Thunder and Roses

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “Yeh. I heerd about thet. Whut’s he aim to git from it—tamarisk roots?”

  Pericles, tipping some of the precious fluid from a carboy mounted on a pivoted frame, grunted, “Water, Fellows. He got it, also.”

  “You mean to tell me he struck water over there?”

  “He got town well. Cab Jenks, this man with piebal’ gelding, he come tell me this morning.”

  “Oh,” said Fellows, and it was an eloquent syllable. There was a recess for thinking, and then he said, “Peri, if he’s got water, it ain’t no good for Tamarisk.”

  “Yes,” said Pericles. “No good.”

  “What’s Tamarisk?” Fellows burst out after a troubled silence. “So many shacks, so many people—what the hell. Let it go. It might’s well be a ghost town, like Harriston or DuMoulin’s Gulch.”

  “Yes,” said Pericles, coming around the partition with a deep, steaming bowl of stew. “But—we build Tamarisk. You, you stable. Me, my place. Gomez an’ he saddles. Trask an’ he cotton goods. Rogers an’ Hark an’ that ol’ fella Mickey Mack. Hm?”

  “Yeh, Peri—but a well! We ain’t got no well. We dug for’m twice, an’ you know what we got. Sweat, not water. We got to haul water a mile and a half from Feegan’s Brook.” He dug into the stew as if he hated it, which he did not. “How’d he know he’d strike water there?” he demanded with his mouth full. “Builds six shacks,” he growled—quite an achievement through that much stew, “an’ suddenly hits water in country where they ain’t a water hole in ten miles, ’cept where the desert drinks up Feegan’s Brook.”

  “What’s about the spring, Fellows?”

  “Spring? Oh—thet. Yeah. Four miles over the other way. Whyn’t he build his town over by there, if he had to build a town?”

  Pericles smiled—the smile he used instead of a laugh. “Spring in the cliff. What trade he get by there? Bighorns? Rock squirrels?”

  “I see what you mean. His place and Tamarisk sit smack in the middle of the only two trade routes through here. Aw, mebbe you’re right, Peri. Maybe he’s jest crazy.”

  “Ask him,” said Pericles, in a slightly awed voice.

  “Huh?” Fellows’s startled eyes swung from the Greek around to the door, which was being blocked at the moment by several cubic feet of flabby flesh, girdled by a too-new cartridge belt and topped with a city-made Stetson. “Barstow!”

  “Good morning, good morning,” said the heavy man, laughing what had been described as a diddling laugh, “and how are the thriving burghers of Tamarisk today?”

  Fellows put down his spoon and hooked his thumbs in his belt, the fingers of his left hand sliding down to check the gentle swinging of his holster. His eyes were like cracks in a board as he took the Easterner’s measure.

  Barstow looked him up and down and turned a broad and insulting back. “Mr. Zapappas,” he said unctuously. “Ahh. You’re looking well this morning. How’s business?”

  Pericles sidled behind a counter. He regarded Barstow without his smile. “Business always good.”

  “Splendid, splendid,” said Barstow heartily. “Glad to hear it. Make the best of it while it lasts, I always say.” Then there was that laugh again. Suddenly he turned to Fellows—so suddenly that the youngster dropped his spoon and cursed viciously. “And how is the livery business?”

  “Good, no thanks to you,” snarled Fellows.

  “Hey, Fellows, make no trouble in my place, huh?”

  Barstow tittered. “There won’t be any trouble, Mr. Zapappas,” he said. “Mr. Fellows is not familiar with—ah—modern business methods. Now, if he would like to take over my stable, perhaps—”

  “I’d jest as soon go back to ridin’ fence,” said Fellows evenly.

  “That’s good! Ha ha! that’s very good. Young man, by the time Tamarisk is a ghost city, I’ll own all the fences hereabouts, and you’ll have to travel many a dry mile before you can hire out without my permission. Ha ha! Better come in with me while you can. I could use a good—”

  “Y’ won’t use me,” snapped Fellows.

  Barstow shrugged, as if the movement were sufficient to send Fellows into limbo and beyond, and turned back to the Greek. “It so happens, Mr. Zapappas, that there is no eating place in Well City at the moment.”

  “What’s you say, Well City?”

  “Ah, yes, yes indeed. Well City it is, and Well City it will be. Ha! The very name shows that it has a future. Tamarisk! That’s all anyone could expect to find here—desert greens. Now, in Well City, there’s water—good, pure water.”

  “I heard,” said Fellows, looking out at the rolling desert and its clumps of tamarisk.

  Barstow ignored him, to hang his belly on the edge of the counter. “Now, Mr. Zapappas—surely we can come to some agreement on a catering establishment in Well City.”

  Pericles shook his head with such timidity that the gesture was a mere quiver of wattles.

  “Now, now,” said Barstow heartily, “at least come over to look us over. Well City’s going to be a great little place. I’m wrong. Well City is a great little place. A foresighted businessman—”

  “Ef it’s so nice yonder,” drawled Fellows, “why don’t you go on back to it?”

  Pericles recognized the tone. It reminded him vividly of his dislike of the smell of gun smoke indoors and its attendant corpses. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and said, “Sure. Sure, Meest’ Barstow. Tomorrow.”

  Barstow brought his hands together with a meaty crash and scrubbed them happily against each other. “Splendid, Mr. Zapappas. Splendid. You shall have the—ha!—keys to the city. A good day to you, sir.” He strode to the door, turned and stared coldly at Fellows. “As for you, young man, it will pay you to remember that the law is loaded heavier than that pop-gun of yours.”

  Fellows emitted a .45-caliber oath and sprang up, clawing at his hip. Pericles yelped as if burned, and by the time Fellows had looked at him and back to the door, Barstow was gone.

  “Peri,” said Fellows menacingly, “you are a traitor. You ain’t really goin’ to go over to thet—Well City tomorrow?”

  “I think yes,” said Pericles faintly but firmly, his eyes on Fellows’s gun hand. “Hey, finish you stew.”

  “Thet Barstow walked out o’ here with my appetite,” grumbled the youngster. He threw a leg over his chair and sat down with an elbow on each side of his bowl. The spicy vapors of the stew curled into his angry nostrils, and he began to shovel tentatively, but shoveling, nevertheless. It took three spoonfuls to fill his mouth, whereupon he said, ‘Whut’s this law ol’ frog-face is talkin’ about?”

  Pericles frowned worriedly. “Big talk.”

  “It’s more’n thet,” said Fellows grudgingly. “He’s mighty cocky to be bluffin’. Y’ reckon he’s on to somethin’ we don’t know?”

  At last Pericles smiled. “Soon we know,” he said. “Tomorrow. Hm?”

  Fellows glanced up as the light dawned in his brain. “Peri, you got somethin’ up your sleeve, or stuck in your boot. I know you, you greasy ol’ son-of-a-gun. Whut you aimin’ to do over there tomorrow?”

  “Spice a little, stir a lot,” said Pericles happily, using his stock answer to questions about his cooking.

  It was late the following afternoon that Pericles’s flea-bitten mare plodded wearily up to the restaurant. Fellows was standing in the shade, leaning back and whittling. He stepped out and caught the bridle, holding it while the little man dismounted heavily.

  “Hot,” said Pericles unnecessarily.

  “It is thet,” said Fellows, throwing the reins over the rail. “Hey, Peri—whut’s the idea o’ them oversize saddlebags? Whut’d you tote over there—a month’s grub?”

  Pericles ignored the question, mopping his crinkled face. “Well City very busy,” he said.

  “Is, huh?”

  They went inside. “Plenty fellas driving stakes,” wheezed the Greek. “Marking streets. Meest’ Barstow show me everyt’ing. Place for courthouse, place for smithy, place fo
r hotel and dance hall.”

  “Holy smoke! What’s he think he’s doin’?”

  Pericles knelt to kindle the stove. “Place for depot too.”

  “Depot? Depot for what? Pony Express?”

  Pericles shook his head. “Meest’ Barstow, he tells me the big secret. Railroad coming through the Valley.”

  Fellows, poised over a chair, said “Ah-hah!” sitting heavily with the second syllable. “So thet’s whut th’ horned toad is after. Finds out they’re runnin’ a railroad survey through here, buys up some desert from the Federal Gov’m’nt, stakes out a town, and sits in it ontil th’ railroad goes through.” He clapped his hand to his head and moaned, “An’ he has to go and find hisself a well. Hey—Peri! How about thet? D’you see it?”

  “I see it. Meest’ Barstow, first thing gives me a drink water from it. Pull up the bucket himself. Pour it like he think it’s beer. All morning, want me for drink more.”

  “So he’s really got water in his town, huh? Oh, thet ain’t good, Peri.”

  “Not good. Well right in the middle of town.”

  “Yeah. I c’n see whut’s goin’ to happen to us an’ Tamarisk when Well City gits to be a rail town.” He shook his head. “No wonder Barstow took a day showin’ you around.”

  “No all day. I took a ride,” said Pericles cryptically. He went to the door and looked out toward the rise and Well City. “Fellows.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know what? I never learn to load six-gun like yours.”

  “Well, I’ll be—I never knowed you was interested. You don’t never carry a gun.” His eyes narrowed. “You expectin’ trouble, Peri?”

  Pericles shrugged. He looked up at the rise again. There was a feather of dust at its lip. “Show me, Fellows.”

  “Why shore.” Fellows slipped the plated hogleg out of its holster. “Ain’t nothin’ to it. You pull this back, break it like this, an’ jest slip your cartridges in these here holes.”

  “Whats about this thing. What you call? Cylinder?”

  “Thet? It spins a little each time you shoot. You know thet.

  “If it jams? Why, thet’s easy enough. With the gun broke like this, the cylinder lifts right out. See? Then you can rod the holes out.”

  Pericles reached for the cylinder, his bright eyes glinting as his hand closed on it. “I see. Fellows—look!”

  The youngster followed Pericles’s pudgy finger. Down over the rise swept a group of horsemen.

  “Wh—Hey, they’re from Well City! That’s Barstow’s crew!” He spun back to the Greek, who had moved behind the partition, where his concoctions were beginning to steam and simmer on the stove. Fellows skidded around the counter and into the rear. “Peri! I don’t know how much you know about this, but those guys are loaded for bear. What’s goin’ on?”

  At Fellows’s first shout, Pericles had started elaborately, and was now staring dismally into one of the pots. “Hey, boy. You shout too much with you mouth. Now look what happen, I drop you dirty cylinder into my stew.”

  “You what? Why, you galoot! Thet thing—”

  The Well City posse swept past, thirty strong, whooping. There were one or two shots. Fellows cursed, scooped up his gun, and ran for the door. Pericles smiled radiantly, sounded the stew with a wooden spoon, and delicately fished out the cylinder. He carefully washed it and dried it, and put it in the cash drawer.

  Twenty minutes later he was busily packing liquor bottles into a crate with straw. There was the rustling beat of hoofs on the hard-packed street, and the posse streamed past, bunched around two riders with dispatch cases.

  Fellows pounded in, his face scarlet from the effort to exude profanity and take in air simultaneously. “Peri! Gimme my——cylinder while I fill their—s full o’—lead!”

  “Whatsa do?”

  “ ‘Whatsa do?’ ” screamed Fellows, dancing as if his chaps were full of fire ants. “Don’t ask me questions, damn yuh! I’m mad enough at your clumsiness. You done cass-trated my hawglaig. Now don’t make me madder by actin’ foolish.”

  Pericles glanced out at the rise, where the posse was dwindling out of gunshot. He moved to the cash drawer, set the cylinder on the counter, and scrambled in quivering panic away from Fellows’s wild dive for it. The kid punched it into his gun, rammed home some shells, and bolted for the door. The sight of the posse pouring over the top of the hill and out of sight deflated him to the point where his shoulders seemed to dislocate. He went completely limp except for his jaw muscles. He made no sound.

  Pericles smiled. “You cuss too much,” he observed. “An’ when you get real mad, you got not’ing left to say. Hm?”

  Fellows turned slowly, slowly raised his fists to his cartridge belt, and treated Pericles to a glare that would have dried up an oat-fed cow with a three-day calf.

  Pericles turned pale. “Want a cup coffee?” he murmured.

  Fellows ignored the suggestion, while Pericles bustled himself pouring the coffee into a mug. “Peri, you are jest too good-hearted an’ stupid to stay alive. Don’t you know what them rannies jest did?”

  “Whatsa do?”

  “I’ll tell you ‘whatsa do,’ ” rasped the youngster. “Surrounded the marshal’s office, that’s what, where ol’ Mickey Mack keeps all the town records. They got all them papers and rid off with ’em before anybody in town knew which way to jump.” He tapered off to a trickling, inarticulate mumble which returned in another flood of unprintables.

  When the noise had died down again, Pericles asked mildly, “Was it legal?”

  “Legal? Whaddeya mean legal? It was kidnappin’, that’s what the hell! Oh, they poked some papers at Mickey Mack fust—”

  “What kind papers?”

  “I dunno. Mickey tol’ us—me and Hark and some more that was there. Somepin’ about Well City bein’ a county seat, an’ a seizure order fer th’ county records f’m the marshal’s office at Topeka. So what’s that?” He snorted. “Them was our records, Tamarisk records—all the deeds an’ claims an’ transfer notes an’ all. What’s Well City want with ’em?”

  “It was legal,” said Pericles quietly. Fellows sat while that sank in. Pericles put coffee before him and said, “It was legal, even if it was no good, boy. Your gun makes big noise, big trouble. Barstow, he say the law is loaded heavier’n you are. Is right.”

  “Why, you interferin’ ol’ belly-stuffer!” bawled Fellows. “You spiked my gun thet a way a-purpose!”

  “Please,” Pericles whispered out of a dry throat. His face was puckered with terror, for Fellows was three degrees uglier than just formidable when his dander soared. “Fellows. Please, boy. Hey. No make trouble in my place. Drink you coffee. You right. Meest’ Barstow tell me about this county seat business. Federal judge, he give charter because of well. No use to tell you—you get mad, all you sense run out you mouth, you shoot and then you hang. No good. Well City is county seat. Is legal.”

  “They cain’t do this!” wailed Fellows. “All this country here was settled out o’ Tamarisk! Then this Easterner walks off with the rail line an’ th’ county records and sits down on desert he bought fer nothin’ and can sell fer a mint!”

  “Is the business methods he talk about.”

  “It’s the business, all right,” gritted Fellows, and added something about Barstow that would have been shocking in Greek. Or even in Portuguese.

  Fellows slurped broodingly at his coffee. Pericles went back to packing liquor bottles in the crate. At length Fellows said, “We c’n git up a bigger posse than Barstow.”

  Pericles froze, half bent over the crate, his shoulders hunched up and his head back as if his nape had been touched by a hot iron. He waited.

  “Scoop up our own records, huh?” muttered Fellows inevitably. “Hell, we c’n shoot our way through those shacks of his’n and be gone with th’ papers before they know what’s up. And it’ll take a damn sight more’n twenty armed men an’ a coupla court orders to pry us loose, this time.”

  “Now, F
ellows,” said Pericles carefully. “Don’ talk this kind stuff, you hear? You get troops from Topeka an’ a rope for your neck.”

  “Not me,” snarled the youngster. “I’ll get lead in my blood, or I’ll be over th’ border afore that happens.”

  “Fellows,” said Pericles pleadingly, “you can’t fight everyt’ing with guns. Yes? Sometimes you got to use somet’ing else.”

  “Fer the likes o’ Barstow? What you goin’ to do? Use a skillet an’ a han’ful o’ cayenne? Maybe you want to feed Barstow an’ his gunmen ontil they bust, huh?” He regarded the Greek with scorn, which changed to interest as he noticed what Pericles was doing. “What’s the idea o’ stashing all the firewater?”

  “So it not break.”

  “Break how? You expectin’ trouble here?” He leaped to his feet. “Someone pushin’ you around, Peri? Who is it? Le’s stop it afore it starts. Who do you want hawg-tied an’ branded?”

  “Shh, boy.” Pericles almost laughed. “Don’ you worry your head.” He took down a hammer and battened the top of the crate. When he had finished he stood up, mopped his face and head, and came around the counter.

  “Fellows, listen. You good feller, see? I don’ wan’ see you in bad trouble. Wait awhile, hun? Don’ make this posse stuff. Please, Fellows, hun? This Meest’ Barstow, he is a hard man. Well City got plenty guards, boy. Rifles. All night, until four o’clock in morning, it gets light a little, Barstow got guards out. You get posse, you get killed. Somebody get killed, anyway. Tamarisk men they get killed. Wait awhile, hun?”

  “Wait, hell. Armed guards? This toad wants a war, does he? This one askin’ fer it.” Fellows scowled; then his head snapped up. “You say he pulls his guards an hour before sunup?”

  “Sure. No need them. Men stirrin’ about then anyway. But make to forget it, hun, Fellows? You a good boy. Don’ get in bad trouble. Don’ use you hosses for to make posse.”

  Having planted his seeds, Pericles bent to the task of sliding the heavy crate around behind the partition. That, oddly enough, placed it by the side door and its loading-stage, against which was backed his battered old buckboard.