Domino Falls by Steven Barnes

Book Preface

Snow falls lightly as two motorcycles the color of arterial blood cross the threshold of the Snug Harbor Motor Court. A Kawasaki Ninja 250R and a Honda Interceptor, driven by two nut-brown young men with long black hair, Darius Phillips and Dean Kitsap. Behind them rolls the school bus they call the Blue Beauty, although the blue paint is flaking and the bus is far from beautiful. Windows are shattered, the body tattooed with bullet holes. They have been at war, and will not have long to rest.

Bainbridge Island is the ancestral home of Dean and Darius’s people, the Suquamish Indians; fisher folk for generations before the first white traders appeared. Now . . . the Suquamish own homes and businesses and fishing fleets and casinos and restaurants. Those who can’t afford better, like Dean’s family, huddle together in places like the Snug Harbor Motor Court. Nearly four hundred people share a hundred seventy trailers.

Dean, who leads the way, was born here. His mother and father and six brothers and sisters still live here, while an older brother is in the army, protecting strangers in a strange land. It is the only true home Dean has known. Still, somehow he cannot remember which way to turn. There, at the central court—the cleared area houses a barbecue pit and a couple of weather-beaten picnic tables. Normally, children fill the narrow lane, playing in the snow, laughing and waving at the motorcycles and cars as they pass. Today, no one.

But the ground is cluttered with children’s clothes, as if they are fresh from the laundry. Laid out in sets. So strange . . . pants, shirts, shoes . . . and footprints in the snow leading off toward the common play area.