The Boxcar Blues (6 page)

One of the men said, "Sure, sit yourself
down. Care for some coffee?"

Curly had been in enough jungles to know
that etiquette demanded that you didn’t take anything unless you
had something to contribute. "No thanks. I ain’t got nothin' for
the pot."

A smile and the man said, "That's OK, that's
about what this coffee's worth, nothin'."

Curly sat down and took the steaming tin
can. He took a sip and said, "I got a friend, a black man and he's
in a bad jam. I need help to spring him before a crooked deputy
hangs him."

Another man asked, “Where is your
friend?”

“
He’s back towards
Dillard. This mean and hateful deputy took him and he’s gonna hang
him, ‘cause he thinks Catwalk and I murdered a couple of
hoboes.”

The man said, "Are you an' him the ones we
been hearing about?"

Curly looked around him. Satisfied they were
alone, he said, "That’s us, but we acted in self defense. Those
guys attacked me, an' my friend stopped them."

"Did he kill them ‘boes?"

Curly cautiously looked over the three men.
A reward could have been posted for him and Catwalk. If he admitted
their guilt, these guys could jump him and opt for some easy cash.
He was ready to run when he said, "They attacked me an’ we each
threw one of them off the train. They both died. Call it what you
want."

The three men looked at each other, then one
said, “How are you going to find him?”

“
I’m going into town to
find someone who should know their whereabouts, and make them
talk.” Curly pulled the forty-five out of his jeans.

One man whistled and another said, “Boy, you
mean business, don’t you?”

“
We ain’t got much time,
if anyone wants to help save a life, you can come with me. If you
don’t wan’na get in the middle of this, I understand.”

One man stood up and said, “C’mon kid, I’ll
go with you. These two, they got families waiting for them. It’s
better if they stay here.”

Curly tipped his hat to the others and said,
“Thanks for the coffee.”

When Jones went into the house Catwalk
looked at his handcuffs and decided he had to try getting out of
them. If he was still here when the deputy and his friend returned,
he was as good as dead.

The links on the hand cuffs weren’t much
thicker than the bailing wire they used on the farm to mend fences
and he used to bend that with no problem. Now the strength he’d
developed during a life of hard labor might save his life.

He twisted the cuffs until one of the links
began to bend. Catwalk kept twisting the cuffs until he thought his
wrist would break, but the handcuff link continued to bend out of
shape. As soon as it was bent enough to separate the cuffs he freed
himself from the seat handle and crept out of car.

The woods on one side weren’t that deep and
he could see the road on the other side; he didn’t want to go that
way. He decided to sneak past the house and make his getaway into
the woods behind the house. He was creeping beside the house when
he heard the back door open.

Deputy Jones came out, saw his prisoner and
reached for his gun. Knowing he had to stop him, Catwalk lunged at
Jones wrapping his arms around the guy and knocking him to the
ground. Jones tried to yell for help, but didn’t get it out. Cat
slugged the deputy, knocking him out cold.

He quickly spied a place where he could
stash the deputy. A place where Jones might be detained a while
before he could give chase. Catwalk carried the unconscious deputy
to the nearby outhouse. He’d dug enough pits below two-hole
outhouses that he knew the deputy wouldn’t drown but it would take
him a while to get out of there. He then dropped Jones through the
seat and heard him splash into the foul stinky mess below.

With his nemesis out of action for a while
Catwalk headed for the woods, wearing a grin and running as fast as
he could, oblivious to the twigs and branches that gave him a
constant pelting. He was certain that once the deputy extracted
himself or was rescued from the outhouse pit, he’d be mad as a
hornet and certain to form a posse and start a search.

He’d been running for half an hour when
Catwalk stopped to listen for a train whistle. From experience he
knew they could be heard for ten miles or more at night and he had
to get to the tracks so he could catch the train to Junction City.
Hearing nothing but the silence of the Texas night, he took off
running, hoping that he could get out of this area before he was
spotted and taken for the last ride of his life.

Alton Jones had only been in the pit for a
few minutes when he’d regained consciousness, discovered that he’d
been cast in a living hell and began yelling at the top of his
lungs. Larry heard him from the house and came out to rescue him
from the nastiest place a person could imagine.

Then he made the mistake of asking Jones
what had happened. The deputy, understandably irate and livid
beyond talking, jumped into a watering trough, trying to wash off
the stench. As he would find out, however, the noxious odor
wouldn’t wear off for several days.

Jones finally regained his composure enough
to utter instructions for Larry, telling him, “Find me some clean,
dry clothes. Bring as many guns as you can find, plenty of
ammunition and a bottle of whiskey. We’re leaving to pick up John
Townsend, then drive over to Dillard to an all night diner I know
about to recruit some more help. By morning I plan to have twenty
or thirty men looking for this guy and I’m sparing no expense to
find the boy. Ain’t no black bastard throws me in the shithouse and
lives to tell about it.”

As soon as he was changed and Larry had
rounded up the arms and booze, Alton sped away, in a spray of
gravel, heading for the crossroads where he’d left Townsend earlier
that day.

Once they reached John Townsend, he had all
sorts of questions, mainly, what was that stench in his car and
then where had they been and where were they going.

Jones barked out something that was supposed
to pass for answers, then told the man to get in the car. To
Townsend’s chagrin he sped off like a mad man, fishtailing down the
dirt road, headed for the only all night diner within twenty
miles.

Curly and Slim, the guy who’d volunteered to
help him, flagged down the first car they saw. When the driver
stopped, Curly pointed the gun at him and said, “Mister, if you
drive us to Dillard, I won’t hurt you.”

With wide eyes, the driver nodded. Curly and
Slim climbed into the car and Curly asked, “You from around
here?”

“
No, I live over in Fort
Worth. I’m just visiting someone. I decided to go out for drive
tonight because the people I’m staying with were
arguing.”

Curly said, “So you wasn’t doing anything in
particular?”

“
Nope. Name’s Norm Cashman
and I’ll be glad to drive you wherever you want to go, but I’d
appreciate it if’n you took that hog-leg outta my face.”

Curly stuck the revolver back in his jeans
and told the driver his story. He then added, “These guys have to
be in the Klan. We’ve got to find someone who knows where they’d
have a Klan meeting.”

Slim said, “We need to find a diner. They’re
usually full of talkative people.”

As Norm cruised down Main Street in Dillard
they saw two men talking under the feint glow of a street light. He
pulled over and asked, “Hey, can you guys tell us if there’s an
all-night diner around here.”

One of the men pointed, “Sure, down here two
blocks and turn left. It’s behind Red’s Blacksmith Shop.”

Norm accelerated away and followed the
directions. When they pulled up outside the diner, Curly saw two
men sitting at the counter. He was about to get out of the car when
a green Oldsmobile sedan screeched to a stop not twenty feet from
him. To his amazement, and horror, he saw Alton Jones sitting in
the driver’s seat.

Curly slinked down in the seat and whispered
to Slim, “That’s Deputy Jones driving that car that just pulled in
here. Whatever you do don’t let him know I’m in here.”

“
OK, kid, you wait here
and I’ll go smoke a cigarette, maybe make some small
talk.”

Norm stopped him with a hand on his arm and
said, “They won’t let you in that diner. I’ll go.” With that he got
out of the car and stretched, giving the harmless impression that
he was just out for a late night cup of coffee.

Curly took off his hat and peeked over the
front seat to see what Jones was doing. The deputy got out of the
Olds and stormed into the diner like a man on a mission.

Norm followed him into the diner and took a
seat at a corner table, trying to remain as inconspicuous as
possible as he listened to the Deputy.

Jones began shouting at the two men seated
at the counter. He retold the story about his dangerous prisoner
that had escaped, neglecting to mention the outhouse. Then, against
their protests, told the two that they’d been deputized and had to
join his in the search for the escapee.

As the three men argued about their duties,
it dawned on Norm that by virtue of his presence, he might also be
deputized. He casually got up and walked toward the restroom.
Before reaching it he turned and slipped out the front door,
relieved that the deputy hadn’t seen him and wondering which one of
the three men it was that badly needed a bath.

Norm got back in the car, started it and
pulled out of the parking lot without saying a word. Once they were
clear of the diner, he said, “Your friend escaped.”

To Curly this was the best news he could
have heard. “Is that what Jones said, really?”

“
Yes, I heard him. He’s
organizing a posse to go search for him. And he said that your
friend shot the rancher lady.”

Curly became defensive, “That’s lie! I was
standing right outside the back door when Jones shot Maxine. He’s
just telling people that so they’ll help him get Catwalk.”

Slim turned around and said, “I’d have to
agree with you Curly. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do
about it, except run. Unless you can afford a good lawyer, there’s
nothing else you can do.”

The reality of this sunk in and the euphoria
of hearing about Cat’s escape was overshadowed by his dismal
future.

Norm said, “I’ve got to head back to the
Nelson’s pretty soon, but I’ll take you somewhere if it’s not too
far.”

Curly thought about his strategy. His
instinct told him to head for the nearest railroad tracks so he
could distance himself from Jones’ search party. Catwalk had
mentioned going to Junction City so he’d probably go there himself,
if for nothing else than to find Cat. He realized his friend would
be hard to find because he knows that Jones is looking for him.
Still, if they had to be on the run, they had a better chance of
avoiding the law if they were traveling together. He said, “Do you
know how far we are from Junction City?”

“
It’s only about ten or
twelve miles. Do you want me to drive you there?”

“
Yeah, if you don’t mind.
Drop me a couple miles outside of town so I walk the rest of the
way and stay out of sight.”

“
OK, how about you,
Slim?”

“
On your way back you can
drop me by the trestle. I reckon I’ll spend the night with the boys
in the jungle, then light out in the morning.”

Twenty minutes later Curly thanked both of
the men who’d helped him, then began his trek through an alfalfa
field while listening for a train whistle that would tell him where
the nearest railroad tracks were. By now he was sleepy and wanted
to lay down for a few hours rest, but he felt like his first
priority was to find Catwalk so he could help him as he ran from
the incredible injustice that they faced.

CHAPTER NINE

Curly had been walking for an hour when he
heard the welcomed wail of a train whistle. Maxine had told him
that to get to the hay farm he had to follow the tracks until they
rounded a bend outside of Junction City and then to take the next
road for three miles north to the farm. He also realized that Jones
knew that he and Cat were used to traveling by rail so he’d be
conducting his search along the rail lines. Because of this Curly
followed the tracks from a distance, about half a mile or so south
of them.

He suspected that Catwalk would be avoiding
the tracks, to dodge anyone searching for him, but he also thought
he’d make his way to the hay farm because that was his best bet for
getting out of the area without being seen.

In the moonlight Curly saw the silhouette of
a water tank in the distance. Because these were gathering places
for men hopping trains, it would also be a focal point for a search
party. He decided he’d best stay away from the water tank. He saw a
wooded area a mile or so away north of the tracks. He also saw two
cars heading down the dirt road that paralleled the tracks. He
wondered if they held people who were looking for him and Catwalk,
or were they field workers getting an early start on the next
day.

He walked toward the wooded area, praying
that he’d somehow find his friend there and they could make it to
the hay farm without crossing paths with any of Jones’ posse.

Alton Jones returned to the Sheriff’s Office
at day break the next morning. He and the men he’d deputized had
been searching the local area all night but had not seen the boys,
nor had they talked to anyone who’d seen them. This wasn’t
surprising since most of the search had been nothing but haphazard
driving from one place to another with no real plan for the search
in place. For most of the night Larry and the two men Jones had
grabbed at the diner, slept in the car, with the windows wide
open.

Even though he was dead tired, his anger was
still apparent when he confronted Sheriff Tyler. The sheriff
listened to his deputy’s tirade, then thought about the situation.
He’d learned long ago that most of what Jones said was an effort to
prove his point, rather than what had actually happened. Without
saying so he decided the best thing for him to do was to get Jones
out of his hair so he could start his own investigation into the
Puckett woman’s murder. Knowing Jones’ chances of finding the two
boys were slim at best, he told Alton, “You can get some sleep if
you want to, then continue your search but check in here this
afternoon.”