Storm's Thunder Read Free Page A

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.
    â€œJust 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.
    â€œMorning, Mister Garber,” removing my hat. All at once his eyes burst with recognition.
    â€œWhy 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?”
    â€œObliged.” I step past him into the office and move toward the chair, but cannot bring myself to sit.
    â€œXenia!” He says, shouting toward the top of the