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

I wasn’t worried, though. At least, at first. I kept telling myself, maybe he was just circulating around, seeing if anyone had any food they wanted to share. But it didn’t work. I began to kick myself for letting him go off by himself to return the gun. It didn’t take much effort to figure he might have gone off to have another try at killing that railroad bull.

At the same time, I was thinking a little more about being handed the means to deal with Stark. There was simply a lot of things I didn’t know, and I began to be worried about Orville and whether he’d stopped to think about them as I was.

I took another quick turn around the hobo camp, just to make sure, walking a little faster this time, but not finding him anywhere. That’s when I had to face up to it. I knew where I’d find him. And if I could, I had to find him before he went through with it.

I slipped out of the grove and went into the streets of the town. Trying to move slowly so as not to attract attention, I walked in the direction of Stark’s house. What I felt like doing was to run and shout Orvil’s name into every dark corner and shadow. But I held it in and tried to appear as if I was just some kid on my way home.

About a block from Stark’s house I could see a dozen or so men crowded around his front door. I paused as several turned away and ran for a car that was parked in the street. I knew in an instant that what I’d come to prevent had already happened.

Without thinking, I turned and ran between a couple of houses. Doing that while a couple of men in the crowd happened to be looking in my direction wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did. They saw the movement and with a shout two of them started off in my direction like a cat would go after a mouse.

I had a head start of at least a block, but I was running blind with no clear idea where I was running to. In one backyard I made a big racket when I tripped over a bucket, and in another I rattled a rickety fence when I climbed over it. If they couldn’t see me, they could at least follow the noises I made.

They probably were because they were getting closer, and they had picked up a couple more men. If I were in the clear, I thought I might have outrun them, but there I was, blundering around in backyards where I could trip over something I couldn’t see. Crossing another yard, I swerved just in time to avoid going flying over the tongue of a big farm wagon parked there. I paused to plan a quiet route out of the yard. I could hear two of my pursuers on the opposite side of the house, and I could hear shouts from the next house, wondering what was going on. It was getting to the point where I was sure they were going to catch up, and soon. And on top of everything else, I was getting winded. Hiding seemed like a good idea, but there wasn’t time to look for a place.

In desperation, I heaved myself up over the side of the wagon box and landed next to a pile of cultivator parts and other barnyard paraphernalia. Fortunately, getting into it didn’t make any noise.

As one of them came running down the side of the house, I grabbed an iron bar — part of some kind of garden cultivator — and sent it sailing over some bushes into another yard. It dislodged something with a loud crash. My closest pursuers trotted by within a few feet of me before they scurried over a fence in pursuit of the noise. There were shouts from somewhere a few houses away.

“Over here! I saw him in back of...”

I couldn’t make out any more because there was more shouting. The other men who were after me ran back to the street. Maybe it was Orvil someone had seen, or maybe those men out there were just chasing shadows. I shuddered and I lay still in that wagon box for a long time, holding my breath until the stars overhead began to swim. But no one backtracked.

About the time I decided I had to try breathing again, a woman came to the back door of the house and spoke to someone inside. I took a quick breath and held it again.

“Whoever it was makin’ all that racket, looks like they’ve gone.”

She went back inside and closed the door. I lay there for another moment taking great gulps of air. When I was ready to move again, I moved very slowly and didn’t make a move that could possibly make a noise or attract attention.

After that, I gave up on the idea of crossing backyards and took to the streets and once more tried to pretend I was just another kid walking home. A little later, a couple of men on a corner a block away turned and glanced in my direction. I saw them only out of the corner of my eye and didn’t look at them directly. I used all the self-control I could muster and walked slowly and quietly along. They turned away and went off in another direction.

I hadn’t had a lot of experience being on the run, but I was sure learning fast.

I avoided the railroad yard completely and carefully circled around to approach the grove from the side opposite the town. It wasn’t much trouble to slip into the camp without attracting anyone’s attention and find the spot where I’d last seen Orvil. He wasn’t there, and I just slumped down and tried to get my breathing and nerves back to normal.

My heart was still going pretty fast when the deputies came.

“Awright, which one a’ y’ shot Tom Stark?” the first one called loud enough to be heard across most of the grove.

There were five of them, and they were carrying lanterns and flashlights. And clubs that looked as big as fenceposts. Two of them had something shiny on their shirts and they may have been deputies all right, but none were in uniform. Somebody said later they had most likely been recruited moments before from the local saloons and sworn in, no matter how tanked they were. Shouting and swinging clubs, they began to move through the camp, poking their lights into the shadows and scattering men and their belongings with their clubs.

I tried to burrow back into a stand of bushes nearby but didn’t make it. One of the men stomped up in front of me and jabbed me in the chest with the end of his club.

“You seen a kid, wears a green plaid coat?” he said, poking me again.

“Haven’t seen him,” I said. A second later, I added, “Not lately, anyway,” but I said that to myself. By then, the fellow had gone to wave his club at someone else. I rubbed the sore spot on my ribs and watched the deputies going about their amusement, shaking out blankets and poking around in the underbrush. They would have been happy to run across the coat, but I was sure they would have preferred to find the fellow who was wearing it. I was glad no one came back to ask me the question again.

Once in a while one of them would shout at some unfortunate who couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. It didn’t take much close watching to notice that it was the fellows my age or a little older they paid particular attention to. The question they flung around most often was “Where is the kid with the green plaid coat?” It seemed a little strange they were looking for a particular type of person, or a particular coat, so soon. Unless Orvil had made a bigger mistake than I had.

But the searchers didn’t find him, and finally they had their fill of breaking up the camp. As they left, they were laughing about their accomplishments. When they were gone, I moved around and pretty much looked in all corners of the grove. I didn’t expect to find Orvil, and I didn’t, but I went anyway. The camp was pretty much destroyed. Not that there was much they could destroy to begin with. They kicked over a few stewpots and put out the fires with the contents, scattered men and what few of the their belongings they could lay their hands on, and tore down a couple of shelters made with old blankets stretched across ropes. One poor fellow was nursing what looked like a broken arm, and a couple of others were trying to make some sort of sling for him out of his shirt.