Susan Hinton - The Outsiders

“Johnny,” I managed to say, fighting the dizziness, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Go ahead,” he said in the same steady voice. “I won’t look at you.”

I turned my head and was quietly sick for a minute. Then I leaned back and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see Bob lying there.

This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. This can’t be…

“You really killed him, huh, Johnny?”

“Yeah.” His voice quavered slightly. “I had to. They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you. And they had a blade… they were gonna beat me up….”

“Like…”—I swallowed—“like they did before?”

Johnny was quiet for a minute. “Yeah,” he said, “like they did before.”

Johnny told me what had happened: “They ran when I stabbed him. They all ran…”

A panic was rising in me as I listened to Johnny’s quiet voice go on and on. “Johnny!” I nearly screamed. “What are we gonna do? They put you in the electric chair for killing people!” I was shaking. I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette. I want a cigarette. We had smoked our last pack. “I’m scared, Johnny. What are we gonna do?”

Johnny jumped up and dragged me up by my sweat shirt. He shook me. “Calm down, Ponyboy. Get ahold of yourself.”

I hadn’t realized I was screaming. I shook loose. “Okay,” I said, “I’m okay now.”

Johnny looked around, slapping his pockets nervously. “We gotta get outa here. Get somewhere. Run away. The police’ll be here soon.” I was trembling, and it wasn’t all from cold. But Johnny, except for the fact that his hands were twitching, looked as cool as Darry ever had. “We’ll need money. And maybe a gun. And a plan.”

Money. Maybe a gun? A plan. Where in the world would we get these things?

“Dally,” Johnny said with finality. “Dally’ll get us outa here.”

I heaved a sigh. Why hadn’t I thought of that? But I never thought of anything. Dallas Winston could do anything.

“Where can we find him?”

“I think at Buck Merril’s place. There’s a party over there tonight. Dally said somethin’ about it this afternoon.”

Buck Merril was Dally’s rodeo partner. He was the one who’d got Dally the job as a jockey for the Slash J. Buck raised a few quarter horses, and made most of his money on fixed races and a little bootlegging. I was under strict orders from both Darry and Soda not to get caught within ten miles of his place, which was dandy with me. I didn’t like Buck Merril. He was a tall lanky cowboy with blond hair and buckteeth. Or he used to be bucktoothed before he had the front two knocked out in a fight. He was out of it. He dug Hank Williams — how gross can you get?

Buck answered the door when we knocked, and a roar of cheap music came with him. The clinking of glasses, loud, rough laughter and female giggles, and Hank Williams. It scraped on my raw nerves like sandpaper. A can of beer in one hand, Buck glared down at us. “Whatta ya want?”

“Dally!” Johnny gulped, looking back over his shoulder. “We gotta see Dally.”

“He’s busy,” Buck snapped, and someone in his living room yelled “A-ha!” and then “Yee-ha,” and the sound of it almost made my nerves snap.

“Tell him it’s Pony and Johnny,” I commanded. I knew Buck, and the only way you could get anything from him was to bully him. I guess that’s why Dallas could handle him so easily, although Buck was in his mid-twenties and Dally was seventeen. “He’ll come.”

Buck glared at me for a second, then stumbled off. He was pretty well crocked, which made me apprehensive. If Dally was drunk and in a dangerous mood….

He appeared in a few minutes, clad only in a pair of low-cut blue jeans, scratching the hair on his chest. He was sober enough, and that surprised me. Maybe he hadn’t been there long.

“Okay, kids, whatta ya need me for?”

As Johnny told him the story, I studied Dally, trying to figure out what there was about this tough-looking hood that a girl like Cherry Valance could love. Towheaded and shifty-eyed, Dally was anything but handsome. Yet in his hard face there was character, pride, and a savage defiance of the world. He could never love Cherry Valance back. It would be a miracle if Dally loved anything. The fight for self-preservation had hardened him beyond caring.

He didn’t bat an eye when Johnny told him what had happened, only grinned and said “Good for you” when Johnny told how he had knifed the Soc. Finally Johnny finished. “We figured you could get us out if anyone could. I’m sorry we got you away from the party.”

“Oh, shoot, kid”—Dally glanced contemptuously over his shoulder—“I was in the bedroom.”

He suddenly stared at me. “Glory, but your ears can get red, Ponyboy.”

I was remembering what usually went on in the bedrooms at Buck’s parties. Then Dally grinned in amused realization. “It wasn’t anything like that, kid. I was asleep, or tryin’ to be, with all this racket. Hank Williams”—he rolled his eyes and added a few adjectives after ‘Hank Williams.’ “Me and Shepard had a run-in and I cracked some ribs. I just needed a place to lay over.” He rubbed his side ruefully. “Ol’ Tim sure can pack a punch. He won’t be able to see outa one eye for a week.” He looked us over and sighed. “Well, wait a sec and I’ll see what I can do about this mess.” Then he took a good look at me. “Ponyboy, are you wet?”

“Y-y-yes-s,” I stammered through chattering teeth.

“Glory hallelujah!” He opened the screen door and pulled me in, motioning for Johnny to follow. “You’ll die of pneumonia ’fore the cops ever get you.”

He half-dragged me into an empty bedroom, swearing at me all the way. “Get that sweat shirt off.” He threw a towel at me. “Dry off and wait here. At least Johnny’s got his jeans jacket. You ought to know better than to run away in just a sweat shirt, and a wet one at that. Don’t you ever use your head?” He sounded so much like Darry that I stared at him. He didn’t notice, and left us sitting on the bed.

Johnny lay back on it. “Wish I had me a weed.”

My knees were shaking as I finished drying off, sitting there in my jeans.

Dally appeared after a minute. He carefully shut the door. “Here”—he handed us a gun and a roll of bills—“the gun’s loaded. For Pete’s sake, Johnny, don’t point the thing at me. Here’s fifty bucks. That’s all I could get out of Merril tonight. He’s blowin’ his loot from that last race.”

You might have thought it was Dally who fixed those races for Buck, being a jockey and all, but it wasn’t. The last guy to suggest it lost three teeth. It’s the truth. Dally rode the ponies honestly and did his best to win. It was the only thing Dally did honestly.

“Pony, do Darry and Sodapop know about this?”

I shook my head. Dally sighed. “Boy howdy, I ain’t itchin’ to be the one to tell Darry and get my head busted.”

“Then don’t tell him,” I said. I hated to worry Sodapop, and would have liked to let him know I had gotten this far okay, but I didn’t care if Darry worried himself gray-headed. I was too tired to tell myself I was being mean and unreasonable. I convinced myself it wouldn’t be fair to make Dally tell him. Darry would beat him to death for giving us the money and the gun and getting us out of town.

“Here!” Dally handed me a shirt about sixty-million sizes too big. “It’s Buck’s — you an’ him ain’t exactly the same size, but it’s dry.” He handed me his worn brown leather jacket with the yellow sheep’s-wool lining. “It’ll get cold where you’re going, but you can’t risk being loaded down with blankets.”

I started buttoning up the shirt. It about swallowed me. “Hop the three-fifteen freight to Windrixville,” Dally instructed. “There’s an old abandoned church on top of Jay Mountain. There’s a pump in back so don’t worry about water. Buy a week’s supply of food as soon as you get there — this morning, before the story gets out, and then don’t so much as stick your noses out the door. I’ll be up there as soon as I think it’s clear. Man, I thought New York was the only place I could get mixed up in a murder rap.”