The Thunder Rolls

by Bethany Campbell

  Mechanically, she dialed 911 and said that there’d been a shooting at the McKinney lake house and two men were hurt. Just as mechanically she went to the linen closet and took down a pair of towels. She thought of Gordon, sobbing and holding his hand, and took a third.

  She wet the towels under the faucet, filled a basin with ice and water, and carried the towels and basin back to the porch. She willed her hands not to shake, and they did not.

  She walked up to Gordon and handed him a wet towel. “Here,” was all she said.

  He sniveled, but made no other reply. He collapsed to a sitting position and leaned against the porch railings. His legs stuck straight out in front of him. He wrapped the towel around his injured hand. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” he said. “Help me, Nora. Hold me. I’m cold.”

  She ignored him and went to Cal instead, sinking to her knees beside him. She wiped his face and dabbed at the shallow wound that creased his scalp at the hairline.

  “You’re sure you’re all right?”

  He grunted assent. “Head wounds always bleed like the devil.”

  She made a makeshift ice pack and pressed it against the crease.

  Ken glanced at Cal, his eyebrow cocked cynically. “Why didn’t you say it was your head? I wouldn’t have worried.”

  “Slattery,” Gordon said in a shaking voice, “you set me up. You said you couldn’t use a gun. You led me on. You lied.”

  Ken shook his head. “I said I didn’t like a gun. I never said I couldn’t use one.”

  Gordon bowed his head and wept with even more abject misery. The lightning played, and the thunder rolled, growing more distant. Mingling with its sound was the shrill keen of sirens, faint but rising, coming nearer.

  Gordon’s head shot up. His body stiffened. He swore. “Cops?” he said in disbelief. “Cops?”

  No one answered him for a long moment.

  It was finally Cal who spoke, his tone contemptuous. “They won’t be surprised it’s you, Gordon. They’ve been asking about you. Federal boys, too. They’re going to have a lot of questions for you.”

  “Cops?” Gordon repeated, panic rising in his voice. “Federal? Federal? Questions? Oh, God, oh, God. I can’t go to jail—I won’t go. If I don’t talk, the cops’ll throw the book at me. If I do talk, somebody’ll kill me. Charlie—Chessman, they’d have somebody kill me. You can’t do this.”

  Nora, still kneeling beside Cal, didn’t understand. What did Cal mean, that federal authorities had asked about Gordon? This was the first she’d heard of it. What was Gordon mixed up with?

  And what was he babbling about? What did his crazy friend Charlie have to do with this? Who was Chessman? What did Gordon know, and how could it put him in danger?

  “Cops lean on you,” Gordon said. “They’ll say if I talk, I’ll walk. But I can’t talk. They’ll lock me up a hundred years. And Charlie and Chessman—they’d get me killed anyhow—to make sure I stayed quiet. The Mexican guns are heavy stuff—you’re dooming me. Don’t do this to me. Please. Let me go.”

  Shakily, Gordon rose to his feet. Ken tensed, but kept the gun trained on him. Nora, frightened, also rose. She put her hand on Ken’s arm.

  “Please,” Gordon begged. “Let me go. Please.”

  Ken shook his head. “I can’t, Gordon.”

  Gordon inched toward the porch steps. The lightning glimmered dully, and Nora saw that his face, although streaked with tears, had gone stony. She thought she understood that look, and she feared it. It meant that Gordon was desperate enough to do anything, no matter how foolish.

  Even as the apprehension flooded through her, Gordon acted. He turned and fled across the yard. She felt the muscles in Ken’s arm tauten.

  Cal tried to rise. “Shoot him!” he cried. “Dammit—shoot!”

  “No!” Nora breathed, clutching Ken’s arm more tightly. The sirens, close now, rent the night with their shrillness.

  “Stop him!” Cal yelled, then crumpled again, swearing in frustration and pain.

  Nora could barely see Gordon’s figure, disappearing into the darkness. He headed toward a stand of trees, hesitated, then suddenly zagged in the other direction, toward the road that led to the highway. His path was as erratic as that of a frightened rabbit.

  “Gordon, don’t be crazy,” Ken shouted, but he didn’t shoot.

  “Gordon—” The approaching sirens swallowed Nora’s cry. She gripped Ken’s arm harder.

  She could no longer see Gordon. Blue lights flashed, coming down the road, as the cars from the sheriff’s department raced nearer. A spinning red light in the darkness announced the ambulance.

  Again Ken’s voice ripped across the night. “Gordon, for God’s sake, don’t—”

  Then above the siren’s scream, a sudden shriek of brakes rose, so piercing and torturous that Nora hid her face against Ken’s sleeve. She heard a thud of an impact, powerful, yet muffled by the shriller sounds. She heard a man’s cry.

  The sirens stopped. For a moment the night was quiet again, except for the rain and the sound of metal doors slamming.

  “Where’d he come from?” a voice demanded. “All of a sudden, he was in front of me. I tried to stop—”

  “Stand back. Is he alive?”

  “I tried to stop—”

  “He wasn’t there, then all of a sudden, he was—and we were right on top of him. Bobby tried—”

  “I tried—”

  “He tried—”

  “Stand back. Shorty, turn him over. Who is it? Oh, God, is it Gordon Jones? It is. It is. Is he alive?”

  “Barely.”

  “Bobby couldn’t help hitting him—”

  “I tried—”

  “Don’t try to move him. I think his back is broken.”

  “It’s Gordon, all right. Oh, Lord. Who’s gonna tell Dottie?”

  Cal sagged against the plate-glass door, his hand to his head. “What the hell happened?”

  Ken had both arms around Nora, and her face was still hidden against his sleeve. “Gordon,” Ken breathed. “I think he got hit. Nora, stay here with Cal. I’d better go see.”

  “No,” she said from between her teeth. “I’ll go, too. It’s my place. I have to—for Dottie.”

  Ken didn’t protest. He nudged Cal with his boot. “Hey, kid. Stay put. Don’t try to get up again. Hear me? Come on, Nora.”

  The short walk through the rain seemed endless to Nora, endless and nightmarish. Even more nightmarish was the string of vehicles parked in a haphazard line where the road met the drive, their colored rooflights whirling, casting mad shadows on the trees that edged the road.

  A cluster of men gathered around a motionless shape, shining flashlights on it. The roof lights colored them with shifting reds and blues, and the shadows danced just as wildly on the men as on the trees. To Nora, it was a scene from hell.

  Gordon lay unmoving in the wet dirt of the road. His eyes were blinking in the assault of light, but he didn’t seem to see anything. His face was drenched with rain. A drop of blood shone at the corner of his mouth. He lay at an odd angle, an unnatural angle.

  Shakily, she walked to Gordon’s side, then had to lean against Ken as she stared down.

  Gordon’s expression was dazed, frightened. He looked strangely young and innocent to Nora, almost like the boy she’d known all those years ago.

  “Oh, Gordon,” she whispered brokenly, “what have you done to yourself?”

  She sank down, weakly sliding from Ken’s embrace to kneel beside Gordon. She took his left hand in both of hers. His was stained with blood and mud. “Gordon?”

  He blinked up into the changing whirligig of lights. His pupils were as tiny as pinpoints. “I want my mother,” he said, his voice so weak that it was like a child’s.

  “It’s all right,” Nora said, squeezing his hand between hers. “You’re not alone.”

  Oh, Gordon, Gordon, she thought, thank God Dottie doesn’t have to see this.

  His mouth quivered. He was trying to speak again.
Nora bent closer. “Tell my mama,” he said, “that—I’m sorry. From now on—I’ll be good.”

  “She’ll understand, Gordon.”

  His mouth worked more spasmodically. “Tell her—” he stopped and grimaced with pain “—Chessman and Charlie were—bad. I should have told on them. They were bad. I don’t want to be. I wasn’t gonna go to Mexico again. Tell her. Tell her I’ll—be good.”

  His hand began to shake uncontrollably and she gripped it tighter. His eyes grew more dazed. Another drop of blood welled at the corner of his mouth, and then another.

  “Gordon?”

  “I want Brolly. Where’s Brolly?”

  Nora went cold at his words. Brolly had been Gordon’s childhood dog. He had been dead since Gordon was nine.

  Nora reached out and tried to wipe away the rain from Gordon’s face. She kept her other hand clenched around his. “Brolly’s at your feet, Gordon. He’s asleep. At your feet.”

  Gordon’s head made a tiny, convulsive motion, something like a nod. “Mama,” he said, his words growing less distinct. “I been prayin’ a lot. Really, Mama. Matthew, Mark—Mark—Mark—Luke…”

  His chest sank as his voice quivered off into a sigh. His lips quivered, then went still. The hand in hers became heavy with limpness. The madhouse lights played over his face, danced across his eyes, but he did not blink.

  She stared at him in numbed disbelief. She felt Ken’s hands on her shoulders. A man reached down and shut Gordon’s unseeing eyes.

  “He’s gone,” somebody said in a voice devoid of emotion.

  Someone else muttered in agreement.

  “Oh,” Nora said, watching the rain strike his still face. “Oh.”

  “Come on,” Ken said quietly.

  He drew her to her feet. She released the dead man’s hand and took Ken’s, then collapsed against him. The lights spun, the rain fell, and Nora felt as if the world would have slipped away into darkness and nothingness if there had been nothing to support her, to keep her anchored to reality.

  Ken held her fast.

  THE SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT kept them separated for hours, while each of them—Nora, Ken and Cal—was questioned. Nora, shaken, wanted nothing more than to rejoin Ken. Vaguely she understood that they all must be questioned separately to see if their stories corroborated one another. The knowledge did not soothe her. She wanted the questions to end. She wanted Ken.

  Then a man from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms appeared. He, too, had questions. Everyone seemed especially interested in Gordon’s statements about Charlie, the man named Chessman and the guns in Mexico.

  They repeatedly asked Nora the same questions, to see if she would change her story. She never did.

  At last she was ushered into the sheriff’s office. Ken and Cal were there, Cal with a bruised forehead and a patch of white adhesive at his hairline. Ken rose and went to her, wordlessly putting his arm around her.

  He led her to a seat beside his and kept his arm around her shoulders. The sheriff, Wayne Jackson, sat behind his metal desk, his lips clamped tight. Sitting in a straight-backed chair next to Jackson was the ATF man, whose name was Husby. He looked as somber as Jackson.

  Wayne Jackson was a huge man with a weather-beaten face and dark eyes. He shook his head, then trained his gaze on Nora.

  “Nora?” he asked with some concern.

  “I’m fine,” she lied, fearing her voice betrayed her. In truth she was exhausted, both emotionally and physically.

  Wayne, unsmiling, shrugged, as if he knew she lied, but he could do nothing about it. He looked down at a yellow legal pad with penciled scribblings, then back at them. “I’ve got something to say to all of you. I know it’s late. I know you’re tired. But listen. This is important.”

  Nora nodded but felt like an automaton.

  “Just get the show on the road, Wayne,” Cal McKinney said. “Serena’s gonna be worried sick about me.”

  “Gordon’s dead,” Wayne said.

  Nora flinched, and Ken tightened his embrace.

  “The coroner’s calling it an accidental death,” Wayne said without emotion. “There were at least four witnesses who saw it clearly. He came out of those trees and dodged right in front of a sheriff’s department car. Lord knows why. There was no way it could have kept from hitting him.”

  “I—didn’t see it happen,” Nora said. Images of Gordon lying in the rain haunted her.

  “I know,” Wayne said with surprising gentleness. “I just want you to know that this isn’t a cover-up. The actual cause of death was accidental.” He paused. “Dottie’s been informed. She’s been told what happened, but only in general terms.”

  Nora stiffened. “How did she—how did—?”

  Wayne’s face stayed impassive. “She took it hard. Her sister wanted her to rest and to come back here tomorrow as scheduled. That’s what’ll be done.”

  Ken frowned. “What about Rory? Surely to God you’re not sending some officer to Scout camp to tell the kid his father’s dead?”

  “No. Nora can tell him. Or Nora and Dottie. However they think best. There’ll be no public statement until Rory’s notified.”

  “Notified,” Ken said, clearly disgusted with the coldness of the term.

  Wayne gave him a mild glance, then looked down at the notes on the yellow pad.

  “Now, according to all three of you, Gordon said several things that were of—how shall we say?—a sensitive nature.”

  Husby, the ATF man, nodded in sober agreement. He was a large man, portly, without an ounce of humor in his face. “Yes. A sensitive nature.”

  “People with the ATF,” Wayne said, nodding toward Husby, “have been asking about Gordon. Because of this Charlie friend of his. Charlie’s been suspected for a long time of running contraband to Mexico. Small-time stuff. But lately, there’s a possibility of—bigger things.”

  “We’ve suspected certain drivers,” Husby said, “because of certain patterns, certain connections. The problem is connecting upward.”

  Nora looked at the two sober-faced men, not quite seeing them. Gordon’s face kept floating wraithlike before her. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “We don’t know who’s in charge of this smuggling,” said Husby. “Who’s supplying the goods. Who makes the contracts. We’ve got no names. We’ve got lateral connections. We’ve got nothing that connects upward. To higher echelons. Until, maybe, tonight.”

  Nora felt Ken’s arm tighten around her shoulder. Chessman, she thought. Gordon said something about Chessman. Is that the name they’ve been looking for?

  “What you’re saying,” Ken said, lowering his brows, “is Gordon was involved with smuggling. That what he said may give you a lead to solve it. Is that it?”

  Husby kept his face blank and his voice without emotion. “I never actually said that, Slattery. Assume what you like—as long as you say nothing. The investigation is still under way. If we’re lucky—and we may be—you may never be called to testify. We’ll have plenty of proof without you. Gordon had a few interesting phone numbers in his wallet. Also a couple of Mexican names. There may be more of interest in his apartment.”

  “I see,” Ken said, his tone deliberate. “You pursue the case. But what we heard, we don’t make public.”

  “Correct.” Husby bit off the word with authority.

  “Now what this means,” Wayne said, scratching on his tablet with a pencil, “is this. Tonight Gordon came to the lake house to settle a personal score. He was belligerent. There was a scuffle. Authorities were called. Gordon tried to flee the scene. There was an accident.”

  “Mr. McKinney, here, was slightly hurt,” Husby added smoothly. “Nothing else of import occurred.”

  “Slightly yourself, buddy.” Cal glowered. “It ain’t your head.”

  “Steady, Cal,” Wayne said, warning in his voice. “It’s in the best interests of ATF to downplay this thing for the time being. It’s also in the best interests of Nora. And
Dottie. And Rory.”

  Cal didn’t look any happier, but he tossed a glance at Wayne that said he understood.

  Wayne gave a curt nod. “Normally, we wouldn’t tell you this much. We’d tell you to keep quiet, and that’d be it. But because it’s—well, frankly, Nora, because it’s Dottie, and because Gordon’s made such hell of her life, I think she should know that at the end, he finally might have done some good.

  “You can’t give her details, of course. Maybe someday. And of course, she’s not to say anything. Again, maybe someday. But it might be some consolation to her. To know he did some good at the end.”

  Nora bowed her head again, blinking hard. “Thank you, Wayne.”

  A painful look crossed Wayne’s face. “As for Rory, Nora, I have to leave that to your discretion. He’s only a child. You know better than I do how much he needs to know. And how far he can be trusted to keep quiet.”

  A choking lump had formed in her throat, but she forced herself to speak. “Thank you again, Wayne. I—”

  She couldn’t finish. She collapsed against Ken, and he held her tight. “Let me take her home, Wayne,” he said. “For God’s sake.”

  “Right,” Wayne said with a tired sigh. “Take her home.”

  WHEN THE OFFICERS let them go, a deputy took them back to the lake house. Cal insisted he could drive, said good-night and headed straight for the Double C. Ken got their belongings, then drove Nora to his place. He feared both the lake house and Dottie’s home would hold too many memories of Gordon for her.

  When they reached his house and went inside, Nora felt as if she’d finally found sanctuary. She sighed with relief.

  “Tired?” Ken asked, looking down at her. They stood in his living room, their arms around each other’s waists.

  She nodded. She was tired and worried and felt a little foolish besides; she had never put on her shoes. She had sat all those long hours at the sheriff’s department barefoot, clad in rolled-up jeans and Ken’s oversize shirt.

  “Hungry?” he asked. “We never did eat.”

  She shook her head. She had no appetite.

  “Then let’s go to bed,” he said gently. “And I’ll hold you. Just hold you. All night long. I think that’s what you need.”