Heed the Thunder (24 page)

I
n a side-street bar in Mexico City the partners of O’Hara and Gallagher, gun-runners, Chink smugglers, and lately copper miners, were having some after-breakfast drinks. Gallagher’s leonine head was swathed in bandages and his wiry little partner kept looking at him anxiously.

“You sure you’re feelin’ all right, Gallagher? You don’t look yourself, somehow.”

The big man nodded vaguely. “I—I’m all right.”

“That was a nasty crack you took. Don’t know why I can’t ever teach you to duck when these brawls start.”

His partner picked up his glass, frowned at it, and set it down again.

“Well,” continued O’Hara, “this time next week we’ll be on our way to the Straits Settlements. With a cool hundred thousand, American, in our jeans. We’ll let old man Anaconda do the mining and we’ll take the fun. Come on—let’s drink on it.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Ha, ha. That’s the best yet, Gallagher!”

“Why do you keep calling me Gallagher? That’s not my name.”

The little man smirked. “Well, now, if it comes to that—”

“Who are you?” His partner knocked back his chair and stood up. “What are we doing together? Where am I?”

O’Hara leaped up. “Now, take it easy, fellow. Everything’s all right. You just stopped a beer bottle with your bean last night, and—”

The big man looked incredulously at the calendar behind the bar:
Octobre Tres, diez y nuevo catorce.
Seven years!

“I’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled. “I’m Robert Dillon!”

A
ttorney General-Elect Jeff Parker tore the letter he was reading into shreds and dribbled them into the wastebasket. He was angry and considerably hurt. Letters like that took the heart right out of a man. Here he’d worked his head off to get them a fine new road, and now they were kicking about it. They were complaining that their customers were by-passing Verdon and driving into the big cities!

Well, he was out from under their thumbs now, thank gosh. From now on, they’d have another legislator to kick at.

He strolled into the parlor of his hotel suite, helped himself to a large drink of whisky, and took it over to the window. Looking down upon O Street, he drank, rocking back and forth on his high heels.

It was beginning to snow, and the sight of it sent a reminiscent chill through the little attorney’s body. He was plenty glad he was where he was. It would be terrible to be out there like that poor darned tramp, wondering where your next meal was coming from, where you were going to sleep that night.…

Frowning sympathetically, Jeff studied the tramp, noting the hungry way he kept looking across the street at the opulent façade of the hotel. It was too bad that things like that had to be. The fellow looked like he might have amounted to something at one time or another. He looked sort of familiar—

An ejaculation of mixed surprise and dismay slipped from his lips. The glass almost slipped from his hands. Why, golly! No wonder he looked familiar!

He hesitated for a moment. Then, impulsively, he turned and picked up the telephone:

“There’s a man standing across the street. A thin, black-haired, rather pasty-faced fellow. I think if you’ll glance out the door you can see him…”

“Yes, Senator,” said the clerk, curiously, “I see him.”

“I want you to send a bellboy across the street and have him brought up here. Bring him up the back way if you like.”

“Oh.…Well, all right, Senator.”

“Just tell him Jeff Parker wants to see him.”

He hung up the receiver and watched while the bellboy skipped across the icy street.

Three minutes later Grant Fargo was ushered into the room.

“Well, Jeff,” he smiled weakly, as they shook hands, “great minds seem to run in the same channel. I’ve been waiting all day, hoping you’d come out.”

“Why, why didn’t you come over?” demanded Jeff, and immediately realized how foolish the question was.

Grant shrugged. “Looking like I do?”

“Well, you could have called me.”

“Not without a nickel.…By the way, I see you have a drink there.”

“Oh. Why certainly, Grant. Excuse me. Help yourself to anything you want.…Uh, could you eat anything?”

“Anything,” confessed Grant.

He picked up a bottle and glass, and Jeff turned to the telephone. While he was talking to room-service, he heard the bottle gurgle into the glass three times. And when he turned back around, he found Grant sitting down, nursing almost half a water-glass full of whisky. The ex-printer saw his look and smiled thinly. Deliberately, while the attorney tried to conceal his dismay, he killed the drink at a gulp and reached for the bottle again.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said.

“Oh, no. Not at all,” denied Jeff hastily.

He was wondering already what in the world had prompted him to reveal himself to Grant. He was unwilling to admit that he might have been moved by the desire to show off to the man who had always jeered at him and snubbed him. So he decided it was because he and Grant were both members of the Fargo clan and it was the duty of one Fargo to help another.

“A man that’s been through what I have needs a drink,” Grant was saying.

“Uh—what have you been doing with yourself, Grant?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Grant’s mouth worked bitterly. “That lousy Sherman and the old man booted me out of town right in the middle of a depression. Turned me loose in the world with hardly enough to live on a week. Hell, I never had a chance to get started any place. I was sick. All the people I used to know had forgotten me.…Well, you see how it turned out.”

“You knew your father had died?”

“And goddam good riddance,” nodded Grant. “It’s the only thing the son-of-a-bitch ever did for me.”

Jeff shook his head. “You shouldn’t talk that way.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me how I should talk?…Oh, hell, I’m sorry. But you don’t know how it’s been, Jeff.” Grant brushed a tear of self-pity from his eyes. “I hadn’t done anything. I don’t care what anyone thinks, I didn’t—I didn’t—”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Jeff quickly. “That’s all settled and forgotten. Uh—what are your plans now?”

“Can you lend me ten dollars, Jeff?”

“Why, yes. I think so. What—”

“I want to go back, Jeff. I’ve got to go back. Ma’s all by herself now and we’ll get along fine. She’ll help me get back on my feet and I can get a job on the
Eye
again, and—and everything will be all right, Jeff. You don’t know how it’s been all these years. Wandering from place to place. Broke, friendless. Your own folks t-thinking that you’re a mur—”

He choked and slopped his glass down on the table. He buried his face in his hands, sobbing convulsively.

“Now, now,” said the attorney, touched. “Everything’s going to be all right, Grant. Just pull yourself together.”

Although he was somewhat out of touch with Verdon and did not know of Mrs. Lincoln Fargo’s living arrangements, he was not at all sure that he was doing the wise thing in helping Grant to return. On the other hand, he did not see how he could refuse. The Fargoes were such goshdarned funny people. They might not wish to have anything to do with Grant themselves, but they could easily take it as an insult if he refused to assist this renegade member of the clan.

He decided that he would have to help the former dude. He would send him back in style. If the Fargoes didn’t want him around, they could tell him so themselves.

Grant cleaned up the tremendous meal Jeff had ordered, and started drinking again. By the exercise of a great deal of insistent tact, Jeff got him to bathe and shave; and while he was thus occupied, he sent down his frayed suit to be pressed and spotted. He also sent out for new underwear, socks, a shirt and tie.

When Grant was re-dressed, Jeff looked him over approvingly.

“Now you look like the real Grant,” he declared roundly. “Of course, we’ll go out in the morning and get you a new suit and an overcoat and whatever else you need.”

Grant said it was certainly white of him. “But am I not in your way here, Jeff? If you’ll just give me fifty cents for a room—”

“I’ve engaged a room for you here. Right across the hall. Now, I do have some business to take care of, and I know you need a good rest. So—”

“I’ll go right on over,” said Grant promptly. “You don’t mind if I take a drink with me, do you?”

“Well”—Jeff hesitated, worried—“haven’t you had quite a bit, Grant?”

“I suppose I have, at that,” agreed Grant. “I’ll tell you—I’ll just take the bottle along. If I don’t want a drink, then it won’t be poured and wasted.”

Jeff wanted to protest, but found himself wordless. He was faced with that difficult and ancient problem which confronts any host with a heavy-drinking guest: how to deny the guest without appearing stingy and inhospitable.

He was still wordless, but for quite a different reason, when his relative pounded upon his door the following morning at seven o’clock, and gave him a trembling and bleary-eyed greeting. He had (so he said) upset the whisky bottle in his bathroom and had got no benefit from it whatsoever. Now he needed a small one to wake up on.

Jeff admitted him and began to dress, while in the parlor the glass and bottle clinked again and again.

As quickly as he could, he got him downstairs to a restaurant. After breakfast, they went to a clothing store where he purchased Grant a ready-made suit and overcoat, a derby, and several incidentals of attire.

The ex-printer’s mood changed with his attire. As he acquired everything that he needed, his attitude toward the little attorney changed from shamed and grateful humility to ill-concealed contempt. He could remember Jeff Parker when he was no better than a beggar. Why shouldn’t he be glad to help a Fargo? If it hadn’t been for the Fargoes giving him that lawsuit to handle, where would he be today?

They stood at last in the railway station, and Jeff handed him his ticket. Grant shook the lawyer’s hand, limply, and looked at him, his lip curling.

“There’s a little item that you seem to have overlooked,” he said. “Quite unintentionally, I’m sure.”

“Why, I don’t know that I have,” said Jeff, boldly. “It seems to me that I’ve done very well by you.”

Grant grimaced. “I’m aware of what you’ve done without being reminded of it. You’ll be repaid, I assure you. But after all, I do need a little money.”

“All right,” said Jeff. “Here’s a dollar. You’ve had your breakfast. That’ll buy you your dinner and a few cigars. You’ll be home in time for supper.”

“I see,” said Grant. “You think I’ll—”

“I don’t think. I know goshdarned well if you have any more than that, you’ll get drunk.”

“And what business is it of yours if—”

Jeff gave him a long slow look. Smiling grimly, he turned and walked away. Grant took a step after him, momentarily shamed of the repayment he had made to this man who had befriended him. But Jeff did not look back, and the shame changed quickly to anger.

Try to tell him what to do, would he, just because he’d lent him a few dollars! Well, he’d show him.

There was a pawnshop across the street. As soon as the attorney was out of sight, he walked over and entered it. The pawnbroker examined the new coat and offered him a loan of seven dollars on it. After some haggling, Grant obtained five dollars and a secondhand cowhide coat. It was a respectable enough garment, if not dressy, and it would certainly keep him warm. It was the kind of coat Alfred Courtland had worn on the day he visited Edie Dillon at her country school.

Indeed, with his trim mustache and derby hat, Grant considerably resembled Courtland as he had appeared that day.

Equipped with two quarts of whisky, Grant boarded the train. He threw two seats together, lit a cigar, and relaxed. It was going to be a pleasant journey. And at the end of it there would be Ma to comfort and care for him. He would get a job and save his money and earn the respect of the town. In time, he would take over the newspaper. He would buy a home and a car. He would start going to church, getting acquainted with the right kind of girls—

Why not? It’s been a long time ago, and I didn’t kill her. I didn’t! Maybe I did intend to. I intended to and she saw it, and she jerked the wheel.…But I didn’t do it! She did it!

He uncorked one of the bottles.

At Grand Island he ate dinner, and the food sobered him somewhat. It sobered him too much, in fact, for he could not stand himself sober these days. He began drinking again, as soon as he was on the Verdon train, and gradually the world reassumed its roseate hue.

…He woke up with a start, and he was frightened, for the few hours of sleep had had the same effect as the food. Turning the bottle up, he swallowed almost half a pint. And while the liquor steadied him, he still knew fear and uneasiness. He was almost sure to run into someone he knew at the station, and he wasn’t ready to face him yet. He needed to rest and get his feet back on the ground. It would be best for them to learn of his return and become accustomed to it before he had to see anyone.

But…

He sat up, suddenly smiling. Well, it could be worked all right. The train would be slowing down there at Fargo Crossing. With his experience in riding freights these past years, it wouldn’t be any trick at all to hop off. From there, it was only a matter of a mile and a half to Ma’s place.

The conductor came through and Grant caught his eye.

“How long before we reach Fargo Crossing?” he inquired.

The conductor glanced at him coldly and consulted his watch.

“About thirty minutes if we’re on time. But the train doesn’t stop this side of Verdon.”

“Yes, I know.”

“You weren’t figuring on hopping off there?” demanded the trainman sharply.

“Oh, no,” Grant lied.

“Well, don’t. And don’t drink any more of that whisky until you get off. You’ve had more than enough.”

Grant flushed, but said nothing. He waited until a short icy blast from the open vestibule signaled him that the conductor had gone on into the other car. Then he tilted the bottle, defiantly drinking more than he actually wanted.

The snow had almost coated over the window pane, and he could not see out. He had no watch.

He waited, trying to count off the seconds, until it seemed that some twenty minutes had passed. Donning his coat, then, he shoved a bottle into each pocket and went out to the vestibule.

The alcohol was playing tricks with his brain, and, too, the landmarks of the section were no longer familiar to him. He got down on the steps and stood there swaying, trying to calculate the speed of the train.

It seemed to be going quite fast, close to the tracks, but its speed near the fence was no more than moderate. He giggled over this phenomenon, congratulating himself on his shrewdness in observing it.

That clump of trees…that windmill…the barn…

Yes, they must be getting close. This must be about it. The train whistled for a crossing, and he braced himself. A cattleguard flashed by.

Pivoting gracefully (or so he thought), he dropped off.

His feet touched the frozen right of way and he bounded into the air. By a matter of inches, he missed being thrown between the two cars. As it was, he bounced against the second car and was knocked clear of the tracks. Turning a complete flipflop, he landed on his haunches and went skidding harmlessly down the embankment.

Giggling, he stood up and brushed himself off, waving a drunken good-by to the fast-vanishing train.

He put a hand in his pocket and cursed. Angrily he pulled out the fragments of the broken bottle and dropped them in the snow.

His hand went into his other pocket, and he laughed. Triumphantly he pulled out a full bottle. He popped the cork in it and took a long drink. Climbing up to the tracks, he staggered back toward the crossing.