Heed the Thunder Page 9

  Or, perhaps, it was not so fortunate.

  He had drunk nothing for a long time and what he drank today seemed to affect him queerly. It did not make him drunk. It did something else, and it did it in such a way that he was almost wholly unconscious of it. He thought of how he had had to use fifty cents of his own money for the rig because Barkley had not given him enough for a decent outfit. And there rose in his brain an all but overpowering urge to return to the bank and tell Barkley what he thought of him. It seemed the thing that he should do, this thing that had lain so long in his subconscious, and there was no check, no safely inhibiting counterbalance for it. Only the fact that there was no place to turn around in the road kept him on his way until the impulse passed.

  He arrived at Jabowskis’ home around two in the afternoon. The old man came to the door of the barn, and Courtland remained in his buggy and motioned curtly with his whip.

  He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket as Jabowski came up, and he stared at him coldly until the cautious smile had faded from the man’s Neanderthalic face.

  Then: “Jabowski,” he rapped out, “the bank holds your paper for fifteen hundred dollars. I’ve come to get it.”

  “Yah?” said the old man stupidly. “I no got fiteen hundred. I no got nodding now. In de spring—”

  “These are demand notes. You know what demand means? It means that when we ask for something, you pay!”

  “But I no got!”

  “You want us to take your horses, your cows, your plows and wagons? Everything you got to farm with?”

  Jabowski shook his head. Helplessly he took off his worn fur cap and turned it in his wrinkled hands.

  “What iss?” he stammered. “Jabowski always pay. Everyone know I pay.…I—I dood some’ting bad?”

  “That’s better,” said Courtland. “Now we’re beginning to understand each other. You’re the head of the school board of this district, Jabowski. It’s up to you to set an example for the others in your treatment of the teacher. You haven’t been doing that. You haven’t, have you?”

  “Vell…” Jabowski shrugged and the shadow of a smile returned to his face.

  “These overgrown ornery boys in this district have given her a lot of trouble, and you haven’t done a thing about stopping it.”

  Jabowski shrugged again. “She whip poys, good by me. Poys whip her.…Vell?”

  Keeping his eyes on him, Courtland took a long drink from the bottle and filled his little silver-rimmed Meerschaum. He struck a match to the tobacco and flipped the burning stub at the hunky.

  “The next time Mrs. Dillon has any trouble here,” he said, “you’ll pay our notes or we’ll take everything you’ve got here. Understand?”

  The old man nodded his head. “Yah,” he whispered.

  “And that isn’t all,” Courtland continued, his contemptuous hate-filled gaze unwavering. “You know the knout? You know Cossack?”

  “Yah.” It was not even a whisper, only a frightened movement of the lips.

  “Well, we have things like that in this country. You’ve just been lucky so far. If I ever hear that Mrs. Dillon—”

  “No! No! I—I do good.”

  “You’d better,” said Courtland. And he cut the horse sharply and drove off.

  He called on three other head men of the community, and arrived at the little white school house at three o’clock—early enough, for school did not let out until five during the winter months. In spring, when the farm work began to increase, it might be let out at noon or even be suspended for several days at a time.

  Edie Dillon saw him drive up and went out to the stoop to meet him.

  “Why, Alf,” she said, pleased, wondering at the strange look in his eyes, “what brings you up this way?”

  “You,” he said genially, and he took off a glove and shook hands. “We hear you’ve been having a hard time of it, Edie.”

  “Well, I’ve been holding my own.”

  “Good girl,” he said. “But we’re going to make things easier for you. I’ve been around visiting a few of these hunkies and letting them know how the bank looked on matters. Now, if I can just step inside with you a few minutes we’ll get things settled once and for all.”

  “But…Yes, do come in.”

  She tossed her head and took his arm. She still stung from the mauling she had received. She would like to see how those big louts acted when they had a man to deal with.

  Courtland looked around the room, smiling deceptively. It was about twenty-five by fifty in dimensions. It held forty-three students in eight grades. The primary students were on one side of the room, next to the windows; from them, the grades advanced through the rows to the eighth-grade pupils on the opposite side.

  “Which of these are the Czerny boys?” said Alfred to the room at large.

  “There’s only one here today,” said Edie, pointing. “Mike. Joseph is out.…But, Alf—”

  “I see,” said Alfred, advancing down the row next to the wall. He stopped and looked down into the broad high-cheekboned face of a boy of about sixteen. He was a husky, square-shouldered youth, and he met the bank clerk’s gaze stolidly.

  “So you’re Mike Czerny. Do you know why I’m here, Czerny?”

  “No,” said Czerny. “I don’t care. My father’s on school board.”

  “Yes, I know. I talked with your father. I told him that I was coming here to give you the beating of your life—”

  “Alf!”

  “And he didn’t object a bit. Get up!”

  A tiny muscle jiggled in the boy’s cheek. “I’m American. This not old country. My father got nothing to say ’bout having me beat.”

  “You’re a swine. Are you going to get up from there?”

  “I’m Amer—”

  Courtland struck him in the face with the doubled quirt.

  Edie cried out, but her cry was lost in the boy’s scream. Blood burst from his face in a dozen places, and a great red welt coiled snake-like across his cheeks. He staggered to his feet, half-blinded, and his great fists doubled and undoubled harmlessly. If Courtland had struck him with his hand he would have fought, but the whip…the whip had done something to him. It had broken worse than his skin—something that would always lie festering, unhealed. At that moment he was one with his father, his fathers.

  Grabbing him by the collar, Courtland flung him toward the front of the room. And the boy went down on his knees there in front of the blackboard. He did not try to run. No. You did not run. Nor fight. No. You did not fight.

  He kneeled, submissively, trying only to protect his head with his arms. And as Courtland swung the quirt again and again, the only sound that came from him was a low sobbing, an almost animal whining.

  The bank clerk stopped at last and nudged him roughly with his boot.

  “Now get out to the pump and wash yourself. Roll yourself in the snow.” He laughed coldly. “And the next time you feel like abusing your teacher, just remember this.”

  The boy slunk out.

  Courtland faced the room again, some of the madness faded from his brain. It was odd, he thought: if you gave a German or an American a thrashing like that, you would have had the whole pack on you. But the hunkies—when you whipped one, you whipped them all. They were even worse than niggers. Niggers had manners, at least.

  He looked at their strained, set faces—so damned scared they were afraid to take a deep breath! And then he saw that some of the little children were crying silently; he saw the great tears run down their broad pinched faces; and he winced and the whip slid from his hands.

  “I’m sorry this was necessary,” he said, tightly. “I do not like to”—he put a hand to his forehead—“I hope it will never be necessary again.”

  He turned to Edie and she saw that his face was the palest in the room. She nodded at his look.

  “You are dismissed for today, children. Go right home, and—and don’t be afraid to come back. We’re going to get along fine from now on.”

 
; They did not move.

  “Alf—”

  He motioned at them. “Go, now. And be good to Mrs. Dillon after this.”

  They filed into the cloakroom silently, and Edie watched them through the yard and down the road. There were none of the usual shouts and talking. She came back into the room and saw the pools of water beneath the desks where the little children sat, and for a moment she was as furious as she was sickened.

  But what woman is there who can be angry with a man who has fought for her, however wrongly?

  She knelt at the desk where Alf sat, his head held in his shaking hands, and she touched his crisp brown hair gently.

  “Alf,” she said.

  “I’m afraid I made a mess of things, Edie.”

  “No, you didn’t,” she said loyally. “You did exactly right. I just wish you’d given the same medicine to that Kecklik boy.”

  He smiled weakly. “I’m afraid—I’m afraid I forgot everything else after Czerny.”

  “Well, that’s all right, too! They’ll all watch their step after what you showed ’em today!” She touched his head again. “It’s been a long time since I had a man to depend on, Alf.”

  “Poor Edie. I admire you a great deal, you know.”

  “And I admire you, too!”

  “I imagine it’s been terribly lonesome up here for you.”

  “Well…w-well…” said Edie Dillon.

  His gentleness and the shock of the afternoon’s happenings suddenly told on her. To her shame, she found herself weeping.

  “Oh, A-alf,” she sobbed. “You…you don’t know. No one will ever know what I’ve been…”

  “I know. And you mustn’t do it any longer.”

  “I-I’ve got to!”

  He did not deny the statement. There was no use. What could he do to help her? He put his arm around her and drew her head against his shoulder. He felt her back quiver beneath the stiff starched shirtwaist; he felt her shivering breasts against his chest. And, almost, he pressed a kiss against her forehead. Nor was he stopped by the moral wrongness of the thing. Immorality, to Courtland, became a disgrace only upon its discovery, and he saw no chance of that here. He drew back because he was afraid and because he loved her. He was afraid of the physical result upon her of even such a small thing as a kiss upon the forehead. Even by holding her against his shoulder, or touching her hand, he might be endangering her.

  Myrtle.…He had not known, then, and it was too late to do anything about it now. And for the rest of the town he did not give a snap of his carefully tended fingers. But brave little Edie—he would never harm her.

  He stood up, lifting her with him, and forced a gay smile.

  “Now, we’re all right,” he cried. “Come. You can’t be a baby, too. That’s a privilege reserved for us men!”

  Edie smiled and dabbed at her eyes. She felt ashamed, but, more than that, vaguely disappointed.

  “I’m sorry, Alf. I’ll be all right now.”

  “Of course you will. You’ve simply had more than one woman could bear. Edie…?”

  “Y-yes?”

  “Maybe it would be better if you didn’t keep yourself so corked up. If you shared your troubles a little.”

  She nodded. “I imagine you’re right, Alf.”

  “I don’t mean to pry, but—”

  “Of course not.”

  “What are your plans? Have you ever heard from your—er—husband?”

  “No.”

  “Do you—er—expect to? I mean it’s absolutely none of my business, and if you’d rather not talk—”

  “I don’t mind telling you, Alf.” She turned and looked out the window, biting her lip. “I don’t know whether I’ll hear from him or not. I do want you to know this. It wasn’t like people think it was. He didn’t just run off and leave me.”

  “Certainly, he didn’t,” said Courtland warmly. “He couldn’t, being your husband.”

  “He was a lawyer, you know—”

  “And a very good one, from all I understand.”

  “One of the best in Oklahoma. He won a hundred and twenty-three cases in a row, but the last two—well, he lost. And they were capital cases, and he thought he should have won. He thought it was his fault that the men were hanged. He couldn’t get over it.…”

  “I suppose he took to—er—drinking? Not that one could blame him, but—”

  “No, he didn’t drink. He just brooded. He wouldn’t take another case. He just—he didn’t do anything. I was awful’ worried and I suppose I nagged him. But we had Bobbie to think of, and…well, there wasn’t any sense in his acting like that. Well—he disappeared.”

  “Without giving you any word or telling his friends—”

  “Yes,” said Edie, bleakly. “He started for town one morning, but he never reached his office. And no one saw him after that. He just—disappeared. I hung on as long as I could, trying to locate him. Finally, I took the last of our money and came home.…That’s the whole story, Alf.”

  Alfred shook his head in commiseration.

  “I don’t think you’ll ever get ahead much at this school teaching, Edie. This warrant business, you know—”

  “Yes. And it makes me mad!” Edie Dillon declared. “Good gracious, Alf! These people don’t know what hard times are. They ought to see what it’s like in the cities. Why do they want to borrow money when they could just as well pay cash?”

  “That’s human nature, I suppose. Never pay the debts you can unload on your grandchildren. Then there are the bankers: we make a lot of money off of warrants, and naturally we’re interested in seeing the situation perpetuated.” He shrugged. “But to get back to you.…”

  “Well, I just don’t know, Alf. I thought I might be able to save enough, perhaps, to start a millinery in Verdon in the fall.”

  “I’m not sure that would be a paying proposition, Edie. From my own observations, no one’s bought a new hat in Verdon in the last five years—unless it’s Bella Barkley.”

  Mrs. Dillon laughed. “Well, I’d thought about the hotel, too. Old Man Duncan hasn’t been able to run it right since his wife died, and it could make money. But he won’t take less than five hundred dollars as a down payment.”

  Courtland nodded. He hesitated.

  “I think, Edie, I may be able to let you have that much, perhaps more, by fall.” He held up his hand, smiling. “I know that sounds funny coming from anyone as close to the ragged edge as I am. But I just might be able to do it.”

  “Oh.…You think you might inherit something?”

  “Something like that. And if I do, you can count on me helping you.”

  “Why, that’s grand, Alf!”

  “But you mustn’t say a word about it to anyone. If you get home for the holidays, you mustn’t even drop a hint to Bobbie.”

  “I won’t.” Mrs. Dillon’s chin went out unconsciously. “We Fargoes know how to keep a secret. But how is Bobbie, Alf? I’ve been so worried about him.”

  “Well, don’t worry any more. He’s getting along fine.”

  “Does—does he miss me very much?”

  “Naturally. But he’s happy and in good health and doing well in school, so don’t fret yourself about him. Just look after Edie Dillon. Then, in the fall—well, we’ll see.”

  “All right, Alf.” She smiled bravely. “Whatever you say.”

  “Now, I’ve got to be running along. It looks like it might start snowing again, and I don’t want to get caught after dark in it.”

  “And I don’t want you to,” said Edie practically, stifling her loneliness.

  He drew on his gloves, tucked the quirt into his pocket, and shook hands.

  She stood in the doorway until his rig became a speck in the distance.

  The room was getting cold, but there was no sense in firing up again. The district was stingier than most with coal. She supposed she had better go on back to Jabowski’s. She wondered how they would act, and a little shiver ran through her body. Suppose some of the Czernys or so
me of the others were laying for her along the road. What would she do if…?

  Resolutely, she got up and donned her overshoes, her scarf, and coat. She went out to the little shed by the privy and saddled and bridled her nag. Lips set, mouth deliberately scornful, she jogged off down the rutted snow-bound road, her lunch pail clattering against the pommel.

  Just let them start something! She could handle any bunch of hunkies that ever lived!

  At the Jabowski home the old man came running out, and she braced herself and gathered the lines, quirt-like, in her hand. But he had only come to hold her stirrup and lead the nag to the barn for her.

  …There were real comforters on her bed that night—beautiful silk and wool affairs with strange designs; heirlooms, actually.

  And the next day, and almost every day thereafter, there was meat in her lunch.

  There was not much milk on the table, however.…

  11

  Jeff Parker, attorney-at-law, chalked his cue and cocked a brow at the hobbledehoy on the other side of the pool table.

  “Well, my bumpkin friend, methinks I have dallied with you overlong. I shall now, with a few twists of my delicate wrists and some minor assistance from this magic wand, run the table on you.”

  His opponent grinned through gold-capped teeth and spat generously into a gaboon. “You ain’t done it yet,” he suggested.

  “True. True. A very shrewd observation,” chirruped Jeff. “It occurred to me that some of our friends on the jury here might doubt my ability to the extent of placing a small side bet. Cash, you understand. Corncobs, fertilizer, and fresh hominy positively will not be accepted.”

  The loafers lined along the bench guffawed.

  “What would you use for cash, Jeff?” one demanded.

  “Money, my boy. Something you have never seen.”

  “Aw, haw-haw.…”

  “Well…no bets?”

  They grinned, shaking their heads.

  “And you, my kindly chump? Hast other than game money in your patched and shiny jeans?”