Scott O’Hara

Thunder King

1

Hoop, the pit boss, and me — we decided that it wouldn’t do our morale any good to watch the amateur events, watch the hot rod kids smash themselves to death on macadamized sucker trap that passes for a track at Darido, California, so we spent our time putting the last touches on the Jeyett Special.

Big Arch Jeyett had gotten more than a little rough when Brick Arlen didn’t even place the iron at Indianapolis, and you can’t blame him. It isn’t exactly a hobby with him.

After numerous words too harsh to mention, the four of us found ourselves with the sedan, the tool truck, the Special on the trailer, and all the tools, heading for a circuit of the hard-track meets.

There is Bud Hoop who is the pit boss, a guy who thinks motors live and breath. For him, they do. Gil Forrester, who never says more than two words a month, is the mech, and Brick Arlen and me, we are the drivers, doubling in the pit for switching rubber and such. My name is Joe Gartner and if I knew what was good for me, I would be back on the dirt hacking at track records that don’t go higher than eighty.

This four-day meet at Darido is like a consolation when you miss the big one. And we shuddered to think of what Big Arch would say and do if we missed the pipsqueak main go at Darido.

Anyway, we are in a garage off the track, Hoop and me, hearing the high whine of the amateur irons, when Brick Arlen comes in, a funny look on his face.

“Hey,” he says, “there is a guy out there who is nuts. He drives like he’s got eight hands and like he’s playing tag.”

“So what?” Hoop says. “We won’t have to worry about him. You can’t push one of those irons into the big one.”

Brick is like he doesn’t hear him. Brick is, of course, a redhead, with a bunch of features too close together in the middle of his face. He has a sneer and a cocky way with him, but on bricks, macadam or dust, he could place on a kiddycar.

“His name is Johnny Wall,” Brick says.

At that I straighten up slow, dropping the wrench so that it bounces nicely off my toe. But I hardly feel it. “Johnny Wall? Skinny guy with black hair and one helluva big scar on his face?”

“Same one.”

I had seen Johnny Wall before. I had seen him edge me at the turn on the dirt at Worcester, and slant down. I had seen him spinning like a doll against the sky when Ed Murph, now dead, broke Johnny’s back. And Johnny was driving again!

“Yeah,” Brick says. “A guy tells me Wall figures to take that merry-go-round out there to get the dough to lift an attachment on a big wagon that he wants to wheel in the main. Joe, you and I better hope he misses out, the way the guy drives. He’s nuts.”

And that was more than something for Brick Arlen to say.

By the time we got back out, Johnny Wall had gotten the winner’s flag and I watched where he drifted in. The tow boys were pulling two hulks out of the infield.

I went on down just as Johnny climbed out of the stripped stock, his goggles in his hand. He wiped his face and looked at me.

“Hell!” he said. “You’re Joe Gartner.”

I shook hands. “Guilty,” I said. “Brother, I never thought I’d see you on a track again.”

His eyes seemed to cloud. A girl came out of the back of the pit. She wore a stained bandanna to cover her hair and there were smudges of grease on her face. Her hands were square and capable.

“Johnny shouldn’t be on a track,” she said.

He grinned at her. “Janey, meet Joe Gartner. Joe, this is my sister. Best pit man in the country.”

Jane’s handshake was firm, but her eyes were worried. Her voice was low, a very nice sound.

“Are you with it, Joe?” Johnny asked.

“Right. I joined up with the Jeyett outfit about eight months ago. We got a Special here — Brick Arlen and me wheeling it, Bud Hoop in the pit and a mech named Gil Forrester. On the big day at Indianapolis, we lost eight laps with brake lock and throwing oil, and didn’t place. The boss’ll have our scalps unless we bring in first iron here at Darido.”

Janey’s dark eyes suddenly flamed as she turned on Johnny. “You see? You won’t stand a chance. Please give it up, Johnny!”

Johnny gave me an embarrased grin. He said, “The gal wants me to take a Detroit job that I was offered. I keep telling her that I’ve got to wind up a big one first. We’ve got every dime in this Darido meet.” He turned to Jane and said, “Look, honey. One hundred times around the two-mile oval. Suppose I put it in front and ride it there all the way. Fifty bucks for the lead car in each lap. There’s five grand. Another seventy-five hundred for first money. Say another seven or eight for endorsements. There’s twenty thousand.”

“And maybe you die, Johnny,” she said, and her lips were thin and tight.

He shrugged. “So does everybody.”

She turned to me with a helpless gesture. “We shouldn’t let you in on the family argument, Joe. But I wish he—” The tears came suddenly and she turned and walked away, her back straight and proud.

I had a beer with Johnny. It all came out. After the big smash at Worcester, he spent nine months in a cast. And all the time he was wondering if he had lost his nerve. He didn’t tell me that, but I knew. You don’t fly through the air with the greatest of ease without getting some marks on the inside where they don’t show.

A month after he got out, when he was trying to hire himself out as a driver, their father died, and with the insurance he had decided to get his own wagon for the hard tracks and see what he could do.

After the beer we wandered down to the rented garage and he showed me the wagon. It was an evil-looking iron. Green black in color, with a bronze sheen on it, low snout and hood vents that made you think of some kind of animal with it’s lips lifted in a snarl.

Then he unbuttoned the bonnet and showed me the power plant. It was clean enough to scramble eggs on.

“What the hell is it?” I asked.

“Special job. Franzetta-Gorf. Two hundred and fifty cubic inch displacement. Double overhead cams. A hell of a lot of stuff.”

I frowned. Memory awakened. “But a plant like this should cost at least thirty thousand bucks and—”

“It didn’t. Remember Whitey Devlon?”

Suddenly I remembered. When it had rolled a year ago, Whitey had tried to go downstairs, but the centrifugal force got him and the car tore him in half.

Johnny’s grin was strained. “So in the trade they figure it’s a bad luck plant and I got it for peanuts. The chassis is different, but three guys died behind that plant without ever damaging it much. Three times and out. This time it’s in. I would have been in the big one last month, but we were in hock.”

“Your sister doesn’t like the idea,” I said softly.

He gave me a sharp look. “Joe, I got to ride out in front once more. I’ve been aiming at this for a long time. Nobody stops me. Understand?”

And I understood. Sometimes it works out that way. It’s a stubbornness that is born out of fear. The worst sort of fear.

In the morning of the following day, Brick and I helped Hoop and Gil set up our pit, and the devil’s brew of high test, alcohol, benzol and acetone was in the pressure drums ready to be squirted into the Special. After we were through, I wandered over to Johnny Wall’s pit. They had picked up a local mech who seemed to know his business. The Franzetta-Gorf twinkled in the sun, and even standing still it looked as though it were ready to surge ahead.

By noon there was a sprinkling of white shirts in the stands and it was time for the speed trials. The track record at Darido was 115.6, not too far behind the record for the big time.

We had decided that it was my shot at the speed and qualification trials, so at two o’clock I shoved the rubber plugs in my ears, pulled on the crash helmet and snapped it under my chin, slipped on the goggles with the massive sponge rubber rims and edged my way down into the seat of the Special. She is a dark, dull-finish red, with the cowl shaped to the size of the steering wheel.

After a short push the big power plant caught, coughed, sputtered, and settled down to a rising drone of power. I took it slow twice around to feel out the track. The macadam was like black velvet, but I found an uneven patch in the backstretch a third of the way in from the north corner, and marked it for future reference.

I don’t like speed trials. In a race you’ve got a reference point, the deck of the iron ahead, but in a speed trial you’re out there alone. The first lap and a half was like driving the family car on a country road. I gave the signal, and dug in as I whined down toward the starter. The flag was a flash out of the corner of my eye and the Special started doing what it was built for. It took over. I was the guy in there steering it. It snugged down nice on the perfectly banked end of the oval, and as it started to straighten, I fed it all it would take. At that speed yon don’t just go by something. No, it grows and leaps at you and the air, plus the motor noise, makes it go paahhh! at you as you whistle by. The vibration turns you to leather and the drone makes you feel like your head would fall apart like a tangerine without the skin.

I took my fast lap, caught the flag, and floated around with decreasing speed, turning into the pit.

I had my disguise off when the time was anounced over the P.A. “Joe Gartner, driving the Jeyett Special qualifies at one eighteen point eight, just three tenths under the one-lap record established by Jig Devine in nineteen forty-six.”

There was a spatter of applause and I waved at the stands. Five minutes later Brick, Hoop and I leaned on the rail and watched Johnny Wall in the Franzetta-Gorf take two slow laps, and catch the flag.

Concrete, bricks and macadam are a hell of a lot different from the dirt. In the dirt you have to skid it into the turns and whip your deck. If you just don’t give a damn, you can do the same thing on a hard track, but it rips your rubber to bits and in a long race what you may gain is wiped out by the times you got to pit yourself to switch rubber, to say nothing of the possibilities of a bad blow and upsy-daisy over the wall.

When he hit the first turn I felt Brick stiffen, because there wasn’t any decreasing tempo of that big power plant. To skid on the hard tracks, you have to watch it, because if your deck swings a shade too far, you lose more than you gain; a shade further than that, and you spin like a ballerina on the snow.

Rubber screamed and he took the turn high, nothing but the beautiful banking keeping him on. He kept it high, then slammed down in toward the rail, going inside the rough spot, gunning it like a madman, hitting the south corner, screaming the rubber again, digging in and driving hard for the finish.

I had held the watch on him and I didn’t believe it. I thought the watch was wrong until the P.A. boy, with an edge in his voice said, “John Wall, driving the Franzetta-Gorf, qualifies in one twenty-two point four for a new one-lap record!”

He got more than a spattering of applause. Brick said, “I told you! The guy’s nuts! What the hell is he trying to do?”

“Could he need the dough?” Hoop said. “The new record-holder gets himself two hundred fifty bucks. It cost him maybe a hundred fifty in rubber to do it, so he’s a hundred ahead.”

“There’s an easier way to make money,” Brick said.

The other irons were around, so I took myself a little walk to say hello to old friends and look over the competish. The ones to worry about, I found, were Gidge Putner, driving one of the old Walker Supers; Sam Waybo in a Dillon-French that was five years old, but still a warm iron; Skid Wilkinson in one of his usual bailing-wire jobs out of which I was he could coax some miles; and Robby Harkness in an experimental Sternevaunt.

After shooting the breeze and kidding around, and looking over some unknown kids in make-shift irons, I came back and told Hoop that our biggest trouble would be Johnny Wall, and that Harkness might turn out to be bad if the Sternevaunt held together.

If the three of us happened to go sour in the power, or if one of the wild kids creamed us out, the big event would go to Waybo, Wilkinson, or Putner.

Hoop agreed.

2. Hell’s Curves

By the end of the long afternoon there were sixteen cars qualified for the big event, and for the minor races leading up to it. The way they work it at Darido, they race the big jobs on three afternoons. Twenty-five laps, fifty miles, the first day. Fifty laps, one hundred miles, the second day. One hundred laps, two hundred miles, the third day.

Because we wanted to make a showing, we were entered for all three. Some of them were saving their stuff for the big prize. I was checking the board when I saw that Johnny was entered for all three. I hadn’t figured it that way.

Since Brick, in a pinch, probably has the edge on me, and since his national rating is three points higher than mine, he was to drive in the big job. I drew the middle-sized one, and he wanted the short one to get the feel of the competition.

Nine cars were set for the first one. It was slated for two o’clock. I was to handle the board for Brick. Due to the qualifying speeds, when they lined up, three sets of three, Brick Arlen, Johnny Wall and Sam Waybo were the three last cars.

The pacemaker car led the parade, pushing it up over fifty as they finished a complete circuit. They hit the starting line perfectly, got the go-ahead flag, and all nine cars roared and jumped ahead as the pacemaker darted off the track like a scared rabbit.

They hit the turn in a pack, went around almost in formation, and then began to string out and jockey for position as they hit the backstretch. The roar of the motors was like a squadron of fighters going over.

It looked to me as though Johnny Wall was bottled and then I saw him jump through a hole. By then Brick had gone high around the outside and they came into the turn neck and neck. An orange crate in the lead kicked out some big puffs of blue smoke and lost speed fast. The kid driving it knew he had to get out of the way, and he cut down too sharply toward the inside rail. Another kid behind him swerved badly, went into a dry skid and, pretty as a picture, Brick went high and Johnny went low as they tooled around him.

They came down past the stands neck and neck, with Brick on the outside. He hung there and it kept Johnny from climbing a little to take the turn the way he wanted to. Brick held his advantage, went high, and then cut back to knife in ahead of Wall with more than the legal clearance.

They were fighting as though it was the last lap. Brick had talked as though Johnny was a crazy kid. I knew he was a little crazy, but after you hit a few score state fair dirt ovals, you’re no longer a kid.

I knew that Johnny was smart, and I suspected that as far as speed was concerned, the two irons were as close as they could be. I gave the Franzetta-Gorf a little edge on stability, and gave us a little edge in getaway.

Twenty-five tough, fighting laps. Johnny tucked his iron right in behind Brick and let Brick suck him along in the slipstream, riding close and careful.

At the end of eight laps, Brick began to edge up on the tail of the parade. There were only seven cars left in the race. It worried me to see the way the kid acted just on the verge of getting lapped. He was in a pale blue job, a home-grown outfit, and when Brick began to move up on his deck, the kid edged out away from the rail. Not much, just a little. It happened just before they hit the north end. Brick over-compensated for the little swerve the light blue job made, and as a consequence he went too high on the curve. He had to cut the speed to make sure he would cling.

Johnny had figured it nicely. He was riding high on the curve and he merely cut it in to the left and zoomed right between the pale blue job and Brick. It was pretty driving, but not the kind that lets you grow old gracefully. You could hear the yell of the crowd over the drone of the motors.

By the time Brick got under control, Johnny had three hundred feet on him and was still moving away. He was all alone on the south end, so he pulled that skid trick of his which gave him a little more distance.

While Brick trying to catch him, Gidge Putner made his bid in the old Walker Super. Gidge is one of the old men of the game. Hell, he drove a wagon in the big day when they still had two men in them.

And he kept Brick busy. They fought on turn and backstretch for fifteen laps before Brick made it so stiff for Gidge that he dropped back and held his place. By then Johnny was a full half lap in the lead.

With Gidge off his tail. Brick started to close the distance. But there was only three laps to do it in. It couldn’t be done.

Johnny breezed home without trouble, with Brick streaming in five hundred feet behind him. Putner was fourth.

Brick tore off his helmet and his face was white with anger. “You saw what that Wall character did, didn’t you, Joe?”

I grinned. “He passed you.”

“Not that, damn it! I could have been in trouble. How the hell did he know? I might have needed the room to cut back from that fence.”

“Take it easy, Brick,” I said. “I’ve seen you do the same thing.”

“He didn’t give that number twenty-three official clearance.”

“Then it’s up to that guy to shout about it, not you, Brick.”

“Are you pulling for Wall, Joe?”

There was a sneer behind his words. “I’m pulling for the Jeyett Special, son,” I said.

“Tomorrow we’ll see how good you do with him.”

“I’ll do okay, Brick. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about me at all.”

He spat into the dust and turned away. “Wall seems to rile him,” Hoop said quietly.

“Guys who get riled don’t live long,” I said. And then I was sorry I said it. When you follow the iron from track to track you never know how long you’re going to be around. So you don’t talk that way. Any more than you try to buy insurance. If Brick should get it, I’d wonder if I’d hexed him by saying that.

It was a hot evening and the town was full of little kids lapping ice cream cones, girls in light dresses, the sound of laughter and loud music. A carnival atmosphere. I didn’t get hungry until after dark, and then I took a cab into town. Brick was out in the sedan and Hoop and Gil were overhauling our spare power plant just in case it would have to be set in before the big race.

There was a place where the pale green neon yelled about steaks and air conditioning and all legal beverages. I decided I’d blow myself to a good meal and then go back to the hotel near the track and fold up.

The interior was dim and paneled and nice. As I went by a booth a girl’s voice said, “Joe! Hello!”

I turned. It was Wall and his sister. Johnny said, “Eating alone? Move in here with us. We’re celebrating.”

Johnny looked gay enough, but the sister didn’t look too happy.

I sat beside her. Johnny grinned across at me and said, “I’ve been trying to convince Janey that I don’t take chances.”

“After you convince her, you might try Brick Arlen. He needs convincing.”

Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Arlen? Didn’t he like the way I slipped by him today? Hell, there was a lot of room. Two or three inches on either side.”

Janey looked as if she were about to cry. “Arlen didn’t like it,” I said. “He’s sore and he’s a redhead and he’s driving the Special on the big day. I’m wheeling it tomorrow.”

“I’d rather race against Arlen,” he said. “I like a man who gets sore. Then he makes mistakes. You’re as cold as a snowman out there, Joe.”

“Maybe I look that way. In the middle I’m made of mush.”

“Johnny,” Jane said, “I don’t want Arlen mad at you on the last day. Why don’t you find him and apologize?”

Johnny got sore. “Apologize! For what? For winning a pipsqueak race? Arlen’s got pebbles in his head.”

“He’s a rough little man,” I said. “Garry Larue tried to run him off the track in a dirt job in Atlantic City three years ago. Neither one of them would give up. Brick held it steady as she went, and when he saw the wheels about to look, he went downstairs. Brick walked away from it. Garry won’t ever do any more walking.”

Jane gasped. She put the back of her hand to her mouth. I was sorry I said it. I got a good look at her out of her work clothes. She was something very Special, I decided. Very special indeed.

When Johnny left the table to get some change, she put her hand on my arm and said, “Please, Joe. He’d promised not to race any more if he wins the main event the day after tomorrow. See if you can keep Brick from getting too angry. I... I don’t want anything to happen. You see, Joe, he’s all I’ve got, now.”

I looked into her eyes and we sat there like a couple of fools, feeling something happen to the two of us, and then I felt myself blushing and I looked away. When I looked back she was as red as I thought I was. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

“Thanks, Joe,” she whispered.

There were eleven cars in the hundred miler. We lined up, four, four and three. I was in the back row, in the middle, with Johnny on my right. I grinned at him, and saw his lips move, but I couldn’t hear what he said over the roar of the motors.

The start was ragged, and they flagged it down and we went around again. This time it was okay.

As in the beginning of every race, I glanced around at the other cars, wondered who would be dead when it was over.

Some neck-and-neck kids bottled us until the second turn, and then the kid on the outside didn’t seem to turn at all. He went through the fence, tossing timbers high in the air. I gulped, but before I could move outside to ease by where he had been, Johnny had moved up with me, driving straight ahead for the hole.

The second time around I caught a fleeting glimpse of the gap in the fence, oily smoke rising in a plume beyond it.

I fell in behind Johnny and rode his tail. It seemed that I’d better let him make the race. He was my reference point, and it was no trick keeping right on his tail.

But I went to sleep doing it. I was out too far when we were lapping the end of the string, and Harkness boiled by me on the inside, slamming it into a tight turn that swung his deck dangerously near me, his experimental job whining like the Cleveland Air Races. It had a lot of stuff.

He screamed out in front of Johnny, too. And Johnny tried to sneak high and cut in on the next curve, but he couldn’t get enough clearance. The Sternevaunt moved out and Johnny tucked his nose behind it, with me behind him, and in that way, in that order, by the time we had finished the twentieth, we were a lap and a half on the nearest competition. It was fast company to be in, even as third man. I knew that Bobby Harkness was riding with a funny feeling in the back of his neck, two cars so close behind him that any pileup would ride him down.

It was a lucky thing that Johnny made his bid to pass Harkness exactly when he did. And lucky that I swung out too, to follow Johnny.

Because something blew up and shredded the bonnet of the Sternevaunt, and the oil puffed out in a black spray and he dropped behind so fast it was as though a big hand had grabbed him and yanked him backwards.

When we hit the same spot the next time around, I saw the oil slick on the black macadam and decided it would be a good thing to keep away from. Johnny started acting funny. His car seemed uncertain, and suddenly I realized that he was slower.

At just about that time, he hit the oil slick. His deck swung out, and I screamed around him on the outside and his nose swung around, missing me by a hair and I was all alone and in the lead. I looked back and saw him stalled, high on the curve, almost against the outside rail. I had it in the bag, and there was no point in taking chance. Now I wish I had. Because when I came around the second time I looked for Johnny but he wasn’t there. The next time I looked in the pit, but he wasn’t there. I risked a glance back and saw him, a half lap behind, and coming on faster than I had believed possible.

Brick held up the chalk board that said 45. Only five more to go. I began to pour it on, and then eased off as I detected a faint wobble. A front end wobble. It was no time to hit the pit. I pushed hard, and the punishing vibration made my arms numb, but I was able to hold it. On the 47th and 48th lap, I could see Johnny out of the corner of my left eye as I made the turns. Then I couldn’t see him any more.

But I could feel him. I could feel him riding up on me.

On the 49th lap the green-black snout of the Franzetta-Gorf crept up to where I could have reached out and patted it.

Last lap. On the straightaway the menacing snout dropped back, but on the north turn there was a thin scream in my ears and suddenly he was riding even with me — on the inside!

On the south turn I tried to push it to were I could slide back down at him, slide by him, but once again the scream and he was a half length ahead. On the way down to the finish line, I cut that half length to a quarter length. And that was all.

I pulled into the pit after a slow circuit. The Special popped and died. Brick looked at me with utter disgust. I ignored him and took a look at the left front. As I had suspected, two of the bolts had pulled just enough to give the front left a tiny shimmy. Not enough to use as an excuse.

Hoop clucked sadly as he saw it. I drank all I could hold of cold water, then ambled down to congratulate Johnny. He didn’t look so good. A first-aid citizen was dabbing his face with goo.

“What happened?” I asked.

“When Harkness conked out,” he said, “I got a batch of oil in the face. Hot oil. It smeared the goggles. That’s why I hit the oil patch — couldn’t see it. I stalled by the rail, and it gave me a chance to rub the oil off the goggles. The plant was hot enough to catch when I jumped out and gave it a little shove down that slope. I was afraid you were going to lap me, Joe.”

The hot oil had pitted his face.

Jane pulled me over to one side. “Did you talk to Brick?” she asked.

“I tried to, Janey. He doesn’t listen so good.”

We talked a little while and made a date. After dinner I took the sedan, picked her up and went to call on the kid who had gone through the fence. But when we got to the hospital we found that they had doped him because the traction splints were bothering him. We walked out to the car and I lit her cigarette as we sat in the darkness.

“What’s the point in it, Joe?” she asked, her voice calm.

“In what?”

“In these nice kids getting killed and banged up. Just to see which car can go the fastest? Just to see who can drive better?”

“There’s... well, there’s more to it than that. I can’t explain it. I don’t know the words. You’ve just got to believe me. There is more to it. Something that gets in your blood.”

She sniffed audibly. “Take me home, Joe.”

“Sure.”

They were in a two-bedroom tourist cabin a half mile from the track. When we got there Johnny was sitting on the floor just inside the door, his face white, holding onto his wrist. His wrist had a funny bend in it.

“Johnny!” she gasped, and dropped on her knees beside him. “What happened?”

His lips were pale. He tried to smile up at me. “Your friend, Arlen,” he said. “He came around and shot off his mouth. I popped him and he broke my wrist. Better get hold of a doctor.”

Hoop, Gil and Brick were playing three-handed showdown for quarters when I flung the door open and stomped in.

“What the hell kind of a trick did you pull?” I asked Brick, walking over to him.

“Relax, Joe. Relax! The punk got wise and popped me. See the lump here on my chin? We wrassled around a little and I left.”

“You broke his wrist!”

“Tch, tch, tch. Whadda ya know!” he said.

Hoop laid down his hand and pushed his chair back. “You didn’t tell me that, Arlen,” he said softly.

Brick tilted his chair back. “Do you guys need pictures? You know I talked to Big Arch Jeyett. He wanted to know what the hell has happened to us. I gave him the pitch and told him how this Wall guy cut me out in the first race. He sort of hinted around that maybe I ought to convince him he didn’t have me buffaloed, and then he talked about how much all this meant to the firm. And he said that we’ll be looking for jobs if I don’t come through tomorrow in first place. He said it would be a shame if Wall couldn’t drive tomorrow, and when I talked to him to be sure that I didn’t mess him up bad. Hell, I can take a hint.”

Bud Hoop had a look on his weatherbeaten face as though he tasted something bad. I said to him, “Is Arch that sort of a guy?”

“Could be,” Hoop said.

I leaned over and slapped Brick across the mouth, hard enough to split his lip and tip him over backward in the chair.

He came up, fast, ugly and silent. He was tougher and smarter than I, but not half as mad. He hit me high in the temple with a left and crossed a right to my throat. I gagged and rushed him until I had him over in a corner by the bureau. His face was something hanging in a mist. My arms slowly turned to lead and there was a thick, wet, hammering noise, jolts that ran up my arms.

Then my fist cracked into the bare wall, and I was sobbing for breath. Hoop pulled me back and I looked around for Brick. He was on the floor, his cheek against the wall, his eyes closed.

“When he comes to,” I said, “Tell him to call his good pal, Jeyett, and tell him that Joe Gartner resigned.”

I threw the stuff into my suitcase and walked out into the night.

By the time I got to the tourist cabin, the doctor had gone. Some color was back in Johnny’s face. He looked at me dully. “This tears it, Joe,” he said. “We’re all through.”

I glanced at Jane. “What are you going to do now, Johnny?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Sell the big wagon, get a stake together and try again. I’ll have to start at the bottom. Midgets or dirt. Something like that.”

Jane looked as though he had slapped her. “You promised!” she said.

Before he could make angry answer, I stepped in and said, “And what happens if I drive the iron and bring her in for you? Will you go back to that promise?”

Finally I explained to them. Johnny agreed not to race again, and then Jane was in my arms, laughing and crying. She looked up at me and said, “Be careful, Joe. Please be careful!”

The officials put up an argument. The Franzetta-Gorf had to be wheeled by John Wall. Then I told them what had happened. They saw the light. I glanced up mechanic’s row and saw Brick standing in the pit, glaring at me. I waved at him.

A pair of trim legs concealed by blue jeans stuck out from under the Franzetta-Gorf. I got down and crawled under. She was checking a lock-nut on the differential. I took the wrench out of her hands, pulled her toward me and kissed her.

She struggled for one-tenth of the first second. Then she got into the spirit of it. She whispered, “If I could break your arm to keep you from driving, Joe, I’d do it.”

“We’ll have a talk about that afterwards, Janey. It’s the only trade I know.” We crawled out from under. I looked at the Franzetta-Gorf and didn’t let her see how much I hated the ugly, shining snout of it. I had one of those hunches. Hunches are bad. I had a hunch with fire in it. Fire and blood and the bitter jagged ends of broken bones. It put a chill in the sunshine.

I knew what I had to do. I strolled down to the big red Jeyett Special, spat into the dust and said, “Arlen, I’ve got some advice for you. Just stay the hell out of my way.”

I was banking on that red hair. I walked back. When I turned around, both Hoop and Gil had hold of his arms. He was bucking and plunging, trying to get loose to come after me.

3. Thunder Bargain

There were fourteen cars in the big deal. Five, five and four. I was on the outside in the row of four. Brick was on my left. With the helmet and goggles covering his face, I could still tell what he was thinking. He glanced at me and sneered.

The stands were packed. A hundred thousand people anxious to see somebody kill themselves. Ice cream, soft drinks, peanuts, spun-sugar and death.

The two slow circuits gave me the feel of the wagon. It was sweet iron. It had that tingling in it that you associate with a thoroughbred. The wheel had a light touch, lighter than I cared for.

Brick edged over and put his hubs against mine. I felt the shock. It was a damn-fool thing for him to do, even at forty. I leaned against him, knew he would bounce back, so I watched his hands on the wheel. I moved away just as he did.

When he swerved back I met him, saw his startled jump. And there were two passengers in the Franzetta-Gorf. Me and my hunch. Me and fear. Me and the old guy with the grass-cutter.

I have always been a careful guy, avoiding personal feuds on the track, taking chances only when I could figure the odds.

But this was going to be different. A lot different. I knew that Brick was angry enough to kill. If he was good, he’d kill me. If he was clumsy, he’d kill both of us. If I was lucky, he’d kill himself.

When we got the flag, the surge of motors was like a rising roar of rage, and the fourteen cars jumped ahead. Five was too many to go into the first turn abreast; even four was too tight.

As I was on the right, I took the first curve as high as I could, hoping to see a slot ahead as I came out of it, a slot into which I could cut, and flatten out against the rail for a straight drive that would get me out of the ruck.

Everything in the world was blurred but the steady shapes of the cars around me. It is a funny feeling. As though all the cars stood still and the track was unreeled under them. The constant roar and scream and whine dies away, somehow; you forget the noise and it is like a nightmare where you are wheeling the iron in dead silence, with the wind plucking at your face. Not much wind. The design of the cowl whips a lot of it over your head.

Right out ahead of you is your front rubber, the tread a gray-black blur, and if the rubber is running true, the edges are as sharp as though cut with a knife. A little wobble and the rubber blurs along the edges and then it is time to cross your fingers.

The vibration turns you into lead and leather, and numbs you, and when it is over, a physical beating would have been easier. One hundred laps of roaring hell.

I rode the first turn high, and no slot opened up, and Brick’s nose crept up my deck. Too close. Much too close. I had a few inches left, and I took them, but still he angled in at me. I wondered if I had made him too mad — if he would try to ride me off the track on the first curve.

Still he came in and I knew that soon his front right wheel would be inside my left wheels, and nothing could save us from locking.

Nothing behind me. I cut power suddenly, got a flat hit on my left front from his right rear; there was a thud, and a white splinter flashed up from the fence and he was by me. I cut back into safety, watched the rubber for side blur, found none, and shaking with relief and anger, I gave it all it would take.

By then he had a hundred feet on me, and he was bulling his way through the kids. They moved for him, but Putner, Waybo and Wilkinson were in the pack. They wouldn’t budge.

I took the hole he made and clung to it

Skid Wilkinson and Sam Waybo bottled him in what I guessed was the third lap. Wilkinson was low and by the inside rail. Waybo was high, and a half length back. Brick had his nose right in the pocket. I saw what was happening, and went very high to get above Waybo.

As we came out of the south turn I gave it everything and jumped ahead, forging by Waybo. My hope was to get far enough ahead in the stretch so that I could angle down and reduce speed to something sane for the north curve. Waybo, an old hand, gave his iron more stuff, with the idea of caution making me drop back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brick come around his tail to creep up on me, no longer bottled, and it was no time for Joe Gartner to be cautious.

I went into the north end of the track so fast that I leaned hard to the left, hoping that the extra pound or two would keep the inside wheels from lifting. Even so, the deck swung, the rubber screamed, and I thought I saw the left front lift an inch or so clear.

I shot out of the turn, using the incline down toward the inside rail, and boiled by one of the kids who had managed to stay out in front in his home-made job up until that point. But a dull, dark red nose appeared on my right, and I knew that as I had passed the kid on the inside Brick had gone by him on the outside.

It wasn’t racing any more. It had gone beyond that — it was controlled suicide. The track wasn’t built for the speeds we were hitting. The cars were, but the track wasn’t and neither were Brick and I.

He went high and cut down toward me, and I gunned it as I started to come out of the turn. He slid back, still cutting in, and I felt a jolt, a tiny squeal. It was a sound I have heard only three or four times. His front left, at high speed, snubbing against my right rear. It is a sound you don’t want to hear often. The guy was crazy. Crazy with rage. And I had told him to stay out of my way.

There were two distinct fears. One was the fear of not being able to squeak around the ends of the track at the speed I was making. The second was the fear of what the madman behind me, the redhead with his pinched, bitter face, his thin, sneering lips, might do.

Crazy laps. Cars pushed beyond the outermost limits of their iron endurance. The haze came, the haze of the long grind, and I squinted at the pit. The next time around they told me it was lap fifty.

My trouble was that I wasn’t as crazy as Brick was. Eight years of competition gave me respect for the black track, the high, dizzy curves.

His nose came up on my right and I rode the curve high, too high for him to cut down in front of me. The nose dropped back, and just as I was breathing again, he crept up on me on the left, and once again he was edging me toward the outside, as he had back on the first turn.

But this time I wouldn’t drop back. This time he wouldn’t bluff me. I thought of the dark eyes of Jane Wall and the funny angle that I had seen on Johnny’s wrist. Not this time, Brick.

So I held it as steady as a rock and watched his front right. He edged up and moved in so that for seconds on end the three tires were traveling in the same track. My two left tires, and his front right in between them. Death was riding with us then.

Death was sitting on the hood of the green-black job, chattering at us and rubbing dry hands together in anticipation.

He swung away and I thought I had won, but when he swung back he came so far in that his front right was inside my two left tires. Maybe I screamed. Maybe I did nothing. I don’t know. We wheeled high around the curve in that position. I pulled my left leg back as we hit the straight stretch and shoved my knee up against the bottom edge of the steering wheel, to hold it rigid.

Then, spreading my lips in a horrible grin, I lifted both arms, shook hands with myself, glancing back at Brick.

I dropped my hands back onto the wheel. There was a thud, a wrenching jolt, and the whole skyline of Darido was whirling around me to the tune of screaming, burning rubber. Cars loomed up from nowhere and, as the wheel was useless, I folded my arms around my head and slouched in the seat, waiting for death.

There was the grinding crash of tortured metal, a hot flare of flame that scorched my face, and my car jolted to a stop, stern first, against the outside fence just beyond the turn, and then began to roll straight across the track toward the inside fence. Care were whining down at me. I wrenched the wheel hard to the right, and the motor gasped, popped, coughed, jerked my head back as it caught, as an orange car went by me with a full inch to spare. I lined it along the fence, trying to think.

Was this death?

Then I saw the paint blisters along the side of the cowl. Those weren’t imaginary. I saw the scorch mark on my left glove. That wasn’t imaginary. I was driving like a man in a dream. I waited for the red nose of the Jeyett Special to creep up.

But it didn’t. When I flashed by the pit I gave the signal to tell me where I stood. The board went up and it said “2.” There were cars ahead. I had no way of knowing who was leading. I passed them all. I bit down on the nausea and passed them all. And when I leveled out, after passing them, a checkered flag came down and I heard the tempo of the other motors change and a voice inside me said, “Look, Gartner, when they flag you with a checkered flag, it means you’ve won. Now stop at the pit after you go around again, and they’ll tell you if you’re dead. If they don’t look at you, you’re dead, son.”

At first, with the noise of the crowd and all, and with the presentation and confusion, didn’t know that I didn’t know what had happened.

I understood a little bit when I saw the angry scar, the torn mouth of metal just above my right rear.

Johnny told me, with Jane looking on, grave and quiet.

“We could see that he was trying to ride you out. He didn’t care if he killed himself, too. Jane couldn’t watch any more. Then I saw your arms lift and saw you turn. For my money, that’s what scared him off. Gidge Putner was right behind you.Ч”

“I guess Brick, suddenly scared, tried to slew out and drift back. But it was too late. Your wheels locked and his front right bounced up over your left rear. It tipped him and he took one roll before Putner hit him. You disappeared in the flame burst when the tanks on both the Special and the Walker Super went up, and then you came out of it in a that took you up to the fence.Ч”

Gidge — he came out of it. Running. But he was a ball of fire. They hooked the two cars and dragged them through the inside fence.

“Brick never knew what hit him.”

Later, we ate solemnly, without much joy. The news cameramen were around to take flash shots of the three of us. Over coffee, the spell seemed to lift a little, and we began to look at each other with that hey-ma-we-won look.

Johnny rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together and said, “We’re rich!”

“And just because of that crate of yours,” I said. “To tell you the truth, kids, I was afraid of that iron. It had a mean look. It hasn’t got that look any more. Now it looks as friendly as a pup.”

“It’s got enough stuff for another couple of years,” Johnny said.

I looked quickly at Jane, expecting the flare-up. But she had a remote look in her dark eyes and a little smile playing around the corners of her mouth. Softly she said, “We could take it down to Houston for the Christmas races and—”

Johnny and I exchanged quick and knowing looks. Johnny started to laugh.

“Remember, Janey?” he said. “Those things are dangerous. What’s the point in wheeling around and around and around?”

“There’s something more to it than that,” she said, confused.

“It’s too dangerous for us,” I said, severely.

“It is not!” she snapped. “My goodness! Anything is dangerous. Why, even if I were married to somebody who washed high windows and—”

Johnny laughed delightedly and said, “Joe, that’s a proposal if I ever heard one. With a witness, too!”

“No gentlemen would say no,” I said.

She looked down at the tablecloth, but under the table my hand found hers.

Content

Scott O’Hara
Thunder King

1

2. Hell’s Curves

3. Thunder Bargain