Storm's Thunder (9 page)

“A room with a hard bed and a good breeze. I don't want to be disturbed.”

“Certainly, sir,” Rawlings turning to the clerk. “The Garden Suite, please, James.” A key in his hand almost instantly. Rawlings now stepping toward the grand staircase, gesturing to me to join him. “Please consider El Dorado your home, sir. Mister . . . ?” He holds out his hand, waiting expectantly for a name. For any name.

“Harlan.”

He bows approvingly as we start up the stairs. “Right this way, Mister Harlan.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I see you're a hunter,” Rawlings half-looking back as we reach the top of the stairs. “Excellent year for game, I'm told. Do let us put together an excursion, all-inclusive, of course: gear, horses, picnic lunches. And you won't find better guides in the Territory. They're natives, obviously, mostly Navajo, a few Apache, but docile. All vouched for and properly tagged.”

“Tagged, with what?”

“Permission to leave the reservation. Can't be too careful.” The third floor landing levels out and we start down a long, windowless corridor lighted by flickering wall lamps spaced too far apart to keep a consistent glow. “It's better now than it used to be, but there's still the occasional troublemaker wants to break for the border, or go celestial on one of the guests. Can't have that, no. We weed out all but the best and most agreeable.”

“Must be a chore,” I say, dipping the brim just enough to keep his eyes from mine as we pass from light to dimness and back to light again.

“The trick, we have learned, is to not give them whiskey, even though it is their preferred method of payment. The sportsmen who chose to share their bottles with the Red Man invariably return empty-handed and deeply disappointed.”

“If they return at all.”

Rawlings snorts a laugh, wagging a finger in triumph. “We haven't lost a guest yet, touch wood. And I don't intend to start.” As we pass the other rooms I notice a curious sight—pairs of boots and shoes, placed neatly outside each of the doors, just like I'd seen the Chi-nee do.

“You take a lot of Chinamen, here?”

“Not a one, sir.” Rawlings appalled at the suggestion. “You'll find the clientele most upstanding, I assure you.” Reaching a double door at the end of the hall, he slips the key into the lock and pushes through.

The air in the room carries the scent of cut flowers—roses, from a glass vase on the table by the entry—masking the smell of fresh paint and cleaning soap. The walls split between bright whitewash and a striped wallpaper of gold and turquoise. A breeze caresses the gauzy drapes of the open window, bringing, on its creosote air, the livening sound of traffic as it shifts from the day's clattering wagons to the liquored merriment of evening.

“Your bags will be here momentarily . . . ah, thank you, Moses.” The black bellman trundles in with the saddlebags and flops them on a folding stand near the wardrobe. “Will anyone be joining you this evening?” Rawlings clasping his hands before him, as if in prayer.

“Ask me in the morning.”

“Very good, sir.” Behind him, Moses fends off a smile and turns away to light the table lamp. “The restaurant serves supper until eleven and the bar is open until midnight.”

“Tailor fella ought show up here with a mess of shirts for me. Ain't sure when, exact.”

“Any deliveries, we'll have brought up for you.”

“Funny about people touching my clothes.”

“Of course. We'll send the gentleman to your room, straightaway, sir.”

“I want not to be disturbed otherwise.”

I fish a five-dollar piece from my pocket and offer it to him. Rawlings holds his palms up, demurring.

“I couldn't possibly, Mister Harlan. It's my pleasure.” With that he bows his head and backs out the door, shutting it soft behind him. Moses gets the lamp going and puffs out the match.

“Moses, you ever see man say no to five dollars?”

“What I seen up and outta these rooms don't mean I ain't left rubbing my eyeballs raw tryin' to make heads or tails of it.”

“More for you then.” I hold the coin his way and he takes it with a grateful nod.

“Thank you, suh.”

“I guess the man figures he'll get the money out of me one way or another, no sense gutting me on the first hand.”

“That he do, suh.”

I sit on the bed and start to pull off my boots. “I probably should have asked what this room cost.”

“I've seen high-cotton guests like yourself stay two weeks never so much as look at a bill, and that's drinking French champagne at breakfast. They don't ask, Mister Rawlings ain't offerin'.”

“If you have to ask . . .”

“Yes, suh.”

My boots fall heavy on the floor and I lean back on the bed. The mattress is hard and squeaks from the weight, but it feels good. And I remember why sleeping on the ground suits most regular folks disagreeably.

“Be anything else, suh?”

“Where's a fella like me go
after
midnight?”

Moses must see a flash of devil in my eye, because he tilts his head to the window. “'fore midnight or after, don't hardly matter. I reckon you'll find all you can handle down the Blue Duck. Just up the way yonder. You head out the door, your ears do the rest.” Moses goes out and I pull my hat down over my eyes.

* * *

When I open them again the room is dark, save for the orange spill of the lamp. Blackness fills the windows, and out on the street, men's voices shout to be heard over competing pianos and ripples of unguarded laughter. I rise from the bed, my mouth thick with sleep, and pour a glass of water from a pitcher left on the table. I drink deeply, emptying the glass, and set it down to refill again when I catch the suited reflection in the mirror. The image freezes me—a foreign, costumed intruder—as my mind uncouples from the dreamless void and regains its bearings. The man upstanding before me strikes an imposing figure, brimming with the easy grace of grandeur. He looks equally game to answer the seductive call of the city. The clothes, even slept in, hold true their shape and character. A little tug of the necktie, a smoothing of the lone crease in the jacket sleeve, nearly return the design to full potency. I drop the hat into place, square it, and the effect is complete.

* * *

I head downstairs—the small pistol hidden against my waist—and take a table in the restaurant. Rawlings seats me himself, brushing the cushion with his bare hand as I sink into a small banquet facing the window. I order a beefsteak, charred and rare, and when he proposes a dry sherry to wash it down, I decline—rejecting his first suggestion as a matter of course. I wave off the idea of whiskey as well—although the mention of it uncovers an itch I'll be looking to scratch in short order—finally allowing him to bring me a dark, German stout shipped in from Bavaria at considerable expense. The steak arrives, thick and sizzling beside a golden mound of roasted potatoes. My backside facing the staff, I take a discreet moment to reacquaint myself with the proper pageantry of fork, spoon and napkin, anticipating that in the company of my fellow riders aboard the palace car, nothing would call me out as a trussed-up alfalfa faster than slurping up beef stew with an eight-inch Bowie knife. I chew the meat slow, savoring my first meal in a month not cooked on a stick, and witness the parade of the city unfold out the window.

At first glance, the citizenry of Santa Fe, what there is of it, appears nearly devoid of women, at least any what venture out after dark. And the scant few passing by at this hour reside in the close company of grim-faced husbands who dare not slow their wagons. Only once does a female stroll past on foot—a proper lady in full dress—guided with both hands by a gentleman husband who steers her into the hotel. Within seconds the couple appears at Rawlings's podium, at home in his obsequious attention as he ushers them to a round table set for five in the center of the room. A bottle of tawny port sits waiting for them, Rawlings receiving an instruction from the woman as he fills their glasses. He relays the order to a male waiter, who spins on his heels and disappears out the restaurant and into the hotel in hasty execution of the directive. The woman removes her gloves with an exhausted sigh as her husband sheds his bowler and hands it, without acknowledgment, to Rawlings, who carries it to a hat rack behind the podium. Their manner rings of Eastern breeding, with the gentleman, through the travel of business, having gathered a workable familiarity with the rough edges of the frontier. But the wife wears the shocked disbelief of a boy soldier pinned down by enemy cannon fire. And for that her husband keeps a reassuring hand about her shoulder, tethering her in the tempest until the port wine takes effect. She looks all of thirty, a good fifteen years younger than her husband, whose receding hair is peppered gray above the ears.

Only when her children arrive does the woman find cause to smile, although the children do not. Trailing a young nanny and the male waiter, the children arrive combed and scrubbed for a supper that is far past their usual bedtime. The girl looks about twelve, fairing better with the hour than her young brother, who climbs groggily into his mother's lap. The family settles into a tableau of such unguarded domesticity that to continue my observation would constitute an intrusion.

Across the street, behind the drawn blinds of Cullen & Sons Fine Clothing, a lantern's glow betrays the presence of late-night labor. I imagine Pete, at his workbench, stitching with care and purpose, and doubt if he would consider it labor at all. A gust of piano music rattles the window, accompanied by a rising chorus of voices that overtakes the instrument in both fervor and volume. The song ends, devolving into an exultation of hoots and whistles that I take as my cue to further investigate the evening. I march to Rawlings's podium, his eyes meeting mine with a dose of apprehension.

“Mister Harlan, is everything satisfactory?”

“Time to be getting on.”

“Yes, of course, I'll simply add your dinner to your final bill—”

“Let's have a look-see, long as I'm standing here.”

“But of course, sir . . .” he says, drawing his notepad and scribbling in some numbers. He pauses at a calculation, makes quick work of it, and fills in the total. Passing the slip to me for review, he adds, “I hope the meal was to your liking?”

I take a long stare down at the numbers, affecting a facility for figures to rival his own and, pausing at a number selected at random, turn my gaze pointedly at Rawlings. I tap the number, my lips formulating a question I am certain he will beat me to. “We add the gratuity for your convenience, Mister Harlan. Ten percent, as is customary. Did you wish to alter it in . . . either direction?”

“Ten'll do,” I shrug, scratching my mark at the bottom of the paper, confident that I'll have no creative arithmetic or phantom charges for the remainder of my stay at the El Dorado.

“Our pleasure to serve you, sir,” Rawlings bowing his head. I depart without a word, crossing through the lobby, where Moses changes direction to reach the heavy brass door handle before I do. The only metal I touch is the dollar I flip him for opening the door. “You enjoy yourself, Mister Harlan,” he says as I head out into the night.

* * *

“Clear the stool for a paying gentleman, you feckin' derelict,” the Irish barman swatting the drunk from his perch like a pestilent fly. He had me spotted, the Irishman, the moment I stepped foot into the hard gas-lamp glow, and judged me worthy of his finest bottle, from which he began to pour before the warmth of the previously rousted occupant had dissipated from the padded leather seat. “Get you a taste of this, sir. Compliments of the Blue Duck.”

“Obliged,” rapping a knuckle against the dark lacquered bar to punctuate, but not overstate, my gratitude. Funny thing about whiskey—the amber liquid fanning the bottom of the glass and rising like a dry creek bed in summer rain—that first assault upon the senses, no matter how long its absence, settles as right and natural as a woman's kiss. The Irishman nods and backs away, keeping an appraising eye how well the shot goes down. I drank whiskey every night out-country—two fingers with supper, a quick pull before bed—and when the bottle ran out, I poured from the bottle of memory. And now, as the trilling cascade of the piano seems, in a single swallow, to magically brighten, as the feverish limelight trained on the stage betrays, all at once, the true age of the woman gyrating beneath an overworked corset and glazing cosmetics, I am assured of how accurate I remembered the liquor's promise.

Even with the peaty richness luxuriating through my nose and palate, none of the saloon's competing aromas escape my detection—not the dogfight of stale-versus-fresh beer, or the unwashed rankness of too many patrons, nor the perfumed adornment of too few. All senses stand on heightened alert. My skin tingles alive. From sheer periphery I catch the Irishman nod to himself, pleased that his instinct about me proved correct and his largesse unsquan-dered. He holds the bottle down by his side, as if setting it in plain view would inspire more controversy than convenience, and with his other hand fills two beer glasses at the far end of the bar. When I turn to catch his eye, I need hardly raise an eyebrow toward my empty glass to engage his return.

“You appreciate a fine whiskey, sir,” and then lowering his voice, “I'd know better than to serve our usual rotgut to the likes of a proper gentleman. My private reserve, of course. Two dollars a go, but if I charged any less this lot would use it as aftershave.”

“I'll take what's left.”

“Why, there's near a quarter bottle,” his eyes widening.

“Well, no sense in making you dance about one-handed just to prolong the inevitable.” I thumb out an eagle and an extra five for his trouble. He sets the bottle down in front of me and slides the coins into his palm.

“You need a fresh glass or anything a'tall, you give old Seamus a holler.”

“Hey, I'd try a drop of that,” says the beer-drinker at the far end, his mouth barely visible beneath a bushelled gray beard.

“Kep Wilder, the day I'd waste a drop of fine Dublin mash across your diseased tongue is the day I dance a cancan with me own dead mother, God rest her soul.”