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

I had plenty of time to think some more about how convenient it was that the fellow who gave us the gun already seemed to have so much information about Stark, including his address. I hadn’t considered it fully at the time, but now I thought about how and why he was willing to be so helpful.

I also thought about how quickly that mob had shown up at the hobo camp looking for a kid with a coat like Orvil’s.

It all gave me a bad feeling and I wondered exactly what had happened to him. Judging from the mood of the deputies who had just left, they might have strung him up to the nearest tree if they’d found him. I had no trouble imagining the same fate for me if they’d caught me as I fled through those backyards. We’d really been stupid, and well worthy of being called a couple of graycats.

There wasn’t a lot of jubilation over the news about Beater Stark, although there were probably more than a few who were glad they wouldn’t be running into him in the future. In fact, the camp was pretty quiet. Most of the inhabitants of the grove still stood around, not knowing whether to put themselves back together and settle down for the night or expect another attack. Soon rumors began to float through the camp that we could expect another visit from a crew of rowdies someone said was getting themselves together in Pappy’s Rest. Soon after that, another rumor spread that a train was expected to come through sometime about midnight and stop for water. That rumor was considered reliable. The minute I heard it I thought it would be a fine idea to try to get aboard. It would be a fine idea for Orvil, too, if I could find him. Even if he had gone back and shot Stark, I hated to see him hanging from a tree, and I thought that was likely to happen, and quickly, if he stuck around this town. I hated to run off without at least knowing what had happened to him.

After poking around the camp once more, I headed for the town. I don’t know what I expected to see or find, but I thought I’d go just to see what I could see.

I didn’t get far. As I was crossing the last pair of tracks at the edge of the yard, I ran into a young fellow hurrying toward the camp. Even in the darkness, I could see he wasn’t much older than me, certainly not old enough to vote. But it wasn’t Orvil.

“I wouldn’t be thinkin’ about goin’ over into town tonight, friend,” he said to me as he passed.

“What’s going on?”

“Where you been? Whole town’s in an uproar over some railroad man gettin’ shot right in his own house.”

“They caught the one who did it?”

“Guess not. People’re still out patrolling the streets. I just dodged a couple of ‘em.” He didn’t wait for any more conversation and was gone into the shadows.

At least it wasn’t likely they’d found Orvil yet. I paused for a moment to consider my chances of actually finding him if he was hidden somewhere in town. Possibly, he’d even managed to get out of town already. I slowly turned and followed.

About midnight the rumored freight train pulled through the station, its engine stopping at the water tank at the end of the yard. It wasn’t a long train, perhaps a dozen and a half freight cars and a couple of flatcars with some big dump trucks on them. But it was a train, and it was going to be starting out again in only a few minutes. A number of the freight cars stood with their doors wide open, almost as an invitation, but the brakeman walked alongside the train to keep an eye out for anyone trying to get aboard. Along with several others, I watched from the trees as a couple of hobos on the opposite side of the train climbed into an open door of a boxcar as soon as the brakeman had gone past. By the time the brakeman walked forward to talk to the engineer, forty or so men and what was left of their baggage had sifted out of the shadows and climbed aboard. Some had hidden away in empty freight cars, some hung onto the ladders between the cars, others tried to hide in the big dump trucks, and a hardy few had climbed on top of some of the cars and laid down, hoping not to be noticed.

But the brakeman noticed, and he returned from his conversation with the engineer carrying a lantern and a long stick of wood he had obtained from somewhere. He began to inspect the cars and warn off the trespassers in a loud voice punctuated by a lot of noise he made by popping the stick on the sides of the cars. Most of the would-be riders dropped off and retreated into the darkness as he approached each car. His voice promised dire threats against anyone who dared set foot across the railroad property line again that night.

I don’t know why, but perhaps his tone of voice wasn’t as sincere as it should have been, or maybe it was something else. But once he had gone past a couple of cars, a few hardy souls sneaked out of the darkness again and quietly climbed back aboard. By the time he reached the caboose, evicting as he went, the train had begun to fill up again from the front. Kind of like when you’re crossing a creek and the water fills in your footsteps as soon as you move your foot another step forward.

When he reached the caboose, he turned and looked over the train and slowly became aware of what had happened. Many of the hobos had not even tried to stay out of sight. As he stood and watched, a lone figure ran to the train. Hands immediately reached from the open door of a boxcar to pull him in. The brakeman stood for a moment contemplating what amounted to a mass exodus of the grove. And perhaps his chances of doing something about it.

“Aaaah—” he said with an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders. He uttered a string of disgusted sounds I couldn’t hear clearly and slammed his stick onto the ground. He mounted the first step of the caboose and waved his lantern toward the engine. When he heard the answering whistle, he shrugged again, climbed to the platform, stepped inside the caboose, and closed the door.

Right away, the engine began to chuff and move backward, taking up the slack in the couplers. When the train started moving forward again, a fellow leaned out from the big open door of a boxcar in the middle of the train and waved a silent “Come on!” with his arm. Immediately, at least two dozen more hobos ran out of the trees and clambered aboard cars up and down the train.

It was time for me to scram, too, but I hesitated, still thinking about Orvil and what I could do if I stuck around. I’d been watching the other hobos climbing aboard the train, keeping an eye out for the green plaid coat, but hadn’t seen it. Still feeling like I was abandoning him, I finally ran toward the train. The last cars were just passing by. One of them was an empty boxcar and the doors were open. As I stood alongside, hands reached down and pulled me inside.

For a few seconds I hoped one of the hands might have been Orvil’s. But none were his, and he wasn’t in the car. I sat in the doorway looking back into the moonlight, hoping to see him hop aboard. I saw nothing but the edge of the grove as we slowly passed, and I figured I’d never see him again. My feelings about him were strange and unexpected. First off, I felt like I had just run out on a friend. I was also thinking I had made a big mistake by not talking Orvil out of the whole thing to start with.

Somehow, I was feeling a little better about our ten days at hard labor too. We had been eating better than we had the previous weeks, and we hadn’t been working any harder than we would have at home, and nobody had been beating on us. The only really bad part of it was we hadn’t been able to spend the time moving west. I was even prepared to believe someone had gone out there to find Arthur and say a few of the proper words over him. But I felt sad that there was someone back at Arthur’s home who would wonder for a good long time where he was. That wasn’t right, but nothing was going to change it. In the end, I figured the best use of all my energies was to think about tomorrow and the next train and...