John Boland - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 54, No. 3, March 2009

I guess mine was too.

Orvil wanted to head out and start looking for Stark right away, but I thought we ought to go back along the tracks to find the place where Arthur had gone off the train. The marshal had simply ignored us any time we asked about him, and I wanted to see for myself if he had just been left there.

Orvil was walking a lot better after his hard labor convalescence and this time it took only a few hours to find the spot where I’d pulled Arthur from the tracks. There were still a few dark brown streaks of dried blood running down the sides of the rail where it happened. But Arthur was not there, nor was the blanket I’d covered him with. We were left to speculate whether people had been sent to collect him, or whether scavengers from the nearby woods had performed the task. There was nothing I could see that told either way.

I glanced at Orvil. He was staring at the adjoining woods, too, and was probably having the same thoughts I was. We walked around some in the woods but found nothing there either.

“I’m goin’ to kill that crazy bugger,” he said. It was the first he’d opened his mouth since we’d arrived, and he said it hardly above a whisper.

The town where Beater Stark lived and worked out of was about forty miles away and we got there mostly by hitching rides along the highway. For the last dozen miles we hopped a freight and made an uneventful trip along with a half dozen other fellow travelers. We left the train as it was slowing into the yard and followed a couple of more experienced fellows into a hobo camp near the yard. No one took special notice of us because of our ages. There must have been at least seventy or eighty hobos scattered around a fairly large grove of trees and bushes, and more than a dozen of them were about as young as we were. The place looked like it had been used as a gathering place for some time.

Now that we were in the same town where they said Beater Stark lived, our next problem was finding out how our paths might cross. And how we were going to do it. What were we going to do, a couple of kids like us? Break down his door and club him to death with his own baseball bat with the gear on the end? Not likely. Nevertheless, we never thought of giving up.

If we could find some kind of work, we thought we could buy a gun. You could buy a pistol for only a few dollars most everywhere. Back home, a grocery store had a couple of old rifles and revolvers they’d taken in in exchange for food. You could have bought any one for three or four dollars. But it took only a little asking around to conclude that finding any kind of work was nothing more than a pipe dream, at least in this town. We hung around the camp for a couple of days, sharing somebody’s largesse or cadging a handout around town where we could. One lady gave us a good meal in exchange for a couple of hours weeding her small vegetable garden.

We thought it was a good idea not to call attention to ourselves by asking around for his address. We listened a lot but heard nothing that would help us find him.

But right away, our luck changed. We ran into an older fellow who had shared his meal with us in another city. I remembered he called himself Charlie.

“Didn’t I see you fellas a couple a’ weeks ago? Back in Canfield?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Don’t have no more food this time.”

“We’re all right.”

“Seems there was three a’ y’ then.”

“There were,” I said.

Charlie waited as if for an explanation. I gave it to him along with a pretty detailed explanation of how Arthur came to fall under a train.

“Beater Stark,” he said right away.

“You know who he is?”

“Most everybody ridin’ th’ rails — this part a’ th’ country, anyway — they’ve either heard a’ him or met him. Those as has, don’t figure on meetin’ him twice.”

“I do,” Orvil said. “I’m goin’ t’ kill the bugger.”

Charlie laughed, “It’s been thought about b’fore. Ain’t been done yet.”

“Will be. We’re going t’ kill the bugger.”

“You? Coupla’ kids... you think you’re gonna...” His smile faded away as he looked at Orvil. There was something in Orvil’s eye that let you know this wasn’t idle chatter. It was a look I hadn’t seen before, either.

“How y’ plan to take care a’ that little chore?”

“First couple dollars I get ahead, I’m goin’ t’ buy me a pistol an’ some shells. Shucks, th’ rest’ll be easy.”

Charlie turned to me.

“You know where to find this bull?”

“Can’t be that hard to find,” I said with a little more confidence than I felt.

“You don’t know?”

“We’ll find him.”

“You think your friend here is serious?” he said to me.

“Always seemed so to me.”

“You know how to use a pistol?” He directed this question at Orvil.

“Sure.”

Charlie looked first at me, than at Orvil, then back at me.

“Huh... well... might be he’d let a couple kids get close t’ him.” This he said almost to himself.

He sat, staring into his fire for a few moments, then rose to his feet.

“I think I know a feller, might be able to help with just what y’ need. Sit here a minute or two, boys. I got to go have a word with him.”

He was gone for a lot more than a minute or two, but when he came back, he had a smile on his face. When he was seated, he pulled a little cloth-wrapped bundle from his coat pocket and handed it to me. I pulled a corner of the cloth back. It was a small thing with a barrel about two inches long, and it looked old, really old. The cylinder was small, too, a five-shot, but it held only four bullets. They looked smaller than what would have come out of the end of that revolver the marshal pulled on us, but I didn’t know enough about guns to say what caliber they were. There was a little spot of rust on the bottom of the grip, and the worn finish made me think it had been well used. I closed the cloth over it again.

“Fellow who owns this, he’s sort o’ laid up,” Charlie said. “An’ he owes Stark for a coupl’a’ broken ribs.”

Orvil reached for the bundle and I handed it to him. He pulled the cloth open just long enough to give the contents a quick once over, then stuffed the whole thing into one of the pockets of what used to be Arthur’s coat.

“Only four bullets,” Orvil said.

Charlie shrugged.

“One oughta’ be enough, I guess,” Orvil said, smiling. But it came out sort of grim.

Charlie noted it and leaned closer.

“The fellow who gave this t’ me says Stark does mosta’ his drinkin in a place called Pappy’s Rest, right across from th’ Railway Express office. Yesterday, I followed him back where he lives. It’s nine blocks down th’ same street... on the corner... little two-room clapboard house... never been painted. Only one like it... can’t hardly miss it.”

We both stared at Charlie for this sudden windfall of information.

“Word around th’ yards is, he ain’t workin’ t’day,” Charlie said.

“You know this for sure?” Orvil said.

“It’s for sure.”

“You and your friend know a lot about this fellow,” I said.

“There’s a few... brakemen... firemen... they’re not unfriendly. Don’t like what they seen him do... they mention him in the saloons now and again.”

“Okay.” I said.

“Remember, boys, tonight’d be the best time.”

“Tell your friend we’ll use this, all right.” Orvil said, patting his pocket.

“Luck, boys,” Charlie said, smiling.

For a few moments I thought about our incredible stroke of good luck in being given all that information about Stark, and with a pistol to boot. It was almost too good to be true. But who was I to question the opportunity? I stopped thinking about it and tucked it away in the back of my mind. We had a task that needed doing, and all at once we were in good shape to do it.