Heed the Thunder Read Online Free PDF Page A

husband of his mother’s unfamiliar sister as his uncle. Mainly, however, it wasn’t the thing to do, and it wouldn’t have done any good. A grown man stood on his own two legs. If he were sick or helpless, he might go and live with a relative indefinitely. But to ask for hard cash was another matter.
    Smarting from his defeat, Sherman plagued his brother much more than he would have ordinarily. And, even ordinarily, his goading was maddening to Grant.
    Grant had intended to take three drinks. Whisky was ten cents a glass, and he had meant to buy three for himself, and three—as courtesy demanded of a real gentleman—for the bartender. Instead, he spent the whole of the sixty cents on himself, and accepted a drink contemptuously offered by his brother.
    By the time Sherman left and he perforce could also leave, he was raging. He was drunk except that his drunkenness did not show. The livery-stable keeper looked at his flushed face, started to say something, then changed his mind. Silently he hitched a mare to the rubber-tired buggy with the fringed canopy and watched the young man drive off. Even ol’ Dude Grant looked ready to fight at the drop of a hat today.
    And Grant…an angry torrent roared through his body, crashing against the walls of his helplessness. He lashed out at the mare, noting with enjoyment the pained flicker of her flanks. Savagely, he struck her again, jerking the bit against her tender mouth when she lunged forward in obedience. He’d show her what was what, who was boss! Just let her try any of her tricks on him!
    He’d show them all. Yes, Bella, too. She’d put him off long enough. He knew what she needed, and, by Gad, he was the lad to give it to her. He’d have her following him around like a whipped puppy. Like that woman in Galveston.
    Bella.…
    There were drops of moisture on his little brown mustache. His sharp white teeth pressed against his pendulant lower lip. He looked quickly up and down the street, over his shoulder. Then, eyes glistening, he leaned forward and jabbed violently with the blunt end of the whip.
    Bella.…

4
    P hilo Barkley had come to Verdon with five hundred dollars. There was no bank in the town, so he opened one. He bought a metal strong box and had it set in a block of concrete. He made a counter of “borrowed” planks and painted a sign on the window of his rented building. That, with pen, ink, and a nickel tablet, had been his equipment.
    On the first day (according to Barkley), he took in thirty-five dollars in deposits. On the second he received a little less than a hundred. And on the third, a settler from New York State had come in and deposited twenty-two hundred dollars in gold with him.
    Following this bonanza, Philo took his own money from his hip and deposited it in the strong box, having reached the conclusion that the bank was a going concern.
    That was his story, and it was probably not greatly exaggerated.
    He was a stout, squarely built man, far from dull, but exceedingly deliberate. He wore a sturdy blue serge suit, black high-topped shoes, and a serviceable blue work shirt with a black tie. He kept himself behind a wall of coldness, and he was lonesome. Five years before, his wife had died, leaving him without the one companion he really trusted. He had tried to talk to Bella, but she was afraid of him and uninterested in serious matters. Alf Courtland was a good boy—he thought of him as a “boy”—but he was English and the English were funny. Of course, he was in the family, and he worked hard and was honest. But, still—well, perhaps in another year or two.…
    He called to him, now that Edie Dillon had gone, and observed with reserved approval that Courtland pushed his sweepings off the curb before he answered the summons.
    “Close the door, Alf,” he said, as the Englishman came in, “and draw the shades. I don’t think there’s any use staying open any longer.”
    “All right, Bark,” said the cashier-teller-janitor.
    He