The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  “No,” Gordon had screamed in his dream, “he’s a dirty old man—no!” He’d begun to fight with the sweaty sheets.

  Then with the illogical shift that dreams take, Gordon was driving his livestock truck toward the border. The truck was full of guns, but every time it bounced or jounced, the guns would be jolted from their hiding places.

  The barrels poked out, bristling from every niche until the truck looked like some monstrous, mechanical porcupine. No highway exit offered refuge, and Gordon was trapped, hurtling down the road with the guns plainly visible.

  Then the guns began falling off the truck, leaving a trail of weaponry, and Gordon went cold with terror, knowing he would be caught at any moment. He heard sirens. They came from both directions, and overhead a police helicopter appeared, deafening him with its hellish chop-chopping sound.

  As if by magic, a police barrier loomed before him, and desperately he tried to run it. Bullets shattered his windshield, cracking it with spiderweb shapes. Blood was in his eyes and—

  Then suddenly Gordon was back in Crystal Creek, in bed, sore and weeping, but safe in Nora’s arms. As long as Nora held him, he would be protected. He would not have to prove anything to anyone.

  He tried to hold Nora down and take her, roughly and quickly. But he couldn’t. She vanished as if she were no more substantial than a will-o’-the-wisp.

  Gordon could stand this whirligig of torture and humiliation no more, and he’d awakened.

  He sat up in the shadowy room. He leaned his elbows on his knees and held his face in his hands.

  He was edgy, that was all, because he was going to tell Charlie, yes, he’d run those guns across the border. He was nervous because he’d never done anything of this magnitude before.

  His stomach twisted and kept twisting. Damn, he thought in anger, if only he didn’t have to prove anything. If only he didn’t have to pay off those bitching gambling debts. If only, if only.

  He was still so sleepy that the distinction between dream and reality blurred. In his dreams, Nora had been the only one to help him.

  The Nora of his dream had been more desirable than any of the women he’d had since they’d parted. He wouldn’t have taken up with the skinny blonde if it hadn’t been for Nora. He’d wanted to make her jealous, he realized that now. He’d done it all for Nora.

  It was Bubba Gibson’s fault, too. Bubba was a letch, and everybody in town knew it. The old holier-than-thou bastard had a gleam in his eye for Nora—he always had. And he’d been trying to order her around as if he owned her. No wonder Gordon had lost his temper. How could he help it?

  He swore softly and stared into the darkness. In the ever-shifting cavalcade of Gordon’s desires, he suddenly realized what he really needed. He needed to get Nora back.

  She needed him, too; she just didn’t know it. If he had her back, the breach with his family would be healed, and Dottie could loan him the money to pay off Steponovich, and his life would be sane and sensible and safe.

  Then bastards like Bubba Gibson and his friends could go to hell. And Gordon could go home again. Home.

  If Nora would just say, “Come home,” he could forget about Charlie and the gunrunning. Dottie could help Gordon get on his feet. Wasn’t that what mothers were for?

  Gordon had half a bottle of rum, and a half-filled glass of the liquor sat on his night table. He’d needed the rum to get to sleep. Now, again needing fortification, he drained the glass.

  He switched on the bedside light and took up the phone. His fingers shook as he dialed Dottie’s number, and he lit a cigarette to steady his nerves. He prayed Nora would answer, not Dottie. He didn’t want to explain himself to two women. After all, he was a man. He had pride.

  Nora, I think it’s time I came home again, is what he’d say. You’re still mine. Mine. You don’t belong to nobody else. Never.

  MAYBE, MAYBE, MAYBE, sang an early meadowlark. It seemed to Ken like a song about Nora. Maybe she would be his. Maybe.

  The first gold streaks of dawn were paling the eastern sky when he pulled up beside his house.

  He whistled softly to himself as he got out of the truck, and he had a hollyhock flower thrust through his buttonhole. Nora had put it there. His step was light, and a slight, private smile touched his lips.

  He stopped dead when he saw Cal McKinney on his porch swing, one booted leg cocked up on its seat, rocking lazily. Cal grinned like a Cheshire cat, and Ken’s smile died. He’d wanted to slip back to the ranch unnoticed. It was nobody’s damn business how long he’d been with Nora, and he didn’t want the lateness of the hour reflecting poorly on her.

  “What are you doin’ here?” he demanded.

  Cal held a mug of coffee. He hadn’t shaved, which made his dimples more shadowy when he grinned. “Couldn’t sleep. My back’s actin’ up. I got up and made some coffee. Looked out the kitchen window and saw you wasn’t home. Decided to come wait. Have a good time?” He injected a maximum of amiable lechery into the question.

  “Till now it was fine,” Ken said grumpily. He climbed the stairs and looked down at his friend.

  Cal eyed him up and down with satiric interest, his gaze settling on the blossom stuck so jauntily in Ken’s buttonhole. “Hollyhocks? First clover flowers, now hollyhocks—what next? Daffodils growin’ outta your ears?”

  Ken was not amused. “I’ll tell you where to grow daffodils.”

  Cal laughed. “Sit. Have some coffee. I brought a thermos jug.”

  “Your ‘coffee’? You could float horseshoes in that gunk. I need sleep, not company.”

  “Why sleep?” Cal asked smugly. “You only got to get up in an hour or so. Daddy said you was riding fence this morning.” He shifted to make room for Ken, and as he did so, his smile turned into a grimace of pain. “Damn!” he said with passion. Gingerly he touched his back.

  Ken paused a moment, staring down at the kid with both disgust and concern. He sat, pulling his hat down a notch lower. “You’re lucky Serena pulled you outta that rodeo before some horse tromped out the few brains you got.”

  “Oof,” Cal said, settling back again. “I got brains to spare. It’s vertebrae I’m runnin’ out of.”

  “You ain’t got much of either.”

  Cal ignored the gibe. Instead he narrowed his eyes at Ken’s shirt, then reached over and tweaked his collar. “Is that lipstick? Bless my soul. And yesterday you was ready to give up wooin’ altogether.”

  Ken shoved the hand away. “Oh, give me a cup of that tar and stop starin’. It’s none of your affair.”

  Cal passed him the thermos. “Oh, I’ve seen lipstick before.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  “We saw you at the fireworks. Only you was too intent on your own private fireworks to notice. That’s the lipstick of the lovely Miz Nora, I take it?”

  Ken gave him an impatient glance. “It’s not lipstick. It’s—hollyhock juice, is all.”

  “Hmm.” Cal smirked and settled more comfortably against the swing.

  Ken frowned and pulled his hat brim lower. “Just keep your mouth shut, hear? Don’t get any ideas. All we did was talk, dammit.” To prove what he said, he added, “We talked—about Lord Byron.”

  Cal started to laugh.

  Ken turned to him, scowling harder. “Oh, shut up, you ignoramus. You probably think Lord Byron’s nothin’ but a cigar.”

  “Well, ain’t he? A cigar, I mean?” Cal began to laugh harder.

  “Yes, he is,” Ken snapped. “But he was also a poet. A rebellious sorta fella. Not that you’d ever appreciate anything high class.”

  “I appreciate poetry. I can recite poetry. Listen—‘There was an old man from Nantucket—’”

  Ken’s strained patience broke. “Stop that, you baboon.”

  Painfully Cal hoisted himself into a straighter position. He clapped a hand on Ken’s shoulder. “Aw, hell, Slats, I’m funnin’. I don’t mind poems. Mama was ever partial to poetry, you know.”

  Ken said nothing, think
ing back to Cal’s mother, Miss Pauline. She’d been a real lady—the first Ken had ever known. She’d been a kind of ideal to Ken. An ideal that no younger woman had ever matched—except Nora.

  Cal, seeming to understand, sobered. He leaned against the back of the swing again. “That’s okay, Slats. If you don’t want to talk about her. I just want things to go right for you. That’s all.”

  Ken nodded pensively. He took off his hat and leaned his elbows on his knees, staring out at the sunrise again.

  He and Nora had talked all night long, and she had fit into his arms just right, the way he’d always figured she would. She’d fit so perfectly that the memory of it hurt his heart and tightened his groin.

  Could he make her love him? He didn’t know. He wanted her hard enough to pray for it, and he hadn’t prayed for anything since he was a kid.

  The uncertainty gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. Oh, she’d agreed to see him again, but he’d seen the worry appear in her eyes again as soon as she said she would.

  “I didn’t come over here just to give you a bad time,” Cal said.

  Ken, pensive, kept staring at the dawn’s changing colors. “That’s a switch. What did you come to give me?”

  “This. Here. Take it.” Ken glanced over his shoulder at the younger man. Cal offered him a silver-colored key. Ken raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “It’s the key to the lake house. On Lake Travis,” Cal said. “Serena and I were going to use it next weekend. Only we got to work at the boot shop. You take it.”

  Ken frowned. “Your family’s lake house?”

  Cal nodded, holding up the key so that it glittered softly in the morning light. “Take ’em all there—Nora and Rory and Dottie. Spend the whole weekend. Why let it stand empty? Use the boat, swim, fish—hell, do anything at all.”

  Ken stared first at the key, then Cal. “I can’t do that—” Ken struggled for words. “Let Tyler—let Lynn—”

  “Tyler and Ruth and Lynn and Sam are all goin’ to Arkansas. Visit a winery and look at some horses in Hot Springs. Daddy and Cynthia got plans of their own. Here. Take it. Keep it in the family, so to speak.”

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. They gave each other the steady, dispassionate look of men who like and respect each other but would never tell each other in words.

  At last Cal shrugged. “Take it,” he repeated, his tone careless.

  Ken took the key and slipped it into his shirt pocket without looking at it. J.T.’s lake house was a beauty, and Nora and Dottie and Rory had probably never stayed at such a place in their lives. Nora would feel like a princess there, which was how she always ought to feel. Would she agree? It’d all be right and proper with Dottie there.

  Out in the pasture, the lark broke into song again: Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  “Thanks,” Ken said gruffly and started to turn to stare at the dawn-stained sky again, but Cal’s voice halted him.

  “I brought you more besides.” Ken glanced at the kid again. Cal picked up a book from beside him on the swing. He offered it to Ken. The book was old, thick, and its pages edged in gold. The green leather cover was well-worn.

  Ken took it and looked at it, one eyebrow going up, the other down. “What’s this? I can’t take this—it’s Miss Pauline’s book, your mother’s book. What are you givin’ me this for? Here. Take it back.”

  He tried to give back the book, but this time it was Cal who stared at the horizon, and stony-faced, he waved away the attempt. “It was one of the poetry books Mama liked best. Give it to Nora. She likes the same things Mama did. It’s fittin’.”

  Ken frowned and kept holding the book toward the younger man. “I can’t take it. I remember this book—it was always by her chair in the study. You should keep it.”

  Cal shook his head stubbornly. “No. There’s lots of books. But I know that’s one Nora’d like, ’cause Mama did. It’s fittin’. Mama always liked you. She’d want this. I know.”

  He said ‘I know’ with such conviction that Ken clamped his lips together tightly and studied the book’s cover with its gold lettering: Great Poems of the English Language. Nora would love it. He knew that.

  He could say nothing. As a kid and a rodeo tough, Cal had once been irresponsible as hell, yet always generous to a fault. Now he was a man about to marry, irresponsible no more, but generous still. He was as good a friend as a man could ask for.

  Ken heaved a harsh sigh and fingered the book’s cover.

  “Besides,” Cal said, “maybe that’ll make up for some bad news. There’s somethin’ you should know.”

  Ken stared at Cal. “Bad news?”

  Cal gave him a sidelong glance. “Serena and I went dancin’ last night at Zack’s. We ran into Wayne.”

  “Wayne Jackson? The sheriff?”

  Cal nodded and scratched his unshaved cheek. “Yeah. He took me aside. He asked about Gordon.”

  Small bolts of wariness shot through his nervous system. “Gordon Jones?”

  Cal’s eyes met his. “Yeah. Gordon’s workin’ with some guy in Lubbock named Charlie. Charlie Foss. Charlie Foss has some rough friends. Suspicious friends. And Gordon’s been makin’ a lot of runs to Mexico lately. Some good old government boys came round here last week, makin’ discreet inquiries about Gordon. If you get my drift.”

  Ken’s muscles tensed. “What kinda government men? What kinda inquiries?” A litany of sinister initials ran through his head. FBI, DEA, ATF.

  Cal shook his head. “Wayne wouldn’t say. But he looked serious, worried. He knows you’re my friend. He saw you with Nora tonight, same as everybody else did. I think he wanted me to get word to you, warn you. Whether for your sake or Nora’s, I don’t know. Be careful, is what I’m tryin’ to say. I don’t want you to worry, but I thought you should know.”

  “Jesus,” Ken said softly. He shook his head. Hadn’t Gordon given Nora enough trouble? What sort of hellfire was he stirring up now?

  “Maybe it’s nothin’,” Cal said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “I hope it’s nothin’. Are you gonna tell Nora?”

  Ken’s mouth took on a grim slant. “I don’t know.”

  “Grandpa Hank’s been havin’ some of his funny dreams lately,” Cal said, watching Ken from the corner of his eye. “This time they’re about you. Did you know?”

  Ken lifted one shoulder skeptically. Some said that Cal’s great-grandfather, Hank, had psychic powers. He didn’t want to hear about the old man’s dreams. They were often too spooky. Ken felt an unfamiliar emotion rising in him. It was so unfamiliar that it took him a moment to identify it: fear.

  Not for himself, but for Nora. Cal’s words kept echoing in his mind. And so did her name. Nora.

  Nothing was going to hurt her again, he told himself. He wouldn’t allow it. Nobody would hurt her again. Ever. He’d die himself first.

  Maybe, sang the lark. Maybe.

  DOTTIE HEARD the phone ring, glanced at the bedside clock and swore softly. She rose, not bothering with slippers and robe. She didn’t want the phone to wake Rory—or Nora.

  Tired as Dottie was, she remembered how long Nora had sat on the porch with Ken Slattery, and she smiled to herself. Dottie had awakened when she heard Ken’s pickup pull away. She’d glanced at the clock then, too.

  God be praised, Dottie had thought, marveling at how long Ken and Nora had talked, maybe my sweet girl’s come round at last. I’d like her to be happy.

  But the phone kept ringing, and her smile died. She padded swiftly down the hall and into the living room. She snatched up the receiver, irritated. At this time of night, the caller could only have dialed a wrong number.

  “Yes?” There was a long moment of silence.

  Then she was stunned to hear Gordon’s voice. It had an insistent, angry whine. “Ma? Get Nora. I gotta talk to her.”

  Shock rippled up Dottie’s backbone. She glanced at her watch to be sure of the time: it was just past five o’clock. What did Gordon want? Was he calling because he was drunk? He sounded
a little drunk.

  “Gordon,” she whispered furiously, “do you know what time it is?”

  “I gotta talk to Nora.” His tone was self-righteously petulant.

  “She’s asleep. I won’t wake her up. Not at this hour.”

  “Ma—I need to talk to her. It’s important. Look, I’ve been thinkin’—”

  “No. You haven’t been thinking at all. Or you wouldn’t call up at this god-awful—”

  “I want Nora. I want her.”

  Dottie spoke softly so as not to wake Rory or Nora, but despair shook her voice. “What do you want her for? If you want to apologize—”

  “Ma!” Gordon’s voice was suddenly so anguished that it sent a chill creeping over Dottie’s flesh. “I want her back, Ma. I want to come home again. Don’t stand in my way. Help me. Please.”

  Oh, Lord, Dottie thought, closing her eyes and putting her hand to her throat.

  Her skull ached and she leaned her forehead against the wall. This was the sort of call that Dottie dreaded most. I want to come back, Ma. I want to start over. I’ve changed. Let bygones be bygones. You’re my mother. Help me. Take me in. Help me, I’m your son.

  “Gordon, I’ve heard this so often before. So has Nora. Don’t put me through it again. Please.”

  “Mom—” his voice broke slightly “—I need for you to understand me. Nobody ever understands me. It isn’t fair.”

  Dottie felt shaky, but she kept her voice steady and cold. “What is it, Gordon? Are you in trouble? That’s what usually brings on these fits of homesickness. Do you realize you do this almost every three months? As regular as clockwork? What is it this time? The gambling again?”

  Her pulses hammered so forcefully she wondered if they would rupture. Her breastbone hurt, and she found it hard to draw her breath.

  She was saying terrible things to her own son, heartless things. Her words pained her almost beyond bearing, yet what else could she do, could she say?