Storm's Thunder (28 page)

“I ain't got a minute to spare,” I say, lost in her curves.

“Well, then, you'd better be quick about it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Xenia prepared the bath precisely as he had instructed—bringing the water to a boil and then allowing it to cool for exactly one minute. After a lifetime in service, she had drawn countless baths for men—first the cotton baron, his doughy, pimpled paunch seared forever in her memory, and then when he grew tired of her, for Garber, who at least was kind in his infantile baby talk. But Mister Cross was different. Never had she seen a man lower his naked body into a cold empty tub and have the water, scalding hot to the point of blistering, poured over his back.

And the story told on his back frightened her. The intricate arrangement of lines and geometric shapes, deeply inked and spanning the width of his smooth, brown canvas, looked to Xenia's untrained eye as if it had been scraped into his skin with some primitive implement—a bone or a shell—rather than a tattooist's needle. What did the markings signify? Only once had she asked him about the design—not with words—the pain of speech still too unbearable—but by running her finger down the central pattern. The lines reminded her of an arrowhead.

“A godless custom,” he had said, almost ashamed. “Boys were taught to be hunters and fighters. But nothing of Christ's love.”

She lifted the bucket and poured it over his neck and shoulders. Cross barely flinched, he only sucked the air in slightly though his teeth. As he leaned back, some of the water splashed out of the tub and onto the dark wood of the rented caboose. She froze, petrified. But he said, “It's all right, child. Water is God's tears.” And then he raises his hand, as if gesturing to the falling rain outside.

Tonight she was more nervous than on previous bathing sessions. For one thing, the hour, the small clock on the table said it was not even three in the morning. But mostly she feared she had displeased him earlier by washing the bloody forehead of his “prisoner.”

“Such a compassionate creature, you are,” was all Cross had said on the matter.

It was her nature to clean things. Although the brush she used on his skin took some adjustment—for her, not for him. It was the kind of stiff bristled scrub brush meant for stone or tile, not the human body. And Cross demanded such force in her scrubbing that she though she would peel off his skin. Maybe that was the idea, she wondered. After a few days, she got used to it. But she would never understand why he required her to be naked as well. If he wanted to touch her—sure—that would make sense. But Cross never laid eyes, or a finger, on her when she bathed him. He only stared straight ahead. And when she came around in front to scrub chest and his sex, he kept his eyes tightly shut.

* * *

All at once his eyes popped open. He cocked his head to the side, listening. Sometimes he heard things that she could not hear. Cross drew his pistol from the chair where it hung, and twisting his naked torso, aimed at the door.

Someone knocked. “Mister Cross?”

Van Zant, his voice troubled.

“What's the matter?” Cross said.

“You'd better come quick, sir.”

* * *

Shelby J. Ballentine awoke to the sound of shouting voices and needed a moment to figure out where he was. Blinking his eyes in the feminine, unfamiliar room—with its miniature bed and straw-filled pillow—it all came back to him. The Harvey House. The men's voices came from outside, where dawn's first light was breaking through the window. Ballentine rose, instinctively pawing for his glasses. Not finding them on the bedside table, he moved to the chair back where he'd hung his jacket. That was missing as well. The glasses, he remembered, had smashed in the arroyo.

The arroyo. Yes, that had all happened.

But his coat, no. He was quite certain he'd draped the suit jacket over the high-back chair because he'd deemed the room's only clothes hanger too flimsy.

And then he stood upright, straight as a board, a thought occurring to him. He went to the window, wiped off the dew, and peered out. Jacob Cross strode across the back of the property from the barn to the house. The manager, Duquesne, followed close behind, looking most distraught at the tongue-lashing Cross was giving him. The staff matron, Mrs. Packer, sloshed through the wet grass on the other side of Cross. She said something to him, and together, they both looked up at the windows.

Ballentine turned away from the glass. Could it be? A smile bloomed across Ballentine's face as he entertained the possibility. His coat was gone, most surely. As was—Ballentine gasping with delight—the pistol he'd hidden inside.

“Godspeed to you, son. Godspeed.”

And then Spooner Ballentine flopped backward onto the bed, giggling like a schoolboy.

* * *

Jacob Cross bounded up the stairs to the second floor, two at a time.

“Second bed on the right, lower bunk,” Packer said through labored breath as she stayed close behind him. Cross hit the landing, marched down the hall and threw open the door of the girls' dormitory. A chubby girl, half-dressed, gasped and covered herself. Cross ignored her, his eyes roving across the stacked twin beds. Second bed on the right.

A tuft of sandy blond hair blossomed from beneath the covers.
What frizzy hair you have
, Cross thought,
like you've been out in the rain
.

He crossed the room in two paces, the matron Packer grinning behind him. Cross sunk his hand deep into the roots of the girl's hair and yanked her from the bed.

Hannah screamed, half asleep, but waking quickly. She grabbed at his hands but it was no use, his grip too strong, his anger too powerful. Cross wrapped his other hand around the whore's nightgown, and in a violent motion, flung the girl across the room. Hannah sailed through the air, crashed hard into the far wall, and dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Even Mrs. Packer stopped smiling.

“Stop, don't.” Hannah weakly as Cross went to her. He bent down and pulled from her nightgown a golden strand of hay.

“Well,” he said.

“What do you want?' Hannah sobbing.

Cross put his hand on her neck and lifted her off the ground by her throat.

“Everything, my dear. I want all you have to give.”

“I don't know anything,” her airless voice choked with fear. Cross shook his head.

“Wrong answer.” And then he punched her in the stomach and let her fall again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I drive Queenie hard through the night, holding the mare to a steady canter as we head west. We make good time, keeping in sight of the tracks, but far enough removed to stay hidden from the trains carrying workers out to the arroyo. The rains blew north, leaving a dewy fog that clings low over the swollen country. But the sky above shows the promise of a clear and cloudless morning. An hour past dawn, with the rising sun warm at our backs, I start to read the ground for signs of life, and the heavens for signs of death.

A lone vulture patrols overhead, wings fixed for cruising. He banks slow to the left, letting the air take him, as much on the hunt as I am. I could follow him all day and come up empty. But he has a better vantage up there, and his nose is sharper than mine. I decide to give him ten minutes—his languid path pulling me offline—until he is little more than a speck against brightening blue. But then he circles back, curious, weaving a figure eight through the air, perhaps a whiff of something. All at once he beats his wings—an effort his kind don't undertake without good reason—and assumes a dead-straight course to the southwest.

“Think he's on to something, Queenie.”

* * *

We work our way toward a cluster of low hills about twenty miles south of the tracks. A column of vultures spirals upward beyond the hilltops. Cresting the nearest mound, I see one of the birds swoop down and not return. Ten minutes later I edge Queenie down the final downslope before the ground flattens out again. An outcropping of rocks lay ahead, and gathered at the base of it, a black mass of scavengers, packed wing to wing, feast on the dead. The birds take mild interest in our approach, but not enough to stop eating, only parting like an oil-slicked ocean at the last moment, when the mare's hooves bring the threat of trampling.

* * *

Owens's little boy lies on the ground, his eyes pecked out and a hole in his belly where the vultures had punched through and begun to suck out his insides. I climb down from the horse and kneel down next to the body. The boy's skin, fair and pink, speaks of a recent death—this morning. I nudge the boy onto his front and see the hole in the back of his head where the bullet entered. At least the Apache had done it quick.

The soft ground after a rain leaves no secrets. One horse rode in from the west, disposed of the child, and returned along the same path. I go down on all fours and bring my face close to a stretch of hoof prints, pristine in the damp sand. Three of the four prints offer ordinary evidence: a well-shod horse, of larger-than-average size, carrying a light load. But the fourth print sends a current of electricity down my spine and out through the toes. The bent shoe nail—its impression cast unblemished into the soft earth—glares back at me as if Storm himself were nuzzling his head into mine.

The stallion was here. Recently.

I leap onto the mare and have her moving with newfound purpose. We follow the horse trail south, toward a range of barren hills that rise upward and plateau into a jagged sculpture of cliffs and sandstone spires. As we ride, I try to piece together the narrative of what happened. The silver-haired Apache, who broke Storm from his berth, fled the arroyo with the stallion, alone. Yet this morning, whoever was riding Storm had the Owens boy with him, which means the Apaches had all reconvened, as I thought they might. A picture starts to emerge. An elder—a seasoned horseman—his hair white from decades of breaking and stealing horses, and then restealing the horses stolen from him, took Storm as his payment for helping the bandits rob the train. A lifetime of being lied to and shot at by the army would make any man seek his revenge. He's no reservationed Apache. We're headed straight for Mexico, which most likely means Chiricahua or Tonto Apache. Good horsemen, brave and honor-bound fighters.

From the spot where I found the boy, to the arroyo, can't be more than thirty miles. Storm, beneath a good rider, should be halfway to Mexico by now. Something slows their progress. I suspect family ties—the only reason that makes sense. The two younger Apaches, the long-locked executioner and his short-hared kinsman are probably related, if not brothers. And I'll wager the elder horseman will turn out to be their father. The long-hair son took the Owens woman as his prize, equally valuable as the stallion, but more of a hindrance to speedy travel. The other son got shot in the back, and if he still lives, would require frequent stops to rest and tend to his wounds. My best guess then, is that the two healthy Apaches—father and son—needed to lighten their load. So the father took Storm and the boy out to the rocks, shot the boy and headed back. He didn't want to kill the child in front of his mother. That means Clara May Owens is still alive. It also means that when I find Storm, I'll find her.

I wasn't preparing for that.

But so be it. Plans change. If she managed to survive this long—after all she's been through—she's earned all the help I can give her.

The ground dips to a depression that runs like a fast stream with all the rainwater. I see no tracks on the other side. The Apache walked in the water for a bit before cutting out. I've done my best to avoid detection and so far have felt like I was chasing someone who didn't know he was being followed. The distance between strides indicated Storm's businesslike, but unhurried, gait. But a cagey old silver-hair doesn't stay free this many years without keeping an ear to the ground. He may stroll through running water at every opportunity simply out of habit. And why wouldn't you? It would be like passing a well without drinking. Or maybe he's on to me. When I find his tracks again, I'll have my answer. I lead the mare straight across and then canter along the edge, one minute in one direction and then two minutes back. If that old Apache hasn't seen me yet, this makes a good way to get spotted. But I have no choice.

I find Storm's trail a half-mile down, locating the exact spot where the Apache kicked him up into a hard gallop, which the stallion was happy to oblige. If the Apache didn't know he was being followed before, he does now.

* * *

Storm's tracks lay across the high desert floor like printed ink, at least to my eyes. When the ground turns hard, the Apache dismounts and tries walking the stallion to make the prints less noticeable. And I'm sure that works on White Men. But the walking slows him, and I gain ground. I come across the stallion's droppings, so fresh the flies haven't yet found it. But my heart warms that there's plenty of straw in it, and I know the Apache must've taken the effort to load up some straw from the Santa Fe. He knows that horse is special, all right, not the kind whose feeding you trust to sagebrush and milkweed.

The tracks grow faint as we climb up into the cliffs, the ground hardening into sun-baked caliche. And now, with the rock formations peaking from the surface like gravestones, I become the hunted—every cliff a sniper's perch, and every shadow an ambush. Soon I lose all sight of Storm's hoofprints. I pull back on the mare and listen, the breeze rolling clean and cool over the dampness of the sandstone. The wind shifts abruptly, and I draw the pistol from my coat.

Tobacco smoke.

No way would the elder allow his sons to burn tobacco right now. The smoke travels a mile or more in clean air. And this tobacco, no doubt another prize from the fallen Santa Fe, burns very nearby. The explanation hits me like a train. I've reached his sons before he has. And they don't know I'm coming.

I swing down from the mare and leave her, guided by my nose as I track the vapor up into the cliffs. I glance back at Queenie. The mare turns and trots off the way we came. I don't risk calling to her. Soon she shifts into a canter and vanishes over the nearest rise.

And here I thought we were friends.

But I can't help feeling some relief, as I catch a fleeting glimpse of her, now a hundred yards away. If she has any barn sense, she'll be home by nightfall. Who knows, her return might keep me from getting hanged as a horse thief someday. I've always believed horses know when they've been stolen. Some, like Queenie, just bide their time until they can make their break and head home. It makes me wonder what thoughts are running between Storm's ears right now.

I bring my mind back to focus and creep silent against a heavy slab of stone. The smoke odor gets stronger. After about a minute, I peek my head around a corner and can see the gray-blue tendrils of smoke rising from behind a boulder.

Mindful of my shadow, and floating on the balls of my feet, I sneak forward, couched at the knees, finger itching over the trigger. Then a heavy breeze picks up, and a lighted cigar, caught by the gust, rolls out from behind the boulder and skitters away across the rocks. I pause. What man lets his cigar blow away?

An injured man.

I reach the boulder, touching its coolness with my off hand, the gun cocked and ready in the other. I spin around the corner—the trigger half-pulled—and freeze. The short-haired Apache, the one I shot in the back at the arroyo, slumps against the rock. His eyes sit fixed in the glassy stare of the dead, but I'd wager five minutes ago he was still alive. The cigar, no doubt, was his comfort as he made his journey to the Spirit Plane. Fresh red blood re-stains his shirt and trousers, already soaked brown with stale, brown blood down to the tops of his thigh-high moccasins. I see now that he is Chiricahua, and no older than twenty.

I consider putting a bullet in his brain, finishing what I started, but I don't. He'll get to cross over unmolested, not because he deserves it, but I can't have the noise. Still, I won't pass in front of him. I double back and cross behind the boulder to the edge of the cliff. Peering out to the horizon, I hope to find some disruption that lays claim to the stallion. Then I look straight down at the landing below me and nearly drop the pistol.

A white woman, dressed in a thin white gown, lies on her side at the base of the rock wall, her nose pressed against the stone. I can tell from here it is Clara May Owens. Her hands move in unison to clear the long, unkempt hair from her face, her wrists bound together with cord. Tears forge a river through the dusty plain of her cheekbone, and the fair skin of her bare shoulders burns red from too much sun. Her clothes, unsuitable for travel or any semblance of propriety, offer no protection from the elements. I realize now that she wears only her undergarments—knickers and thin chemise—her dress long discarded, either as punishment, or to provide her captor easier access to her body.

I see no sign of the Chiricahuas, or the horses, but the long-haired son would be close by, most likely scrounging for food. Sinking to my knees, I reverse and hang down over the ledge and lower myself down. The drop is only a few feet and I land soft, but my shadow passes over Clara May's vision and she sits up, squinting into the sun over my shoulder as I approach. I bring my hand to my lips to keep her silent, but she just shakes her head, as if I am some silhouetted apparition.

“Clara May, it's all right,” my voice in a whisper. I step out of the sunlight and let her see my face.

“It's you,” her mind straining to work out my appearance or if I'm really here at all. Then, in a flash, her eyes go wide with terror. I see the shadow on the rocks and am already turning. “Behind you,” she cries.

I bring the pistol up and see the shape of a man on the ledge where I just stood. A gunshot booms and I spin. Searing pain explodes in my left shoulder as I aim at the figure above me. And then he is in the air, spearing down from the cliff, feet first. I squeeze off two shots. His trajectory alters midair, but his feet land against my side and the two us crash backward against the rocks. The blow knocks the wind out of me. I roll to my knees and bring up the gun, but I don't have it. My left shoulder feels like it fell in a bear trap. The long-hair Chiricahua glares at me with hate-filled eyes and unleashes a pained war cry, blood pooling at his hip where the bullet caught him. He draws a double-edged skinning knife from his belt and leaps toward me. I pivot left and go with his weight back to the ground. The smoke and sweat from his body fill my lungs. I can taste the anger on his skin, and he grabs my neck and tries to thrust the knife into me. I drive forward with my legs and we slam into the rocks again, this time his bones taking the worst of it. He answers with the knife, jabbing at my legs, the blade slicing into muscle like a thousand hot needles. I smash his head into the rocks, but he holds on to the knife. Then all at once he centers his weight and shoves back into me, driving with his legs. We struggle backward, his torso turning to drive the knife home. I spin my arms as I stumble back. My boots catch the dirt and I go down. Long-hair's eyes narrow, the beginnings of a grin. I bring up my arms, prepared to lose them if I have to. I slither back, hungry for distance, and feel a large boulder halt my progress. Wedged against the boulder, I run out of options.

The Apache closes in. I brace for more pain.

A gunshot. Long-hair's eyes widen, his mouth agape, and then twisting into confusion as he turns around. Clara May holds the smoldering pistol with two hands. Long-hair drops the knife, but it doesn't matter. She shoots him again, square in the chest, and he falls on his ass. Clara May steps toward him, the gun steady in her hands.

He says something to her in his tongue.

“Fuck yourself,” hissing through her teeth. And then she fires again. His head snaps back, the rear of his skull blowing out in a soupy splatter. She strides over to him—the rage in full force now—and squeezes off three more rounds, until his face and skull are pulpy memories and the gun clicks empty.

“You saved our lives,” I say.

“What life?” She turns toward me. In one look I see the young girl Owens married and the unimaginable hell of the last two days waging full-scale war behind her eyes. She turns to the horizon and stares north.