Black Thunder

by Max Brand

  After this, there was a pause that alarmed Traynor. He began to look anxiously from one to the other. And when he saw her beauty and the magnificence of the doctor, he could not help feeling that in some way they had been made, destined, for one another.

  Then she said: “I’m sorry, Parker.”

  “You mean that,” he answered very slowly. “And I’m such a poor beggar now that I’m grateful for even pity. Or is your blood still running cold when you look at me?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Only . . . it’s the horrible waste, Parker. It’s the frightful throwing away of all your chances . . . it’s the ending of your life that makes me want to cry.”

  “Maudlin sentimentality,” he answered, half sneering. “I’m ashamed of you, Rose. That’s the weak streak appearing. I’ll find my way to a new place in the world soon. Our friend Traynor thinks that he’ll be able to find me on the out trail and stop me. For his own sake, I hope that he doesn’t reach me . . . ever.” And once more there was murder in the glance he gave Traynor.

  A hunger suddenly came up in the heart of Larry Traynor, a burning desire for the future day when he would be able to confront the doctor clad in his full strength, without that deadly betrayal, that horrible fluttering of his heart and nerves.

  “I’ll go now,” said the doctor.

  “You can’t go,” said the girl. “You can’t leave me alone with Larry. And I can’t leave him here in danger.”

  “Danger?” echoed the doctor.

  “Of course. The Whartons may swoop on the place at any time. And they. . .”

  “The Whartons are in prison!” exclaimed the doctor.

  “They were in prison. Haven’t you heard . . . but of course not. They broke jail. They . . . and a dozen other men. They started away through the mountains. They’ve been sighted here and there, close to this place.”

  “Ah,” said the doctor, “and that’s why your father moved off the ranch with the cattle?”

  “That’s right. The instant he knew that the Whartons were free, he was sure that they’d come straight for the ranch. He knew that they’d run off the cattle and burn the buildings. So he started for town.”

  “Why couldn’t he have brought out a posse from town?”

  “Hire thirty men for heaven knows how long? At five dollars a day and keep? Dad would rather die than throw away money like that.”

  “Rose,” said Traynor, “do you mean that the Whartons at any moment may come down on the place?”

  “It’s true. They were sighted two days ago in Tomlinson’s Gulch.”

  “Then what made you come out here . . . at night . . . into danger?”

  “I’m ashamed to tell you,” said the girl, blushing. “Well, I don’t care . . . I’ll show you.”

  She ran from the room. Her footfall went lightly down the hall, and Traynor smiled, listening after it, until his absent-minded glance crossed the burning eyes of the doctor.

  “Some way . . .” said the doctor. He did not need to complete that tight-lipped sentence. Some way he would manage to cross and blast the happiness that she was dawning again for Larry Traynor. The cold white devil in his face glared steadily out at Traynor.

  The girl came back. In her hand she held up a rose-colored frock, covered with airy flounces, the square-cut neck bordered with a film of lace.

  “My first party dress,” she said. “I looked through the luggage that my father brought in. When I couldn’t find it, I made up my mind that I’d take this trip. I couldn’t risk the lives of men by asking them to come along. So I told father that I was going to spend the night with Martha Carey . . . and then I came out here. I could be back long before the morning.”

  No matter what enmity was between them, the two men looked at one another and smiled. She, lowering the dress, suddenly cried out in a stifled voice of fear. Traynor followed the glance, and at the window, pressed so close to the pane that the nose and chin were whitened, he saw a man’s face, rounded out like an owl’s with an uncropped growth of beard, a man with eyes narrowed in malice. And the upper lip curled back from the teeth as though the man were a carnivorous creature, a hunting beast of the night. The face receded, sank out of sight like a stone wavering down into the dark depths of a pool.

  “It’s Jim Wharton!” gasped the girl. She slid down on her knees. “Oh, God, it’s Jim . . . and all the rest will be with him!”

  VII

  The doctor got to the window with a leap, catching up the rifle on the way. He pulled up the sash and thrust the rifle out. A bullet smashed through the glass. Thudded into the opposite wall. The doctor stepped back into the corner, while loosed bits of the glass were falling with a tinkle to the floor.

  Traynor, half dressed under the blankets, threw back the covers and began to pull on the rest of his clothes. He had shaped some heavy felt moccasins that he stepped into now.

  “We’ve got to get Larry out!” the girl was crying. “He can’t take care of himself now. Parker, we’ve got to get Larry out!”

  “Do we?” said the doctor calmly. “We’ll be in luck if we get anyone out.”

  He walked from the room and down the hall. Traynor followed. He was weak in the knees, and his head was light, but the gashes in his legs were fairly healed. He would have strength for short efforts, he felt sure.

  They stood in the kitchen. The lamp had burned low and crookedly. It was smoking fast, and the sickening sweet smell of the soot hung in the air.

  The doctor took control. “I’m going to try the back door, quietly,” he said. “It may be that they haven’t scattered all around the house yet. If I get out, the rest of you sneak after me. Keep on the left. We’ll try to get to the shrubs.”

  Traynor had neared the door. It was perfectly apparent to him that the doctor was willing to take the risks. But there was a good reason why he should not.

  Through the screen on the door, Traynor could see the pale glimmer of thin moonlight, pouring a haze of brilliance over the ground. He could see the gleam of strands of new wire along the corral fence. The barns were bleak and half white, half black shadow. The scene had the very look of death.

  The doctor was still speaking when Traynor pushed the door soundlessly open and stepped out onto the porch. He had not taken two steps when he heard the stifled exclamation of the girl, behind him, and the doctor muttering: “Come back, you fool.”

  Then, out of the cloudy dark of a bank of shrubs behind the house, a thin tongue of flame darted. The crack of the rifle struck painfully against his ears. A sting greater than that of a giant hornet gashed his neck. He jerked the door shut as a second bullet hissed beside his ear as he side-stepped.

  “They’re behind the house . . . they’re all around the house, it seems,” said Traynor.

  The girl parted her lips to speak, but no words came. She stood in white suspense while the doctor grabbed Traynor by the shoulders.

  “You jackass,” snarled the doctor. “This thing . . . thank God, is only a scratch.” He pulled out a handkerchief and bound up Traynor’s neck.

  “Why did you do it, Larry?” begged the girl. “Why, why did you go out there, half helpless?”

  “It’s glory that the fool wants. Glory,” sneered the doctor.

  “Mind you,” said Traynor, “I’ll be no good to the rest of you. They’re going to get me before the show’s over, and they might as well get me now. You’re the fool, Parker. You’re the able-bodied man. It’s up to you to get Rose away. You can’t show yourself here and there to draw fire.”

  Channing, finishing the bandaging, stepped suddenly back at the end of this speech. The girl, with moisture welling into her eyes, stared mutely at Traynor.

  “You see what he is,” sneered the doctor. “A hero, eh? A dead hero before long, I suppose. We’re all dead, Rose. And this is no time for damned heroics. Listen.”

  Outside, a man shouted. He was answered far and near, from all around the house, by what seemed a score of voices.

  “We
’re walled in,” said the doctor.

  Traynor sat down and leaned his elbows on the edge of the table. He looked at the floor, forcing his eyes down because he did not want to let the image of Rose fill them. He tried to bend his mind away from the thought of her. As for what happened to him and the doctor, it was no tragedy. Men who live with guns in their hands have to fall by guns in the end, often enough. They were simply playing out their logical parts. But the girl. . .

  She stood beside him, now, resting a hand on his shoulder. The doctor paced the floor like a great cat. No one spoke. The nearness of the danger blinded their eyes and stopped thought.

  Then a voice called: “Hello, you inside there!”

  The doctor placed himself close to the door. “Hello, outside!” he answered.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Doctor Parker Channing.”

  “You’re Doctor Murderer Channing, are you?” Sneering, drawling laughter commented on his name and presence. “Channing, you’d be better outside than inside. We could use a doctor like you. Open that door and walk out to our side of the fence and you’ll be as safe as any of us.”

  Channing looked down at his hands and dusted them.

  “Go on, Parker,” urged the girl. “It’s the best thing for you. You’ll be safer with them than anywhere else. With them you may have a chance to get away.”

  “What do you suggest, Larry?” asked the hard voice of the doctor.

  “You’re a fool if you don’t go out to them,” said Traynor, peering into the pale face of Channing. “But I think you’re going to be a fool.”

  “Do you?” asked the doctor with a slight start. “Thanks.”

  “Answer up, Doc!” shouted the man outside.

  “Who are you?” called Channing.

  “Jim Wharton.”

  “Wharton, I’m staying in the house with my friends.”

  A yell of amazement answered him. “Are you crazy, Channing? Are you gonna go home with your friends and let the sheriff hang you?”

  “I’m staying here. That’s final.”

  “Of all the damn’ fools!” cried Wharton. And then, a moment later, he added: “There’s another offer I’ll make to you. Who’s the second man in there . . . the one that was flat in bed?”

  “He’s Larry Traynor.”

  “Traynor? I got nothing against him. Now, listen . . . I’ve got men all around the house.

  “I know that.”

  “Then you know that we can do what we please.”

  “I know that, too. But it might cost you something.”

  “Damn the cost. Or else, I can burn you out. And that’s what I’ll do if I have to!”

  The doctor said nothing, but his head bowed a little and he took a great breath.

  “But there’s an easy way out of all of this,” went on Jim Wharton. “It ain’t everybody in the world that I’m against. It’s the skunk that put me in jail. It’s John Laymon that I’m going to get even with. Send out the girl to me. She’s in there . . . I seen her myself.”

  “What sort of hound do you think I am?” asked the doctor.

  “I think you got brains. I hope you have, anyway. We won’t touch her. But we’ll hold her till her old man pays for her, and pays heavy. Damn him, he’s got enough money to pay. And I’m going to have a slice of it . . . a slice right into the red of it.”

  The doctor turned his head from the door toward Traynor and the girl. His eyes glazed. Traynor, starting to speak, found the hand of the girl over his mouth. The doctor seemed to see nothing.

  “Answer up!” yelled Jim Wharton. “If you think that I’m going to wait an hour, you’re loco. I get the girl, or else I burn out the three of you like rats!”

  Suddenly the girl cried out sharply: “I’ll come to you, Jim!”

  “Good girl!” yelled Wharton. “You’ll be safe with us, Rose!”

  She had started up. The grip of Traynor fell on her wrist and checked her. “Let me go, Larry,” she panted. “There’s no other way for the two of you. . .”

  “They won’t harm her,” said the doctor. “They won’t hurt her. She’ll be safe, Larry, and . . . and. . .” His voice faded.

  “What he says is true!” cried Rose Laymon. “Larry, don’t you see that?”

  “Be still,” said Traynor sternly. He jerked her down into a chair at his side. Then, his grim eyes never leaving the face of the doctor, he said: “You’d trust her with a gang of dogs like those fellows outside?”

  “She’d be all right,” insisted the doctor. “She’d be . . . I mean . . . fire, Larry! My God, if they set fire to this old wooden shack . . . the flames would . . . God! . . . they’d cook us.”

  “Are you coming, Rose?” shouted Jim Wharton.

  “Be still,” said Traynor.

  “You damned fool!” shrieked the doctor, his voice shaking to pieces on the high note. “Do you want her to be burned to death?”

  “Better that than the other thing,” said Traynor. “Channing, what a skunk you are, after all.”

  “Rose!” called Wharton. “Where are you?”

  And her eyes were bright and her voice was strong as she answered: “I’m not coming, Jim. I’m staying here!”

  “Rose, if you stay there . . . woman or no woman, I’ll fire the house. Do you hear?”

  “I hear . . . and I’m staying!”

  “It’s crazy.” The doctor gasped. “It’s . . . fire, Rose! They’ll burn the house upon our heads. They’ll. . .”

  “Go out and argue with them,” said Traynor sternly. “Maybe you can make them change their minds.”

  Parker Channing, leaning against the wall, struck a fist into his own face, and groaned. Then he muttered: “I’ll talk to ’em face to face. I’m not afraid.”

  “I’ve given you your last chance!” yelled Jim Wharton. “Of all the damned. . .”

  “Wait a minute!” screamed the doctor. “I’m coming out . . . I’m coming out to talk to you! I’m going to. . .” He opened the door. “Can I come safely?” he shouted again.

  “Come ahead.”

  And Dr. Parker Channing slunk out of the house, without a word to those who remained behind. The outer door slammed, rebounded with a jangle, slammed again. And they knew that he would not come back.

  “He’s gone,” whispered Rose Laymon. “Oh, Larry, for him to go . . . murder was nothing, compared to this.”

  A queer pain wrung the soul of Larry Traynor. “He’s a brave man, though. I’ve seen him laugh at the idea of dying. Yes, with a gun leveled at him. But the fire, Rose . . . that’s the thought that killed the heart in him. Never blame him again. The life that’s in me, it’s Parker that gave it back to me. He wouldn’t be here now, except that he stayed to take care of me. . .”

  And a voice rolled in on them, faint from distance: “Throw the bush up there ag’in’ the side of the house. Light that straw and throw it on, too!”

  VIII

  They could tell the course of the fire by the rising yells of the Wharton gang, then by the noise of the flames, and finally a tremor that went through the whole building. Beyond the window, they saw the smoke driving low in the wind toward the barns, which were wrapped in clouds, with the yellow light of the fire playing on it, until the barns in turn seemed to be on fire.

  The two sat still for a long time. The wind carried gusts of heat to them over the floor. They could hear the far end of the building falling, as half-burned rafters crashed, and let down the roofs above them, and with every fall there was a louder roar of the fire.

  Rose pressed closer and closer to Traynor. He, with his arm around her, looked steadfastly above her head. There was fear in him, but there was also a dim delight unlike anything he had ever known, a full and quiet ecstasy.

  “Back there,” she said, “if I could throw the months away . . . then I’d be happy, Larry.”

  “What months?” he asked.

  “Those after I left you, and when I was knowing Parker.”

  “He is wo
rth knowing.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “He is the greatest man I ever met,” said Traynor solemnly.

  “Larry, have you forgiven him out of the bottom of your heart?”

  “I forgive him.”

  “Then I do, also.”

  “When the fire comes over the room, Rose, shall we make a break for the open?”

  “No. Let’s go with the house.”

  “There’s the rifle with plenty of bullets in it.”

  She looked sharply up at him. “Well . . . that way, then,” she murmured. Suddenly she cried out: “But I can save you, Larry! There’s still time for me to save you, if I go out and call to them. They’ll take me, and they won’t harm me. . .”

  “Hush,” said Traynor. She was still. He added: “I saw Jim Wharton’s face at the window. Do you think I’d let you go out to him? It’s better this way.”

  “It is better,” she answered.

  A strange light began to enter the room. The low-flowing smoke, wind-driven, covered the ground, and the fire reflected from the top of it through the window, brighter than the light of the lamp. This tremulous and rosy glow made the girl as beautiful as an angel to the eye of her lover.

  As he looked at her, he said: “Poor Channing. Poor devil. He’s out there thinking of this, Rose. He’s eating his heart out. He’s half wishing to be back in here with us.”

  “I don’t want to think of him,” she said.

  “He killed poor old Sam. I ought to hate him. If we both lived, I suppose I’d try to go on the trail after him. But this way, I understand him. I’m glad to think of him. If it’s God that makes us, He put too much mind and not enough heart in Channing. That’s all there is to it. God help him, and God forgive him.”

  A voice shouted huskily, as if in fear: “Hey, all of you! Watch through that smoke! Watch through that smoke! They might sneak out that way, through the smoke!”

  “And we might!” cried the girl. “Look, Larry!”

  There was a great crash that shook the entire house—what was left of it. The walls of the kitchen leaned crookedly. Plaster fell in great chunks from the ceiling and seemed to drop noiselessly, so huge was the uproar of the fire, and the heat was intense. The flame could not be more than a room away. The door of the dining room rattled back and forth as though a hand were shaking the knob.