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AS IT ALWAYS MUST BE353Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ49ot5gpLPR
353Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1bBJ0eYw3r
Thatcher could not believe it. He couldn't believe the man's audacity The site was ready for blasting. Bronco was going to go through with it after all.
Even in the night, using a torch to probe through the darkness, he could see the crude marks left by the crews, setting up the site lines. The excavation would start exactly at the same point where the largest concentration of methane was going to be. The man was a fool. Bronco was going to kill hundreds of men!
All right, Thatcher thought. He went back to his horse, standing quietly at tether downrange. He would have to send the report. He had thought Bronco to be a man of some reason; the bluff would be enough to bring him to his senses. But he had misjudged. He had misjudged not only Bronco but the very forces behind him. Maybe it was America that he had misjudged. The country, and the men who ran it, would do nothing to avert destruction. Only buildings, not men's lives, had value. That was what the frontier was becoming then. A monument to destruction.
But he wouldn't give up. They might've left the project in Bronco's hands, trusting him to do what was needed, and not inform them, keep their own hands clean then, but if they were placed right up against it---if they had the report in front of them which would implicate them in the disaster, then even the men who ran the railroad could not turn away. They would defend themselves by sacrificing Bronco but they would commit murder. They would gladly collaborate in it, that was part of their design----but only if they were ignorant of it. He believed he knew them that well.
He would send the report. Tonight. By telegram. As long as one man was in between the situation and the cold men in New York, lives could yet be saved. He even allowed himself one surge of optimism: surely the country was not hopeless if there were men like him around. He wasn't the only one. One man who cared could tip the wheel. They couldn't confront their conscience.
Something hit him hard on the head.
The blow was savage and abrupt; he was on the ground gasping before even fully aware of what had happened. Something has hit me on the head, he thought, and the strangeness of it more than anything interested him, he was already bringing his knees up under him so that he could stand and see the source of the blow....when there was another stunning crack to the other side of the head. Thatcher, almost as if he were another person, heard the bone breaking. Skull fracture, he thought. My God, they'd fractured his skull.
He still could not believe it. Blood filmed his vision; the night had become red and still on the ground, shaking for a standing position, he tried to understand what was happening and then the third blow came, this the most terrible of all because it was not by hand but only a bullet which, like a fist, came into his chest and expanded, grew within; he could feel his chest beginning to break open and he fell into the mud. I'm dying, he thought, they're killing me; they'd rather kill me than hold up the blasting!
That made everything quite clear and his confusion vanished. Of course! Of course, they would rather kill than hold up the blasting., Wasn't that exactly Bronco's point? That was Bronco. That was the country. As it was and always must be.
Thatcher died in place fast, hearing the sound of footsteps and the panicked cries of his horse as the animal was gunned down, in a perfect sense of peace with himself. He had more questions. All had been answered. He knew what the country was going to become. No struggle. No armageddon. Simple vanquishment.353Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfH9OmHwGgx
