Storm's Thunder (7 page)

Pei-Pei's answer is to draw a circle in the air, a gesture identical to that what I issued to make her turn around. I float my leg down from her shoulder and rotate in the tub, my back now facing her, my knees scrunched up in front of me. The awkward maneuver does little to stem the river of unchecked thought. “I see your point,” I say. “There is a difference between my name, what as I know it to be in my heart, and that what I offer to others as a matter of convenience.” Pei-Pei lathers up my back, using both hands in firm, soothing motions. She starts with the tired muscles around the neck and works her way down the spine until her fingers are below the water line, where, out of plain view, they lose any trace of inhibition. She grabs my member and slides herself up tight against me, so close that her thighs straddle me and I feel the bushiness of her sex tickling the base of my spine. “That settles it, then.”

She sticks her other hand down past my balls, lower than no woman ever touched, and then squeezes hard with her pecker hand and next thing I know I squirt right there in the water.

“Sorry,” I say, leaning back into her. Here I was with the grand design of plowing the soil and instead spout off like a schoolboy playing doctor behind the barn.

I come to, face down on the table, and start to understand why it is set so high off the ground. I am naked as the morning and Pei-Pei, equally undone, stands beside me, working a sharp-scented liniment deep into the aching muscles of my legs. She must see my eyes flutter open, because she says, “MA-ssadge.” She repeats the word and holds the bottle of yellowed oil close for my inspection. “MA-ssadge.”

I don't know about any ma-ssadge, I think to myself, but it sure feels good after a month of bouncing 'cross the brush. Some mighty strong hands on that little girl. She knuckles her way up the backs of my thighs, and, with nowhere to stare but down at the floor, I see her tiny feet get off the ground as she lays her weight into mine. But then all at once her touch is gentle as a bird again and her soft fingers brush against an exposed bit of manhood. That is all it takes for the blood to start flowing a second time and I have to adjust my hips to let the thing land in a pose that won't snap it in half. Pei-Pei uses her forearms on my shoulders, kneading my back like she's rolling out biscuits. It feels good. My body lets go, sinking, dissolving into the table. Her strong hands make their way up my neck to the scalp. She presses and rubs and does a fine job of mussing up my hair, but all the while she finds an excuse to scurry her fingers down between my thighs just to keep things moving. Her finger appears in my vision, swirling in that circular motion again, and I marvel at how well we have learned to communicate.

“Turn over? All right,” I say, starting to roll. I make no pretense to cover up or hide the obvious. But the girl is already climbing up the table. She sets about fiddling with the drapery that hangs over us. She pulls back the fabric, revealing a coil of velvet rope as thick as a man's wrist. “What you fixin' to do with that?”

Pei-Pei mutters some Chi-nee and sets her face in intense concentration. Straddling over me, her girly bits in full glory, she twists the rope around itself from the center and then wraps each end around both her arms from elbow to shoulder. She takes a deep breath and then lifts her legs off the table, sticking them straight out into the air—a full open-split. Then her body begins to rotate, the rope uncoiling itself as she gains momentum. Lower and lower, she twirls. A brief moment of panic grips me as her spinning legs close in—a pinwheel of stunning nakedness. A smarter man might roll off the table in the interest of self-preservation but I hold still, dumfounded, and I'll be damned if her business don't meet up with mine in perfect union. By the third revolution I shoot off again, and after one more spin, she comes to a stop on top of me, buried to the hilt.

“Goo-time?” she says.

“
Hozho
.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

My pockets lightened an extra ten dollars for Pei-Pei, I make my way back down the alley, accompanied by the sporadic sound of scraping metal. I realize it is the barrel of the Spencer, careening against the rough adobe walls, courtesy of my own unsteady footing. The combined efforts of drink, smoke and Oriental acrobatics have tilted the ground just enough to pepper my stride with a dash of comedic rubberiness. But in the confines of the narrow passage, I remain blessedly unobserved and—sucking the fresh air deep into my lungs—manage to rectify myself more with every step. By the time I negotiate the chicken obstacle and emerge back on the dead-end street, I possess my faculties in their full correctness.

The big eye shows only a pale yellow sliver of itself in the slot of blue sky overhead, lengthening the shadows before me in the stillness of late afternoon. I see a man walking toward me down the street, his eyes cast upward at the inscrutable signage. His unfocused meandering tells me he is at sea in a foreign land, and from the gentlemanly cut of his fine, Eastern suit, I know he is a white man—long before his trimmed, gray whiskers and ruddy complexion come into view.

His gaze fixes on the movement of my approach and then widens, relieved, to find a fellow white man—white enough for this alleyway, at least. A breath inhales across his lips, expanding the ample chest mounted atop a protruding, prosperous belly. But before he can unload his query, the full sight of me—heavily armed and outfitted for rugged country—registers on his face. The memory of the day's events crawl up my spine, bringing with it a defensive shield of armor that I wish to remain unused. I hold my eyes stern, focused beyond him, offering little invitation for engagement. But as I pass, I detect a courtliness—a resolve of both authority and good humor—emanating from his person that earns from me a slight, but respectful, nod. The man brightens at the gesture, melting into an air of avuncular disarm. The voice that follows drips like honey with the slow, easy drawl of impeccable Dixie aristocracy.

“I beg dearest pardon for the intrusion, sir,” he says, leaving no trace of the r-sound in his languid
suhh.
“But I find myself dreadfully adrift. It appears I have disembarked from my hotel with faulty information designed to circumnavigate the globe rather than to my destination.” He holds up a slip of paper with writing on it as evidence. “I believe the desk clerk was describing a locality with which he himself held not even a passing familiarity.”

“Where you aiming to get to?”

“Well,” he says, lowering his voice as if to invite me into a shared and secret conspiracy. “As you strike me as a young man of well-tended virility, I hope I proffer no Christian offense when I admit that I find myself in possession of a certain . . . Oriental appetite.”

“Can't say I know much about Chi-nee chow. I reckon I smelt some pig frying up back the way you come.”

“No, not food, sir. Allow me to speak plain that my desires are of a manlier nature.”

“Ain't my business what a fella sets his mind to, but if you're looking for the Chi-nee whores you just ought shimmy down that alley yonder,” I say, thumbing toward the narrow passage from where I came. “And mind yourself the chickens 'bout halfway down.”

“Much obliged,” the man says, with a genteel dip of his head.

I carry on for a step and then turn back. “Say.”

“Yes, sir? How may I be of assistance?”

“You know where a regular fella can slap up some grub?”

“Ah, well if it's hearty fare you require, you can hardly do better than the El Dorado. Clean beds as well, if that's your intention. Although their staff could use a primer in orienteering,” with a throaty chuckle, slapping the useless hotel paper to make his point. “Left at the first street, then down about a quarter mile.” I am about to thank him when he pauses. His eyes drop to take in the sorry state of my clothes. “However, if you're desirous of something more reasonable . . .”

“No. El Dorado sound just fine,” turning away with a nod. All at once the steps I need to take and the order to which I must make them fall into place like fresh bullets in a six-shooter. Hungry as I am, the pangs in my belly will have to wait. There will be no supper, no hotel, no tea and cake aboard the Santa Fe—until I have first paid a call to the best tailor I can find.

* * *

“They call it an ascot,” the tailor says, working his fingers along the wide swath of silk. He stands before me, tying the fabric into a knot, his gray, balding head no higher than my shoulders. “All the rage on the Continent this season.”

“What continent?”

“Europe,” he says, pushing the wire frames of his spectacles back up his nose. He gave his name as Josiah Cullen, adding that he was the proprietor and founder of Cullen and Sons, Fine Fashion and Tailoring. So far, the latest fashion trends of the continent of Europe have me trussed up like a braided Maypole and feel as fit for riding horseback as a clapboard box, only stiffer. Cullen checks his pocket watch and takes a step back, surveying my reflection in the mirror. “Excellent. Very fine indeed.” The impenetrable scowl on my face fails to diminish the high regard the tailor holds for his own aesthetic. The heavy fabric of the dinner jacket and trousers makes every breath a battle my ribcage would eventually lose and binds so tight across the shoulders that I can hardly lift my arms up past my chest, much less draw a pistol. And the color, a pinkish tan watered with a hint of gutless white, leaves the unmistakable impression of raw chicken.

“What do you call this color?”

“Navajo white,” he says, pleased with the sound of it.

Navajo white.
I let the sound bounce unsettled across my ears.
If ever there were two words that ought never be hitched together, I stand here as living proof that—

“Come again, sir?” Cullen says.

“Nothing,” I say. He checks his watch again, and I wonder for a moment if he has forgotten the glimpse of gold coin I let flash when he had me swap my denims for the monkey get-up being entertained presently. “Am I keeping you?”

“Not in the slightest, sir. My attention is dedicated to your being smartly attired. Now let's see it with the waistcoat fastened.” Despite his insistent fawning, the impatience bubbling beneath the surface says otherwise.

“Dad, you need to get going.” I turn to the voice behind me and see a young man step out of the small office. I put him about my age, with angular features brought to light by an absence of facial hair that makes him seem much younger. His sandy hair—neatly combed and slicked with pomade—frames the deep blue eyes he must have inherited from his mother. But the impeccable tailoring of his dark suit shows he has well learned his father's business, developing, along the way, a style far more becoming and approachable than the stodgy tastes of Cullen senior. “You'll have to forgive my father,” he says, turning his eyes in my direction and letting a hint of a smile reveal the white teeth of a man deliberate with his morning ablutions. “If he doesn't have the Duffman girl's wedding dress out to the church by five o'clock, Mrs. Duffman will have both our heads for Sunday dinner.”

“I have some time yet, Peter,” Cullen says. “As you can see, I am assisting the gentleman.”

“Well, perhaps if the gentleman wouldn't mind,” Peter says, “I could take over from here.” Considering the two of them: the father, nervous about tomorrow, his mind stuck in yesteryear—and young Peter, firmly planted in the here and now—the decision makes itself.

“Fine by me.”

Cullen senior blows a sigh of relief, pivoting on his heels toward a headless female mannequin festooned with an overwrought assemblage of frills and lacework. “The woman is an unabashed tyrant,” he says, husking the frock from the breasted torso and laying it hurriedly into a velvet-lined trunk. “Four times I've had to let this dress out. If she wants her daughter to wear my creation down the aisle, she ought to worry less about the length of the sleeves and more about keeping her gluttonous child away from the egg custard.” He slams the trunk shut and snaps the buckles.

“Mind your back, dad,” Peter says, coming around to help his father.

“I've got it,” Cullen says, hoisting the trunk with two hands over his shoulder as he finds his footing. “You see? Perfectly balanced.”

“I'll get the door, then,” Peter says. “Calpernia is yoked up to the hansom. She's right outside.” Peter opens the door, revealing the street and an ancient bay mare harnessed to a wagon that has seen better days. “And I'll take care of closing up. You just worry about Calpernia and the wagon. The road is torn to pieces, what with all the rain last week.”

“Thank you, son. And good day to you, sir,” Cullen says.

“You as well,” I say.

“Don't fight me, Calpernia,” Cullen says warily as he approaches the animal. “One stubborn nag per day is quite enough.”

The last image of Cullen before his son closes the door is the older man sliding the trunk into the back of the hansom and then climbing up the step to the driving bench. Peter produces a key and, shaking his head with a smile, locks the door from the inside.

“It was not too long ago,” Peter says, “that he used to worry about
me
when
I
took the wagon. Funny how that gets turned around before you know it.” Outside, Calpernia's neighing protest at being called into action resolves into a steady clomping that soon fades as the wagon disappears from earshot.

“We look after them what raise us, best we can,” I say. “It's how we honor them.”

“Yours still alive?”

“Nope. Dead for sure, or dead most likely.”

“You don't know for certain?”

“Mamma's dead. Nearly ten years now. And the man and wife what brought me up after, buried them more recent.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he says.

“It's the way of things.” Something about the younger Cullen puts me at ease, and I tell him more. “Him that sired me, I never met. Heard he worked the mines, so dead is a good guess as any. Not a job for living long.”

“For heaven's sake, where are my manners?” Peter walks toward me and extends his hand. “Here I am sticking my nose in your affairs and we haven't been properly introduced. Pete Cullen.”

“Harlan,” I say, taking his hand in mine with a firm pump. He holds my gaze a hair longer than he should, waiting for the rest of it. Something about the way he called himself Pete, and not Peter, creaks open the door of trust, and for me to leave the mystery dangling would slam it wrong. In the mixed company of his father, I should have no problem keeping my business my own—money has that effect—but here, alone with Pete, I catch an unguarded honesty that, among white men, is new to me. “Harlan Two-Trees.”

“Two-Trees. That's a strong name. Let me see, now. Oglala?”

“I been called a lot of things, but never Sioux.”

“Sorry, I took a course last term in native ethnography, but when it comes to the names, it appears I was getting ahead of myself. I hope I didn't cause offense.”

“My father was white, name of Harlan. Mamma was Navajo. Two-Trees come from her line.”

“Navajo? Huh. I apologize that I never would've guessed that. Strikes me more like a name from a Plains tribe.”

Because it is. Because mamma was stolen by the Navajo, taken from her people when she was a girl and didn't start using her birth name until I came along.
But those facts I keep to myself.

Pete Cullen crosses to the window and turns the open sign around to closed. “Most of the Navajo names I know are either Spanish or Navajo,” he says, reaching up to grab the draw-cord of the blinds and easing it down. The late-day sun seeps through the thick parchment, bathing the shop in muted amber.

“You know a lot of Navajos?” I ask.

“Tell you the truth, not a one, now that I think of it.”

“Not many around. Not here anyway. Not anymore.”

“No,” he says.

I catch a glimpse of the wall clock. Ten minutes till five. He is closing early.

Pete turns and starts back toward me, his eyes combing up and down in a slow, deliberate study of my person. He shakes his head, disapproving. And then he stops, his mouth pursing with exasperation. “What the hell was Pop thinking?”

A sudden pulse of laughter escapes me as Pete's face breaks into a wide smile, followed by a laugh of his own. Then our heads turn toward the mirror, where the absurdity of the costume flares our laughter until, red-faced, we catch enough breath to speak.

“You have to forgive Dad,” Pete says. “He believes all men should dress like they're headed for a night at the opera.”

“Tough way to stay in business around these parts,” I say.

“That's why I'm here. I was halfway through the fall term at Northwestern when Mother wrote, begging me to come home. It's not Dad's fault. It's how his father taught him. But times change. And we're not in Saint Louis anymore. This is the West. Not an opera house for a thousand miles.”

“Or a circus tent, neither.”

“Here, take that thing off.”

I unbutton the coat and slide it off into Pete's awaiting arms. I expect him to cradle it gingerly—like his father had—instead he flings it crumpled onto the nearby table. Pete marches toward a rack of suits hanging in the corner, his mind gearing into practical contemplation. “Now, what do you need this for, exactly?”

“What do you mean?”

“The suit, what are you doing in it?”

Never had a stranger question occurred to me, as anything I had ever draped onto my frame had but the utmost, singular utility—to be for any and all purpose called upon by life in high desert. But in thinking about how to answer him, I saw the benefit in such an inquiry.