The trouble in Thor

by Armstrong Charlotte

  The storm was, by this time, nearly spent. It had settled to an aftermath of steady light rain. The road, over hill and dale from the river, was a stew of mud. He could not make time. When, approaching the saloon corner, he hit a harder surface, he put on speed.

  He passed the saloon, so shut away that it was hard to believe anyone could be awake inside the drab building in its lonely spot. He skidded badly, turning toward Thor. Tlie bridge, under which the railroad ran in a deep cut, was right before him, low-railed, and narrower than the road.

  He entered upon it and picked up speed to fly along the straight stretch that would roll beneath him now. He was a man in a state of urgency toward he knew not \'hat. The dying storm had one more lightning bolt to offer. Wlien it came, his dazzled eyes just saw a movement at the right side of the narrow end of the bridge. Something tottering into his path.

  Surprise, coming upon his state of tension, sent his foot down too fast. The car skidded violently on the slick bridge. The back end swung. He fought it and lost. The car hit the rail and tried to mount it. Lights smashed, it quivered in the abrupt darkness and it turned over.

  Smashed glass sliced viciously along the arm across Henry's face, but at the same time, something met the back of his head and he lost consciousness before pain.

  Now the car's engine coughed, fluttered, and died. Its wheels spun in a wistful fashion as if they sought traction in the soft and empty rain. Underneath, his blood seeped softly, spreading without sound into the dark water on the black road.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Madeline Cole was down on her knees. With scarcely a thought for her dress and her stockings, she knelt on the cold, hard, rough, wet ground. The car was tilted. No lightning came to help her see what lay under it. "Henry . . ." her voice trembled. Something pale, upturned, must be his face. "Are you all right? Are you all right?" Her hand touched broken glass. She thought, I must be careful not to cut myself.

  He had come along so much sooner than she had expected. She had been startled to recognize his car. It was no wonder she had stirred convulsively from the shelter of the stone at the end of the bridge, where she had thought to spend another hour, at least, escaped from Cyril, hidden from the town, dreaming and w^aiting in the rain.

  Now, she heard a brittle sound like giant soda crackers breaking.

  And now somebody's hard hands came, brutally strong, under her armpits and tugged upward. "For God's sake, get out of here!" Her brother Cyril was panting in her very ear. "You fool! You can't stay here! The saloon! Quick! Hurry! You can't be seen!"

  He dragged her and she was doubled backwards with her legs folded under her and she scraped her calves, dragging her legs on the road to get them unfolded. He lifted her to her feet and, taking her hand, yanked so violently that she nearly fell.

  Now there was a spot of light somewhere in the wet dark world. There, there it was, yards away. She could hear men's quick excited voices. That crackling sound had been a door opening. Men were about to pour out of the saloon. She

  could sense them peering from their hghted place into the dark and the wet.

  "Come away," cried Cyril in her ear. "You little fool!" He was dancing and pulling frantically. "T/iey'll find him. You can't be here when they do. No business . . . Hurr)! D'you want that whole bunch from the saloon to find him in your arms, and your husband where he is? Get walking. Get go mg.

  So she began to walk and then to run. Her brother drew her behind a row of bushes. They scurried along the road's margin. There was no lightning to let them be seen. Nor could they be heard because the men's voices were shouting, now. Cyril pulled her violently to the right. Softly, he worked the latch of a gate. There was a dark house on the little ridge that rose opposite tlie depot. It was the last one in a row of half a dozen. Cyril led her, stepping carefully, up a path and stealthily along the house wall, down through its yard the other side of the low ridge.

  Then they were in an alley and well-hidden. They went on to a street that angled in. Between one of Thor's double rows of identical houses, making a duet of her soft sobbing and the sob of his angry breath, they went hurrying northward in the rain. They hurried past the closed and silent town hall and through the circle of light at the corner. At last, soaked, pale and panting, they faced each other inside the little house of Arthur Cole.

  "You didn't dream you could get away from me," he gasped. "Never. I knew. I was looking out for you."

  But now she remembered Henry Duncane. She put her hands to her wet head. She had not screamed yet but in a minute she would begin to scream,

  Cyril slapped her. "Was he hurt?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know. Did he see you?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know. Did you speak to him?"

  "Yes."

  "Did he answer?"

  "No."

  "Maybe you're lucky."

  "Lucky!" she shrieked. Her eyes looked black, not gray.

  "All right. Don't even remember it. Never let it get out that you were there. You didn't go anywhere. I'll swear. You'll swear. Ah . . . why do I try?" Cyril fell into a chair. He put his arm across his face. "You made him lose control. You turned that car over."

  "Didn't . . ." she swallowed. "How could I?"

  "I saw it. How I'd laugh," said Cyril viciously, "if Arthur gets out alive and it's Duncane who dies."

  "No!" She recoiled and went staggering backwards away. "Oh, no!"

  "What do you thmk? That isn't possible?"

  "You're just . . . You're trying to hurt me," she gasped. "Better call. Be sure. Call the doctor."

  "You or I can't call any doctor."

  Tliey stared at each other.

  Suddenly Cyril raised a clenched fist. "By God, you're no good!" he shouted. "You're rotten! Can't you see you should have staved there?"

  "But ..."

  "You should have stood by him." 1 . . . you ...

  "Sure. I told you to come away. Sure, I could see what you were in for. Sure. But you shouldn't have listened to me," he raved. "If you had anything to you but a face and a pair of legs . . . Love! That's love tor you."

  "It was you," she cried. "Why did you make me?"

  "Nobody could have made you," Cyril raved, "if you were anything."

  "There's no pleasing you," she cried. "I can never please you! It was your fault! Your fault!"

  Cyril said, "We might as well quit shouting about it and shut up and keep still and wait. . . ."

  She sat down, sinking slowly. They stared at each other.

  Libby Duncane noticed that the storm was dying, the night was quietmg, for, except for the noises she made herself, the big bedroom where the lamp flickered was quiet, now. Mrs. Trestrial rocked nearby with a rhythm that was somehow sensitive and in accord. There was nothing non-

  chalant about it. There was, instead, calm and reassurance, as if nothing could be wrong while that homely rhythm continued.

  The doctor was asleep.

  This was not a thing Libby could have foreseen, that she could be where she was and as she was and watch his head lying on his arms on the chair back and hear his breathing and know he was asleep and understand it. He slept while he could and for her sake. And for the sake of other people who might need him yet tonight. It was not indifference and not neglect, but care. Instead of a show of care.

  Funniest thing, she thought.

  Mrs. Trestrial caught her eye and her comical old face twisted and her curls bounced like a signal or a wink. Libby smiled at her. The doctor stirred. He might almost have had a premonition or, in his sleep, heard the telephone clear its throat, for it rang. Mrs. Trestrial sailed into the sitting room to answer it.

  May be Henry, Libby thought. She felt almost positive that it was Henry calling.

  "Doctor. They want you." The doctor was awake and on his feet and out of the room without any hesitating transition. It's a skill, thought Libby admiringly, to sleep when you may and wake when you must. It's his work, of course
. He had to learn that. The shadows on the high white ceiling made a prett}' play.

  "I like lamplight," Libby said dreamily. "It's nice and old-fashioned."

  " 'Tis cozy," murmured Mrs. Trestrial. But her head was turned to look over her shoulder through the door.

  "Dr. Hodge, here."

  "Say, Doc, this is Turner. Henry Duncane's car turned over on the bridge down by the saloon. Listen, he's under it and he's out and bleeding bad. We're scared to move him. Looks pretty bad. Can you come? We put a lot of towels in there but .' . .'"

  "Don't touch anything," said the doctor sharply, "unless you know what you're doing. What is it? Head?"

  "No. We don't think so. Looks like the glass . . . Listen, Doc, I dunno but I think you better make it fast." "Come as quick as I can."

  When the doctor came back through the door there was an air of lightning about him, of sharp alarm. He came swiftly close to Libby and said quietly, "Mrs. Duncane, I'm afraid there is an emergency."

  Her blue eyes, looking up into his face, opened very wide.

  "May be a matter of life or death," he said.

  "Oh!" She knew, at once, he was going to ask a question.

  "TTie chances are that you will have no trouble," he went on gravely. (He stood as if he would fly. He was poised to go.) "But if I go, I might not get back before the baby comes, although I'd try."

  Life or death, she thought. Well, that was the emergency. It always was. Always meant life or death for somebody. That was the question that emerged, that came out of the event, suddenly, "Emergency," she said aloud. "Is it one of the men?" For she thought, at once, of the trouble at the mine.

  The doctor, 6yes shrewd on her faqe, merely nodded.

  "And you are needed?"

  "Yes, right away." (She gasped because she was made to gasp.) "If I go it's got to be now." He bent down, smelling clean. "Can't be two places at once. I can only leave it to you. You are to say. Mrs. Trestrial knows what to do for you, of course. And I'll hurr)"

  "Of course she knows," said Libby, as the power let her go. "Oh, doctor, I couldn't keep you. I wouldn't dare. Don't let the man die."

  He said, "Good girl. I'll hurry." And, as if she had snapped a little thread that lightly held him, now he flew away.

  Libby looked at the ceiling. She had taken no thought what she should say. That was in the Bible someplace, wasn't it? Well, just the same, the answer was there. Just there. There was no other.

  Mrs. Trestrial, concealing the name with which the doctor had stabbed her as he brushed bv, came near and leaned

  over, and put her strong hand on the girl's brow, "Us'U 'ave to get on with it and surprise 'im," she said gently.

  "The three of us, eh?" grinned Libby Duncane. "You know, Mrs. Trestrial—" She stopped and screamed lustily and when it was over she took up the sentence. "—it was my ancestors who said that. Funniest thing."

  "I know 'oo 'twas," said Mrs. Trestrial, bridling.

  :86

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  On surface, when the eye adjusted to the scene at the shaft-house it could discern the shape of the artificially lighted area, the intersecting cones and their limits. Above this it could appreciate the night sky. It could plainly see the framework of the shaft itself, towering, and the outline of the long-legged trestle curling off behind it. Ihe eye could divine when the black cable moved on its massive pulley and see the steel rope vibrating where it crossed the road, like a clothesline, to vanish into the hoisting house where, on the huge symmetry of the great reels, it was wound up or let out.

  In the small hours the people waited, and every eye knew when the black shimmer on the cable, that signified motion, began.

  Mable Marcom was wrapped in a blanket. She sat on the running board of somebody's car. Her niece, Milly, and her sister, Bess, had not returned after the storm. But her brother-in-law, a big-boned heavy man, leaned on the car beside her. He said nothing to her nor she to him. But he was rooted there. He would not leave her.

  Luella Pilotti and Anna and Marie wore coats and scarves, and the three sat, knees high, in a dark row on a low bench of boards. Their men were nearby, restless. One would walk away and light a pipe and stare into the sky. Another would follow and speak and come back to stand behind the women.

  A little before three o'clock a car came. Alice Beard was in it. Her father drove it. Her mother was beside him. Alice sat alone in the tonneau, just as she always had ever since Pa got a car. Long ago, when a car was a thrilling excitement and people went riding for its own sake with no destination,

  she had ridden behind them, an appendage, taken along. Charley had never been able to afford a car.

  Half after three, Dickie Trezona slipped into the light. He was muffled up in a mackinaw and he carried a basket of food. Moving, he caught the eye. After he had given his burden to a miner who promptly sent it underground, Dick settled to wait. He was not going home.

  The people murmured. Some wondered what Mrs. Trezona was thinking of to let the young boy out at all in this hour. Tongues clicked. Some guessed he stayed without permission, held by the awful drama and the coming climax. Some thought it a shame. Ought not be here. Ought to be home in bed, boy like that. No time, no place for him. Some, meaning well, went to speak to him.

  Dickie said his Ma knew where he was. Ma let him come and yes. Ma knew he'd be staying. He seemed sure.

  It made no difference, now, to Eedie herself, to the captain—or to Wesley, God knew—which hour of the twenty-four it happened to be. Day and night were out of joint. Time was not a rolling dial but a stretched line, very straight, from a beginning to some kind of ending. So Eedie looked at her son, Dick, who was twelve, and she could not believe that because he was not yet eighteen, he could not run on family time, too. So the hour did not matter.

  Nor did the place. For she could not believe, either, that the long thoughts in the little head would be any easier if the head lay on a pillow, now. He had slept a long time and he could not sleep any more. For herself, she would have liked him under the roof, safe. But he would be safe enough. And, if he had the illusion of helping, she knew that was good for him.

  So Dick maintained placidly, to all the kind people who inquired, that his Ma knew. C3h yes. Sure, he was sure.

  Cyril Varker was stiff and chilly in body and bone. But now that he was here, he kept watching everything. And he did not suggest that they go home.

  Home did not do. The little house could not contain his sister, Madeline, in her agony of guilt and foreboding. The

  only thing to do was get her out of it, bring her here, where she was on stage, and knew it, and must play a part that required some kind of decorum. And here, where, if there was news, news would be told—whether about the men in the mine or anything else that had happened in Thor tonight.

  So he had forced her to change to dr}- clothing and then they had left the hideous little house that shut them in to wonder and look at each other.

  Here it was better, much better. And it looked well, too, he thought, for her to be here with the rest. No one guessed any reason but the wrong reason. Even the way she looked, half out of her head, would go down in the stor)' as a wife's anxious devotion. No one would guess she might have killed a man a while ago.

  Dr. Hodge's office, the gray frame building, set in shrubbery in the schoolyard corner, was where all of Thor came to be dosed and diagnosed, for he was all the medicine and all the drugstore, too, there was in town. For attention to their teeth the people must go to Pinebend where there were dentists, drugstores, other doctors, and even a small hospital in that larger place.

  But Dr. Hodge belonged to Thor, to the Company and the town and here, in this little building, he probed, prescribed, and dispensed, and held his lonely sector, a front line of defense against death and disease. Among other things, emergency was his business.

  A long porch at the side had been glassed in and when, during office hours, the waiting room was full, the overflow of patients sat on a long be
nch against the porch windows. The waiting room was large and square, lined with shelves, and on the shelves the bottles and boxes were arrayed. The whole place smelled like the doctor himself, of mysteries and cleanliness. The inner room held his desk and some apparatus. In an alcove there was a cot. On this cot, after midnight, they had put Henry Duncane.

  "What happened?" said Henry, drowsily, some time later.

  "Lie still."

  He and the doctor were alone. The doctor said, "Lost a lot of blood. Head ache? Lie still." He went toward his desk.

  "Don't quite know what to do with you," he said pleasantly. "Wait a minute."

  He gave a number into the phone. It was Duncane's own number. "Libby?" said Henry in a sharper voice.

  "Just a minute . . . Ah/' said the doctor, "Mrs. Trestrial? Ah, yes . . . Yes, I see. . . ." He listened a lengthening time.

  Henry had a bewildered look as he felt of his right arm with his left hand.

  "Yes, I guessed you wouldn't have answered, otherwise . . . Fine . . . Good . . . Oh yes, he's all right. I was in good time . . . Don't speak of it now. No, I think you'd better not , . . I see . . . I'll tell him ... Be in as soon as I can make it . . . Yes, all right. Thanks."

  The doctor heaved a loud gusty sigh. "You have a son," he announced and watched with perennial pleasure for the smile of foolish delight to spread on the man's mouth. "All's well. Your wife is fine. Mrs. Trestrial, God bless her, has everything in hand. No 'urry, she tells me."

  "Libby's fine?"

  "Fine."

  Henry stirred feebly. "What happened to me?"

  "Your car turned over. You don't remember? Knock on the head you had wasn't such a bad one. I should think you could remember."