The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  “Gordon’s your past,” he said. “He’s not your present. Or future. You shouldn’t have to be afraid of him. Neither should Dottie.” He paused for emphasis. “Neither should Rory.”

  Her shoulders stiffened, and she looked away from him, out at the stars reflecting and shifting on the pond. He knew he’d scored a point by bringing up Rory, and he pressed on relentlessly.

  “Are you all goin’ to spend the rest of your lives worryin’ about what Gordon might do? Maybe he’s too much of a coward to do anything—if there’s a man to stand up for you. Did you ever think of that?”

  She raised her chin higher. “Gordon’s—unpredictable.”

  “Do you think—for a minute—I’d let anybody hurt you? Or yours? Do you?”

  She turned again and looked at him for a long moment. Tears rose again, glittering in her eyes. “No,” she said at last. “I don’t suppose you would, would you?”

  “No,” he said simply, holding her gaze. “I’d die first.”

  She looked away. “Don’t say that,” she said, furiously scrubbing her tears away. “Don’t talk about dying. It makes me feel like a goose walked over my grave.”

  “I mean it. I wouldn’t let him come near you. I wouldn’t let him come near Rory. I don’t understand why you do. Is it because you’re scared?”

  Nora pushed her bangs back from her eyes. She stared pensively out at the night. “I—I—he wanted to fight over custody. He was just making trouble. I talked to Martin Avery, to the lawyer. He said, let Gordon have custody every other weekend. He said Gordon would hardly ever use it—he was right.”

  She took a deep breath, hoping to steady her voice. “This weekend was a fluke. He said he wanted to take Rory fishing. We found out he just wanted to butter Dottie up. For money. But I’d wanted to believe that Gordon could act like a father for once in his life. For Rory’s sake. And Dottie’s. The way Gordon is—it’s hard on Dottie. Gordon’s been—strange lately.”

  She paused. “I worry about Dottie. She’s been through so much. I know that Gordon’s got her all nervous and upset. And it’s on my account.”

  He took her chin gently in his hand and made her face him again. “Do you think she wants you to spend your whole life scared of what he’ll do? Do you?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  He bent nearer to her. “Nora, could you love me back? A little? Even a little’d be enough.”

  “Oh, stop,” she said, “you’ll make me cry again. I already feel like a—a sponge.”

  “I wouldn’t mind you bein’ a sponge—if you’d be my sponge.”

  He put his arm around her. With a sigh she sank back against his chest, her cheek pressed against his heart. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Whatever you want, I reckon. Except lose me. I ain’t—I’m not allowin’ that.”

  She shook her head. She lifted one hand and shyly toyed with his shirt button. The gesture, so simple, so small, made his heart turn over and sent fire coursing through his blood. He wondered if she could hear how hard his heart thudded. He did not trust himself to speak.

  She continued to play with the button, her touch so light it made him catch his breath. “Ken?”

  He nodded.

  “I told you I didn’t want a cowboy. That I wanted better for Rory and me. Didn’t that bother you?”

  He laid his cheek against her hair. “Yeah,” he said, staring at the starlight on the pond’s surface. “It bothered me.”

  “I didn’t mean it. Not really. It was just something I said to make you go away.”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “No. It didn’t.”

  He allowed himself a tight, wry smile. He owed Cal for that, for telling him not to quit, come hell or high water.

  He drew back slightly and tilted up her chin so that he could look into her eyes. “I’ve got some things to tell you,” he said solemnly. “I know I don’t have much education. I know I’m only a cowboy. But I’m no drifter. I’m a steady man. I’ve been with the McKinneys fifteen years, I’ve been foreman for thirteen, and I’ve saved my money. I saved a good deal of it.”

  Nora squirmed a bit, as if his words made her uncomfortable. “You don’t have to tell me—”

  “Shh,” he said softly, touching her lower lip with his forefinger. “These are things you should know. I got no particular bad habits, though I take a drink now and then, and I like a game of cards. Well, all right, I cuss from time to time. I got a house that’s way too big for me, and I—I—” He stopped, searching for words. “What I’m tryin’ to say is—what I’m tryin’ to ask—”

  She imitated his action and put her finger on his lips. “No,” she cautioned him, her tone full of intensity. “No. Don’t say any more. Please.”

  “Nora, honey, it’s gonna get said, sooner or later. It might as well get said now.”

  She shook her head. “No. Not now.”

  He let out a jagged breath. He let his hands frame her face, lace themselves through her silken hair. “Because it’s too soon? It’s not too soon for me—I know. But if you don’t—”

  “I don’t know what I know,” she said, tracing the line of his upper lip. “I don’t understand what you make me feel. I don’t know so many things. I don’t even know your full name, do you know that? If it’s Kenneth or Kennard or what.”

  “Kendell. Kendell John. Ask me whatever you want, Nora. I’ll answer anything. Though God knows, I’d rather kiss you. I want to kiss you so much it hurts.”

  She shook her head and pressed her finger more firmly against his lips. “Don’t say that, either. It scares me.”

  He bent and kissed her anyway, a long kiss, but a gentle one. He forced himself to be gentle, not hungry. He tried to tell her by his touch that he would never want to frighten her, would never want to hurt her. When he finally broke the kiss, he gathered her into his arms. Once again she laid her cheek against his heart. He stroked her hair. “Listen,” he said. “We’ll take as long as you want. And I got something to ask. Cal gave me the key to the McKinneys’ lake house for next weekend. I’d like you all to come—Rory and Dottie, too. I’m not proposin’ nothin’—anything improper. I’d just like us to be all together. Would you?”

  She went very still in his embrace. He wondered if once more he’d been overbold, pushing her too quickly.

  “Nora?”

  She was silent for a moment. “Rory won’t be here,” she said at last. “He’s going camping with his Cub Scout troop. Dottie’ll be gone, too. She’s shutting down the coffee shop and going to visit her sister in Dallas. She always does in July.”

  Suddenly the thought of having her to himself all weekend swept through him like a flash fire.

  “Oh,” he said, and kept stroking the silk of her hair.

  He imagined having her alone with him in the lake house, imagined her lying in his arms. He thought of the big bed in the master bedroom. He remembered that bed well. It was an antique brass one that Miss Pauline had had shipped up, unassembled, from an antique shop in San Antonio, and Ken had been the only one who could figure out how to put the thing together.

  He imagined Nora lying in that beautiful bed—her naked body next to his—but he clenched his teeth and said nothing. He could not ask her to go there with him alone.

  It was as if she sensed the direction his desire was carrying him and how hard it was for him to keep control of it. “I should get back home,” she said against his chest. “Neither of us got much sleep last night.”

  “I guess we didn’t. You still got your purse full of mossy rocks for Rory?”

  She gave a little laugh and looked up at him mischievously. “I think I dropped it over there. When I started being a sponge. And where’s your hat? Have you lost it again?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a toad-frog hopped off with it. Help me look.”

  He rose, and helped her to her feet. “Oh,” she breathed, “look at the lightning on the horizon. But it’s still just heat lightning. W
on’t it ever rain again? Won’t things ever be fresh and clean and green and growing again?”

  “Yes.” He smiled his solemn smile down at her. “It’ll rain. And things will be fresh and clean and green and growin’ again. I promise you.”

  “You can’t promise a thing like that.”

  “I do.”

  Then, to seal the declaration, he kissed her again. But the false lightning flickered and played on the horizon, as if mocking him, mocking them both.

  CHARLIE FOSS, Gordon’s partner, was a large man who, like Gordon, lifted weights. His body bulged with muscle and his neck was as thick as a bull’s. He wore his hair cut so short his head looked nearly shaved, but he had a sweeping dark walrus mustache. He kept its ends waxed to sharp points.

  The two men sat in the kitchen of Charlie’s apartment. The kitchen, like the rest of the apartment, had a Spartan neatness that was marred only by a large motorcycle leaning against the wall. Charlie had once been in a motorcycle gang, a fact that impressed Gordon.

  It was morning, but Charlie was drinking beer and so was Gordon, even though he had taken two tranquilizers before coming over. The longer he thought about the Mexican run, the more nervous it made him.

  When Charlie went to the bathroom, Gordon dug into his pocket and popped another tranquilizer, washing it down with beer. His hands were starting to shake, and a strange buzz echoed in his head.

  Charlie came out of the bathroom, fastening a gold ring in his right ear. He said the earring was his lucky piece, and he always wore it when he undertook a hazardous enterprise.

  Charlie sat down again across from Gordon. “Now,” he said, eyeing Gordon, “you got it straight? You make your first run tomorrow. Today it’s business as usual. And when the time comes, you actually don’t know what’s on that truck, understand? You get out and say, ‘Load her up, boys.’ Then you leave while they do it. Understand? Them’s Chessman’s orders.”

  Gordon nodded, his mouth dry.

  “You go through the border at a little town just west of Langtry in Val Verde,” Charlie said. The morning light twinkled on his earring, transfixing Gordon. He felt giddy, almost hypnotized.

  “You cross the border as close after midnight as possible,” Charlie said. “Time it right. Chessman owns the guards on that shift. Also, ain’t nobody gonna go pokin’ around them hogs too much, anyhow.” He laughed.

  Gordon managed a weak smile. He wished Charlie would offer him another beer.

  “Same thing once you cross the border,” Charlie said. “You go to the drop point in Monterrey. You ask for Luis. You do the same thing you did stateside. You say, ‘Unload her, boys. Take off whatever you want.’ Then you split, man. Till they’re done. You don’t see nothin’, you don’t know nothin’. Got it?”

  “I got it.” Gordon looked away from Charlie’s earring because it made his head buzz more loudly.

  Charlie raised one heavy eyebrow. “You look kinda green around the gills, boy. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Hell, yes,” Gordon said with false heartiness. “It’s just I got a bellyache. I ate a bad burrito last night.” He paused, wondering how to make his story more plausible. “Besides,” he said, “I had woman trouble over the weekend. Some jerk tryin’ to put the move on my ex-wife.”

  Charlie raised his other eyebrow. “You go round and round about that woman. You like her, you hate her. Don’t you know your own mind?”

  Gordon felt wounded, defensive. “I just don’t like the idea of nobody puttin’ the move on her, is all. This ol’ boy, he’s rich, but he’s no good. He made me damn mad.”

  Charlie shrugged, then rose from the table. He got another beer from the refrigerator, but didn’t offer one to Gordon. He sat down again. He cracked his knuckles.

  “An old boy took it into his head to flirt with Irma once,” Charlie said. “I put him in the hospital. I put more than one man in. You ever shoot anybody?”

  “Hell, yes,” Gordon lied. The thought of shooting someone made him sweatier, but it gave him a strange sense of comfort, too.

  “I shot a man in Baton Rouge,” Charlie said thoughtfully. “He’d done got on my nerves. I waited across from the bar till it closed. Then he come out, and I leveled a shotgun at him—blam—and then just drove on.”

  “You kill him?” Gordon asked, impressed.

  “I don’t rightly know. I just kept on drivin’.”

  Gordon rubbed his forehead. “I don’t think this old guy’s worth shootin’. It ain’t like my woman cares for him or nothin’. That’d be different. I’d shoot him in a minute then.”

  Charlie laughed, a short, sarcastic bark. “Hell, Gordo—you want that woman back? You told me she was intolerable uppity.”

  “Well, I’ll just take the uppityness out of her. I can do that, too.”

  Charlie’s smile seemed sarcastic.

  Damn! thought Gordon. Doesn’t he think I’m man enough? Gordon wondered, with a sudden chill, if Charlie sensed his fear and indecision and was inwardly laughing at him.

  “Gordon,” Charlie said, “you do love to talk big. Ain’t you got work to do? You’re supposed to drive a load of yams to Odessa.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon challenged. “And what do you do today?”

  “I gotta talk to Chessman some more. And I make my run this afternoon. Blaze a trail for you. Are you sure you’re up to this? You look jumpy as a cat.”

  Gordon stood. He knew he couldn’t stay in the apartment any longer. He needed to get out and have a couple more beers to calm himself.

  “I’m up to it as much as you are,” he said to Charlie and forced himself to glower as menacingly as he could. “Make sure you don’t screw up.”

  Charlie only grinned. He raised his beer can in a mock toast to Gordon, then drained it.

  Gordon turned and walked away. When he went down the stairs of Charlie’s apartment, his legs felt like rubber. His eyelid started to twitch, and it wouldn’t stop; it was out of control.

  He drove his car to the nearest 7-Eleven and bought himself a six-pack of beer. When he paid for it, his hands were shaking again.

  If he drank any more beer, he’d have to pop uppers to drive clear to Odessa and back, but it seemed a small price to pay. His own adrenaline was trying to kill him.

  He drove to a deserted spot beside the river and parked. He stared out at the low water of the river, drinking beer and trying to sort his thoughts.

  Damn! he thought. He didn’t want to drive any damn guns into Mexico. But at this point, with Steponovich on his tail, he had no choice.

  Well, he’d get the money, pay off Steponovich, and then he’d by God get out. He’d go back to Crystal Creek. First, he just had to get the guns to Monterrey, then pick up a load of goats in ValVerde and haul the goats to FortWorth.

  That, he figured, would get him back to Lubbock by Friday. He’d pay off Steponovich, rest for a day, and Sunday he’d go to Crystal Creek, safe and free. In the meantime, he’d scare old Bubba Gibson half to death.

  If the old man really were a threat, Gordon realized he would have no compunction about killing him. But he couldn’t imagine Nora, who was so particular, really messing around with Bubba. If Gordon ever found she was fooling around with somebody in earnest—why, he would shoot the bastard—like that.

  He did want Nora back, he’d decided. And if he wanted her back, he’d take her. How had he gotten her the first time? He’d made her pregnant. It was that easy. He’d do it again.

  Maybe she’d protest, at first, but what the hell. Women secretly liked the masterly type; Nora was just too snobby to admit it. Besides, she owed him; she’d put him through a lot of hell. She had it coming.

  BUBBA HAD PLUGGED the phones back in that morning, trying not to think of Gordon. He wasn’t about to live in terror of a fool. Besides, the kid was so unpredictable, he’d probably moved on to some newer grievance, real or imagined.

  Bubba felt cheerier today, because last night he’d been with his sweet young thing, Billie Jo Dumo
nt, and she’d forgiven him. She couldn’t help it. He’d given her a gold and garnet bracelet he’d bought at a discount store in Dallas for just such an emergency. Soon she was purring like a kitten. He, wearied by his terrible weekend, had been too tired to purr.

  When the phone rang for the first time, Bubba jumped. He was in his office, wrestling with his money problems. He told himself the caller wouldn’t be Gordon and stayed bent over his tangled accounts, letting Mary answer the ringing.

  He was unpleasantly surprised when a few moments later she pushed open the door of his study. She never came into the study uninvited. It was one of Bubba’s rules.

  At first, he wondered if she was sick; her face was pale and her eyes seemed enormous and full of pain. She looked at him for a long moment. And somehow, he knew.

  “Bubba,” Mary said in a small voice, “what have you done now? That was Gordon Jones on the phone. He said—he said that you and Nora—is it Nora now? I can’t believe that, Bubba. She wouldn’t—she’s not—”

  Bubba swore. Then he blustered. “Mary, if brains were money, that boy wouldn’t have a red cent. I never touched Nora Jones. I never looked at Nora Jones. I was over at the Longhorn, and he mistook something I said—”

  “Was that the day Brock Munroe brought you home?” Mary asked with a sarcasm that startled him. “Oh, Bubba, why don’t you just take a hammer and break my heart? Why do it the long, slow way?”

  “Mary!” he said, truly shocked. Mary was usually careful to hide any hurt from him; it was one of the things that made her a good wife. “Honey—I’d never hurt you. This is an accident—I’m innocent. Look, honey, if he keeps callin’, I’ll tell the phone company. They’ll—”

  “No,” Mary said sharply. “I won’t air our dirty laundry in public. Don’t you dare tell anyone that this is happening, Bubba. Don’t you dare. I am ashamed.”

  The phone on Bubba’s desk rang again. Both he and Mary looked at it as if it were a snake, coiled and ready to strike.

  After a moment, Bubba snatched up the receiver angrily. “Stop terrorizin’ my wife and stop lyin’ to her,” Bubba shouted, “or I’ll mash you like a turnip at Thanksgiving.”