Heed the Thunder Read Free

orphan like himself. Everything about her amused him: her coltish handsomeness, her piety, her solemn industriousness and prudishness. And leading her on with the tether of his sardonic humor, he lost sight of what was happening at his end of the rope. He took her to a revival. To his thoroughgoing mortification, he found himself among the mourners, converted. He married her.
    He had no use for the ministry.
    Without apologies or compunction, he took her savings and entered business for himself. He worked hard. Wherever there was stonework in that section of Ohio, Link Fargo did it, at one price or another. He wanted work. And after five years, he was no further ahead than he had been in the beginning. Moreover, he was ruptured.
    On the winnings of a poker game, he left his family and went to Saint Louis. He never admitted later, even to himself, that he did not intend to come back. In Saint Louis he registered at the best hotel, lived lavishly, and soon established a reputation for himself as a first-rate storyteller, gambler, and judge of good whisky and food. Inherently well-mannered, he was still shockingly plain-spoken. He moved in an aura of savagely rollicking good humor. He didn’t give a damn. He did mention casually that he was a stonework contractor, then avoided the subject thereafter. He did not want to talk about it, he declared. He was there for a good time.…No, no business, dammit, said Link; and this round’s on me.
    Perhaps he did know what he was doing. He liked to say that he did.
    There came an evening (he was down to his last twenty dollars at the time) when two of his companions suggested dinner in one of the private dining rooms upstairs. There were some parties there it would pay him to meet. Yes, they knew he didn’t want to talk business. They knew he had his made. But just the same…
    A few days later, Link returned to Ohio. A man of his word, he scrupulously kicked back a full third of the money he received for constructing an unremembered number of railway trestles, water-tower and depot foundations, and the like. But, at that, he cleared over ten thousand dollars in two years.
    In the sixties and seventies, many of the streams of the Middle West were navigable far into the north, almost to Canada. Townsites were springing up along the river banks. Choice lots were selling at prices comparable to those in the big cities of the East. There were persistent rumors that the capital of the United States would be moved to some much more appropriate spot in the wilderness of Nebraska Territory. There, along the rivers, cities that would rival New York and Chicago and Boston would be built. Let the railroads run their right-of-ways where they liked. River travel was cheaper, more comfortable and popular—better in every way.
    Lincoln Fargo moved to Kansas City. His wife was able to persuade sufficient money from him to start a boarding house there. With the remainder, and a sheaf of high-interest notes, he bought a boat. He made one trip from Kansas City to Fairbury, the profits from which were applied on his notes. On the second trip he struck a sandbar.
    The boat is still there, someplace in Nebraska, buried countless feet beneath the wiregrass sod of what was once a streambed. On it are the belongings, including one grand piano, and the hopes of several score would-be settlers. Link believed—he was pretty sure—that the passengers all got off safely. But he often regretted that the indignation of his human cargo had prevented him from taking a careful census.
    On his way back to Kansas City, he was forced to do what he considered the one shameful thing of his career. He stole a horse. He could never forgive himself for it. He believed that many of the misfortunes which he suffered later were punishment for the crime.
    He could not seem to get started in anything in Kansas City, although, as even Mrs. Fargo admitted, he tried hard. One of his ventures was with a sharper, a glittering