The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  “Look, hoss,” Cal said. “You ain’t old, and you ain’t so bad lookin’. I heard women say you were right good-looking.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “I have. Truth to tell.”

  “Name one.”

  Cal thought a moment. “Beverly Townsend. Miss Texas herself.”

  “What?”

  Cal nodded. “Swear to it. Beverly Townsend said you were good-lookin’. She said you looked like—like a young Max Von Sydow.”

  Ken shot Cal a brief, contemptuous glance. “Who in hell is Max Von Sydow?”

  “He’s a Swedish movie star, is what. Tall fella. Blond. Distinguished lookin’. Nothin’ wrong with lookin’ like him, that’s sure.” Cal gave his shoulder an encouraging shake. “Nope. Your problem ain’t your looks, and it ain’t your age. Your problem is a bad case of the shouldas.”

  “The whats?”

  “The shouldas,” Cal repeated confidently. He gave Ken’s back a congenial smack and sat down on the swing again, setting his feet on the porch rail. “You’re thinkin’, ‘I shoulda said this. I shoulda said that. I shoulda done this. I shoulda done that.’ That’s your problem.”

  Ken said nothing because Cal was too damn right. He should have moved slower with Nora. He should not have touched her. He should have kept things just friendly-like.

  Cal took a sip of Lone Star and nodded to himself. “Yep. A terrible case of shouldas. Only one cure for ’em.”

  “And what’s that, Einstein?”

  “Simple,” Cal said with a guileless smile. “What do you do if a horse throws you?”

  “Get back on. Any fool knows that.”

  “Well,” said Cal, “wooin’ a woman is like ridin’ a horse. If you’re dealin’ with a creature of mettle and spirit, you’re liable to get throwed, especially at first.”

  “Well, she throwed me good today,” Ken muttered.

  “But—see?—you don’t quit. You keep on tryin’.”

  Ken stared gloomily into the night. “I keep on tryin’.”

  “Faint heart never won fair lady.”

  Faint heart never won fair lady. It sounded like more poetry, that was all. But poetry was what she loved.

  He didn’t know. He’d seen such fear in her eyes that maybe it would be kinder just to let her alone. After all, he was used to being alone. It wasn’t so bad. It didn’t kill you.

  He looked up at the sky, as he’d done often lately, because, despite the earlier spring storms, rain was needed so badly. Not a cloud was in sight. But on the horizon, the lightning flickered and flared, and in the distance the thunder rumbled.

  Cal could be crazy as a bedbug, but for some reason the kid’s words haunted Ken:

  Faint heart never won fair lady.

  He stared up at the sliver of the moon and squared his lean jaw.

  “Right,” he said under his breath to himself and the thin moon. “Right.”

  “THAT THUNDER,” Dottie said in exasperation. “It keeps talkin’, but it never delivers. Lawsy, I wish it would rain.”

  Dottie and Nora sat in the old, mismatched wrought-iron rockers on the back porch, sipping dandelion wine and looking up at the star-spangled sky. It was their favorite way to spend a summer night.

  Tonight the song of the crickets was interrupted by the distant rat-a-tat-tat of firecrackers. A skyrocket soared into the darkness, then exploded in a cascade of colored sparks. It was immediately followed by more.

  “Oh, look,” Dottie said in awe, as a whole barrage of rockets began bursting and lighting up the sky. “Isn’t that the prettiest thing? It’s too bad Rory fell asleep so early. That boy does dote on his fireworks.”

  Nora watched the rockets rain down their colored showers: red, green, gold, azure blue. “I wonder if the northern lights are like that,” she mused softly.

  But she was not really thinking of the northern lights. She kept thinking of Ken Slattery.

  She recalled the intensity in his eyes when he looked at her, and the unexpectedness of his touch. The recollection flooded her with strange feelings that were both frightening and pleasant.

  Against the dark, a rocket bloomed into showers of fire that looked hot and cold at the same time. Yes, she thought, that’s what he made me feel like. Like that.

  She shivered slightly, in spite of the heat. She slapped at a mosquito that wasn’t there, just to bring herself down to earth.

  No, she told herself, she mustn’t think about Slattery, and she wouldn’t. Besides, she’d sensed that the outing with Slattery had upset Dottie in some way, and Nora loved Dottie too much to add to her burdens.

  Perversely, just as Nora made the resolution not to think of Ken, Dottie brought up his name. “You never said anything about being out with Ken Slattery today,” she said slowly and carefully. “Did you enjoy it?”

  Nora shrugged noncommittally. “I thought Rory talked enough about everything for the two of us. Yes, he seemed to have a good time.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence between them.

  “I asked if you enjoyed it,” Dottie said at last.

  Nora stared up at the sky, looking for a rocket’s colorful blaze to distract her. None came, so she stared at the darkness. “It was all right.”

  “Do you think you’ll—see him again?”

  Nora tilted her glass so that the moonlight played on the surface of her wine. “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

  “Why not?” Dottie persisted, an odd note in her voice. “I thought he seemed, well, interested in you. He’s a nice man, Ken Slattery. A good man, steady. The McKinneys have depended on him for years.”

  “I don’t want a man. I’ve had one.” Nora instantly regretted her words. Dottie had suffered enough over Gordon. Nora didn’t need to make her suffer more.

  Dottie reached over and took Nora’s free hand in hers. She squeezed it. “They’re not all like Gordon, honey.”

  Nora gave Dottie’s hand a squeeze in return. “I didn’t mean—” She paused, unable to finish, unsure of what she did or didn’t mean.

  Dottie released her hand and gazed at the treetops. “You never talk about men. You never seem to notice them. If it’s because you think I’d be hurt or I wouldn’t like it, well, that’s just not so. More than anything, I’d like to see you and Rory settled and happy.”

  A deep-reaching coldness crept over Nora, as if someone had encased her heart in ice. “Rory and I are fine. We don’t need a man.”

  “Nora—”

  “Dottie, I don’t want to get married again. Honestly. Being married doesn’t automatically make you happy. Look at poor Mary Gibson—sitting home, trying to seem dignified while Bubba runs all over with Billie Jo Dumont.”

  “Well, yes, but all men aren’t—”

  “Dottie,” Nora interrupted, “tell the truth. Were you all that happy married?”

  Dottie stiffened slightly. Although she knew most of the town’s secrets, few people knew hers. Her husband, Duff, had died the year before Nora and Gordon married. Dottie seldom spoke of him.

  “I—” she began, the slightest quaver in her voice. “I was not altogether happy. No. Duff was not a warm person. He was—very stern. I think part of Gordon’s problem was that he could never live up to his daddy’s expectations. I know I couldn’t. Maybe nobody could.”

  Nora nodded, almost to herself. She knew Gordon was driven by some inner demon.

  “Have you ever wanted to remarry?” Nora asked.

  Dottie sighed. “No. I’m happy. I suppose in a way I’m married to the coffee shop. God knows it’s given me more good company than Duff ever did.”

  “That’s how it is for me, too. The only marriage I want is to my job.”

  “But, honey—”

  “No buts, Dottie. You and I are the same sort. Neither of us needs a man to feel complete. So don’t worry about it. I don’t want Ken Slattery. I don’t want anybody.”

  She repeated the words in her mind, as if they could protect her: I don’t want
Ken Slattery. I don’t want anybody.

  IN A MOTEL ROOM halfway between Crystal Creek and Lubbock, Gordon Jones sat, slightly drunk and very angry, even though he’d taken a pill to calm himself.

  He had a Smith & Wesson Model 10 revolver that he’d been taking apart and putting back together for more than an hour. Gordon always carried a gun, for the world was a hostile place.

  Once more he removed the front sideplate screw, setting it in an ashtray to keep it separate from other screws. The blonde he had picked up this morning slept on the other side of the bed, curled into a selfish knot, snoring softly.

  She’d demanded safe sex and been so picky and critical of everything, he’d hardly enjoyed himself. He’d also found out she was six years older than he was and that her bra was padded. She was as flat-chested as a boy.

  With resentment, he remembered Nora, whose body was young and soft and rounded. But even with Nora, he’d never had as much fun as he should. Nora never responded to him. He should have made her like it better.

  He should have been tougher. At the time, it had been a relief to let her divorce him. But what was he supposed to do about sex? Now look at him—sleepless in a cheap motel with a skinny old blonde who snored.

  He rubbed the cylinder with his T-shirt until the metal gleamed. Sometimes he was convinced that Nora was the cause of all his troubles, all his failures. Other times, like tonight, cause and effect became confused, as tangled as a nest of snakes.

  Tonight he resented everyone—especially his mother. Today Dottie had actually rebuked him—her own son. Dottie had time to listen to the troubles of the whole town, but she had no sympathy for him.

  What was more, she still wouldn’t give him any money. That was why he’d gone to pick up Rory in the first place, to curry his mother’s favor. His effort was wasted.

  Stubbornly, she’d said he had to grow up, solve his own problems. She was mean, she was cold, she was unnatural, she was selfish.

  He couldn’t tell her the truth; he was too proud. He was, after all, a man. But he was going to get hurt if he didn’t get the money. And it was her fault. What had turned her against him? Was someone in Crystal Creek working against him lately? Was it Bubba Gibson?

  Gordon’s jaw tightened. He slid the cylinder back in place and held the gun in a two-handed police grip, aiming it at the door and squinting down the barrel.

  He imagined he had Bubba Gibson in his sights. The fat old fool had insulted him, said he wasn’t a man.

  “Pow,” Gordon whispered to his mental image of Bubba, pretending to squeeze the trigger. “Pow.” In his mind he blew Bubba away, as if the old man were nothing more than a jackrabbit. The memory of Bubba gnawed at Gordon. He hated the old bastard. He hated him from years ago, when Bubba had wanted to throw Gordon into jail for a harmless, boyish prank.

  Gordon and a friend had tried to rustle a couple of calves off Bubba’s place to sell. They got caught, and Bubba had called Gordon every dirty name in the book and had wanted to press charges.

  Bubba would have saddled him with a criminal record, the vindictive old goat. Bubba’s wimpy wife finally talked him out of it, saying, “Think of Dottie.”

  Grudgingly, Bubba had spared Gordon, but Gordon had hated Bubba ever since, for even thinking of prosecuting him.

  Bubba’d better stay away from Nora if the old goat knew what was good for him. Gordon didn’t particularly want Nora, but he didn’t want anyone else to have her, either. If Bubba crossed Gordon again, he’d be sorry. Anybody who betrayed Gordon would be sorry.

  The set of his jaw grew grimmer when he thought of Brock Munroe and Ken Slattery—Bubba’s companions that afternoon. They’d conspired with Bubba to mortify Gordon, to bully and taunt him in front of his own family. Three against one—that was how cowardly they were.

  “Pow,” Gordon repeated softly, looking down his gun sight once more at the phantom of Bubba. He pretended to flick the safety off the gun, to squeeze its hair trigger.

  “Pow. Pow. Pow.”

  In Gordon’s mind, Bubba died again and yet again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NORA WIPED her forearm across her brow. The day wasn’t quite as hot as the day before, but she’d been on the run since the coffee shop opened.

  Dottie had brought two more fans from home, which kept the room from sweltering, but Nora missed the air-conditioning.

  Not a cloud was in the sky today, and no rain was forecast. Would there ever be any relief? she wondered, then told herself sternly to stop feeling sorry for herself. There was work to be done.

  Half of Crystal Creek seemed to crowd the coffee shop this morning. Bubba Gibson, looking decidedly hangdog, sat in a booth with his wife, Mary, their daughter and her two children. Mary acted as if nothing in the least was wrong with her life, and if she knew of Bubba’s foolishness yesterday, she gave no indication.

  “I don’t know how she does it,” Dottie had whispered in Nora’s ear when Mary walked in, arm in arm with Bubba. “If Bubba was my husband, I’d whomp him upside the head with the frying pan. He’d see stars for a week.”

  Nora had clucked her tongue in sympathy for Mary, but she’d been glad to let Dottie wait on the Gibsons. The memory of Bubba’s would-be amorousness still rankled.

  When Dr. Nate Purdy and his wife, Rose, came into the coffee shop, Nora looked around a bit frantically. There was only one more free table.

  She set up the table with napkins and silverware, and chatted with the Purdys as she took their order. Then Brock Munroe came in alone, and sat on the last stool at the counter. She took his order, too, turned them over to the cook, then circled the room, making sure all the coffee cups were full, all the ice-tea glasses replenished.

  She flinched inwardly when she saw the front door opening again. There was simply no place to seat another customer.

  Then her heart gave a painful jerk as she recognized Ken Slattery standing there, looking across the room at her. A strange, tumbling sensation tickled the pit of her stomach.

  She didn’t remember ever seeing him on a Sunday morning before. He wore a starched, white shirt of Western cut, its sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. The whiteness set off the bronze of his skin, accented the silvery hair in his sideburns.

  His jeans rode low on his lean hips, his boots were polished to a high gloss, and his white Stetson was set at a determined angle.

  His blue eyes held hers for a long moment, and Nora wasn’t sure if the room went quiet or if she just stopped hearing. He took off his hat, as if in salute to her, and unsmiling, he nodded a greeting. His blond hair gleamed dark gold in the sunlight that poured through the front windows.

  Nora’s heart flew into her throat and lodged there, fluttering and aching. What’s happening to me? she thought, slightly panicked. Why do I feel like this?

  She returned his nod of greeting mechanically. She gave him a small, strained smile. He seemed to study that smile with serious intensity, as if reading what it did say, what it didn’t say, what it might say.

  She looked for Dottie, who was nowhere to be seen. She had no choice but to approach Ken, who stood by the door, his hat held against his chest, his eyes never leaving her.

  Oh, mercy, thought Nora, oh, mercy, mercy, mercy. He was so tall that she found his height intimidating. She looked up at him warily, tried to smile again and failed.

  “We don’t have any room,” she said brusquely. “You’ll have to wait.”

  “I didn’t come for that,” he said, gazing down at her. “I came for something else.”

  The fluttering feeling in Nora’s throat and stomach made her half-dizzy. “What?” she breathed. She was sure people were watching them, certain of it.

  You, his eyes seemed to say. I came for you. I know it. You know it.

  “The air-conditioning,” his lips said. “I came to—I came to fix it.”

  Nora was too startled to speak. She just kept staring up at him, knowing that they weren’t really talking about the air-conditioning at a
ll.

  “Ken!” Dottie’s greeting sounded sincerely happy.

  He dragged his eyes from Nora and nodded to the older woman. “I came to look at the air conditioner, Dottie. I figured you wouldn’t be able to get anybody to look at it on a Sunday.”

  Dottie put her hand on his arm and gave him an affectionate squeeze. “Why, Ken—if that isn’t the most thoughtful thing. Isn’t he thoughtful, Nora?”

  Nora gazed self-consciously at the floor. “Yes. He’s very—thoughtful.”

  “You got tools in back, or should I get mine out of the truck?” Ken asked Dottie. His tone was quiet, matter-of-fact, but his voice made the back of Nora’s neck prickle.

  “There’s a big old box of ’em in back,” Dottie said. “They were Duff’s. Lawsy, I don’t know what half of ’em are. I’m not a mechanical person. Why, I can’t hardly fasten a safety pin.”

  “You don’t have to be mechanical, ma’am,” Ken said gallantly, “when you cook the way you do.”

  Dottie laughed. “Flattery’ll get you everywhere. If you get that air conditioner fixed, your Sunday dinner’s on me. Show him where that toolbox is, will you, Nora?”

  Nora nodded and kept staring at the floor. She turned and went into the kitchen, all too aware that Ken Slattery was close behind her. She could sense the heat of his long, lean body, and she could smell his after-shave. It was Old Spice.

  The kitchen door swung shut behind them. Nora knelt and opened the cabinet under the sink, fumbling to pull out the heavy toolbox.

  “Let me.” He lowered himself, squatting on his high-heeled boots. His hard shoulder brushed the sleeve of her dress, and his hand accidentally touched hers when he reached for the box.

  Nora drew in her breath sharply. They both rose, neither looking at the other. Ken set the old toolbox on the counter and unlocked it. It was rusty, and the tools within were jumbled and dirty.

  “I’m sorry,” Nora apologized. “Neither of us is very good with tools. I guess we haven’t taken care of them the way we should.”