Storm's Thunder

by Brandon Boyce

  “Well, we know there was a shooting. Folks heard it.”

  “Why are you here alone?”

  “Captain’s on his way. And the others. Who are you fellas?”

  “Who we are is, we’re the ones who don’t need to fucking explain ourselves.” Van Zant growled.

  “Deputy, every paper in the office is to be boxed and labeled for my personal inspection. Is that understood?” Cross stowed his pistol.

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “But first, tell your captain to round up every doctor in the city. Somewhere in Santa Fe there’s a surgeon who recently set a broken left leg.” Cross stamped his way back into his boots, and was about to admonish the constable for not yet departing when a heavy thud echoed from an upper floor. The men looked to the ceiling.

  Cross’s pistol was out again. He took the stairs two at a time, followed by Van Zant. The boy policeman fumbled out his revolver and brought up the rear. At the second floor landing Cross stopped—motioning the others to do the same—and listened. A door at the end of the hall stood partly open, and on the floor leading to it, the faintest whisper of blood-stained footprints told Cross all he needed to know. The men crept down the hall, the occasional groan of a floorboard the only betrayal of their advance. The constable—terrified beyond his wits—noticed how the two strangers communicated with only their eyes or a hand signal or a slight nod of the head. At the door, he observed the larger man slip ahead of his partner, taking point with the twelve gauge, as Cross pushed open the door and scanned the room.

  It was a bedroom—Garber’s—Cross gathered. A man’s suit hung next to the four-poster. A twist of bedding lay in violent disarray atop the mattress. Van Zant stood in the center of the room, rotating with the shotgun toward all four corners. Then he checked behind the bed. And then under it. But there was nothing. Cross inhaled deeply from the doorway. The air sat heavy with sweat and sex. By the looks of the bed, the sex had been taken, not given. And then Cross’s eyes fell on a second door. A closet.

  Three guns turned in unison, leveling at the closet, as if a cornered shooter hiding within might, at any moment, decide to go out blazing. Cross issued silent instruction—he would aim high, Van Zant center. The young constable was to shoot low. He was now part of it, whether he liked it or not. Despite the pounding in his chest, he liked it very much. And it was a hell of a lot better than being the man in the closet. The boy dropped to one knee and rested the barrel on his crossed forearm, like he’d been taught. Cross sidestepped to the near wall and brought up the pistol. He raised his left hand and held up three fingers. Then two. Then one. Then—

  A sob. A weak, little cry—and then a sniffle—eked from the closet. It was no sound of a killer. Cross slinked forward and yanked open the door.

  * * *

  Xenia—Garber’s maid—knelt trembling on the closet floor, naked and violated. Her attackers had not been gentle. She clutched at her throat, and with tears streaking her swollen face, tried to speak, but her face contorted with pain and no sound came from her.

  “Out of the way,” Cross leaping to his feet. He shucked the folded quilt from the bed board and, unfurling it, brought it softly down around the woman. He knelt down and took her in his arms. She slackened in his embrace, her hand coming away from her throat and opening. A small crucifix—noting more than a pair of sticks crudely wrapped with twine—fell from her fingers. Cross saw it. His eyes filled with tears.

  “Dear child,” Cross wiping the sweat from her brow. “It’s all right now.” She lay back into him, her breath labored from exhaustion and from the damage to her windpipe. The man’s choking fingers had left deep contusions on her throat, blood-shotting her eyes. Her dark skin had blued to near blackness from the beating. And there was blood around her mouth and seeping through the quilt on both sides of her below the waist. The boy turned away, unable to watch. Even Van Zant looked down. “Fetch that surgeon, boy. Tell him to bring laudanum.”

  The policeman bounded from the room and down the stairs. Cross cradled the girl’s head and she closed her eyes. “Fear not, child. The men who did this cannot hide from God. Nor can they hide from me.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The clattering jolts me awake, wagons on the street below, the city alive and getting about its business. Late morning light invades unfettered through the naked window, turning the room impossibly bright—far brighter than when I last saw it—in the gray twilight just past dawn, when Pete showed up with the rest of the clothes and left an hour later. The whiskey’s wrath had not yet settled in then, but now, lifting my head from the pillow, blinding white shards needle the skull like screws through softwood. I paw at the small clock on the table and pull it close through a field of faulty vision until the hands take on some angle of meaning. The clock face pressed against my forehead, the incessant tick-tock obliterating the shallow calm of my hearing, and still I do not want to believe what I see.

  “Shit.”

  I roll from the wrecked bed and stumble, stark naked, across the hard floor to the pot and empty my bladder and use the time to figure out what happens next. My union suit lays crumpled in a ball and somehow I sort myself into it and, still buttoning, cross to the door and open it. A familiar figure bends over at the far end of the hall, lifting a tray of silver dishes.

  “Moses.”

  “Mornin’, Mister Harlan.”

  Moses walks toward me, his eyes settling into a steady level of concern as he gets a better look at the damage. “Everything all right, sir?”

  “Come inside.” I step away from the door for him to follow and he enters, closing the door behind him. “That clock right?” I ask.

  “Yes, sir. Quarter past ten. I set it myself to the church bell.”

  “Well. The state of things, I got a train to catch and the train ain’t waiting.”

  His brow releases, shifting his demeanor into one of vigilant serenity. He has heard this ballad before. “Mister Harlan. All you need do, get yourself dressed, square up with Mister Rawlings and meet me out front. Moses take care the rest.”

  I nod my thanks and set to searching about the floor for my trousers, only to discover them properly folded, along with the suit coat, across the back of a chair where Pete must have hung them. And there on the desk is the second outfit that he stayed up all night finishing and took the time to wrap up in brown paper for tidier transport.

  “Smart lookin’ jacket,” Moses helping me through the sleeves of last night’s coat.

  “Pete knows what he’s doing.”

  “What I hear, sir.” Moses goes back to packing up the bags while I scan for my boots and come up empty. “Your boots outside, Mister Harlan.”

  “The hell they doing there?” I open the door and find the boots just outside, sheened to chocolate luster.

  “Gettin’ polished where you left ’em, sir.”

  “I never—” I stop myself because it weren’t me, but Pete again. I stamp into the boots, grab the money and the thirty-two and stuff them into my trousers as I head downstairs.

  Rawlings glances up from his ledger book, gold wire-frames resting low on his nose.

  “Surely you’re not leaving before you’ve had breakfast? Mirabel’s made her ham and biscuits.”

  “I need be getting on. What’s the reckoning, if you please?”

  “Well,” returning his eyes to the ledger. “With the charge from the restaurant, that comes to . . .” I feel my chest expand as I inch closer, casting him in shadow. His lips start to say one thing, and then halt and say, “Twenty-seven and fifty.”

  I pick out a twenty piece and another ten and slap them on the podium. “Maybe I’ll see you again, if I don’t get properly tagged.”

  “Sir?” his nose crinkling.

  I walk away and bust out the front door, the bright sun resuming its assault on my pounding head. Moses is nowhere to be seen and I figure he and my guns are a mile out of town by now. But then a horse emerges from behind the building, towing a lightweight hansom.
Moses sits atop the wagon and kicks up the horse at the sight of me. As the wagon approaches he extends a hand, but I pull myself up and plop down next to Moses. The saddlebags and the Spencer sit tucked up against the back of the bench.

  “Halvorson’s stable.”

  “Hold on tight, Mister Harlan.”

  * * *

  Moses fires up that old draft bay and sets about navigating the pitted, churned-up roads of Santa Fe like a dog after a jackrabbit. I grip the bench and use my legs to steady myself as the hansom corners and zigzags and dodges around wagons coming at us from all directions until the split-rail of Halvorson’s fence rolls into view and I ease my grip enough to let a little blood back into my fingers. Moses steers the bay up toward the gate and yanks back hard on the reins.

  “Your pistol belt, just inside your smaller bag yonder,” Moses says, the bay clomping to an abrupt stop. “Might suggest you keep it put among them fancy train folk. Ain’t like it is out-country.”

  “Ticket fella done suggested the same thing.” I hop down into a dry space among the puddles mudding the road’s edge.

  “And I snatched you up a couple Mirabel’s ham biscuits on the way out. They’s wrapped up in your other bag. And you take this here.” He reaches down behind the seat and comes back with a soldier’s canteen. “This here’s your coffee. I told you Moses take care everything.”

  Hoisting the bags with one arm, I dig through my coin pocket with the other and stop at the first coin I come to. I press the quarter-eagle into his palm. He nods thanks, but his eyes grow serious. “You mind yourself, Mister Harlan. Ain’t like it used to be. Things is changing out there faster than the weather.”

  “I reckon they’re changing round here, too. You take care.”

  “Yessah.” Moses gets the bay moving again and clatters off.

  * * *

  I sling the bags high on the shoulder and head into the office. Finding the small room empty I press on through the back door and out toward the barn. Human voices argue from the stables, Halvorson barking instruction and receiving an earful of back-sass in Spanish, from which he derives little amusement. The stable boy emerges from the barn carrying a hammer and a bucket of nails. A broken stall gate from the barn sits in splintered pieces between two pommels. A long, satisfied whinny lows from the paddock, and I know from the sound of it that Storm has enjoyed his visit, which means no one else did. Then he catches scent of me and whinnies again—my whinny—as if I didn’t see him over there all alone, cut from the other horses. I whistle back short and settle him down as Halverson steps out of the barn, hands on hips. He sees me coming and starts right in.

  “I’ll bake a birthday cake for Satan himself before I let that cursed stallion stable here again. He destroyed the door to his stall.”

  “Door must’ve done something wrong.”

  “Only its job! Keeping them horses separated what have no business mingling. Like, for instance, a randy, hell-bit stallion and one of my mares what had the misfortune to be in-season.”

  “Did he get her?”

  Halvorson spits again, annoyed, and points over at the busted door.

  “Does that door appear to be in one piece to you?”

  “Well then, I hope she had a good time.”

  “Your animal is not fit to board with other horses and you ought have disclosed as much.”

  “He doesn’t act like that when I’m around. He likes to test is all, see what he can get away with.”

  “Well, my options, far as controlling him, was limited, as I don’t think you would’ve want me taking a stick to him.”

  “No. You wouldn’t want that,” I correct him. A trickle of fear bubbles behind his eyes, softening the boil of his anger. “I apologize about the gate, and for your trouble.”

  “I reckon you should.”

  I remember a train that won’t wait and a seventeen-mile stretch that needs covering. All I need do is slap some gold in Halvorson’s paw and be done with this. If the city has taught me anything, it is that a problem you can fix with money ain’t a real problem. But something about the way he spits gets my dander up, and I dig in for the sake of it.

  “Your mare got some valuable seed in her,” I say. “She foals out, I got a mind to come back, collect my half.”

  “You’re saying you would want to collect on half a foal?”

  “Seems only fair. Minus the stud fee.”

  “Stu—Stud fee? Now hang on just dang minute.”

  “Tell you what. You eat the door and the stabling cost, I’ll waive the stud fee. We call it square.”

  “Well this is all supposin’ that the mare has conceived.”

  “Storm don’t miss when he puts it in. Look, we gotta go. Either I pay you now and come back in twelve months, take what’s mine, or we call it square and you just might get yourself a racehorse. I ain’t fussed one way or the other.” I pull a stack of coins from my pocket and let them clap together in my hand, back and forth, as the gears turn slow in the old man’s brain. He spits again and turns to the boy.

  “Berto, fetch the man’s saddle. They got to be getting’ on.”

  The boy called Berto drops the tools, relieved to be liberated from the unfamiliar world of carpentry, and darts into the tack room. He returns with my saddle. I hardly recognize it—oiled and polished to a dark shade unseen since it was new.

  “Mind your ass don’t slip out of it,” Halvorson says.

  The boy treads cautious as he nears the stallion, but Storm allows the approach and I soon learn why as Berto pulls a fistful of oats from his pocket. Storm devours it in two bites, but it is enough for the boy to place the saddle, cinch it secure and get himself clear.

  “You know the way to his heart,” I say, pressing two dollars into the boy’s hand as he passes. The boy smiles, but a powerful weariness colors the gratitude.

  “Gracias, señor. El caballo es un diablo, pero un diablo hambre.”

  “Hungry devil. That ’bout describes him.” I tie on the saddlebags and pull myself up.

  “Good thing that horse don’t speak Spanish,” Halvorson adding between spits. “He strikes me as the type to be easily offended.”

  “Reckon he speaks a little bit of everything.” I give Storm a nudge and ease him toward the gate. “If he ain’t offended, must be ’cause he agrees.” Storm feels the boot heel tap him again and that is all he needs to show them his shoes.

  * * *

  About a mile out of town, the ground drops off quick and Santa Fe recedes above us, taking with it all the distractions and heady poisons that pester a young man, until the last adobe hut has faded in the distance. I take the country air deep in my lungs and, for the first time in two days, feel like a man who understands where he belongs.

  We pick up a little mule trail that winds down toward the valley floor and after about fifteen minutes I catch sight of the spur track that will lead us out to the junction. The sun has burned off the last of the morning haze, clearing the line of sight in all directions. I comb the track for any trace of steam, but finding none, imagine that Virginia lawyer, as well as Owens and his family, all crammed into that two-car shuttle, getting ready to push off from the depot in town to make the same trip I’m making, only in less comfort.

  Storm dances his way down the slope, head forward, eyes on ground ahead. But his ears twitch lively and content, that horse brain of his chewing on the cud of last night’s exploits.

  “If you can navigate this hill without getting us kilt, I might just have a minute to eat this here biscuit.” The stallion nickers low and picks up the pace a beat, his signal that I am free to eat my breakfast. “I saw that boy stuffing them oats in your face,” I add, digging the warm, wrapped bundle from the saddlebag. “I’ll bet you was working that poor squirt for grub the second I left.” I peel back the paper—steam rising from the golden crust—and take a bite. The buttered biscuit and salty ham explode across the tongue. “I don’t know who Mirabel is, but she knows her way ’round a biscuit.”
>
  I like town. Town is good.

  “Don’t get used to it. The way you and me ate and drank and screwed our way through that place, I ’spect we was about two seconds from both our butts getting kicked to the boneyard in the heap they deserve. I reckon we’re bustin’ out just in time.” Another grunt from the stallion confirms the obvious and we leave it at that. I lick the butter off my fingers and open up the canteen and take a long pull of the coffee while it still holds what little heat it has left. Then I replace the cap as the ground starts to level out and put my glove back on and pick up the reins in earnest. “All right, amigo, let’s show this valley how we cut.”

  The trail dumps us out fifty yards from the tracks. We work through a run of low bushes and cross a dry arroyo and fall in right beneath the berm that holds the track. A swath, five yards wide and stretching as far as the eye can see, has been cleared on both sides of the rail of any obstruction—plant or mineral—and replaced with gravel to discourage further life from taking root. Heat rises from the road in shimmering waves. The air sits thick with creosote. Storm sees open space unfurl before him and within a couple of strides settles into the steady canter he can hold for an hour.

  * * *

  There is nothing natural about a steel road. The arrow-tip of White Man’s ingenuity fires westward in a monument of speed and profit, leaving the bodies that fell to build it as the only echoes of its humanity, and their song—if heard at all—will soon drift into the ether like the fleeting breath of a locomotive. So it is that this Big Idea of metal and boiling water travels with such efficiency that even to run alongside it—as we do now—gives a false sense of one’s ability. Storm and I burn through the miles as if pushed forward by a mechanical hand. We make up so much time that after three-quarters of an hour I am convinced we have not only atoned my sin of tardiness, but have gained sufficient edge to ensure an arrival well ahead of the shuttle. And as it is on the back of the stallion that my carelessness has found absolution, when we come upon a water tower I decide to stop and let Storm have a well-deserved drink.