Storm's Thunder

by Brandon Boyce

  “Don’t kill me, please. I’m begging you. Please, God!” Cross shot his left hand forward and throttled Linus by the throat.

  “God is as deaf to your begging as you were to hers.”

  “Who?” Linus wailing through gritted teeth. “I don’t know who you’re taking about.” As the ticket man pawed at Cross’s wrist, Cross slammed the pistol butt down onto the bridge of his nose.

  “God’s creature, that’s who!” Cross sailing another blow into the meat of his cheek—the skin splitting—and yet another into the orbital bone below his eye. He heard the bone crack. “Oh, yes, the negress lives. By God’s merciful power, she lives.” Cross released the pulpy mass from his clutch and Linus crumpled to the ground.

  “Linus, I swear . . .” Kirby flinging the spit-coated bag of dust to the floor, his once ruddy face now ashen gray, but his voice steeled with measured certainty.

  “Quite understandable, Mister Farlow,” Cross said. “Why trust a killer’s job to a ticket puncher. I doubt that’s an oversight you’ll repeat.” Cross turned to face Kirby, and when he did, Kirby swung the crutch and hit him across the face. Kirby was up with a roar, firing on pure rage. He lowered his shoulder and barreled into Cross, sending them both hurtling into the wall. A breathy grunt escaped Cross as the weight of the heavier man knocked the wind from him, but still he held his pistol. Kirby’s arm shot up, pinning Cross’s arm and gun against the wall. The two of them fought for control of it.

  “Linus, shoot this cocksucker in the face!” Kirby hissing as he dug his heels into the table. His forearm crunched against Cross’s neck, but the little man fumbled his free hand down toward his belt. Linus slapped at his own belt and then remembered—the woodpile. He leapt to his feet and ran to the door and opened it and saw a man with a shotgun standing there. Van Zant fired and blew Linus back across the room. Then he turned and took aim at Kirby but could not fire, as the spray of buckshot would kill Cross. Van Zant went for the pistol he kept on his hip.

  Kirby wrested control of the forty, ripping it from Cross’s hand as Cross yanked his free hand upward. Kirby stepped back and brought up the pistol and then felt the cold shock as his belly opened up and his intestines emptied onto the floor. Puzzled, he looked at Cross, and saw that the cord around the man’s neck held only the top half of the crucifix he’d been wearing. The lower half jutted from Cross’s hand, where a needle-point blade dripped red with blood. Then Van Zant fired and blew half of Kirby’s skull onto the wall. Cross steadied himself on the table and rubbed his neck. He glared at Van Zant.

  “Sorry,” Van Zant said. “I cut that a little close.”

  Cross wiped the blade clean and gently reunited the two pieces that embodied his faith. He brought the assembled crucifix to his lips and kissed it, solemnly. Then he picked up his pistol, stepped over Kirby’s body and walked to where Linus lay on his back. Linus ground his boot heels into the dirt, as if there were somewhere to go.

  “The Indian, Harlan Two-Trees. Where is he?” Cross standing over him.

  Linus Farlow gazed up at the ceiling and wondered what was beyond. He thought about his mother. Cross repeated the question, which he rarely did, and saw Linus trying to speak.

  “On . . . train.” Blood bubbled from his mouth. Cross nodded and leaned down and spoke in a clear voice.

  “Which way is he headed?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Skip slides down in the heavy upholstered chair across from mine, somehow convinced his encroachment will loosen my tongue. “At least say if you kissed her. She was the prettiest one.”

  “She was all right,” George correcting over his whiskey glass. “She weren’t the prettiest.” George switched to whiskey as soon as we lit out from the Harvey House, unlike his friend who stays loyal to sarsaparilla. I had sobered up in my time with Hannah—what with scrambling over the rooftop after her and the newness of the adventure—and hadn’t much thought about whiskey at all. And now to consider numbing away the image of Hannah’s smile, or the way her finger traced an invisible line on the white adobe ledge, or the scent of her lavender essence, seems a disservice to her memory. And those memories, every precious one, are all I have left of her.

  “Sure I can’t get you something, Mister Harlan?” Burke passing behind me in the parlor car, a fresh, white waiter’s uniform replacing his sweated-through porter’s jacket for the hour or so he has charge of the bar. “Just till Ernie come back from restocking the pantry. I can’t mix a drink like Ernie, but I can pour whiskey straight enough.”

  “When you get to rest?” I ask.

  “Old Burke learn how to sleep standing up long time ago.”

  The door opens and Ballentine strolls in, followed by a red-faced Owens who has to steady himself against the wall, laughing hard at some previous joke as the train shudders around a turn.

  “Keep ’em coming, Burke,” Owens jabbing his empty to the ceiling. “Clara May’s putting the kids down and I ain’t drunk yet.”

  “Friend, you’re drunker than a Yankee in Savannah,” Spooner patting Owen’s shoulder.

  “I ’spose I am. Enjoy your bachelor years, boys. It’s all downhill once you take the plunge.” Owens collapses onto the settee, his legs stretched out.

  Ballentine holds his liquor well, and shows no sign of intoxication beyond fatigue and a slight flushness to his already pink skin. He lowers gently into the seat next to me and lets out a sigh.

  “I’d pay union money for a liniment rub. My back is stiff as a board.”

  “You had the easy part,” George says, brooding.

  “I assure you, there is nothing easy about adjudicating a curve ball.” Spooner leans back in the chair and closes his eyes. The thinness of the high desert air has taken a wearying toll on the game’s participants.

  “Reckon I owe you an apology,” I say. “Vanishing from supper like I done.”

  “Nonsense,” his eyes opening again. “It is I should be apologizing. I invite you as my guest and your fine suit is soiled? I am deeply embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be. They took care of me. Got some stiff trousers is all. A little smoked, but clean otherwise.” I tug at my trousers to demonstrate but his eyes are closed again.

  “Glad to hear it. Truth be told, your mishap with the coffeepot inspired Harvey’s manager to discount the final bill by half.” I feel a smile blooming and hope he hasn’t seen it. “What is it? Why are you smiling?” his one squinted eye unwavering.

  “Hannah would find that funny. Knowing she saved you a bundle.”

  “Indeed,” closing his eyes again. “I hope she stiffened more than your trousers,” his voice lowering with suggestion.

  “Good luck getting a story outta him. I already tried,” Skip rising from his chair.

  “You’d make a fine defendant on the stand, Harlan. Too often a man talks his way to incrimination when the smart move is to leave the talking to the professionals.”

  “Comes to talk, you must be top of the trade,” George says.

  “You could do worse than retaining my counsel, young man. Although fair warning, I am discomfort-ably expensive.”

  “Then here’s to never being on neither side of the courtroom from you,” George toasting the air. Skip sinks down next to him and they retreat into their private nickering.

  Spooner leans in my direction, and without opening his eyes, says in a low voice, “Those huskers save all their talents for the ball diamond. Sparkling conversationalists, they are not.” Then Spooner sets back in the chair, hands folded across the belly, and—in a breath or two—is snoring louder than Owens.

  “I guess he won’t be needing this,” Burke staring down at the poured whiskey, his eyes considering if he should funnel it back into the bottle. “Unless you care for it, Mister Harlan.”

  “Not just yet.”

  He glances over at the boys, who seem as content as George’s moodiness will allow. “Well, if you gentlemen don’t mind then,” Burke pulling on his porter’s jacket over the barman�
��s uniform. “I’ll see to getting the beds turned down. I’ll send Ernie up to tend on you ’fore you need another round.”

  Burke marches out the door, and there I sit between two snores and pair of jealous farm boys. I close my eyes.

  All at once, Hannah’s smell comes to me. The total complexity of her day—her routine—laid bare as I tease from the scent another layer—cinnamon. I picture her, the sly housecat, pilfering a fresh roll—hot from the oven—on her way past the kitchen. And then come the spoils—nibbling away below the stairs, contented, no one the wiser to her subterfuge.

  When I open my eyes, I am smiling. The window outside shows changing country—stark and thickening shadows against fire-red strips of gasping sunlight. The lamps from the bar reflect in the glass, spreading a harsh glare that obstructs the view, as now the train’s interior light glows brighter than sunlight outside. And with present company less than engaging, I declare it a fine time for a stroll.

  * * *

  I come out of the parlor car and into the dark quiet of the corridor, where the long window stretches the full length of one side, offering a fine vista enjoyed by me, alone. Butter and onions. Her scent, once again—more layers intruding unannounced upon my brain. You can’t hardly work in a restaurant what without its heavy odors traveling home with you. I see her—late at night—scrubbing herself with lavender soap, frustrated by the tenacity of the kitchen’s clinging aroma. A cat licking itself clean and not stopping till it has done so. Then again, the strong lavender might be her way of masking those stolen minutes with a cigarette. I find myself smiling again, this time with eyes wide open.

  A banging door turns my head to the far end of the corridor. The young infantryman emerges from the darkness—kepi pulled low and his face absent the good-natured kindness on display at the Harvey House. He startles at the sight of me, as if I don’t belong, when it is the lowly stamp on his ticket that, if detected, would have Burke ushering him back to steerage by the scruff of the collar—long-rifle or not. The soldier’s walk hitches a step—then tries to conceal the hiccup unnoticed—before resuming a hair faster than what it had been.

  “Evening.” I say.

  He manages a nod, his lips moving but producing no sound. The oddness of the encounter lingers even after the parlor door closes, the soldier inside. I stare out at the country. The mountains give way to a stretch of lowlands where the falling sun, unobstructed, finds new strength. The ground glows flat and orange. A sandy berm begins to rise up just outside the window, cutting off the view of the dry riverbed that extends to the horizon. A dark figure skitters across the top of the berm, ducking down the backside, as the train approaches, in an attempt to avoid detection. He might have succeeded against an eye less attuned to movement as my own. Yet in the flash of his presence I recognize the unmistakable blue of a soldier’s tunic—the same blue that just slinked past me in the corridor. But the man outside wears a cavalryman’s hat, the eagle feather in its band betraying his position behind the berm.

  A troubling unease takes root in my gut, like the ground dropping away. The Santa Fe shudders, the floor vibrating as she accepts the change beneath her wheels—a trestle. The berm vanishes from view as quick as the apparition hiding behind it. We rumble out on a low bridge, spanning the arroyo—and the unease I’m coddling drips into sickening, cold dread.

  I feel a shallow breath suck inward across my lips, and then it is too late.

  * * *

  BOOOOM!

  A thundering roar splinters the air, firing a dark cloud of debris and smoke out into the arroyo like a ship’s cannon blast. The trestle—my mind knows it is the trestle exploding as the window cobwebs before my eyes and shatters inward, bathing every inch of me with shards of biting glass. I turn and cover my face, the shock wave slamming me against the wall. The floor below jumps off the track and crashes back down again into the bridge—and then through it—metal grinding and shifting as the wheels claw for rails that are sinking as fast as the train itself. I grab a handhold and swing my weight downward, lowering the center of gravity. But the crumbling bridge does that for me. Down, down we plummet. A full second of free fall that seems an eternity, until the impact—jarring beyond conception—hurls me down the corridor. I slam the far wall like a wet ragdoll, white stars pocking my vision as a salty spike of blood fills my mouth. I collapse to the ground, deafened by a roaring dragon of crunching—squealing—ripping metal.

  And then come the screams. Human voices, choked with mortal panic, cut a high-pitched drone that makes no distinction of man, woman or child.

  I struggle to my knees—nearly blinded by twirling stars—but the train has not stopped moving. We drag across the gritty sand—churning and scraping—until the din of crunched metal gives way to new sounds. A calamitous banging, like an iron drum, beats once, coupled with screams of horror. All at once the wall on the far side pushes toward me, the steel sides of the train car crumbling like a tin can. My legs fire to life as the walls close in. I scramble upward—or is it sideways—straight for the exploded window and dive through. I hit the rock-hard ground with an awkward crash but never stop running until I am clear of the twisted, splintering mass of metal and wood. The acrid stench of cordite weighs heavy in the bone-dry air, sucked of all moisture by the tremendous blast. Another heavy bang booms behind me, followed by more screaming.

  Only then do I turn around and see. The train cars, one after another, hurtle off the elevation and into the chasm where seconds ago stood a bridge. Each car pulls the one behind it to a similar fate, piling up—twenty yards below—in a smoking heap of mangled steel and dust. An over-crowded Pullman coach, the riders’ arms and faces pressed to the glass, juts out over the precipice and teeters there—suspended—until it releases from the track. The coach falls.

  It hits the cars below and bursts into flames, fire engulfing the wood frame with unspeakable swiftness. Through the smoke I see the outlines of desperate brakemen—tiny as ants—straining into their brake levers atop the roofs of the cars still on the track. As a car goes over the ledge, the brakemen jump, some landing on high ground, others plummeting all to the way to the carnage below. With the fallen cars cluttering the arroyo and stacking upward in a tower of carnage, the back half of the train—Storm’s half—in a fateful twist of mercy—has nowhere to fall. The mighty Santa Fe slows to a crawl and finally—by the grace of Heaven—groans to a halt.

  But the fire rages. I watch in helpless horror, but find my legs propelling me forward, toward the train. With every step, a stinging pain stabs through my ears into the brain. A ringing wall of sound rises up, consuming all, and instinctively I understand that I am dynamite-deaf. The miner’s curse. It will pass. You know it will pass, I tell myself—as it does for countless men in the mines—but still my heart panics at the maddening tranquility of false silence. The remains of the trestle flutter down from the blackened sky in a flurry of glowing ash and embers. Something heavy, like a tree branch, slams down in front to me, halting my progress. I look down at the branch and see a man’s leg, severed mid-thigh. Where once was a boot—or shoe—now smolders a foot sheathed in nothing but a sock in woeful need of darning. When the owner pulled them on this morning, he thought no one would notice, no doubt saving his last good pair for a long-awaited reunion with his girl. I am pulled from the guilty strangeness of the thought by the trembling ground beneath my feet.

  Horses.

  I turn around and behold a company of ghosts. They gallop out of the smoke—a motley band of army soldiers in a wild, undisciplined formation—tattered uniforms flapping beneath mean, dirty faces made crueler by the—yes, I see it, clear as day—by the twisted ripple of excitement in their eyes. These ghoulish barbarians—these monsters—caused this destruction. And they are enjoying it.

  A long-haired Apache rides among them, unsaddled, steering his horse with his legs as he raises his rifle and fires. But—blind luck—not at me. I remember the pistol, my hand reaching for it. I turn, hoping to find cover
—hoping to be invisible—but before I finish the move I feel someone behind me and I know I am anything but invisible. A second Apache bears down on me, his eyes indifferent, until he looms overhead and a flicker of recognition strips away our White Man’s clothes, and I am laid bare—red-blooded—at his feet. Time grinds to a halt. Either there will be mercy, or there will not. The wind catches the heat from the fire and warms my back like a summer breeze. The Apache makes a decision. All at once, his face knots with rage. And then his club hits my skull and everything goes black.

  PART 2

  ARROYO RED

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The campfire burns strong and hot. I feel the heat all down my legs and the power of its brightness through closed eyelids that I don’t want to open—not from this nap. Sleep’s talons seduce me with the promise of warm and deepening blackness. Besides, upstairs I detect the rumblings of a fearsome hangover. Must have finished the bottle. I know when I snap my eyes open and try to move, daggers will pierce the brain like a hundred icepicks. Best keep them closed; no sense letting the pain get the drop on me. But whatever I’d been eating before dozing off, I made a right mess of, because the chili or beans—or was it honey and biscuits?—sits caked on one side of my face, drying in the fire’s heat. And the last thing I need—if the flies and ants don’t start picking at it—is Storm wandering over and thinking he can help himself to a couple of prime licks. I’ll just brush the food off—just that little motion—and then grab a few more winks as the fire burns itself out. I bring a hand to my cheek and a sudden bolt of pain rips up the jaw and into my forehead.

  “He’s moving.” A voice. A voice I recognize shatters the cocoon of my dream.