Heed the Thunder (8 page)

“Bella! It’s Myrtle!” she called.

And then she blushed. For she heard Bella crossing the floor and fumbling at the latch; and preceding these actions there had been a muttered but quite audible curse.

The door opened a few inches and Mrs. Courtland’s blush deepened. Bella was wearing wine-colored house slippers with giant white pompoms and a thin red silk robe—and nothing else! Not another stitch. Why, even one of her—part of her bosom was exposed. She stared at the girl, reprovingly, and the girl’s black maliciously sparkling eyes met hers unflinchingly.

She was a tall, well-built girl with a daring coiffure which allowed a black curling fringe of bangs across her forehead. Now, as she coolly looked at Myrtle, an unpleasant smile curving her red lips, she drew the robe more tightly around her and gave the bangs a bored pat.

“Well?” she said.

“Why—why, I was just passing by, Bella.…”

“Yes?”

“Well—well, I hadn’t seen you in such a long time, I thought I’d just stop in and see how you were.”

“I’m all right,” said Bella. “I’ve been lying down.”

“Oh. Well, I hope you haven’t been ill.”

“No. But I’m going to lie down again.”

“Well…well, if you’re lying down, you must be ill.”

“Not necessarily,” said Bella, and a secret amusement grew in the malicious depths of her eyes. “Is that the only time you lie down?”

Myrtle reddened. She stammered idiotic meaningless things. She heard herself asking if she could borrow a cup of tea, though goodness knew tea was the one thing she and Alfred always had plenty of.

Bella shrugged a curt assent.

“Just a moment,” she said, and she started to close the door. But even she was not equal to that rudeness. She left it open its original few inches, and disappeared.

Trembling with mortification, Mrs. Courtland waited.

She had forgotten, in her inherent timidity and self-doubt, what she should think of Bella. She could think only of what Bella must think of her. Perhaps she had looked into the house one day and seen her in bed with her clothes on. That was what she must have meant by that lying down business.

Perhaps she would say something to her father about it, and he would say something to Alfred. Maybe he had already done it! Alfred would never mention it, he was so reserved, but he would be terribly hurt.

She was almost ready to cry. Poor Alfred! He was so good to her and she had shamed him.

A gust of wind banged the door back against the wall, bringing her out of her reverie. Without thinking, she reached inside to close it. She had no desire to pry—well, she had, but that was not why she did it. Coal was expensive and it was hard to keep a house warm at best. Anyone else would have done the same thing.

With her head inside the door, of course, she was human enough to look around the room.

And so she saw Grant, lying on the lounge, quite nude.

He cursed her, trying to pull a pillow over himself, and in the kitchen Bella dropped the cup of tea and came rushing in. She grabbed the little bank clerk’s wife by the shoulders and began shaking her, warning her of revenge upon her husband if she told. And while his sister’s hair was tumbled over her face by his sweetheart’s fury, Grant, over his first shock, mumbled feeble protests.

“She won’t tell, Bella. Myrtle isn’t like that.”

“You’ll just bet she won’t!” snapped Bella, releasing her victim. And with a scornful laugh she shoved her out the door.

Myrtle walked home, across lots, weeping, frightened, sick. For once, she was glad to crawl in bed.

T
he Nordic peoples, particularly the Germans, were among the best liked and most respected in the valley. Colonials by heritage, they knew how to adapt themselves to new places, how to fit in. But, most important of all, they had not come to the land empty-handed; they had not been driven from their native soil, but had come willingly. The best of an ambitious people, they had come to America, admittedly, because their own country afforded them insufficient opportunities. A proud and industrious people, they came with full pockets, ready and willing to buy what was needed, generous to a fault.

Briefly, they were the antithesis of the hunkies and Rooshans. And they looked down on these latter from an even more lofty pinnacle than did the native Americans. In fact, their own attitude was in no small way responsible for the Americans’ opinion of the “foreigners.”

The Germans intermarried extensively with the native American stock—a commingling made possible by their Protestantism and their unvarying practicality. The German lad invariably took his new wife to a home as good as or better than the one she had come from, and he was always ready and able to assist an impecunious in-law. The German girls were always well-doweried. But they were known to be such excellent housekeepers and mothers that they would have married the best catches anyway.

Philo Barkley once said that if all the Germans, of direct or collateral descent, were removed from the valley, it would not be worth a white man’s staying.

The Germans received papers and periodicals in their own language from abroad, but they were meticulous about subscribing to American national and local publications; so no one objected. Nor did anyone object to their maintaining their own school, where German and German history were major subjects. It saved the county just that much money, didn’t it? And anyone knew that the German schools were better than ours.

The German schoolmaster was a college graduate, and he spoke five languages fluently. He wasn’t like these silly girls who graduated from the eighth grade, went to normal school for six months, and came back to teach. Just what his salary was no one knew, but judging from his appearance and his standard of living, it was more than adequate. And it was paid in cash—not warrants.

It wasn’t quite noon when Courtland reached the Wilhelm Deutsch farm, but knowing his farmers well, he drove into the yard anyway.

A couple of the smiling Deutsch boys took his horse to the barn for water, feed, and a currying; and fat, beaming old Wilhelm led him into the parlor. The German parlor was not a place for funerals and weddings. They used it every day.

A yellow-haired girl in a spotless house dress served them beer, and another brought in a box of excellent cigars. Without lowering themselves, the family let it be known that they were honored by his presence. Courtland’s reserve melted sufficiently to allow him to tell a story that had become legend in the county:

An old German couple had come into the bank to buy a farm, and they had brought the purchase price, ostensibly, of thirty-five thousand dollars in a gunny sack. When the money was counted, however, it was found to be two thousand dollars short, and the old couple looked at each other in consternation.

Then the old woman had broken the painful silence with a sigh of relief. “It’s all right, Poppa,” she had beamed, “I yoost brought the wrong sack.”

Wilhelm roared at the joke, although he had heard it many times.

“‘I yoost brought the wrong sack,’” he kept repeating, appreciatively, and his jowls were still quivering with laughter as dinner was announced.

It was such a dinner as Courtland had not eaten since—well, since the last time he had stopped at the Deutsch farm. And when he finally and reluctantly departed, he felt sluggish and drowsy. Fortunately, Wilhelm had given him a bottle of applejack as a parting gift, and a few drinks of that dispelled his sleepiness.

Or, perhaps, it was not so fortunate.

He had drunk nothing for a long time and what he drank today seemed to affect him queerly. It did not make him drunk. It did something else, and it did it in such a way that he was almost wholly unconscious of it. He thought of how he had had to use fifty cents of his own money for the rig because Barkley had not given him enough for a decent outfit. And there rose in his brain an all but overpowering urge to return to the bank and tell Barkley what he thought of him. It seemed the thing that he should do, this thing that had lain so long in his subconscious, and there was no check, no safely inhibiting counterbalance for it. Only the fact that there was no place to turn around in the road kept him on his way until the impulse passed.

He arrived at Jabowskis’ home around two in the afternoon. The old man came to the door of the barn, and Courtland remained in his buggy and motioned curtly with his whip.

He took a sheaf of papers from his pocket as Jabowski came up, and he stared at him coldly until the cautious smile had faded from the man’s Neanderthalic face.

Then: “Jabowski,” he rapped out, “the bank holds your paper for fifteen hundred dollars. I’ve come to get it.”

“Yah?” said the old man stupidly. “I no got fiteen hundred. I no got nodding now. In de spring—”

“These are demand notes. You know what
demand
means? It means that when we ask for something, you pay!”

“But I no got!”

“You want us to take your horses, your cows, your plows and wagons? Everything you got to farm with?”

Jabowski shook his head. Helplessly he took off his worn fur cap and turned it in his wrinkled hands.

“What iss?” he stammered. “Jabowski always pay. Everyone know I pay.…I—I dood some’ting bad?”

“That’s better,” said Courtland. “Now we’re beginning to understand each other. You’re the head of the school board of this district, Jabowski. It’s up to you to set an example for the others in your treatment of the teacher. You haven’t been doing that. You haven’t, have you?”

“Vell…” Jabowski shrugged and the shadow of a smile returned to his face.

“These overgrown ornery boys in this district have given her a lot of trouble, and you haven’t done a thing about stopping it.”

Jabowski shrugged again. “She whip poys, good by me. Poys whip her.…Vell?”

Keeping his eyes on him, Courtland took a long drink from the bottle and filled his little silver-rimmed Meerschaum. He struck a match to the tobacco and flipped the burning stub at the hunky.

“The next time Mrs. Dillon has any trouble here,” he said, “you’ll pay our notes or we’ll take everything you’ve got here. Understand?”

The old man nodded his head. “Yah,” he whispered.

“And that isn’t all,” Courtland continued, his contemptuous hate-filled gaze unwavering. “You know the knout? You know Cossack?”

“Yah.” It was not even a whisper, only a frightened movement of the lips.

“Well, we have things like that in this country. You’ve just been lucky so far. If I ever hear that Mrs. Dillon—”

“No! No! I—I do good.”

“You’d better,” said Courtland. And he cut the horse sharply and drove off.

He called on three other head men of the community, and arrived at the little white school house at three o’clock—early enough, for school did not let out until five during the winter months. In spring, when the farm work began to increase, it might be let out at noon or even be suspended for several days at a time.

Edie Dillon saw him drive up and went out to the stoop to meet him.

“Why, Alf,” she said, pleased, wondering at the strange look in his eyes, “what brings you up this way?”

“You,” he said genially, and he took off a glove and shook hands. “We hear you’ve been having a hard time of it, Edie.”

“Well, I’ve been holding my own.”

“Good girl,” he said. “But we’re going to make things easier for you. I’ve been around visiting a few of these hunkies and letting them know how the bank looked on matters. Now, if I can just step inside with you a few minutes we’ll get things settled once and for all.”

“But…Yes, do come in.”

She tossed her head and took his arm. She still stung from the mauling she had received. She would like to see how those big louts acted when they had a man to deal with.

Courtland looked around the room, smiling deceptively. It was about twenty-five by fifty in dimensions. It held forty-three students in eight grades. The primary students were on one side of the room, next to the windows; from them, the grades advanced through the rows to the eighth-grade pupils on the opposite side.

“Which of these are the Czerny boys?” said Alfred to the room at large.

“There’s only one here today,” said Edie, pointing. “Mike. Joseph is out.…But, Alf—”

“I see,” said Alfred, advancing down the row next to the wall. He stopped and looked down into the broad high-cheekboned face of a boy of about sixteen. He was a husky, square-shouldered youth, and he met the bank clerk’s gaze stolidly.

“So you’re Mike Czerny. Do you know why I’m here, Czerny?”

“No,” said Czerny. “I don’t care. My father’s on school board.”

“Yes, I know. I talked with your father. I told him that I was coming here to give you the beating of your life—”

“Alf!”

“And he didn’t object a bit. Get up!”

A tiny muscle jiggled in the boy’s cheek. “I’m American. This not old country. My father got nothing to say ’bout having me beat.”

“You’re a swine. Are you going to get up from there?”

“I’m Amer—”

Courtland struck him in the face with the doubled quirt.

Edie cried out, but her cry was lost in the boy’s scream. Blood burst from his face in a dozen places, and a great red welt coiled snake-like across his cheeks. He staggered to his feet, half-blinded, and his great fists doubled and undoubled harmlessly. If Courtland had struck him with his hand he would have fought, but the whip…the whip had done something to him. It had broken worse than his skin—something that would always lie festering, unhealed. At that moment he was one with his father, his fathers.

Grabbing him by the collar, Courtland flung him toward the front of the room. And the boy went down on his knees there in front of the blackboard. He did not try to run. No. You did not run. Nor fight. No. You did not fight.

He kneeled, submissively, trying only to protect his head with his arms. And as Courtland swung the quirt again and again, the only sound that came from him was a low sobbing, an almost animal whining.

The bank clerk stopped at last and nudged him roughly with his boot.

“Now get out to the pump and wash yourself. Roll yourself in the snow.” He laughed coldly. “And the next time you feel like abusing your teacher, just remember this.”

The boy slunk out.

Courtland faced the room again, some of the madness faded from his brain. It was odd, he thought: if you gave a German or an American a thrashing like that, you would have had the whole pack on you. But the hunkies—when you whipped one, you whipped them all. They were even worse than niggers. Niggers had manners, at least.

He looked at their strained, set faces—so damned scared they were afraid to take a deep breath! And then he saw that some of the little children were crying silently; he saw the great tears run down their broad pinched faces; and he winced and the whip slid from his hands.

“I’m sorry this was necessary,” he said, tightly. “I do not like to”—he put a hand to his forehead—“I hope it will never be necessary again.”

He turned to Edie and she saw that his face was the palest in the room. She nodded at his look.

“You are dismissed for today, children. Go right home, and—and don’t be afraid to come back. We’re going to get along fine from now on.”

They did not move.

“Alf—”

He motioned at them. “Go, now. And be good to Mrs. Dillon after this.”

They filed into the cloakroom silently, and Edie watched them through the yard and down the road. There were none of the usual shouts and talking. She came back into the room and saw the pools of water beneath the desks where the little children sat, and for a moment she was as furious as she was sickened.

But what woman is there who can be angry with a man who has fought for her, however wrongly?

She knelt at the desk where Alf sat, his head held in his shaking hands, and she touched his crisp brown hair gently.

“Alf,” she said.

“I’m afraid I made a mess of things, Edie.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said loyally. “You did exactly right. I just wish you’d given the same medicine to that Kecklik boy.”

He smiled weakly. “I’m afraid—I’m afraid I forgot everything else after Czerny.”

“Well, that’s all right, too! They’ll all watch their step after what you showed ’em today!” She touched his head again. “It’s been a long time since I had a man to depend on, Alf.”

“Poor Edie. I admire you a great deal, you know.”

“And I admire you, too!”

“I imagine it’s been terribly lonesome up here for you.”

“Well…w-well…” said Edie Dillon.

His gentleness and the shock of the afternoon’s happenings suddenly told on her. To her shame, she found herself weeping.

“Oh, A-alf,” she sobbed. “You…you don’t know. No one will ever know what I’ve been…”

“I know. And you mustn’t do it any longer.”

“I-I’ve got to!”

He did not deny the statement. There was no use. What could he do to help her? He put his arm around her and drew her head against his shoulder. He felt her back quiver beneath the stiff starched shirtwaist; he felt her shivering breasts against his chest. And, almost, he pressed a kiss against her forehead. Nor was he stopped by the moral wrongness of the thing. Immorality, to Courtland, became a disgrace only upon its discovery, and he saw no chance of that here. He drew back because he was afraid and because he loved her. He was afraid of the physical result upon her of even such a small thing as a kiss upon the forehead. Even by holding her against his shoulder, or touching her hand, he might be endangering her.

Myrtle.…He had not known, then, and it was too late to do anything about it now. And for the rest of the town he did not give a snap of his carefully tended fingers. But brave little Edie—he would never harm her.