Heed the Thunder Read Online Free Page A

suppose I know that?”
    “Do you think you ought to be sparking up to your own cousin?”
    Grant laughed, a little uneasily, a little angrily. “In the first place, I’m not sparking her. She’s interested in poetry and travel and world affairs—the same things I’m interested in. We simply enjoy each other’s company.”
    “She’s a mighty good-looking girl,” said Lincoln. “If I was your age, I’d have a hard time keeping my mind on books around Bella. Always had a lot of will power, too.”
    Grant colored. He fumbled at the ribbon of the pince-nez with embarrassment.
    “I’m sure I have nothing—I mean, Bella is entirely safe with me as her escort. Anyway, Pa, how many families—good stock—are there in town who aren’t related to us in some way? What’s a fellow going to do, never see any girl?”
    “Well, there’s something to that,” Lincoln Fargo admitted. “You can spit on Fargo kin almost any way the wind blows. But Bella is your cousin, your own mother’s sister’s child. You couldn’t marry her.”
    “I hadn’t—I don’t plan on marrying her.”
    “Well, you couldn’t,” Link repeated. “It might be a pretty good thing for you to keep in mind.”
    “Pa…for God’s sake!” Grant made a wry mouth, flipped away his cigarette, and stepped off the porch. As he strode stiffly down the walk to the gate, he was injured innocence personified, a young man too proud and pure to bandy ugly words or harbor evil thoughts. But inside he was frightened, cursing.…Did the old man know anything, or was he just guessing? Damn him to hell, anyway! Damn this whole stinking town.
    It wasn’t, he assured himself, as though Bella were actually his cousin.…Well, she was, all right, but it didn’t seem like it. When Lincoln Fargo had attained his first abundant prosperity in the valley, he had set him down, pen in hand, to notify his friends and relatives, and his wife had done likewise. They had not seen the Barkleys in years, nor ever been close to them (Mrs. Fargo and her sister had been adopted by different families); but still they were blood, and blood counted. This was a feudal land. One held it and prospered according to the size of his clan. Within the clan itself there might be all sorts of internecine warfare. But to the outsider they presented a wall, almost impregnable. It was a condition bred of the vast loneliness of the prairies and nurtured by the same force—a sort of economy, or civilization, of scarcity. As the years passed and the population increased and there was room for more than one bank, one barber shop, one hotel to the community, the clan would break up or submerge. It was cracking even now, but the fissures were imperceptible.
    At any rate, only with difficulty could Grant regard Bella Barkley as his cousin. When the family moved to Nebraska, he had remained behind in Kansas City as a printer’s devil. He had never seen Bella until he came home to visit his parents three years before.
    An accident of birth, he thought. A dastardly mistake on the part of fate. Well…a strong man could change his fate. Nothing should stop him from having Bella. ( He licked his full lips. ) From having her, at least.
    Walking along, raising his knees high and tipping the derby upon the most modest excuse, Grant Fargo made a happy discovery. The change he had accused Robert Dillon of taking was in his vest pocket. Sixty cents. The dollar his father had given him would pay for the hire of a horse and rig. He could use the sixty cents to buy Bella candy. Or a sarsaparilla after the picnic. Or he could have a few drinks before he called on her.
    He decided on the last course. The interview with his father had made him nervous. Upset. He needed a few drinks to become his usual masterful self—to exceed that masterfulness. If he had had a drink or two that last time they were together, that night in on the sofa…
    He licked his lips again.
    Passing the bank, he saw his uncle, Philo