Heed the Thunder (16 page)

“I just don’t know what to do, Bella,” he repeated.

“Well,” said the girl, “you’d better start thinking, then.”

The ensuing weeks were the most hideous in Grant Fargo’s career.

Out of his desperate necessity, he sired one invention after another, and all came into the world still-born.

He started off by demanding an increase in pay to ten dollars a week, prodding the recalcitrant owner of the
Eye
by laying off a day. His demand chanced to coincide with the coming of a tramp printer into the town, and it was two weeks before the latter drank himself out of the job. During those two weeks Grant earned nothing, and he returned to work at his former salary.

By virtually doing without the necessities of life—or so he phrased it—he managed to save thirty dollars. And he lost that in attempting what is doubtless one of man’s most ridiculous goals: the filling of an inside straight. He also received an unpleasant mauling for having checked a cinch on the previous hand.

He did not dare tell Bella of this misadventure, of course. She was difficult enough as it was.

At her insistence (although he assured her it would do no good), he wrote a number of friends of bygone days asking for loans. Much to his amazement, he actually received an aggregate of twenty dollars, but when he took it to her, delighted, she became harder than ever to deal with.…So he could get money if he really wanted to! Very well, he could just write and get some more. Never mind his saying that it was no use. That was what he had said in the first place.

He wrote again, and received nothing. And she refused to believe him.

He offered to chore for Sherman at fifty cents an evening, and Sherman gleefully accepted him. The net results of his labors were fifteen cents (he lasted something less than an hour), one ruined suit (Ted had shoved him into the slop trough), and a lame back (Gus had thrown corn on him and sooied for the pigs).

He was really a pitiful figure. From Bella, whom he was trying to help, he got no sympathy whatsoever.

He sent a precious five-dollar bill to an advertiser in a weekly tabloid, and when the unlabeled package came and he presented it to her, she scornfully told him to drink it himself.

In the end, she began to adopt the attitude with him that there was nothing for it but to tell his father.

“But—but you couldn’t do that, Bella!”

“I wouldn’t want to, Grant.”

“I know you’re angry with me, but what good would that do?”

“Oh, I imagine he’d give us the money to go away on.”

“Yes, but you’re my cousin, and—and—he’s warned me—and he and Sherman—you don’t know what they’re like, Bella!”

“Yes”—reflectively—“I think I have a pretty good idea of what they’re like.”

“Please don’t tell them, Bella!”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to, Grant.”

“I’ll get the money somehow. Just don’t tell them!”

“I don’t want to, Grant. But you’re going to have to get busy. There’s not much time left.”

D
oc Jones made a final adjustment to the bandage on Bob Dillon’s head, dabbed it again with arnica, and began closing his medicine case. He winked at the boy, companionably, and Bob closed his eyes listlessly.

“Will he be all right, Doc?” asked Mrs. Dillon, plucking at her soiled gray apron.

“Oh, sure. Just jolted up a little. That crack in his head will let some of the meanness out of him. Sure, he’ll be all right.”

Mrs. Dillon sighed. “Well, that’s a blessing. Lord knows I’ve got trouble enough without something happening to him. What do I owe you, Doc?”

“Oh, I guess a dollar will be about right, Edie. How did you say it happened, anyway?”

“Well, he was out to Sherman’s house,” Edie explained, digging a silver dollar from her pocket, “and you know Sherman has those two boys, Ted and Gus—”

“Indeed I do know.”

“It seems that they had some sort of contraption that they thought would fly, and they ran it out of the loft of the barn. Bobbie was inside steering the blamed thing, and they were pushing it, and they hopped on the end of it—the tail I guess you call it—as it shot out of the door. It turned a complete flip-flop and smashed to smithereens; and I don’t know why it didn’t kill them all. It almost did kill Josephine.”

“How was that?” the doctor inquired, interestedly.

“She’d gone out to look for Ted and Gus. She had some work for ’em to do, I guess, and she was trying to slip up on them. She was just about to the barn door when this flying-machine came shooting out of the loft, and it almost fell right on top of her.”

The doctor chuckled. “Ted and Gus weren’t hurt, eh? I’ll bet Josephine gave them a hiding!”

“They ran off before she got the chance. I guess she will, though, when they show up again.”

Doc Jones dropped his fee into his coin purse and donned his hat. Mrs. Dillon cast an anxious glance at her son.

“Will it be all right to leave him alone, Doc? I’ve got so much work to do.…”

“Sure, it’ll be all right. Just let him rest. If he wants anything, he can holler for it.”

He walked down the straw-matted corridor with her and descended to the lobby. He paused there for a moment, glancing around at the scuffed leather chairs, the great brass cuspidors, the splintered floor.

“You’ve cleaned the place up a lot, Edie,” he said approvingly.

“It needed it,” Edie Dillon avowed. “You never saw such a mess, Doc. And the bedbugs—my!”

“Have you got rid of ’em yet?”

“Not entirely. I’ve tried everything I can think of, too. Coal oil and red pepper and sulphur candles.”

“They’re a sight to get rid of,” the doctor agreed, “and this warm weather makes ’em worse. Comes a good freeze in the fall and it’ll kill ’em off.”

“Well, I hope so.”

“How is business, Edie?”

“Oh, it’s not bad,” said Mrs. Dillon. “The drummers ought to start coming through pretty soon now that the roads are clear, and there’ll be the Chautauqua troop next week. If I just didn’t have to pay so much for help! You know I’ve got that oldest DeHart girl cooking and maiding for me—just helping me, mind you—and I have to pay her four dollars a week!”

The doctor shook his head, grimly. “It’s a sight, all right. We’ve got one of the Moss girls working for us, and she don’t do anything and we pay her two-fifty a week. Two-fifty, just for keeping house for Mrs. Doc and me!”

Mrs. Dillon said that it was a shame. Doc Jones said that if some of these girls ever had to get out and
work
for a living, they would know what was what. He started to go, then paused, hesitantly.

“Uh, by the way, Edie, have you ever heard anything from your husband?”

“Yes, I did have some word,” said Edie, and immediately regretted the admission.

“Oh?”

“It wasn’t anything important.”

“Nothing important, eh?”

“No,” said Mrs. Dillon.

The good doctor’s face fell a little, then brightened with reminiscence. “I’ll never forget the first time I met Bob. It was when he was firing on the railroad here. You know he’d had some sort of nervous breakdown when he was lawing for the railroad, and he’d taken a job firing to get his health—”

“Yes, I know,” said Edie, with a shade of impatience.

“Well, he came into my office in his overalls—and you know I didn’t know who he was, and I hadn’t been out of medical school too long and I guess I was kind of pompous, and—oh, yes, I forgot to mention he’d hurt his arm some way. So I says to him”—he chuckled—“I says, ‘Just where does your arm hurt you, my good man?’ And he looked at me kind of sleepy-eyed like he could, you know—”

“I know.” Edie Dillon bit her lip.

“—and he says, ‘I’m not sure, Doctor: my medical education is rather deficient. I can’t decide whether it’s the radius or the ulna.’” Doc Jones guffawed. “He certainly took me down a peg!”

“He was an awfully smart man,” said Mrs. Dillon.

“A brilliant man. He’s—uh—in good health, I hope?”

“Yes—I guess so. Thanks for coming, Doc. I’ve got to get back in the kitchen now.”

“Why certainly,” said Doc Jones, hurt. “Go right ahead, Edie.”

He went out the door, considerably disappointed, and Mrs. Dillon went to the kitchen to expedite the labors of the overpaid DeHart girl.

Upstairs, Bob Dillon crawled from his couch of pain, stepped to the window, and urinated on the rear porch. He stood there for some time, watching the water slither its divers ways across the worn tar paper, wondering why it did not follow one trail as it should. When he crept back to bed, it was with a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. For some reason it seemed much better to wet on the roof than to use the pot. He wondered, too, why that was.

He was entirely able to be up and about, but something told him that his injuries deserved and would obtain him a reward. So he remained where he was, commencing to whine and moan (after he was sure the roof had dried). And being subsequently rewarded with a pint of ice cream, he dropped off into a sleep filled with dreams of even better tomorrows.

He had cause to be grateful, during the next few days, for his brief career as an aerial navigator.

Ted and Gus visited him, bringing ample supplies of corncob pipes and smoking tobacco, and they spent a hilarious half-day reliving their adventure. Josephine, it developed, had come down with nervous shock after her narrow escape and had thus been unable to flay them as she had promised, and they were looking forward to her recovery with jubilant horror.

Alf Courtland dropped in almost every day, invariably with a gift of books and candy.

Sherman came in once or twice to curse him amiably and threaten to cut his ears off.

Grant Fargo, who was taking his noon meal gratis at the hotel, came once. But he did not remain long. By a strange coincidence the boy, who had become seriously constipated from inactivity and overeating, chose the time of his visit to use the pot. And his dandy young uncle fled the room in disgust.

Best of all were the visits from little Paulie Pulasky. Paulie’s folks owned the confectionary, and she always brought ice cream and other good things. But Bob would have been gladder to see her than anyone else, even though she had brought nothing.

Paulie Pulasky and he were sweethearts. They had never admitted it to themselves, let alone to the public at large, but just the same it was true.

Paulie’s folks were second-hand generation hunkies, but most people regarded them as white. They were even better than a lot of whites, some people said. John Pulasky (his actual first name was unpronounceable) had a good business and a sizable bank account, and he was much in demand for calling the sets at dances. Mrs. Pulasky kept a spick-and-span house and laundered twice a week, and there was no better hand at a quilting bee or a tea pouring. Everyone thought it was such a shame that they were Catholics, but in view of their many other virtues, people were inclined to be tolerant. Anyway, hadn’t John Pulasky been observed buying meat on Friday? And when Dutch Schnorr had kidded him about it, he had kidded right back!

Oh, the Pulaskys were all right! Almost, anyway.

On the last day of his convalescence, Paulie called on Bob with ice cream and cookies. And Mrs. Dillon, after she had brought saucers and spoons, left the two together.

Paulie and Bob looked shyly at each other. He was awfully smart, she thought. Her father had said Mr. Dillon was an awfully smart man, and her mother had said she must be careful how she acted.

Bob thought Paulie was beautiful. Her brown hair—it was actually waist length—was done up in two coils over her ears; and her face was round and rosy and cream-like; and she had great humble slate-gray eyes, with long black-gray lashes.

They looked at each other, pretending not to look. Together, they raised their plates and licked them.

“You know what you are?” said Bob, suddenly. “You’re a Yahoo.”

Paulie giggled humbly. “I am not, neither! What’s a Yahoo?”

“That’s people that ain’t horses. There’s two kinds of people: the horses, the Whinny-ums, and the Yahoos. It says so right in this book Alf brought me.
Gul—Gul-lie—ver’s Travels
, it’s called.”

Paulie giggled again. “You’re a Yahoo, too, then,” she ventured, fearfully.

“It tells all about it, here,” said Bob, ignoring her remark. “Gul-
lie
-ver lived with the Whinny-ums for a long, long time, and when he went home he wouldn’t kiss his wife because he was ashamed of her because she was a Yahoo.”

“Well,” said Paulie, dropping her great gray eyes, “I don’t think he should have acted like that.”

“Ho, ho! I guess you know more than the book!”

“I think,” said Paulie, “he should have kissed her. He’d been gone a long time, and—and”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“she prob’ly n-needed it.”

The boy frowned at her, an uneasy, but not unpleasant sensation coursing through his gawky body.

“I guess,” he said, “I guess you think I—I guess you think I—you think I—”

She shook her head, ambiguously. She seemed absorbed in the intricate crochet-work of her immaculate and stiffly starched dress.

“I guess—I guess you think—You come over here, Paulie!” said Bob Dillon.

“Huh-uh.” She arose and inched toward the bed, plucking at her dress. “Huh-uh, Bobbie.”

“You come over here!”

“Huh-uh, now.”

“Pigs say
huh-uh
,” recited the boy. “Squeeze their tails and they say
uh-huh
.”

She blushed and giggled. “I’m not a pig, though.”

“You come over here!”

“I—I am here.…”

He had sat up, and now, somehow, his body inclined toward hers, even as hers seemed drawn to him. The round little pink-and-cream face came closer and closer, and the great eyes became greater. Then they closed, and their lips touched, and their arms locked around each other. They kissed again and again, patting one another awkwardly, the gawky solemn-faced boy and the little girl in the crisp pink apron. And the love and the sweetness that were theirs was not something to mock with words.…

Suddenly she broke away from him and, to his amazement, began to weep.

“You don’t like me! You’ll never like me! I’m going home!”

“Paulie!” he said. “Don’t go—don’t cry—”

But she had already gone.

She flew through the lobby in such an obvious state that Mrs. Dillon tried to intercept her, but the phone rang at that moment and she was compelled to answer it instead.

“Yes, Alf,” she said, “this is Edie.” She frowned a little, for Alf had acted very strangely toward her on one occasion.

“I wonder if you could come down to the bank right away?”

“Well…I don’t know. What did you want, Alf?”

“I’d rather not discuss it over the phone. But it’s important.”

“Well—I’ll come right down.”

She shoved her apron beneath the cigar counter, patted her hair, and hurried out the door. It was all right, she supposed, in the daytime like this. She would be safe enough. But Alf had acted so funny that night when he had come to the hotel. It had been late, and she had been afraid he would wake up the roomers, and he had such a funny look in his eyes.…Well, though, probably he had just had a drink or two too many. It wasn’t like Alf to do things like that.

She would not admit how relieved she was when she saw Sherman barging out of the hardware store. She called to him, then ran the few steps that brought her up with him.

“Alf just asked me to come over to the bank,” she explained. “He said it was important, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was over the phone. I wonder—”

“I’ll go along with you,” said her brother, promptly. “Wonder what it could be, anyhow?”

They entered the bank, together, their curiosity thoroughly aroused. Courtland greeted them with pleasant reserve and led them over to his desk, out of earshot of the cashier’s cage.

“I stepped out of the bank a few moments ago,” he began softly, “to get some cigars. While I was gone, young Higgins over there cashed a check for two hundred dollars—for Grant.”

Edie drew in her breath. Sherman snorted, “Why, he ought to’ve known Grant wouldn’t—”

“The check was on Lincoln, Sherman. I mean, it had your father’s signature on it. It’s a pretty good signature and Higgins thought it was all right to pay on it.”

“Pa would never give Grant two hundred cents,” said Edie decisively.

“I’ll show you the check. It might—”

“Hell,” said Sherman, “there’s no use looking at the check. I can tell you it’s a forgery.”

“I was fairly sure it was, myself,” Courtland nodded. “But I hardly knew what to do about it. I knew Lincoln was sick, and I didn’t want to disturb him, and…” He spread his hands, inviting their solution.

“Why, goddam his hide,” said Sherman. “I didn’t think he was dumb enough to pull anything like that. Knew he was awful damned dumb, too. I wonder how he figured on getting away with it?”

From far up the valley the long blast of the train whistle floated eerily across the town. And Sherman, a curse on his lips, kicked back his chair.

“That’s it! The son-of-a-bitch is skipping out!” he roared, and he hurled his thickset body toward the door.