Heed the Thunder

by Jim Thompson

  For a moment, a fear as unreasoning as it was hideous gripped her; and she shivered as she sometimes shivered, frightened, on coming out of a sound sleep. It was a senseless, terrible thing, yet so real that she almost turned and ran. It was as though the door were an entrance to Death: she seemed to see herself stepping through it and into an abyss, a murky depth in which the bloated body of a centaur floated lazily, the silt sifting from his horribly placid nostrils.

  It came and went. Like some unmentionable object snatched from an immaculate counterpane, it left nothing but its shadowy impression, somehow disturbing, yet lacking the concreteness to activate the terror which the object itself would have, and had, inspired.

  “Grant,” she called, and opened the door.

  He was sitting on the table in the corner of the building, his back to the wall, his chin resting on his chest. He did not answer her, and she let the door swing shut and went to him swiftly.

  “Grant, darling,” she said, brushing at the hair that protruded frowsily beneath the brim of his hat. “Wake up, dear.”

  He muttered drowsily and sat up. Almost roughly he drew away from her seeking fingers, pushing the derby to the back of his head.

  “I’m all right,” he said, his voice peevish.

  “Were you asleep, darling?”

  “Apparently,” he said shortly. “I’ve been waiting here in this hole for almost an hour.”

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away any sooner.”

  “Oh, it’s all right.”

  Bella stiffened. It was not in her nature either to feel or to be apologetic, and her small account of patience was kept constantly overdrawn by her father. Still, for her own sake, she would not let herself see Grant as he was. She would not admit, yet, that she was ashamed of him and herself.

  “I brought something for you,” she said.

  “Did you?”

  “Umm-hmm. Here.” She groped for his coat pocket in the darkness and thrust a bill into it. “Now. Feel better?”

  “Thanks a lot.” He aroused himself sufficiently to press her hand.

  “I’ve got some good news for you, too, honey. We’re going to be able to get away from here.”

  He sat up genuinely interested. “Yeah? When?”

  “Well…not until fall, dear. But—”

  “Oh, hell!”

  “It won’t be so long, Grant. And we really can go, then, and go right. We can count on it. Father’s going to give me the money.”

  “To go away with me?”

  “Of course not, silly—dear. But that’s what I’ll use it for. We’ll go back East, somewhere, and you can find something to do—something suitable—and, well, everything will be all right. We’ll just run our lives to suit ourselves and never come back to this darned place, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can just go to the devil!”

  She rattled on, breathlessly, gradually awakening his enthusiasm.

  “Gee, that’ll be swell, Bella!”

  “Won’t it, though? And can’t you just see people’s faces around town here when they hear what we’ve done?”

  They laughed together.

  “We’ll have to go a good long ways,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Grant. There’s nothing to be afraid of particularly that I can see. We’re both over twenty-one.”

  “Well, sure, but…”

  For some reason he decided it would be best to leave the sentence unfinished. In his heart, he was as much afraid of the girl as she was ashamed of him; and, naturally, he had to do everything he could to show her that he was not afraid. He had never gained a stomach for fear. Its taste had become more bitter with each of the thousands of times it had been forced upon him.

  He slid to his feet and put his arms around her. He put his hands around her plump bottom, still enticing despite its imprisoning corset, and roughly boosted her upon the table. He put a knee between hers and forced her back, forced her to recline. Ignoring her protests, he unbuttoned her skirt, threw back the fold after fold of petticoats.…

  “Grant!” she gasped. “Oh, Grant…”

  “Hurting you?”

  “Oh…yes-s…darling…”

  “It’s too bad.”

  …After an hour he left her, swaggering off toward town to spend the money she had given him on drink, just as she suspected he would.

  As best she could in the dark little building, she rearranged her clothes and hair and tried to make herself presentable again. She cried a little, hating herself for doing it, and cursed a great deal. She crept out of the building shakily, feeling beaten and exhausted.

  Reaching the gate, she suddenly staggered; she leaned against the rough wood, doubled, and vomited. For several minutes she stood there, panting, her shawl pushed back to let the cool, cleansing air upon her forehead. At last there was nothing more within her, and with what had passed, the shame seemed also to have gone.

  She laughed once and tossed her head. Then she proceeded on through the gate, and her fine black eyes flashed proudly in the light of the first evening stars.

  13

  Sherman and Lincoln Fargo did very well on their cattle feeding that year. They did not do as well as Sherman had expected to do, but, then, very few things in life came up to Sherman’s expectations—including his expectations, in general.

  However, he had made a considerable sum of money, and this fact, coupled with his disgust with the thresher and a suspicion that his winter wheat had been largely killed, caused him to sit down one evening and indite a letter of considerable length to the World-Wide Harvester Company. In it, he explained that he intended to go into stock farming exclusively and thus would be growing little grain but corn, and he requested that World-Wide come and recover their thresher at their earliest convenience. He declared that he was a man of his word and that they could keep the amount they had received from him—although, God knew, he could use it himself. They need not return his notes, but could put them to some sound utilitarian purpose.

  By return mail, he received a letter from World-Wide thanking him for his letter—which they had all enjoyed—and regretting their inability to replevin the thresher or return his notes. They were, however, very respectfully his, and hoped to remain his obedient servant.

  Sherman wrote back and told them he had made himself pretty damned clear as to intentions and most people in that neck of the woods knew that when he said something, by God, it was exactly what he meant and he was not going to raise any more wheat and he was not going to need their goddam pile of junk and that was all he had to say.

  The harvester company replied that they would expect payment on his next note promptly when it became due.

  Sherman replied that they could expect and be damned.

  The next letter he received (very quickly) was from the company’s legal department. They sent him copies of the terms of sale and expressed the warm hope that he would resume his payments at once, thus saving himself a great deal of expense and embarrassment incidental to a lawsuit.

  Sherman did not answer this letter. After a wait of several days, the harvester company was addressed by Jeff Parker on that attorney’s newly printed stationery:

  Gentlemen:

  My client, Sherman Fargo, has turned over your correspondence to me. I have heard of your company at length and favorably; thus, your attitude toward Mr. Fargo, who is related to me as well as to most of the substantial families of this community, comes to me as an exceedingly painful surprise.

  Mr. Fargo already has paid you approximately one-half the value, or, I should say, price of the thresher; and he has stated his willingness to let you keep that amount in recompense for whatever wear and tear there has been on the machine. Is your equipment so short-lived that it must be rebuilt completely after one season? Isn’t the amount you have already received more than sufficient to put the machine back in its (sic) original good condition, leaving you a substantial profit on its resale? These are points which inevitably would have to be bro
ught into the open in the event of a lawsuit. They would unavoidably receive the widest discussion among your other clients, potential and present. As I say, then, having always believed your product to be a good one, I am amazed at your conduct in the instance of Mr. Fargo.

  I would also like to point out that Mr. Fargo has purchased several other implements from you and, to date, he has expressed no unwillingness to pay for them.

  Very respectfully yours,

  Jefferson Parker, Att’y. at Law

  When the letter reached the harvester company’s legal department, it was passed on to the lawyer assigned to the case. He read it with open admiration. Chuckling, he showed it to his chief.

  “What do you think of that, eh? There’s a man we ought to get acquainted with.”

  The chief agreed, laughing. “Say, I was hearing about him a while back. Last winter. He’s the fellow who sued God, remember?”

  “By George, I knew the name sounded familiar!” The subordinate slapped his knee. “Wasn’t that the damnedest thing you ever heard of?”

  “Damned smart. That boy’s on his way up.…I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Johnnie. We’ll let sales handle this. Bill Simpson can probably square it up the next time he’s out in that neck of the woods. If he can’t, we’ll just have to write it off.”

  “And you want me to write Parker?”

  “Tell him it was all a mistake—you know how to drop it gracefully—and that our sales representative will make a satisfactory adjustment of the matter with Mr. Fargo. Uh…oh, yes. Better have the cashier draw him a check for a couple hundred, and tell him that inasmuch as we are at fault, we would like to pay him for his trouble and return Mr. Fargo’s retainer, and—and so forth and so on. One more thing. You might inquire how he would feel about becoming our correspondent in that section.…”

  So this was done.

  Jeff opened an account at the bank, engaged room and board at the hotel, and began bathing almost every week. In due course, also, Bill Simpson, World-Wide’s star salesman, came into Verdon one bright spring morning.

  He took breakfast with Jeff and afterward spent an hour or so with the implement dealer. Then, although he could have hired the most expensive rig at the livery stable, he set out on foot for Sherman’s farm.

  Sherman and his two sons were repairing fence along his acres next to the road, so the salesman did not go on up to the house. Instead, he silently hopped the ditch, slung his coat over a post, and went to work.

  Sherman looked up in surprise as the wire tautened exactly as he wanted it. He sputtered a rather surly hello.

  “Hello there, Sherman,” brayed the salesman. “Surprised to see me out here?”

  “Well, yes and no,” said Sherman deliberately.

  “I hear some damned fool in the office wrote you a nasty letter or two.”

  “Ummm.”

  “If I’d been there, it never would have happened. I gave them plenty of hell about it, Sherm.”

  “Well,” said the farmer, “I guess I can get just as mean as the next one.”

  “You treated ’em exactly right,” declared the salesman, “and I told ’em so. I said look what you’ve done with your insults—gone and offended one of my best customers. If that’s the way you’re going to act, you’d better start looking around for a new salesman. I says, everyone that knows me knows I’m on the square, and I won’t have anything to do with a company that ain’t the same way. Oh, I told ’em what I thought about the deal, Sherm. I said Sherman Fargo is a man of his word and he really needs that thresher and intends to keep it—”

  Sherman snorted, and his hard face assumed its normal expression of leering incredulity.

  “Oh, no, I don’t need it and I won’t keep it. And you can just put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

  “All right, Sherm,” said the salesman softly.

  “I’m going to feed again this next year. Ain’t going to do nothing else but feed.”

  “You know your own business best, Sherm. It’s not for me to tell it to you.”

  “Anyway, that damned thresher is nothing but a pile of junk. I’m a man of my word—”

  “Sure you are.”

  “But I ain’t no goddamned fool. Why, Bill, it just ain’t right to expect me to keep it and pay for it!”

  “You don’t have to, Sherm. I’d pay for it out of my own pocket before I let you keep something you were dissatisfied with.”

  Sherman started to say something else. He broke off to curse uncomfortably and bat an imaginary sandfly from his ear.

  “Goddamit,” he said, turning upon his sons, “what are you standing there gawking about. Why don’t you do a little work instead of lettin’ Mr. Simpson do it all?”

  Ted and Gus fidgeted, grinning at each other.

  “He’s got the wirestretcher, Dad.”

  “That’s right, I have,” boomed the salesman. “Let me spell ’em a while, Sherm. I’m an old hand at this game.”

  “But it ain’t—I mean—”

  “I know,” said Simpson soberly. “I’m just doing this because I like to. Like to get out and do a little real work for a change. I’m not obligating you any. I’ve got your contract and notes right there in my pocket, and if you’ll let me use your phone afterwhile, I’ll have our dealer come out and get the thresher. How’s that?”

  “Well,” said the farmer, more discomfited than ever, “you’ll stay for dinner anyway, won’t you?”

  “You bet your life I will! I’ve been looking forward to eating at your house since the first time I was out this way.”

  Sherman scowled, trying to conceal his pleasure, and gruffly ordered his sons to the house.

  “You ain’t no good down here, anyways. You can go start cleaning out the barn. But stop by the house first and tell your mother we’re havin’ company; and tell her to have something on the table for a change.”

  The boys left without a second invitation, beginning a clod fight when they were safely out of shouting—or cursing—distance. They delivered Sherman’s message to their mother, who also encouraged them to the long-overdue task of cleansing the barn. She encouraged them so well that they spent some time, after they reached the barn, in sitting in the horse trough with their trousers lowered. Then, with the temperature of their backsides somewhere near normal, they went up into the loft, excavated their airplane from the hay, and began shortening its wings.

  Meanwhile, Sherman and the salesman were still repairing fence. Now and then Simpson passed a remark and the farmer made an awkward answer, but for the most part there was silence. Sherman hardly knew what to say. There was no middle ground in his attitudes: he either liked a man or he disliked him. And he liked Bill. Bill had certainly played square with him from the beginning right up until now, and he was doing everything he’d asked him to do. But…oh, hell.

  He set the brake on the wire-spool and straightened up.

  “I don’t like to be put in the wrong on anything, Bill,” he said abruptly.

  “I don’t mean to put you in the wrong, Sherm.”

  “Well, you’re not. But—damit, Bill, tell me something. Don’t you think I’m smart to switch to stock instead of crop farming?”

  The salesman appeared to deliberate. “You may be, at that, Sherm. Last year was a hell of a good year for stock.”

  “Do you think it’ll hold up like that?”

  “Well, a lot of people seem to think it will. Practically every section I’ve been in, the farmers are planning to convert. They can’t all be wrong.”

  Sherman nodded. He frowned, suddenly, and looked at the salesman sharply, but the latter’s expression was guileless.

  “Well, hell,” the farmer pointed out, “if everybody’s doing it, there won’t be no money in stock!”

  Simpson looked at him and looked down at the ground. He said nothing.

  “Now ain’t that so, Bill?”

  “I think so, yes, Sherman,” said the salesman, evenly. “In fact, I’m positive of it. But—
wait a minute.” He lifted his coat from the fence post, drew out a sheaf of papers, and handed them to the farmer. “There’s your notes, Sherm. I want you to have them back before we do any more talking.”

  “But now look here,” said Sherman. “Maybe—”

  “Now I can tell you exactly what I think and you’ll know I’m not prejudiced. I can give you my best opinion gained from traveling all through the Middle West, and you’ll know it is my best. You’ll know it’s not something I’m making up to get you to hold on to the thresher. You’ll know I’m not lying to you.…”

  “Why, now,” Sherman choked apologetically, “I ain’t afraid of you lying—”

  “Well, here’s the way I look at it, Sherm. This last year has been a bad one for the country as a whole, hasn’t it? Lots of people out of work; money scarce as hen’s teeth. Am I right?”

  “You’re sure right about that,” Sherman agreed.

  “But despite those facts, hogs and cattle were way up, weren’t they? People didn’t have the money to buy them with, but yet they were up. And why were they up? Why, because there was a short corn crop.”

  “Right again,” Sherman nodded.

  “Okay. There wasn’t any shortage of cattle; you know that from the opening prices in the fall. Cattle were low as hell in the fall when people that couldn’t feed had to ship. There isn’t any shortage of cattle now, any more than there ever was, and this year there’s going to be a bumper corn crop. So I say frankly, Sherm, this is the worst year you could pick to feed.”

  “Well,” Sherman sighed, hating to give up an idea, “maybe you’re right, Bill.”

  “Don’t you know I am, Sherman?”

  “It sure looks like you was.”

  “Sherm,” said the salesman, stooping a little to look the more earnestly into his client’s face, “Sherm, I’m going to tell you something: this is going to be one of the best wheat years we’ve ever had. I say that and you know we sell every kind of farming implement: corn planters, corn shellers, corn cultivators—you know we do. If I were in your place, I’d sow everything I could get my hands on to wheat, late as it is. If I could get ahold of any other land, I’d sow it. It’s going to be big, Sherm! It has to be. People aren’t going to be able to buy much besides bread, so they’re going to eat more of that.”