Heed the Thunder

by Jim Thompson

  Grant mumbled a greeting, a fixed smile on his face. Stepping up to the bar, he ordered a glass of whisky and downed it at a gulp. Thus nerved, somewhat, he looked again at his brother.

  “Well, Sherm,” he said patronizingly.

  “Grant,” said Sherman.

  Sherman was his father’s son in appearance, but harder in a way. Harder because he had grown up in a harder era; softer, burnished, by a more crowded civilization. He looked his brother up and down derisively while the loafers watched with an expectant hush. Then, suddenly, he guffawed.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned!”

  There was a compelling, irritating tone to his voice. It was as if he were always choking something back and forcing something else out. A kind of cream-separator voice, frightening in anger, risible in amusement.

  The loafers guffawed, too, and one of them went so far as to flick a bit of imaginary lint from Grant’s shoulder. But Sherman frowned at that, and the fellow stepped back quickly.

  “I seem,” said Grant, “to arouse your humor, gentlemen.”

  “Yes,” snorted Sherman. “Well, it’s a damned good thing you can do some sort of arousing. You don’t watch out, Ma’ll be using you for a bolster one of these days.”

  He and the loafers burst into another roar of maddening laughter, and Grant ordered a second drink. He would have left the place but he was afraid to. He had an unreasonable and unholy fear of what might be said behind his back.

  “And what brings you to town today?” he inquired, politely.

  “A horse and buggy,” said Sherman. And the crowd laughed.

  “I see,” said Grant. “I see.”

  “Well, now, if you can just get around to where you can flap your arms, you’ll be all right.”

  Laughter.

  “I see,” Grant repeated numbly.

  “Did you see your sister startin’ off for town? Or do men let their women kinfolks parade the streets by themselves in your part of the country?”

  “I was aslee—I didn’t know she was coming down,” said Grant.

  “I bet you didn’t! I’ll just bet you didn’t!” exclaimed Sherman, and he gloated angrily at his brother’s discomfiture.

  Sherman Fargo was badly frightened himself. The week before he had had the unprecedented experience of being turned down for a loan at the bank—him, with a hundred and sixty acres clear except for a little first mortgage! It was just like he had told Bark: He could have paid off the mortgage several years ago, but he’d had to build that new barn and fence in the south forty. And, anyway, he’d supposed they’d rather have the interest. But Bark wouldn’t let him have any more.

  So incredible had the rejection been to Sherman that he had come in today, using the pretext of his sister’s visit, to reopen the subject. But Philo Barkley had been as adamant as ever. Sherman did not need a threshing machine, he declared. He had got along for years without one. He would have to continue to do so. And nothing Sherman could say would change his mind.

  It made no difference to Sherman that he could, with some inconvenience, get along without the thresher. He had been turned down for a loan. Barkley was telling him how to run his business.

  It would not have occurred to him to have appealed to Barkley on the grounds of their relationship. For one thing, like Grant, he could not look upon the husband of his mother’s unfamiliar sister as his uncle. Mainly, however, it wasn’t the thing to do, and it wouldn’t have done any good. A grown man stood on his own two legs. If he were sick or helpless, he might go and live with a relative indefinitely. But to ask for hard cash was another matter.

  Smarting from his defeat, Sherman plagued his brother much more than he would have ordinarily. And, even ordinarily, his goading was maddening to Grant.

  Grant had intended to take three drinks. Whisky was ten cents a glass, and he had meant to buy three for himself, and three—as courtesy demanded of a real gentleman—for the bartender. Instead, he spent the whole of the sixty cents on himself, and accepted a drink contemptuously offered by his brother.

  By the time Sherman left and he perforce could also leave, he was raging. He was drunk except that his drunkenness did not show. The livery-stable keeper looked at his flushed face, started to say something, then changed his mind. Silently he hitched a mare to the rubber-tired buggy with the fringed canopy and watched the young man drive off. Even ol’ Dude Grant looked ready to fight at the drop of a hat today.

  And Grant…an angry torrent roared through his body, crashing against the walls of his helplessness. He lashed out at the mare, noting with enjoyment the pained flicker of her flanks. Savagely, he struck her again, jerking the bit against her tender mouth when she lunged forward in obedience. He’d show her what was what, who was boss! Just let her try any of her tricks on him!

  He’d show them all. Yes, Bella, too. She’d put him off long enough. He knew what she needed, and, by Gad, he was the lad to give it to her. He’d have her following him around like a whipped puppy. Like that woman in Galveston.

  Bella.…

  There were drops of moisture on his little brown mustache. His sharp white teeth pressed against his pendulant lower lip. He looked quickly up and down the street, over his shoulder. Then, eyes glistening, he leaned forward and jabbed violently with the blunt end of the whip.

  Bella.…

  4

  Philo Barkley had come to Verdon with five hundred dollars. There was no bank in the town, so he opened one. He bought a metal strong box and had it set in a block of concrete. He made a counter of “borrowed” planks and painted a sign on the window of his rented building. That, with pen, ink, and a nickel tablet, had been his equipment.

  On the first day (according to Barkley), he took in thirty-five dollars in deposits. On the second he received a little less than a hundred. And on the third, a settler from New York State had come in and deposited twenty-two hundred dollars in gold with him.

  Following this bonanza, Philo took his own money from his hip and deposited it in the strong box, having reached the conclusion that the bank was a going concern.

  That was his story, and it was probably not greatly exaggerated.

  He was a stout, squarely built man, far from dull, but exceedingly deliberate. He wore a sturdy blue serge suit, black high-topped shoes, and a serviceable blue work shirt with a black tie. He kept himself behind a wall of coldness, and he was lonesome. Five years before, his wife had died, leaving him without the one companion he really trusted. He had tried to talk to Bella, but she was afraid of him and uninterested in serious matters. Alf Courtland was a good boy—he thought of him as a “boy”—but he was English and the English were funny. Of course, he was in the family, and he worked hard and was honest. But, still—well, perhaps in another year or two.…

  He called to him, now that Edie Dillon had gone, and observed with reserved approval that Courtland pushed his sweepings off the curb before he answered the summons.

  “Close the door, Alf,” he said, as the Englishman came in, “and draw the shades. I don’t think there’s any use staying open any longer.”

  “All right, Bark,” said the cashier-teller-janitor.

  He completed the locking-up and sat down on the corner of Barkley’s desk, casually slipping off the black-satin half-sleeves from his shirt.

  “Kind of a quiet day,” he remarked, in his crisp nasal voice.

  “Well”—Barkley pursed his lips—“not too quiet, Alf. Did you hear how I made out with Edie?”

  Alfred Courtland nodded, trying to keep from frowning. “That’s a pretty sorry school, isn’t it? It’s miles from nowhere, and I hear they’ve got a rather tough gang of big boys.”

  “It’s the only thing I could get for her this late,” Barkley explained. “I don’t have any connection in any of the other schools that are open.”

  “I wasn’t criticizing,” said Courtland. “It was just that—”

  “Edie’ll be all right,” said Barkley. “She’s a Fargo. A real one.”
>
  “What does that district pay?”

  “Twenty-five a month and found. Of course, those Rooshans and Polacks ain’t like boarding with white people. But she can stand it for a year. Maybe we can do better by her next time.”

  He struck a match to his cob pipe and held it while Alfred hastily packed his Meerschaum. He did not approve of the little silver-rimmed Meerschaum. It looked foreign. Still, Alfred had always had it, as far back as he could remember, and he couldn’t be expected to throw it away.

  Courtland exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Will Edie discount her warrants with us?”

  “Will she—will she discount her warrants with us? Why, naturally! Why else would I…” Barkley left the sentence unfinished.

  “Ten per cent?”

  “N-no,” the banker hesitated. “Twenty. School warrants are pretty shaky in that district, Alf. You know they are, yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Edie had to have the school. It was the only one she could get, and she had to get it through me. I thought twenty was pretty light considering the circumstances.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Alfred Courtland.

  He wished he had not felt impelled to discuss the matter. He knew he was not concealing his distaste, and he knew that the banker was extremely sensitive to criticism. But he could not help it. He had been a remittance man until, on a sudden surge of ambition, he had come to Verdon. He knew what real rottenness was. And, yet, he could never understand the attitude of these people toward each other. You might steal from a relative—he had done that—but to bilk one to his face and consider it good business was beyond his ken.

  “Yes, sir,” said Courtland, trying to make his voice warm, “I guess you’re right, Bark. Edie shouldn’t kick on twenty, and you’ve got the bank to think of. The bank comes first.”

  “That’s the way I look at it,” said Barkley.

  “And you’re dead right, too. By the way, have you thought any more about that other matter?”

  “What other matter?”

  “Well…you know…that Omaha deal.”

  Barkley drummed on his desk. He shook his head.

  “I guess we’ll drop that. For this year, anyhow. It looks like a pretty tight winter, and we may need all the hard cash we can lay hands on. I don’t see anything that looks good to me, anyway. Cattle’s off. Hogs are off. Corn’s off…”

  “You mentioned selling short.”

  “Yes, I guess I did,” drawled the banker. “But if everyone’s going short, where are you?…No, I can’t see it, Alf. Maybe next year we can swing it.”

  Courtland nodded, quietly, knowing the futility of argument. The conversation referred to a secret project which he and Barkley had discussed for several months past. The banker had been contemplating an expedition into the stock market with Courtland acting as his agent. He liked to keep a tight personal rein on the bank’s affairs and so could not leave town; and, anyway, he was afraid that his absence might arouse unwelcome conjecture. But Courtland could safely go to Omaha, and he had been thinking seriously of sending him. He could not say, now, just why he had changed his mind. He had been playing the market shrewdly—on paper—for several years and had accumulated a neat profit.

  “Maybe next year,” he said again.

  “Just as you say,” his clerk nodded. “We don’t want to take any chances.”

  He completed the short business pertinent to the closing hour, told Barkley good-night, and departed. He was a badly disappointed man. The money which Barkley had mentioned paying for his services was only a pittance, much less than he had often blown in a single night. But, at that, it was more than he made in three months; and he had counted on the trip. He had been wanting to see a doctor, but, more than that, he had simply wanted to get away for a while. The town, combined with his meager standard of living, was beginning to cramp him like a clothespress.

  He stood in front of the bank for a moment, trying to dull the edge of his disappointment. After all, he smiled sadly, what had he lost? A trip of little more than a hundred miles, a few days in a hotel, a chance to see a decent show, a couple of hundred dollars.…

  A couple of hundred dollars…a couple of hundred dollars.…

  He laughed a sudden short ugly laugh, then immediately composed himself. Two hundred dollars, indeed!…The smile returned to his placid well-bred face. Barkley would come around. He’d be ready to deal next year, or, if not, the year after that. He never gave up an idea once he got it into his thick, square head. And he, Courtland, could wait. He could wait five years if necessary. It would be worth it.

  Sherman Fargo was just hoisting himself into the buggy at the side of Mrs. Dillon, and Courtland paused on the curb in front of them. Although he had only known his sister-in-law since her return that summer, he already liked her better than any of the other Fargoes. She had character and strength, and he was a great admirer of those qualities. At the same time, she tried to maintain those many little niceties of etiquette which to him made life worth living.

  “How do you do, Edie?” he said, extending his smile to include Sherman. “You’re looking very well.”

  “Thank you, Alf. You’re holding up very well yourself,” Mrs. Dillon returned.

  It made no difference that they had seen each other less than thirty minutes before. The opportunities for intercourse were so rare that one took advantage of them when he could.

  “I understand you’re teaching school this winter.”

  “Yes. Yes, I am, thank you.”

  “Will you be keeping Bobbie with you?”

  “I’m afraid—I don’t think the district would allow me to do that. Not without paying his board, of course, and…”

  “That’s too bad,” said Courtland warmly. “He’s such a charming little chap, too.”

  Sherman laughed shortly, and the bank clerk looked at him in surprise. He did not believe, just as he was sure that Edie Dillon did not, that Bobbie was a charming little chap. But it did no harm to say so, and it certainly made things more pleasant.

  Mrs. Dillon turned to her brother. “He is a good boy, Sherm. I know he makes Ma awfully nervous, but after all he’s just a baby.”

  “Well,” said Sherman, spitting over the wheel. Kids to him were neither good nor bad. They were just kids. You fed them and clothed them and sent them to school, and you saw that they had plenty of chores to keep them out of mischief. If they got out of line, you tanned their hides with a bit of harness. They had no identity until they were big enough to demand it. At which time (thought Sherm), they left home and forgot all you’d done for ’em.

  Sherman was never sure just what his feelings were toward Alfred Courtland. He was a banker, which was one black mark against him. He was a foreigner, which was another. On the other hand, he was not just another out-of-town dude like his brother, Grant. He worked hard; and his mannerisms, foreign as they might be, were natural to him. There was nothing put on about him. Sherman had his ways, and he supposed other people had to have theirs. He wasn’t going to ask anyone to change their ways on his account.

  He figured, maybe, that Courtland was all right, but he could get along without him if he had to.

  He stirred, uncomfortably, on the spring seat and flexed the lines.

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to be going, Alf,” Mrs. Dillon said, quickly. “Will you send Bobbie home? He’s been over at your house all day.”

  “Now there’s no necessity for that,” said Courtland. “He can stay for din—supper, too. Stay all night, for that matter.”

  “Well…” Mrs. Dillon hesitated.

  “Why don’t you come along? Myrtle was just talking today about how she wished you’d come over.”

  “Oh…I don’t think I should, Alf,” said Mrs. Dillon. She wanted to go; she dreaded going back to the unfriendly house of her mother. She was by no means sure, however, that her sister would like her coming in unexpected.

  “I think you’d better come,” Courtland insisted
. “I’d like to talk to you about those school warrants.”

  “Oh,” said Edie. “Well, maybe I had better, then. Sherm, will you phone Ma from your place and tell her where I am?”

  “All right. Yes, hell,” said Sherman impatiently. And he began cutting the wheels of the buggy almost before his sister was off the step. He did not offer to drive the two to Courtland’s house. It was only a short distance, and it lay in a direction opposite from the one he was going. Nonetheless, before leaving town, he drove once around the square to see if he could give a lift to any acquaintance of his neighborhood who might be on foot.

  He saw no one, either around the courthouse or in the four business blocks which offset it. So, turning the bay down the dirt street which led out of town to the north, he headed homeward. He drove holding the reins in one hand, one foot propped against the dash. Now and then he dusted a fly from the horse’s rump with a flick of the lines. The bay was so sleek and clean that his hide almost glowed, for Sherman was a good hand with animals. He had never forgot the time, back in Ohio, when he had chased the family cow into a barbwire fence, ripping her udder. He was just beginning to walk, and by the time the old man had got through with him he hadn’t been able to do that.

  Well, it had taught him a lesson. A lot of these kids nowadays would be better off if they had their backsides blistered more often.

  The road down which he drove was lined with houses which bore somewhat the same resemblance to each other as children with the same mother but different sires. There were New England houses, rich with gables and shutters; middle-Eastern houses with shingled turrets; porticoed Southern houses. There were even one or two houses which showed chinked-in logs in their façades, which were, purely, except for their ambiguous additions, Western.

  They were all different, and all alike. Whatever the home state or homeland that had inspired them, necessity and conservatism had forced them into a definite if elastic pattern. Roofs were strong, anchored and angled to defeat the wind. Paint had been applied generously and generously maintained; and colors ran mostly to blue and yellow and brown. Porches were either closed in or adaptable to closing. Foundations were thick and deep, and frequently extended a few fractions of an inch outward from the house proper. Like a burial mound, at the rear of each residence was the grassy, cemented, or bricked hump of a cyclone hole. Nothing was flamboyant. To build markedly better than your neighbor was bad taste; it would create talk, arouse envy, and mark you with the mortal sin of extravagance. To build shoddily was as bad. In these close-knit communities, little of the inside and none of the outside of a man’s home was his castle. Erring in judgment, one might remodel or rebuild, but to do so was to repent before a public that would never forget.