“Why”—there was a forbidding break that made her shudder. A second later she convinced herself that it seemed a natural halt—people do such things without any apparent cause; but she could not help shaking a little.
“Is it about Mr. Wade?” and as she asked this question she wondered why she had spoken her husband's name when it was Bill's that really had rushed through her mind.
“No, ma'am, it ain't about Martin Wade I'm callin' you up, it ain't him at all—”
“I see.” She said this calmly and quietly, as though to impress her informant and reassure him. “What is it?” It was almost unnecessary to ask, for she knew already what had happened, knew that the boy had flung his dice and lost.
“It's your son, Mrs. Wade; it's him I'm a-callin' about. We're about to bring him home to you—an'—and I thought it'd be better to call you up first so's you might expect us an' not take on with the suddenness of it all. This is Brown—Harry Brown—the nightman at the mine down here. We've got the ambulance here and we're about ready to start.” There was an evenness about the strange voice that she understood better than its words. If Bill had been hurt the man would have been quick and jerky in his speaking as though he were feeling the boy's pain with him; but he was so even about it all—as even as Death.
“Then I'll phone for Dr. Bradley so he'll be here by the time you come,” said Rose, wondering how she could think of so practical a thing. Her mind had wrapped itself in a protecting armor, forbidding the shock of it all to strike with a single blow. She couldn't understand why she was not screaming.
“You can—if you want to, but Bill don't need him, Mrs. Wade,—he's dead.”
Slowly she hung up the receiver, the wall still around her brain, holding it tight and keeping her nerves taut, afraid to release them for fear they might snap. She stood there looking at the receiver as her hands came together.
As though she were talking to a person instead of the telephone before her, she gasped: “So—so THIS is what it has all been for—this. Into the world, into Martin's world—and this way out of it. Burned to death—Billy.”
The rain had lessened a little and now the wind began to shake the house, rattle the windows and scream as it tore its way over the plains. The sky flared white and the world lighted up suddenly, as though the sun had been turned on from an electric switch. At the same instant she saw a bolt of lightning strike a young tree by the roadside, heard the sharp click as it hit and then watched the flash dance about, now on the road, now along the barbed wire fencing. Then the world went black again. And a rumble quickly grew to an earth-shaking blast of thunder. It was as though that tree were Billy—struck by a gush of flying fire. The next bolt broke above the house, and the light it threw showed her the stripling split and lying on the ground. In the impenetrable darkness she realized that the house fuse of their Delco system must have been blown out, and she groped blindly for a match. She could hear the rain coming down again, now in rivers. There was unchained wrath in the downpour, viciousness. It was a madman rushing in to rend and tear. It frothed, and writhed, and spat hatred. Rose shook as though gripped by a strong hand. She was afraid—of the rain, the lightning, the thunder, the darkness; alone there, waiting for them to bring her Billy. She was too terrified to add her weeping to the wail of the wind—it would have been too ghastly. Would she never find a match! As she lit the lamp, like the stab of a needle in the midst of agony, came the thought of how long it had been after Martin had put in his electrical system and connected up his barns before she had been permitted to have this convenience in the house. What would he think now? She wished he were home. Anyone would be better than this awful waiting alone. She could only stand there, away from the window, looking out at the sheets of water running down the panes and shivering with the frightfulness and savageness of it all.