds toward us. “You’ll like Owens,” the lawyer tells me. “A mining man, but dry-witted like a shot of vermouth, and his wife is a vision.”

  “I’ve seen her.”

  “Owens, this here is Harlan,” Spooner says as the arriving man extends his hand. “Come join our contingent of the washed.”

  “An elite group in this locality,” Owens’s tense upper lip barely moving. “I saw you at the El Dorado,” his eyes landing on me. “That Rawlings got a heavy pen for arithmetic, don’t he?”

  “Tends to lighten when he knows you’re looking,” I say.

  “You can bet your ass I’m looking.”

  “There’s no getting one past Owens,” Spooner says. “Man does figures for a living. Then he packs it with TNT and blows it all to hell. He’s an engineer, you see, with particular emphasis on explosives.”

  “I put that together,” I say.

  “Well, ain’t the Southerner the dull knife in this drawer,” Spooner says.

  “You lawyering types ought to be used to that,” Owens says. A snort busts out of me and I make no effort to conceal it. Spooner laughs so hard he nearly pops a button.

  “That earns a drink,” raising my finger for the Irishman to bring a glass. I start pouring for Spooner and me and the third glass appears without breaking the stream.

  “Obliged,” Owens clicking his into mine before killing it in a single go.

  “Savor it, Owens,” admonishes the lawyer. “You’re drinking like you left a kettle boiling.”

  “What I left, squire, is a wife and two smalls in a backwater hotel suite.” Owens taps a metal key onto the bar. “Provided the city does not burn to the ground in the next ten minutes, they should be right where I left them. And anyone tries getting in that door besides me’s gonna get a belly full of lead courtesy of Clara May.” Here is a man who, even with beautiful children and pretty wife waiting in her bedclothes, needed a breath, and a drink, in the company of other men. Unburdened by children myself, I can understand his motive entirely. But he is no fool about it. A locked door in the best hotel in town offers protection for only so long on the frontier. He taps out every last drop of nectar and upturns the empty onto the bar.