The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  “Not your kind of job,” he said, reaching for a paper towel to wipe the grease from a wrench.

  “Oh, be careful,” Nora said. “You’ll get your nice shirt dirty.”

  “Indeed you will,” Dottie said breezily, coming through the door with a pile of used plates and silverware. “Don’t stand on ceremony with us, Ken. Just slip out of that shirt. You can hang it on the back of that chair there.”

  “Thanks,” he said tonelessly, and began unbuttoning his shirt.

  Nora had a glimpse of a hard, tanned chest sprinkled with golden hair. She turned and fled back into the dining room. A few people gave her knowing, conspiratorial smiles, and she was dismayed to find herself blushing.

  A few moments later, when she was back in the kitchen, dishing up corn bread and beans, she allowed herself to glance out the back window. Ken Slattery stood, shirtless, bending over the outside air-conditioning unit, a big metal box almost as high as his thigh.

  The veins in his biceps stood out as he unscrewed the unit’s top, and the ropy muscles in his shoulders bunched. His hair, carefully brushed when he’d entered the coffee shop, fell in a blond hank over his forehead as he examined the exhaust fan.

  Nora found she was holding her breath. He worked with total concentration and efficiency. Not one motion seemed wasted; it was as if his body were an instrument perfectly made and perfectly controlled.

  Why, he’s really a beautiful man, she thought in wonder. But he’s so quiet and self-effacing, nobody ever seems to notice.

  Once more Dottie came bustling through the door, and Nora was embarrassed to find herself blushing again, this time for having been caught staring out the window at Ken Slattery.

  Dottie glanced out the window and gave Nora a little smile. “What’s the matter? Forgotten what a man looks like without a shirt?”

  “I didn’t notice,” Nora lied, rather desperately. “I just wanted to see how he was doing, that’s all.”

  “Honey,” Dottie said, her smile growing smug, “if you don’t notice that—” she nodded at Ken’s wide-shouldered figure “—you are not a well woman.”

  “Dottie!”

  “Well, face it. Do you think he’s out there workin’ in the hot sun on my account? He’s taken a shine to you.”

  “He’ll have to shine without me,” Nora said stubbornly. “I told you last night, I don’t want a man.”

  Dottie’s smile faded and her face became somber. “I’ve been thinking about it, honey. It wouldn’t hurt you to—”

  “Please don’t think about it,” Nora said, cutting her off and turning from the window. “And I wish you hadn’t promised him dinner. The less I see of him the better. Besides, if Gordon found out, he’d just make more trouble than usual.”

  Dottie squared her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about that, too. I really have. Nora, you can’t spend your life dwelling on what Gordon did in the past and what he might do in the future. Now if any man was to stand up to Gordon, I think that Ken Slattery could be the one to—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Nora said firmly. Expertly she picked up the four full plates, butted the door open with her hip and left the room, Dottie and any further argument.

  Dottie looked after her and bit her lip meditatively. She’d meant what she said. None of them, not her or Nora or Rory, should have to live in fear of what Gordon might do.

  She had seen the look on Ken Slattery’s face when he walked in the door today. At that moment, she’d understood that he meant to have Nora, come hell or high water.

  More important, she’d also seen the look on Nora’s face. That look had gone through Dottie’s heart like an arrow. It had told her that in spite of everything, even all the fear, Nora wanted Ken, too. She just didn’t know it yet.

  NORA LOVED DOTTIE, but she wanted to throttle her. By one o’clock, the air conditioner was humming again, as smoothly as if it had never been interrupted. Ken had cleaned up and put his white shirt back on. Dottie set him down at the most private table, then practically forced Nora to sit with him and take a coffee break.

  “Keep him company,” Dottie had ordered cheerfully. “It’s the least you can do after all he’s done for us. The crowd’s thinned out. I can handle it. Take a break, sweetie.”

  It was true. Most people had left, including the Gibsons. Now Nora sat facing Ken, not knowing what to say.

  She kept clenching and unclenching her hands in her lap, her coffee growing cold in front of her.

  Billie Jo Dumont had come in, obviously in a bad mood because Bubba was with his family instead of her. She looked at Nora and Ken with frank, almost predatory interest.

  Why couldn’t he be after Billie Jo? Nora wondered in perplexity. She’s beautiful and she wants a man so much she’s willing to settle for Bubba. I bet she’d go out with Ken in a minute.

  But Ken didn’t seem to notice that Billie Jo was in the room or that she was staring at them.

  “What—exactly—was wrong with the air conditioner?” Nora asked at last, desperate for neutral conversation. She kept watching his hands as he ate. He had extremely nice hands for a cowboy. They had the usual scars from barbed wire and hard work, but they were lean and brown with sure, economical movements. She couldn’t help thinking of how they had touched her yesterday with such surprising gentleness.

  “Just a couple frayed wires. Affectin’ the condenser coils.”

  Nora shrugged and said nothing. She didn’t even know what a condenser coil was.

  “Are you and Dottie and your boy goin’ to the fireworks tonight?” he asked unexpectedly.

  Nora looked up at him in surprise, then wished she hadn’t. He had long lashes for a man, thick and dark gold, that gave his gaze a counterfeit sleepy look. They almost disguised the true intensity of his blue gaze, an intensity that always shook her.

  “The fireworks?” she asked. Each year the Rotary Club and the Fire Department worked together to put on an enormous display on Fourth of July night. The show was at the city park, and people brought blankets and lawn chairs to sit on the hillside and watch the fireworks, which were set off downhill, near the park lagoon.

  “Fireworks,” he repeated tonelessly.

  Nora once again had the disconcerting sensation of feeling hot and cold at the same time, as if tiny rockets were flaring, deep within her.

  “Yes,” she said, looking away from him again and out the window to where Rory played. “Rory loves fireworks. We always go with the Delaneys. They’re our next-door neighbors.”

  Ken nodded. “I know the Delaneys. He had a stroke. He’s in a wheelchair, ain’t—isn’t he?”

  Nora kept staring out the window. The way Ken had corrected himself touched her oddly. She knew it had been for her benefit. He was like many Southwesterners who could speak two distinct varieties of English: the homespun, colorful, casual sort, and the sort that was taught in schools. That he’d bothered to shift his language for her presented yet one more disturbing element of the man.

  “I said, isn’t he in a wheelchair?” Ken asked.

  She nodded, uncertain of what he was getting at.

  “I could go with you,” he said calmly. “I could help. It’s not easy pushing a wheelchair around in a crowd. His wife’s not strong enough to do it. Dottie’ll be all worn out. That only leaves you. It’d be easier for me.”

  Nora’s spine stiffened. How had she ever thought of this man as shy? Yesterday she’d told him she didn’t want to see him anymore, yet today he was back more aggressive than before.

  “You don’t have to bother,” she said crisply. “I’m strong. A job like this keeps a person in shape. I can manage fine, thanks.”

  “I didn’t say you weren’t strong. I know you’re strong. I said it’d be easier for me.”

  Rory came bursting in the door, sweaty, with grass stains on his knees, and his hands full of toy cars. “Hey!” he cried, seeing Ken. “I didn’t know you were here. I didn’t see your truck.”

  “It was cro
wded when I came. I had to park around the corner. How you doin’, squirt?”

  “Fine,” Rory said, stepping up to their table. “Did you come to see my mother?”

  For the third time that day Nora found herself blushing. “Rory!” she said in a furious whisper.

  But Rory was scratching a mosquito bite on the back of his neck and seemed oblivious to her. He was staring up at Ken with frank interest.

  “Yeah,” Ken said in his slow drawl. “I came to see your mother. And to see if you all’d mind if I went with you to the fireworks tonight. Would you?”

  “Come with us? Sure,” Rory said, scratching harder. “If you come early, I’ll show you my squirrel. He ain’t got no tail, but he’s tame. He’ll sit on your head.”

  “He hasn’t got any tail,” Nora corrected, grabbing him and wiping the sweat from his face with a napkin. “And you skedaddle into the kitchen so I can clean you up. If you were any dirtier, I could plant seeds on you—and get a good crop. Come on.”

  Nora rose, upset with Ken for inviting himself, upset with Rory for falling in so guilelessly with the man’s plans, upset with herself for not knowing what to do or say.

  Ken pushed back his chair from the table and rose. He made his way to the cash register and tried to pay Dottie, who’d been studiously staying out of his and Nora’s way.

  Dottie waved his money away. “It’s no good here,” she said with finality. “So put it back in your pocket.”

  Then she stood looking up at him a moment, mixed emotions in her expression.

  “I sort of invited myself to come along with you all tonight,” he said. “I don’t reckon she appreciates it.” He glanced in the direction in which Nora had disappeared.

  Dottie looked him up, and she looked him down. She nodded as if giving him some private sort of approval. “Maybe she’ll learn to appreciate it,” she said.

  He stared at Dottie a long moment, then the corner of his upper lip curled up in an almost imperceptible smile. “That might be too much to hope for, Dottie.”

  “A man can hope for anything he wants.”

  He allowed his smile to curve a bit more. “You’re a good woman. She’s lucky to have you.”

  Dottie shook her head. “No. I’m lucky to have her.”

  “Then you’re both lucky. See you, Dottie. Tell Nora goodbye for me. Rory, too.”

  He turned and left, picking his hat off the rack as he went.

  Dottie looked after him a long time. She was alone now in the room now, except for Billie Jo Dumont.

  “That Slattery man,” Billie Jo said, startling Dottie. “He’s after Nora, isn’t he? There’s something going on between them. You can see it in the way they look at each other. Gordon isn’t gonna like that.”

  Dottie steeled her spine and gave Billie Jo a cool look. “Gordon lives in Lubbock these days. We don’t see much of him.”

  “If Nora takes up with somebody, you might start seein’ more of him than you think.” Billie Jo smirked. “That’s one bad boy you raised, Dottie. Sure enough.”

  Billie Jo drew the fresh daisy from the bud vase on her table and began to pick its petals off.

  Dottie narrowed her eyes, struggled to hang on to her temper and said nothing.

  “He loves me,” Billie Jo said, pulling the last petal from the flower and laying the stem aside. “They say daisies don’t lie. Bubba really does love me, you know. He was in here earlier, I know. With that wife of his. I heard she was just hanging on his arm. Did he look like he missed me?”

  “You got it part right,” Dottie said, ignoring the question. “He was in here—with his wife.”

  Billie Jo sighed lavishly. “I do declare it’s just a crime,” she said, running her fingers through her long hair, “that love gets so awful complicated. Don’t you agree?”

  GORDON HAD DITCHED the blonde and was heading home to his apartment in Lubbock. It was a ratty apartment, and Gordon hated it because he deserved better, but he couldn’t afford it because of his car payments. Life had never been fair to Gordon. Sometimes it made him want to strike out and hit somebody, anybody.

  Gordon’s temples throbbed, and he tried to think of Charlie. Charlie had taken Gordon as a partner in Lubbock. He’d let Gordon buy part-interest in a diesel rig. Charlie bought hogs in northern Texas and trucked them down to Mexico. The money was decent, but not enough, and Gordon was sick of the grinding, endless hours on the road, popping uppers to stay awake, and then downers so he could sleep when he finally got to crawl into a bed.

  Mostly, he was sick of hauling stinking pigs. He’d grown up in cattle country, and he found it demeaning, being a damned pig jockey. But Charlie was smart and said to be patient. Charlie often spoke mysteriously, saying better days were ahead.

  Then, Friday, just before Gordon was going to take off to get Rory, Charlie had finally sprung the news. A couple of trucks going into Mexico, Charlie said, could carry things besides hogs. They could carry, for instance, guns.

  There was big money carrying guns, Charlie said. He didn’t know what the guns were for or what their final destination was. Guatemala? Nicaragua? It didn’t matter.

  A man with guts could get rich fast running firearms. And Charlie’d met a man named Eduardo Chessman who’d told him an absolutely foolproof way to smuggle them and who’d pay big money to get them across the border.

  Gordon liked to project a macho, fearless aura, but in truth, Charlie’s proposition had scared him stiff. Gunrunning was big time, and he was certain the people Charlie was dealing with were capable of violence. Gordon could be violent himself, but he was only an amateur at it. When it came to violence, these people were professionals.

  Charlie’d slapped him on the shoulder, said he knew Gordon could handle it, to think it over. Give him an answer on Monday, when he got back.

  No wonder Gordon had been on edge this weekend. What man wouldn’t? If his mother had just handed over the money, he could have told Charlie no—he had better prospects. But he didn’t. In Crystal Creek everybody had closed in on him, practically suffocating him with their hatefulness.

  He thought of yesterday’s scene at the Longhorn. He saw them all again. Especially Nora and his mother and Bubba. They were the three who’d pissed him off worst.

  He cursed Nora; he cursed them all. Well, he thought grimly, he’d show them. He’d take Charlie up on his offer. The next time he went to Crystal Creek, he’d do it in style. They’d all be so jealous they’d turn as green as grass. They’d know they were dealing with somebody.

  Yeah, he thought, the images still doing their goblin dance through his head, he’d show them, all right. There was nothing to be afraid of.

  Gordon knew guns, had always known them. It was a natural pairing, Gordon and guns. He allowed himself a tight smile. It seemed right. It seemed almost—he struggled to find the word—inevitable.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  RAT-A-TAT-TAT.

  Nora flinched. The fireworks display always opened with a deafening barrage of firecrackers that lasted a full five minutes. Then the rockets would begin to soar into the twilight sky, raining down their showers.

  She, Ken, Rory, Dottie and the Delaneys had arrived too late to get a close spot. When Emily Delaney had seen Ken, her eyes had lit up as if a guardian angel had appeared. “Why, you’re that feller so good at fixin’ things, aren’t you?”

  The faucet in Emily’s kitchen sink had started to drip Friday night, and by Saturday the drip had turned into an unceasing stream. No plumber could come until Tuesday.

  Emily said she was worried sick about all that water going down the drain, with things so dry. Every day radio announcements warned people to conserve water, and the town council had even banned the watering of lawns until the dry spell was over.

  Ken had rolled up his sleeves and, using Jack’s tools, fixed the leak.

  “Such a nice man,” Emily had whispered to Nora as Ken reassembled the faucet. And to make sure her point was made, Emily had nudged Nora in the rib
s. Nora, embarrassed, had pressed her lips together and said nothing.

  Then it was Ken who’d maneuvered Jack’s wheelchair into the Delaneys’ van, and after they arrived at the park, it was Ken who’d wheeled the chair up the long hill to the park’s highest crest. Jack Delaney was a big man, the chair was not motorized, and the task took considerable strength.

  Ken had changed his shirt for a pale blue one embroidered with arrows on the pockets. Nora saw his muscles strain and shift under the thin cloth. It would have taken her and Dottie both to push the chair, she thought, admiring the easy power of his body.

  He’s making himself necessary, she thought with sudden wariness. And he’s good at it. When they reached the top of the hill, Dottie had spread out a blanket. Dottie and Emily had settled onto it, but Rory’d said if he sat he couldn’t see over the people sitting in front of them.

  “No problem,” Ken had said, still standing, one lean hip cocked. He’d scooped the boy up and let him sit astraddle his shoulders. Rory had grinned, as if he now possessed the best seat in the house.

  Nora stood beside them, watching a series of explosions rain down the sky. “Oooh,” the crowd would murmur when a particularly spectacular rocket bloomed. “Ahhh.”

  As the darkness increased, so did the flamboyance of the display, until almost everyone, even Nora, was oohing and aahing.

  Then Nora, her face tipped toward the sky, felt a sudden, pleasantly cool shudder skip over her skin. It was as if elves had tickled her. She glanced at Ken and saw that he wasn’t watching the show of flares in the sky; he was watching her.

  The changing colors danced over his handsome, serious face, giving it a magical cast. But somehow, no matter what hues lit the sky, his eyes always stayed that same, unwavering blue. She felt her heart wrench more deeply into her chest, and involuntarily she drew in her breath.

  She felt a warm, lean hand first brush hers, then fold around it. Wordlessly, but with his usual sureness of movement, Ken had taken her hand in his. Nora’s heart jarred even harder, and flutters vibrated deep in her stomach and ran down her thighs.