Storm's Thunder (2 page)

When the dust clears, I hear Storm whinny and I call out to him that I am all right. Rising slow to my feet, I steady myself against the rock wall and turn back toward where the door had been. My heart sinks. The sweat that soaks my shirt, in an instant, goes cold. The face of a white man, what is left of it, stares back at me. And where his eyes once were, pits of dried blood buzz with flies. His mouth sits frozen open, revealing the viciousness that saw his tongue get hacked out and most likely eaten. The naked body leans against the inside of the cave, supported by a steel-tipped lance that juts upward out of his chest. It was the weapon that killed him before someone snapped it in half to make room for the body next to him. I want to turn and run far away from this place, but somehow my feet defy my brain and propel me forward.

The second man, taller than the first, suffered a similar—but not identical—slate of horrors. His ears and nose have been chopped off, along with his arms below the elbow. The fatal blow came from a sharp knife that carved out his heart. My mouth goes bone dry as I move closer, the afternoon sun cutting through the cavern to display the carnage in all its stark harshness. A third man appears shorter, but only because his head lies at his twisted feet. His ribs, nearly all of them, extend outward where the shotgun tore him through from behind. Stepping to the entrance of the cave, though, the full scope of the carnage registers with unfathomable clarity. The dryness in my throat gives way to a knot that sinks to the pit of my stomach. My legs grow weak as twigs and I drop to my knees.

The butchered bodies of eleven White Men fill the small cave. I count the torsos because it is the only way to be sure. Some of the heads are missing, or discarded about the ground, or smashed into pieces among the limbs and organs that litter the floor. Staring dumbfounded at the tableau in its grisly totality, there appears no conceivable torture or bodily desecration left unaccounted for among its victims. So complete the extermination that its perpetrators must surely have luxuriated in an overwhelming advantage of force, and an orgiastic abundance of time, in which to leave unturned no stone of sadistic creativity. One wretched young man, no older than myself, looks like he was roasted below the waist while his arms and shoulders played pincushion to an awl or ice pick. Yet others among his kindred became canvases for intricate blade-work. Each of the eleven seems to have suffered a unique death, but before his suffering had ended, shared one or two communal hardships with his brethren. Not one of them died with his private parts attached and more than a few took their last, miserable breaths with their manhood stuffed into their mouths. The entire lot—probably early in the proceedings—was stripped completely naked, their clothing nowhere in sight, not a single thread of it. Scanning the chamber, in fact, I cannot observe a single personal possession of any kind—no tool or weapon or artifact—which may have aided even the most meager defense. What insurmountable imbalance of power must have been in play to render nearly a dozen able-bodied White Men into such docile submission? The final commonality is the marked absence of each and every scalp.

I cannot say how long I set there on my knees, but before I could will my eyes to look away, I was certain this vile vista has seared itself into an inescapable cage of memory.

As I find my feet again, a dot of shadow crawls across the landing. I look up. The first of the vultures circles overhead, the full stench of this discovery now extending miles downwind. I have seen enough and marshal my thoughts toward leaving, but in the shifting light, something polished and gold reflects a ray of sunlight from an inner nook of the cave. Before giving myself a chance to reconsider, I push forth—holding my breath—and tiptoe into the foulness. I pluck the overlooked object from its hiding place and shove it in my pocket. Turning back toward the ledge, I am greeted by an arriving condor. The colossal bird stands at the edge of the landing, folding in her enormous wings in anticipation of the feast laid out before her. I move to shoo her off and then stop myself. Let the scavengers have at it, I say, so that the sight of this altar of evil may never poison the vision of another living soul. I blow past the condor without looking back.

By the time I reach Storm, the sky swirls black with the great birds. I drape the pronghorn over the stallion's haunches and swing myself up. “Don't ask,” and he obliges by starting his walk. The sun hangs low over the mountains to the west. I glance at the ridge and see a lone rider atop a piebald lineback, watching me with great intent. And I know right away from her knee-high moccasins and the way she sits on her horse that she is Apache. Farther south, or west into Arizona, she would be among her own. But we are deep in Navajoland. And for her to be out here alone tells me she has been watching me, or this place, with vested interest. I refrain from any sudden gestures, offering only a small nod to acknowledge that I see her. She provides no response, other than turning her mount and disappearing over the ridge.

* * *

An hour later, as Storm lopes southeast toward Santa Fe, I find the courage to pull the metal object from my pocket and take a look. It is a buckle—from a belt no doubt—a polished brass oval surrounding two stout letters, U and S.

U.S.

A cavalryman's property. That some band of marauding killers could so thoroughly destroy nearly a dozen settlers, or unarmed missionaries, figures hard enough to believe, but that their victims were none other than the Indian-slayers of the United States Army resides beyond my comprehension. All at once, what I know, and what I thought I know, fall apart. The only certainty is that no good can ever come from speaking of this to anyone. Now more than ever, the Territory of New Mexico: the only place I have ever known—
the Dinétah
, the sacred homeland of my Navajo ancestors—pushes me to leave, toward a great unknown in the West. And so I will go.

CHAPTER TWO

I hitch Storm to the post and step through the low picket gate that buffers the small, white house from the dusty commotion of Palace Street. My worn riding satchel hangs low on the shoulder, counterbalancing the weight of the short-barrel thirty-two in my left coat pocket—the one I carry when my usual rig, a pair of pearl-handle Colts, would impose the wrong impression. A path of slate paving stones divides a little garden where tiny purple flowers take in the morning sunlight from terra cotta urns that flank my procession to the porch. Potted flowers—a luxury far removed from the rocky, overworked patches of the Bend, where a few scrawny beans and waist-high corn had folks dropping to their knees to thank their creator.

In the haste of my previous visit to the home of Milton J. Garber, convened well past sundown, I had not noticed what an oasis the land agent—or more likely, some woman—had fashioned among the drab adobes a short block from the main plaza of Santa Fe. A burning desire to see my business conducted that night had been too consuming. Yet now, with that mausoleum of butchery clouding the mind, my motivation finds even greater urgency. The wood creaks as I climb the freshly painted steps, reverberating with hollow echoes as I cross to the door.

I remove my glove and rap three times under bare knuckle. From deep within the house—the second floor by the sound of it—a man's voice calls out.

“Just a moment.” Footsteps clomp down an inner staircase and sighs as he approaches the door, as if put upon by the interruption. The house casts a long, cool shadow across the garden. I make it just past nine, early enough to be a businessman's first call of the day, but hardly an hour to catch him indisposed. A key lock turn, followed by a deadbolt and then the fall of a chain. The door opens and Milton Garber stand there, dressed, but there is something undone about him. His ditto jacket hangs open and a missed button on the waistcoat betrays a careless donning. “Can I help you?” Garber peering at me through his wire-rim spectacles without a hint of remembrance.

“Morning, Mister Garber,” removing my hat. All at once his eyes burst with recognition.

“Why Mister Two-Trees.” He pulls the door open wide and, stepping aside, extends his arm toward a chair in his front-room office. “Why, you must forgive me. I did not recognize you with your whiskers. Please, come in. Can I offer you some coffee?”

“Obliged.” I step past him into the office and move toward the chair, but cannot bring myself to sit.

“Xenia!” He says, shouting toward the top of the stairs. “Some fresh coffee, straight away. Do sit, Mister Two-Trees. Make yourself at home.”

“Best I stand, sir. I ought not foul up your sitting chair.”

“Nonsense,” Garber says. When I glance back, the missed button of his waistcoat seems to have found its proper hole. Then his fingers make quick work of the ditto buttons, and just like that, he is soberly attired. “Please, sit.”

“I took a splash through the Grande about an hour ago. It cut the stink, but my clothes still a mite dusty.”

“You bathed in the Rio Grande?” he says, crinkling his nose. “This morning? What on earth were you doing all the way out there?”

“I amble out that way after last we talked.”

Milton J. Garber, land agent, stares at me like I had switched to a foreign tongue. “Mister Two-Trees, you were here . . .” He turns his head, squinting in disbelief at a bank calendar hanging on the wall, “fifteen days ago.” He gawks at me, expecting me to speak, so I just go on letting him have a right long look. Then I nod and ease down into the chair. Garber sinks slow in the leather chair behind a desk cluttered with paper and doodads. “You mean you've just . . . been out there, at the Rio Grande, for over two weeks?”

“I fell in behind a band of pronghorn for a couple days. That swung me northwest a fair piece, but I followed the river back.” Some cups rattle on a tray at the top of the stairs, followed by the careful footsteps of a woman. “You said to give you a week or so. I reckon I lost track of the rest. Pronghorn is pretty quick.”

“I'll take your word. Never seen one myself,” he says. “Ah, Xenia, my dear.”

A pretty negro girl, about my age, maybe nineteen, reaches the bottom step and lets out a breath, relieved at descending with only minimal spillage. Sweat beads along her brow and neck, and I can smell the sex on her before the aroma of coffee fills the air. She catches my gaze and darts her eyes away quick. She does not look at Garber at all. Rather, she sets the tray down on his desk, curtsies—embarrassed—as if I had caught her in the state of nakedness she had been in five minutes prior. As she turns for the stairs, I see that Garber is not the only one who missed a button.

“I am not much of an outdoorsman,” Garber says, handing me a thin china cup overfilled with hot coffee. I hold it with both hands, unsure how any grown man's fingers fit though the tiny handle. “But I am most impressed at people who can just ‘live of the land.'”

“You fixed up a nice garden,” I say, nodding to the window. Storm's long head undulates through the wavering glass. Beyond him stretches the burnt umber balustrade of the Palace of Governors.

“Xenia's handiwork entirely. Blessed with the green-thumb of a sharecropper's daughter.”

“Mister Garber, last we spoke you said you might could sell my land up Caliche Bend.”

“Indeed, Mister Two-Trees. I'll confess, when you brought me your business, I did not think much would come of the proposition. But that was because I was ignorant of two very important pieces of information, the first being your identity.”

“I give my full name when I called on you.”

“You did, and I'll beg forgiveness that the name Harlan Two-Trees did not resonate as it should have.” The man ducks behind his desk, rooting among the stacks of paper piled on the floor. “Imagine my surprise when I opened the
Gazette
the following morning to learn that the stranger who knocked on my door in the middle of the night, granting me full power of attorney to sell eighty-five acres in Caliche Bend at whatever price the market would bear, was the same man who rescued the residents of said hamlet from certain financial ruin by returning—damn near to the
dollar
—what had been stolen in the greatest robbery in history.” Garber's head pops back into view. “And, in the process, killed the most feared outlaw in the Territory, perhaps the entire Frontier.” He rises to his feet and tosses a yellowed newspaper on the desk. “You killed the Snowman.”

I don't make much of the headline and its jumbled letters, but I recognize at once the penciled likeness of Garrison LaForge. You don't forget the Snowman. And farther down the page, no bigger than a nickel, is another face. That sketcher from the
Gazette
never could get my chin right.

“It was someone else kilt the Snowman. I was just a witness.”

“A trifling distinction,” Garber sipping his coffee. He leans back in his chair. “The power of myth can hardly be derailed by something as inconsequential as the truth.”

“You said there were two things.”

“Come again?”

“Two things you did not know.”

“Ah, yes,” Garber says. “That would be the validity and condition of the parcel in question.” All at once he pushes off from his desk and slides in his chair across the room to a tall cabinet. A chair with wheels. Had Sheriff gotten wind of such a conveyance, I suspect the jailhouse back in the Bend would still bear rings around where his desk stood. “You understand, just because a man says he owns something doesn't mean he does. The will and testament you showed me had to be verified with the assessor's office, which it was, eventually. Yes, the late Sheriff Pardell did intend for his property to go to you—”

“What do you mean, eventually?”

“Well, there was the slight matter of your heritage.” He trails off and waits for my reaction. When I give him nothing, he continues, choosing his words carefully. “You're an Indian . . . or half-Indian, yes?”

“Does it matter?”

“In the eyes of the law, most certainly.”

“Navajo. My mother was Navajo. My father was a white man.”

“Yes, well unfortunately the law makes very little distinction between Indian and half-breed.”

“I don't care for that word.”

“What, half—?” Garber stops himself. A knot of flesh rolls slow down the man's throat. “My apologies, Mister Two-Trees,” his voice breaking. “I meant no disrespect. The point is that there are laws against Indians owning property, except in designated areas. The reservations.”

“Sheriff and the missus raise me on that land since I was a spud. He leave it to me fair and square.”

“The concept of ‘fair and square' doesn't apply much when it comes to Indians.”

“No. It does not.”

“Before I could even think about a potential buyer,” Garber begins, “there is the issue of title. The problem, you see, is that the clerk has a ledger, and in that ledger is recorded every sale and transfer of real estate holdings in the territory, including the names of the buyer and seller, and of each, his race.” At this, the man gets up from his seat and crosses to the window, his fingers smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from his waistcoat. “You are as much white as you are red. I don't care what Washington says. Washington is not New Mexico.”

“What did you do?”

“Let's just say that there are few obstacles in this world that cannot be solved by a pair of double-eagle gold pieces. The clerk had to write something down in his book. I made sure it was what we wanted.”

“You risked yourself on my account?”

“You're not the only one with a connection to Caliche Bend. My sister lives there. Perhaps you know her. Alma is her name, Alma Early. She's married to Jack Early.”

“Big Jack. He's my friend. 'Course I know Alma.”

“I assumed that's who referred me to you.”

“Nope. Had no idea. I asked around for a fella what sold property. Barkeep down the way sent me to you.”

“I don't believe in coincidence, Mister Two-Trees. It was divine providence that sent you to me. Jack and Alma had their savings stolen along with everyone else's and you, sir, are the man to thank for that money's return. I consider it an honor to express my gratitude for your bravery by finding you the highest possible price for your land.”

“Obliged.”

“Mister Two-Trees, you signed over power-of-attorney to a man you didn't know. Had you knocked on the door of any other agent in Santa Fe, he would've sold your property, kept all the proceeds for himself and then vanished. That, or found a way to have you arrested.”

“I suppose you coulda done that. But spending my money while also dead would prove difficult.”

“It was never an option, Mister Two-Trees.” Garber rests his hands on his hips and looks me square. “Despite what anyone says about
my tribe
, Milton J. Garber doesn't swindle heroes.” He downs the rest of his coffee and continues. “With the issue of title settled, I took a trip up to the Bend to take a look at this eighty-five acres. I can't rightly sell a parcel if I can't describe it.”

“You rode all the way out to the Bend?”

“Oh, with the new railroad it's an easy hour. Alma and Jack were there to collect me in the buggy. I must say, your property is a lovely spread. Plenty of flat ground, perfect for crops or grazing, with that delightful stream down the middle. I'm frankly surprised that you want to let it go.”

“Time I moved on.”

“Yes, California, you mentioned. Not looking for gold, I hope. I hear it's bust.” I let the words hang there and he keeps looking at me, expecting me to talk. But these days I find myself less inclined to tell a man any more of my business than I need to. “I don't mean to pry. It's just that . . . they don't want you to go. There, I said it plain.”

“Who don't?”

“Jack. Alma. Just about every person I spoke to in the Bend. Hell, sir, they want you to come back and be sheriff.”

“Big Jack's wearing the star now.”

“Oh, God bless my sister's husband, but Jack is no sheriff. A deputy, maybe. And for you, he'd gladly step aside. Told me as much himself. You have the trust of the people. You earned it.”

“If you stood on my land, then you saw what they did.” A dark memory flickers behind Garber's eyes. But now my own memory flares—searing heat, a blanket of smoke, the stench of burning livestock. I feel my blood start to boil. “They burned my house down, with me in it. My barn too. Only thing survived was me and that stallion.”

“Whoever burned you out should be hanged, no question. If you were sheriff, you could do it yourself.”

“Folks may see the white in me when the cotton is high, like now—everybody sitting flush—but come the first whisper of trouble, they don't see nothing but red. You think White Men are gonna take kindly to an Indian stringing up one of their own, or telling people what they can and cannot do? No, sir. You pin a star to my front side, you might as well pin a bull's eye to my back. I'm not interested.”

“Well, I told them I'd ask. Can't blame a fellow for trying.”

It is his trying that sits funny with me. Why this man who don't know me from Adam would angle his own brother-in-law out of steady work—thus taking bread off his sister's table—while steering me toward a job that would get me shot faster than five aces, only adds to the conundrum that is Milton J. Garber. He pulls a handkerchief from his vest and dabs a droplet of sweat from his forehead and all at once the answer hits me—he couldn't find a buyer. Simple, when I think about it. Folks have been hightailing from Caliche Bend ever since the copper mines run out. I can't get myself away fast enough. And after the nasty business with the Snowman, the Bend festers in people's mind like a canker. Garber's play is to save face by selling me to myself as some kind of hero.