Darkly The Thunder (13 page)

Howie stirred restlessly in the chair, an odd expression on his face.

“What is it, Howie?” Sunny asked.

But the boy would only shake his head and stare at the screen.

“I'm hungry!” Angel said, from just outside the gun room.

“Then go stuff your face!” Howie told her, an edge to his voice they all picked up.

Sunny took the girl's hand, and they wandered off in search of something to eat. “Howie can be a real nerd when he wants to be,” Angel said.

Or just a very worried child, Sunny thought. With more knowledge in his head than a ten-year-old should have.

“Leave us alone,” Howie said. The room cleared of people. Howie typed: Sand, are you telling me there is only one way to destroy this thing?

And I know what it is, right?

Sand, that would destroy this part of the state.

The sheriff can't order something of that magnitude.

What about us ... in here?

You're telling me! Howie's fingers flew over the keys. We're in here . . . you're out there. Wherever that is.

The computer emitted a musical sound and Howie looked down to see if he'd hit the wrong key. Then he knew what was making the sound: Sand was laughing. Howie suddenly realized that he liked Sand.

Howie typed: You were just a young man when you died. Why did Mr. Watts kill you?

Howie called for Watts and motioned him to sit down behind the terminal.

Al!
the word flashed on the screen.
Sand here. You're going to have to go all the way to the top on this thing.

The governor?

Watts laughed and wrote: I know you're not in heaven, Sand.

You'll never change, Sand.

And Watts knew then the enormity of what he had just read on the screen. The vast endless eternity in those words.

It made his stomach knot up and his head swim for a few seconds. Watts typed: You didn't call me in here for chitchat, Sand. Let's get to it.

“I'll store it, sir,” Howie said.

Go, Sand, Watts typed.

The words began flashing on the screen. Howie struggled to fight back tears. Watts felt as though he'd been slapped in the face. : Is there no other

When Sand was finished, Watts typed: Is there no other way, Sand?

I don't understand, Watts typed.

Howie leaned over and typed: But we would be alive.

Howie thought hard for a moment, then typed: But there are other reasons why you don't want the Force to interfere, right?

Howie typed slowly: We could die, but if we did not, and somehow made it through the door, retaining all that knowledge . . . are you saying that we might all be insane?

Would have been?

Past tense.

“It seems as though the Almighty has made up His mind to wash us out,” Watts muttered.

“I have to think for a while,” Howie said, getting up.

“You talk to Sand.”

The boy left the room and Watts sat down. He typed: The other alternative, Sand? There would be tremendous losses.

I presume you have a plan?

You're a liar, boy.

Thanks. But I really don't have any other plan. We're
. . .
limited where we are
.

Ask your father-in-law.

Watts smiled as a warm feeling swept over him. He and Carl Lee had been the best of friends. Watts put his fingers on the keyboard: That's good to know. Sand, how many people do you want to know of this . . . finality?

Okay, boy. I'll be back in touch. So to speak.

The computer chimed merrily, and the screen went dark as Howie leaned over and stored the information.

“He was laughing, you know?” Howie said.

“Yeah.” Watts gave the chair to the boy. “That would be something he'd do.”

“Did you like him, Mr. Watts?”

Watts stood for a time in silence. “Yes, I did, son. I think toward the end, I began to love that boy as one of my own.”

“Yet you killed him,” Howie said, with the honesty and openness of the young.

“Yes, I did that. Howie, I had a dog one time. I loved that dog more than I ever again loved an animal. And I'm an animal-lover. Rascal went bad on me. Dogs can go crazy just like humans. I had to have him destroyed. I was seventeen years old, and I cried like a child. In both cases, I think I put them out of their misery.”

“I ... believe I understand, sir.”

Watts turned to leave and bumped into Sunny.

“I heard that last part, Al, and I wasn't eavesdropping. I was bringing Howie a sandwich and a glass of milk.”

“And you wonder why I would say such a thing?”

“In a way. I just saw on the TV where Sand seemed to be a hardworking and quite honest young man.”

“He was all of that and much more. He was honorable. But he was out of time and out of place, and he knew it. He tried to tell me that several times. I just let it slide by me. He should have been a mountain man or a gunslinger. What happened to Sand convinced me that people are born out of time and place.”

“And Joey?”

“Same thing. Joey could – and I know this sounds foolish – he could see things that others couldn't. I didn't believe that for a long time. But I know now that it was true. Both of them foretold their destinies. Sand was a born leader. If you had just one ounce of rebel in you, you followed Sand. And even back in the fifties, it didn't make any difference to Sand if a person was black or white or Latin or Chinese or from Mars. Race or nationality didn't make any difference to him.”

“Sounds to me that in some respects, he was ahead of his time.”

“He knew what lay behind him, and what lay in front of him.”

Sunny rubbed her arms. Goose bumps had suddenly appeared on her flesh. “And this Morg person? He looks like a cretin to me.”

Watts laughed, openly and loud. “God, what a character. Drove a souped-up black hearse and wore a black silk top hat. Carried a damn coffin around in the back of that hearse. When he'd get sleepy on the road, he'd just pull over, crawl in that damn coffin, prop the lid open, and take him a snooze.” Watts chuckled. “Morg was dumb in many respects, and crude, but a decent sort. Won the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in Korea.”

“Was Morg married?”

“He married a beatnik girl from the Village in New York City Jane. She wandered in here, hitchhiking across country. They got married toward the end. Jane died of cancer, just before the bottom dropped out for all of them.”

Sunny shook her head. “It just seems like it was all, well, so tragic.”

“It was, Sunny. And it was, without a doubt, the darkest period in my life. Up to this point. Those damn rich punks from over Monte Rio way rigged the brakes on Joey's street rod. Joey and his wife, Tuddie, were riding around up in the mountains when the brakes failed. Killed them both. Shortly after that, the same bunch killed Sand's wife. She was eight-months pregnant when they kicked her to death. Then Sand went off the deep end and turned murderous. So did his father-in-law, my best friend, Carl Lee. That was one dark and bloody night in this part of the country.”

“How did it start, Colonel?”

Watts looked at the TV set and smiled sadly. He pointed. “Sand is showing you right now.”

A local drive-in cafe in Willowdale. Early spring. A few Pack members had enjoyed burgers and fries and Cokes and were gathering up their coats. Robin Lee was waiting by the front door. A group of young men from the town Monte Rio had decided to go slumming over in Willowdale. They had pulled up in their new Thunderbirds and Impalas – paid for by mommy and daddy, of course.

Robin pushed at the door. A grinning young man was blocking it from the outside with his foot. She pushed again. The young man whispered a vulgarity that Robin chose to ignore.

A waitress looked over the counter and saw what was going down. “Damn!” she muttered, and headed for the kitchen, putting a wall between herself and what she felt was sure to happen. She knew Sand.

The saying probably began in the Old West, but it will hold true as long as there are people who throw caution and common sense and good manners to the wind. The adage reads: Do not mess with the gunfighter's girlfriend.

The young man from Monte Rio pushed his face against the screen and made kissing sounds at Robin. “You're cute, baby.”

“Get out of my way,” Robin told him.

He grinned and rubbed his crotch, then repeated his earlier vulgar suggestion. This time it was said a little louder.

Sand heard it. His cold pale eyes did not change. But he smiled thinly.

Worldly people know that danger can be read in a person's eyes and body language. But if one cannot read
anything
in a person's eyes; if it appears that one is looking into the eyes of a rattlesnake – cold and unblinking and emotionless – a wise person will, if possible, and with all deliberate haste, get the hell away from that locale.

Sand walked to the door. “Move,” he said softly but firmly.

“I don't take orders from you,” the kid from Monte Rio replied.

Sand drove one big, flat-knuckled and work-hardened fist through the screen door. Fist connected with nose, and the young man with the vulgar mouth was propelled backward, landing on the hood of his Thunderbird, blood pouring from his busted beak.

The jukebox blared
Lawdy Miss Clawdy!
and the kids in the cafe became silent, watching the action.

“Now see here!” one of busted-beak's friends protested. “That was really unnecessary.”

“Quite,” another of flat-nose's friends declared.

Each group of young men wore the uniform of the day: the Monte Rio college freshmen all wore loafers, white socks, pressed, pegged pants, button-down shirts, sport jackets.

The hot-rodders wore jeans, boots, dark shirts, dark windbreakers.

Uniforms denoting just who belonged to what caste in this casteless society.

The Pack members were outnumbered, but they were all used to that.

“I demand an apology!” a sport-coat shouted. “Or by God, we'll fight.”

“Oh, my heavens!” Joey put one hand over his heart and another hand to his forehead. “I'm actually flushed from fear.” He could not contain his laughter. “I'm trembling from fright. The sight of such foreboding and physically overpowering adversaries fills me with terror. I have this growing urgency within me to run screaming into the night.”

Bill Marlson looked at Joey and flushed as the Pack members, male and female, laughed. “You got a real smart mouth, don't you, Jew-boy?”

Joey, with the musculature of a weight lifter, back-handed Marlson, knocking the young man on his butt and bloodying his mouth.

The fight was on, but it was a very short one. The Pack had learned early on that rules do not apply in fighting. They kicked, stomped, gouged, and almost always won.

The Pack members walked to their custom cars and drove off into the night, leaving a battered, bloody, and badly shaken group of young men, none of whom were accustomed to or expecting the type of savage gutter-fighting they had just received. All in all, the Marquess of Queensberry would have been appalled.

“Goddamn you!” Bill Marlson shouted, shaking his fists at the fading taillights. “We'll get you for this.”

“Damn right,” John Murry said, holding a bloody handkerchief to his busted nose. The words came out, “Am ite.”

“Drop it,” Nick Grables said. “It's over. We lost.”

“You don't mean that,” Ronnie Murphy said, one eye swelling closed, a dark bruise under it.

“I sure do mean it. I know Sand and Joey; you guys don't. Besides, you started it, John. They finished it. So it's over, as far as I'm concerned.”

“Not for me,” Charles Lenton sniffed, heading for his car and taking a pull at a bottle of sloe gin.

“I agree with Charles,” Robert Center said. “Why, if word ever got around that we allowed this outrage to go unavenged, we'd be laughed off campus. We never will get any cunt.” He hadn't had any yet. He never would.

The Monte Rio bunch left, regrouping outside of town, after picking up a couple of six-packs of beer.

Nick tried to explain things to his friends. “Look, guys, just drop this thing. Sand is poison when he's stirred up, and Joey is just about as bad. John, you started this whole thing. You were out of line with Robin Lee.”

“She's nothing but street trash,” Wallace Branon said. “She'd have to be, to take up with a thug like Sand.”

“We'll get them,” George Alexander said. He chug-a-lugged what was left of his bottle of beer and belched manly.

“Damn right,” John said.

 

 

“Sand started that,” Bos said, as the TV screen darkened.

“You go right straight to hell!” Robin said, defending her long-dead Uncle Sand.

“Easy, Robin,” Ricky said, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Easy my butt!” Robin jerked free.

“I agree with Robin,” Hillary said, looking at her boyfriend with considerable heat in her eyes. “You mean, Bos, that if some creep like that . . . whatever his name was, came up to me and asked me to fuck – like he did – you wouldn't do anything about it?”

“Well,” Bos verbally back-pedaled. “Sure, I would. Of course. But Sand and his bunch didn't fight fair.”

Watts chuckled. “Son, outside of the ring, there is no such thing as a fair fight.”

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT IS GOING ON? WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY CAN'T I SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING?

“Sand is blocking him somehow,” Howie whispered.

“Nothing is going on,” Sunny stepped in. “I'm just gathering up materials for our interview. Are you ready?”

WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN MIND, DOLL FACE?

Sunny chose not to respond to that.

I SUPPOSE SINCE THAT PUNK RICHARD JENNINGS AND HIS WHORE WIFE WERE RECALLED, YOU HAVE TIME FOR ME, HUH?

“Who are you callin' a whore, you cowardly son of a bitch!” Robin screamed at the voice.

WELL, NOW. WHAT HAVE WE HERE? OH, YES. YOU'RE THE ONE RICHARD WAS PROTECTING. WELL, HE CAN'T PROTECT YOU NOW, DUMPLING. I'LL HAVE SOME FUN WITH YOU.

Again, Sunny made it shift its attention. “Are you ready to begin telling me your life story?”

The room pulsed with silence for a moment. VERY WELL. JUST LET ME SLIP ON MY BLUE SUEDE SHOES AND I SHALL RETURN IN A SEC, BABY.

The Fury left them.

“The screen went crazy while the Fury was here,” Howie called from his cramped quarters. “The disks are absorbing so much information, I'm going to have to prepare several hundred to be ready for it.”

“I thought you could put a million words on each disk?” a deputy said.

“A million characters, on some of the hard disk drive machines,” Howie told him.

Watts patted the boy on the shoulder. “Stay with it, Howie.”

He walked over to Gordie and the two state investigators who had just entered the building. “Hadn't we better be laying in supplies and repairing the broken door and windows, Gordie?”

“For once, I'm ahead of you, Al,” Gordie told him. “I've got some deputies doing just that right now.”

A wild screaming began from upstairs, in the main cell block area.

“That's the kid,” Gordie said, moving toward the gun rack.

“The kid?” Sunny looked up from the TV that had just clicked on.

“Eighteen-year-old being held on armed robbery charges,” Mack told her. He looked at his monitor screens. Everything appeared to be normal in all lock-down areas.

But something was definitely wrong.

Gordie had grabbed a shotgun on the way out of the room, running toward the elevator. Lee and Sid joined the sheriff, both of them armed with sawed-off riot guns.

Mack again checked his screens and felt his guts knot up.

“The cells are open, Sheriff!” he yelled. “The kid is being gang-shagged in his cell.” He began frantically punching buttons. “I can't secure the cell blocks. Nothing works,” he shouted. Mack cussed the modern, up-to-the-minute lock-down equipment. Back in his youth, when he had first hung on a badge, jails were a lot safer and much more secure. A man didn't have to depend on electronics. You locked the cells with a key and kept order with a club.

The screaming of the kid intensified as another inmate took his turn in the perversion.

Sid was the first off the elevator. He clubbed a rampaging inmate with the butt of his shotgun and drove the muzzle into the gut of another one, as Lee and Gordie went running down the hall.

Gordie cursed the sight that greeted him. It was not the first time he'd seen such a sight, but it always sickened and angered him. He did what a lot of people feel should be done in cases of male rape. Gordie threw procedure to the wind and lifted his shotgun, blowing the half-naked con away from the naked teenager. The kid fell to the floor, sobbing. The inmate who received the load of 00 ought buckshot had raped his last person. Part of his head was spread all over the cell wall.

DAVY DAVY DUMPLING, BOIL HIM IN A POT

SUGAR HIM AND BUTTER HIM AND EAT HIM WHILE HE'S HOT.

DO BOP DE DO BOP DE DO BOP, DE DO.

Doing his best to ignore the voice, Lee slammed the butt of his shotgun against a man's head, stepped over him, and butt-stroked another con. The man's eyes rolled back and he dropped to the floor, unconscious.

The other prisoners, seeing it was useless, jumped back into their cells and slammed the doors.

“Get the kid out of here and call the doctor,” Gordie told Sid. “Lee, start cutting lengths of chain and get some padlocks.” Taking a set of keys from the jailer, Gordie tried one in a lock.

They turned around and around. The locks had been rendered useless. He tried other cells, and got the same results as the cons laughed at him.

“Won't the Fury do the same with other locks?” Bergman asked.

“Probably. But we can't weld the door shut, so I don't know what else to do.”

“Let us outta here, Sheriff!” a prisoner hollered. “We know what's goin' on. You ain't got no right to keep us locked up with that thing controllin' the town.”

Gordie waved his people back, out of earshot of the prisoners. “He's got a point.” Gordie took several deep breaths, calming himself after the brief flare-up. “But I can't justify turning loose many of these people. Some of them are nothing but scum.”

OH, REALLY? WELL, LET'S PLAY A GAME THEN.

The sheriff and his deputies waited.

A prisoner was lifted off his feet and slammed into a concrete wall. Then, as if playing pop-the-whip, the man was whip-sawed back and forth in his cell. His arms were broken, the bones sticking out. His head was battered into mush. The dead inmate was dropped to the floor with a squishing sound.

The other prisoners began screaming in terror, shouting to be set free.

Downstairs, Leon was watching the monitors. “That is unfair to the prisoners. I demand you turn those people loose. They're human beings, you know.”

Mack shifted his chaw and looked at the college kid. “You demand, huh? You want to take responsibility for one of them? How about if we handcuffed you to one? Take Logan, there.” He pointed to a man. “He's a real jewel. Rape, torture, murder, armed robbery. He's waiting to be transferred to the state pen to serve three life sentences.” Mack spat into a cuspidor on the floor. “You don't want him? Too bad. Well, there's Bingham. He killed two people with an axe up in the mountains, and then cut them up into chunks with a chainsaw and fed them to the bears. Not him, huh? Well, there's always Diminno. He's another sentenced to life for murder. You gettin' the point, boy?”

Leon swallowed hard a couple of times. “Yes. But what are you going to do with them?”

“I don't know, boy. I ain't the sheriff, and I'm glad I'm not. But I'll tell you what Sheriff Rivera don't need right now is a bunch of smart-assed lip from a college kid.”

Leon walked away, his back stiff. He was slightly miffed.

Doctors Anderson and Shriver walked in. Both of them wore grim expressions. Gordie was just sticking his shotgun back into the gun rack on the lower floor. The kid had been taken to a secure room. The dead prisoner had been dragged out of his cell and placed in a room at the rear of the jail. The cell was being hosed down.

“Homosexual rape, Gordie?” Anderson asked.

“Yeah.” Gordie jerked his thumb toward a door. “He's in there.”

“Let us outta here, you motherfucker!” a prisoner shouted.

“What are you going to do with the prisoners?” Shriver asked.

“I don't know!” Gordie snapped his reply. He shook his head. “Sorry. I didn't mean to be short with you. I just don't know.”

“I understand, Sheriff. We're all operating under a strain.”