Night of Thunder

“You learn what you can, boys, then you head on home,” he told Vern and Ernie.

“Yes sir.”

The Reverend looked up at his flock.

“We lost ’em, boys. Both ’em gone to the maker. It ain’t right.”

“What happened, sir?”

He told the story as he’d heard it.

“No way, uh-uh, no Grumley going down in a fight with that pudding-ass kid,” seemed to be the consensus.

“Pap,” a voice came, “this boy, he couldna gotten the goods on Carmody and B.J. Carmody’s a good shot. He had a knack. He’d shoot the ankles off a fly.”

“B.J. ain’t no slouch either,” said another. “Remember in 0 and 6, he shot it out with two big black dudes in an alley in St. Louis, and though he got punctured himself, he made sure he’s standing and they’s bagged by the time that fight’s done.”

Several of the wilder Grumleys wanted to lock and load and head out for hot-blooded vengeance that very second.

“We got the machine guns, we can blast the holy Jesus out of that town in a minute and a half. With that big gun we can blow down all their church steeples, we can take that fat sad clown and hang him upside down in burning tar in the town center.”

It was at this time that Vern Pye and Ernie Grumley returned from their melancholy mission, and they got there in time to hear all the talk of rage and vengeance, of burning the flesh of the Grumley killer, of razing the municipality that spawned him, or wreaking biblical vengeance on the transgressors. Through it all handsome Vern kept himself calm. Finally and calmly he spoke.

“Now you listen up, boys. Listen to Vern. I am the oldest and the most experienced. I am maybe the most accomplished. I have three homes, three wives, gals, money in the bank, and know some country-western stars. So let me share some wisdom. May I speak, sir?”

The Reverend considered, then said, “Son Vern, you may speak your piece in the Grumley fashion.”

“Thank you, Reverend. You boys, you’s all a-rage and full of the fires of hatred and vengeance. You want to go in and flatten that place, and teach every last man and woman in it the fear of Grumley justice, and I don’t blame you a bit. But we are men of a certain creed who live by a certain code and have certain responsibilities. That is at our center and is as fierce to us as our Baptist faith and our willingness to shed and spill blood. So I say hold it in, cousins and brothers. Hold it in cold and tight and squeeze it down.

“Now we have a job we’ve contracted to do. We’ve worked hard on it. We’ve prepared and sacrificed. We’ve taken a stranger into our midst-” he indicated Brother Richard, who was slouched beneath his Richard Petty cowboy hat and fake sideburns at the rear of the room-“and let that stranger use his waspish words against us, as if he’s some kind of high and mighty. We do that because it’s part of our contract. We are professionals of a creed, brothers and cousins, and we will be true to that creed. So for now, it is my conclusion there should be no blood spilling, and that clerk should be left alone to enjoy his few minutes of glory.

“But I swear to you, and you know that Grumley to Grumley, Grumley word is holy, I swear to you that when this done finished, then we will get to the bottom of this. We will have a nice long chat with that lucky boy and we will find out what transpired and we will ascertain blame and we will pay out justice, eyeball for eyeball, earhole for earhole, heart for heart. We will inform the world that Grumley blood is too precious to be spilled, and when it is, hell visits in due turn.”

This did not mollify the Grumleys. It was not what they wanted to hear. They turned back to their father and spiritual leader.

“Is that it, Pap? Is that what you want?”

“I have considered. I see deeper into this. It’s not about that clerk. I agree he be no match for any Grumley, much less two. I see another hand at play.”

He paused.

“Who, then, Reverend?” asked Vern. “Who is the master in all this?”

“I think that goddamned old man, that gray-headed fella come in earlier, the father of that gal? You seen that fella? Something ’bout him I didn’t like. No, can’t say I didn’t like him, wasn’t no issue of liking. Was more like, he’s too calm for what he says he was. I shot a coupla clay birds for him and he said, ‘Ow, it’s so loud.’ He said, ‘Aw, I don’t like guns.’ He said that but he’s in my vision when I’m shooting and he didn’t jump none when the gun went off, as if he’d been around the report of a firearm a time or two. And he told me this odd story about how he’d got cut up in Japan, his hip laid open, but there was no point in suing the fellow what cut him, and he told that story, which made no sense without a further explanation, almost for his own private pleasure. He’s takin’ pride in it. He’s taking pleasure in some memory of some event of triumph.”

“He some kind of undercover man, sir? Is that what you’re saying?” a Grumley wondered.