Storm's Thunder (19 page)

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.

* * *

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

A
RROYO
R
ED

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.

Ballentine.

Oh dear God.
It comes flooding back, the unspeakable truth. There is no food on my face. No hangover. No campfire. Slowly—the splitting agony between my ears far worse than the harshest whiskey sick—I open my eyes.

I lie on the sandy ground of the arroyo. A smoke-filled sky brings an early dusk, but spears of sunlight tell me I was not out for long. I see two legs, two dusty boots. I will them to move and they move.
You ain't crippled
, I tell myself.
And you sure as hell ain't deaf
.

The air lives thick with the sounds of war—gunfire, horses, screaming.

No. Not war—the gunfire too methodical—but what comes after war—butchery and desecration, when the superior side has its way with the defeated. I try to sit up, but a hand, sleeved in blackened seersucker, presses me down.

“Best stay put, son. They ain't done yet,” Ballentine again.

Close by, a child sobs and a woman offers comfort. “Mamma's here, darling, and I'm not going away.” Owens's wife, I forget her name. The crying continues. To hell with the pain. I roll to my side and sit up, the world spinning—and through double-visioned eyes make out Owens to my left. He holds one of the children, his wife rubbing the head of the other—the girl—in her lap.

“You took a blow, Harlan. Easy now,” Ballentine says from my right. I see two of him and close one eye, like a drunk, but it helps. He's aged ten years in an hour.

“How'd I get here?”

“You staggered out yonder,” Spooner nodding toward the open expanse of the arroyo, “then collapsed. Owens and I, we dragged you back here.”

I glance toward Owens. He strokes the boy's hair and keeps his head low, but his eyes are alert as he clocks the whereabouts of the soldiers. Or whatever they are. The eagle feather—I remember it from the berm—perches from the cavalryman's hat. He stands guard ten yards away, his back to us, but pivots at the commotion and steps closer, brandishing a rifle.

“Y'all sit still. I ain't telling you again,” barking in a husky voice. The hat swims too large on his head, flopping forward until, annoyed, he shoves it back and mashes it down onto his skull. I can't figure how it would stay put at any more than a trot, much less crossing fifty miles of desert a day. He whistles loud to a point above my head. I look up and see that they have us corralled at the base of the berm. The train must be just on the other side, because the smell of charred wood and burnt stove oil is so thick I want to gag. An army soldier, with sergeant's stripes on his arm and a sawed-off four-ten in his hands, sits atop the berm, eyeing me through bored, squinted eyes.

“I see him,” he says to Eagle Feather. “Won't be long now.” Then he spits and turns the other way.

* * *

Another soldier, his infantry tunic unbuttoned over a red-checkered work shirt, walks up to Eagle Feather. They exchange words and the man looks over at us, frowning, and then marches off.

I hold stone still and with my mouth barely moving say, “What they got planned for us?”

“Not sure yet,” Owens's voice low, but keenly attentive for a man passed out drunk half an hour ago. Besides the Owens clan and Spooner, a black waiter—Ernie, I reckon—crouches nearby, his head in his hands, weeping. A man and wife I recognize from first class huddle in each other's arms, the woman shaking her head in disbelief. Her gray-haired husband gnaws at his thumbnail to keep it from trembling. Another woman, round and sweating, kneels in the dust, her shredded parasol offering little protection from the elements. Two or three men, all smartly dressed, kneel beside her, holding hands, heads bowed in prayer. And then beyond them, I see George. He sits alone, arms tied behind his back. He wears nothing but his union suit. Even his shoes and socks are gone and his swollen face bears the aftereffects of a mighty dustup, but the scraped and bloodied knuckles say he gave as good as he got, if not better. He stares motionless out into the arroyo, his face set hard in an icy scowl.

My gaze follows his out to the arroyo, and with the faculties of my brain and vision returning slow, I have to blink a few times to make sure I see the bodies. But I see them, all right. A dozen dead, maybe twice that—passenger and crew alike—lay sprawled about the dry riverbed in every direction. They died where they fell, mostly, shot in the back as they tried to run. But some—as I look closer—show the mark of a finishing headshot, administered at close range once the body was down. Otherwise, the corpses look unmolested—to be picked over at a later time.

And time seems to be no issue for these men. I let my eyes continue on, surveying what I can of the particulars of this operation, and the intent of its perpetrators. Across the skeletal remains of the blown-out trestle, where the track picks up again on solid ground, a short stretch of telegraph poles lay flattened against the earth like felled trees, their magic wires stripped away. That's why these bandits take their time. No one is coming.

An explosion rips from over the berm, jarring bones and—once the shockwave dissipates—causing a chorus of shouts and whoops from marauders spread over a quarter mile. The men guarding our group turn left as a thick cloud shoots upward from the front of the train. I use the distraction to hop up and shuffle over to Owens, squatting down next to him. We don't look at each other.

“Jesus Christ, these morons don't know what the hell they're doing. That was enough ordnance to flatten half a mountain.”

“TNT?”

“Yeah, can tell by the smoke. It's a miracle they didn't vaporize the whole train and us with it.”

“They cut the wires,” I say.

“I saw. Be hours 'fore anyone knows we're missing.”

“You make out who they are?”

“Is there any doubt?” his chin turning toward me. “We landed headfirst into the Crazy Dazers.”

The Dazers. Of course, we had. The tattered uniforms, the slack formations, and as far I can see, no tangible chain-of-command, bore all the signs of a unit that had gone rogue before the rote habits of soldiering had taken hold. That gives them an unpredictability worth fearing. And the stolen dynamite turns the fearsome into the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As for the Apaches—rogues in their own right—they must serve as scouts, if not willing partners.

I glance back and now have a better view of the front of the train. The explosion came from the express car. A handful of Dazers crawl over the steel carcass like maggots and several more stand around, conversing and swigging from a shared bottle. A Dazer on board hurls out something—looks like a bale of hay—but when it lands at the feet of the others I see it is the torso of a real soldier—one of the Pinkerton's detail.

“You don't want to look at that,” Owens says, his voice unable to hide the sadness. I figure he means the express car but when I see the Pullman coaches, where most of the passengers had been riding, my belly sinks.

The Pullman car burns with the steady intensity of fire that has crested but still has work to do. Gray-charred bodies lay crammed against unbroken windows. Others had managed to break their windows, their corpses hanging from the waist, gutted by the glass, or their heads blown apart by awaiting guns. The unceasing gunfire alternates between a rifle's snap and the soul-churning boom of a big caliber pistol. The long-haired Apache stands on the boxcar above the burning Pullman, taking deliberate aim with the pistol and ending the misery of anyone still moving. A bearded soldier patrols the other side, dispatching any survivors with the rifle.

“A slaughter,” the word passing my lips with depleted breath. “Fish in a barrel.”

“Fish in a
burning
barrel.” Owens struggling to make sense, like his brain won't believe what his eyes tell him. “There just ain't no reason for that. No reason at all.”

I can't argue with Owens. Sure, there's a reason, but not one any of us want to think about. Instead a question that will define the next few minutes slips from my mouth.

“Why the hell are we still alive?”

“I have no idea.”

* * *

All at once, I remember the pistol, the metal pressing warm against my pelvis. One pistol. Six bullets. And what looks like near two-dozen armed madmen with no quarter for human life. The sound of lowing cattle turns me around.
Storm
. I forgot about Storm like I'd forgotten my own head. I see cattle roaming off to the right, near the upturned train. They appear disoriented, even agitated, but they're not crushed or burned, so I don't know what it means for the stallion. An injured heifer breaks into a run, limping, but hell bent on finding elsewhere to be. She runs toward us, one leg broken, a bloody trail of liquid drooling from her mouth.

Eagle Feather breaks into a laugh as the animal nears. But the solider in sergeant stripes breeches the four-ten, removes one shell and replaces it with another, no doubt swapping out buckshot for a single lead slug. He raises the gun and fires—the sudden noise dropping Spooner and the others flat to the ground. The heifer shudders once, a loud squeal escaping her, and then crashes face first into the dirt. The sergeant Dazer cracks open the shotgun again, flicks out the smoldering shell and replaces the buckshot.

I am on my knees, palms turned skyward, and close my eyes.

* * *

“Oh dear God,” Spooner's breaking voice pulls me from the prayer. “They've got Skip.”

I face out toward the arroyo and see the Apache who clubbed me riding in, atop his paint pony. He keeps a steady trot and that makes it hard for Skip. The ball player runs behind the pony, struggling to stay upright, his hands bound in front by a long rope tied to the saddle. Skip is completely naked, his face and blond hair matted with bloody dirt and his bare feet shredded to pulp and bone.

Eagle Feather brings his fingers to his mouth and peals out a sharp whistle, which is repeated by the sergeant and then Red Flannel. The signal travels haphazard down the line until it reaches Dazers gathered at the express car. Four men on horseback break from the pack and ride full-bore up to where the Apache stops, about thirty yards out into the arroyo. At the front of the riders, a tall man in black officer's Stetson reins up as they near the Apache, and the others slow down with him. The man in charge always shows himself eventually. One of the riders in back, a guidon, carries the Union flag on a pole, only the stars and stripes are inverted. An upside-down flag—usually a sign of distress—here I make it for just a perversion.

The Man in Charge says something to Skip and then points over to our group, and I get the sinking feeling that this spectacle unfolds for our benefit. Skip pleads with his bound hands. His desperate cries nearly reach my ears, but not quite. He stays on his feet, despite the exhaustion. I would too. The Man in Charge nods to the Apache, who gets off his pony and draws his club. Skip tries to run but the other men dismount and grab the rope and stand on it until the Apache is upon him. He hacks the club at Skip's legs, landing once above the knee. Skip screams and drops to the ground. The Apache moves in, letting the club fall and drawing a knife. He grabs Skip by the hair, and with a measured stroke, cuts the boy's throat. A collective gasp of horror rises from our group. Blood shoots out from the Skip's neck, the fight not yet left him, but soon he slackens. The Man in Charge turns his horse and walks it straight at us, the other riders following.

“Don't look, don't look, darling,” Owens's wife repeating over and over. I hear someone vomit, a few more weeping. The rest stay silent.

The Man in Charge approaches, revealing the garish appointments of his costume. He wears the brass insignia of both major and colonel. I think of a magpie collecting and hoarding trinkets of shiny silver for which it has no understanding. But as he nears, I see his eyes beneath the shadow of the gold-banded Stetson, their callow cruelty. I behold no great intelligence behind those brown-flecked discs. They are stupid eyes—eyes for whom luck will run out. The colonel-major stops his horse and addresses the unwilling congregation assembled before him.

“Anybody else wanna run?”