The bull’s breaths pulsed out of his nostrils. If that short stint of running has him that winded, then he’s probably a big fella. Noah listened as the inspector’s steps crunched back and forth outside of his boxcar.
“You were here just a minute ago.” The bull’s deep baritone voice rattled around in the car’s wooden confines.
Get me outa this, Lord, and I swear I’ll start going again. The bull’s steps turned back down the line of cars.
Whew! That could’ve been---Tingling mucus clouded his nose.
ACHOO!
“Why, you no-good little---”
The front of the train car swayed as the inspector heaved his heavy frame into it. “You might as well come out now.” He huffed and puffed like a runaway locomotive. “I know you’re in here, boy.”
Noah lay motionless calming his lungs into a shallow rhythm. Just stay still and maybe he’ll go away.
A revolver hammer clicked as the inspector took slow and deliberate steps toward Noah’s corner. “If there’s nobody under there then these shouldn’t hurt a bit.”
“Wait, wait.” Noah kicked the tarp off.
His assessment of the bull had been correct. The tall dumpy inspector aimed the barrel of his sidearm at the ceiling and eased the hammer back into a safe position.
“I figured as much,” the bull said. He snagged his end of the tarp and threw it over near the car’s door. “On your feet, you little hobo.”
“Honest, mister,” Noah rose to his feet, “I didn’t mean any harm.”
The bull took him by an arm and dragged him out of his dirty hole. Cold steel jabbed into the small of Noah’s back motivating him to move.
“Any funny stuff outa you, and I’ll pull the trigger for real.”
The young man extended his arms to both sides and hopped out onto the wooden ties of the neighboring track.
“Good,” the bull said. “Now, let’s take a walk on back up that way,” he wagged the pistol in the direction of the depot, “and go for a little ride.”
“Yes, sir.”
Noah plodded along ahead of his captor, following his instruction at every turn. When they got to the front lot, the bull tossed him into the back seat of his coupe. The chubby man unbuttoned his black coat and set his fedora in the passenger seat.
“Thirteen to home base,” he said into the CB, “over.”
A male voice crackled on the other end of the static. “Go ahead, Thirteen.”
“I’ve got a runaway, sheriff. What do you want me to do with him? Over.” Thirteen turned his chubby face out the driver’s side window.
“Go ahead and bring him in, Thirteen,” the sheriff said. “We’ll find something for his idle hands to do.”
“Roger, boss.” His fat thumb of a head turned down toward the steering wheel. “Thirteen, out.” His beady brown eyes peered at Noah through the rearview mirror. “Looks like you’ve landed yourself an overnight stay in the Ironbar Chateau.”
Noah slumped into his seat. Jail? What a real mess this whole thing is turnin’ out to be.
Thirteen fired the engine of his Model A to life. “There’s probably a few fellas that would love to snuggle up with you tonight anyhow.”
The obese inspector sped them off through town, winding through the downtown district until they bounced down a road on the southern outskirts. Apart from the sheriff’s station and the full-service pumps across the way, little else existed in this neck of the woods.
“Out ya go.” Thirteen held the rear door ajar.
Noah stepped out of the car and tagged alongside the bull into the small station.
“Evenin’,” a thin man said from behind a desk to their right. He uncrossed his feet and let them drop from the desktop to the floor. “Who do we have here?”
Thirteen gave him a love tap on the back of his head. “Found him in a car up at the rail station.” He slid his black fedora to the back of his head. “The other one got away.”
The sheriff stood to his full towering height and strode out to the side of his small desk. “No matter. They’ll get caught eventually.”
Noah squinted at his reflective nametag: Blake. A row of six holding cells lined the back wall of the station, three of which had youthful occupants.
“Let’s get you settled in then.” Blake walked over to the cells. He pulled a large iron hoop of keys off its hook in the wall over the CB radio.
“Well,” Thirteen said, “I’m headin’ back up there.” He meandered to the doors and held the right one open. “If I find any others, I’ll bring ‘em on by, sheriff.”
“Much obliged.” Blake stuffed a key into the lock of a cell door. “Be safe.”
With a tip of his brim, Thirteen waddled back out into the cool early morning air.
The big iron bars swung wide with a high-pitched whine that made Noah’s skin crawl.
“Go on in and make yourself comfortable,” Blake said with a swish of his arm. “I’d try and get a little shuteye if I were you.” The cell door closed with a cold clank. “We’ll be going back out to the fields at first light.”
Blake strode to the door at the end of the line of cells and pulled it open. “I’ll be in my bunk if anything happens. See you boys at daybreak.”
It only took a few minutes for the light on the other side of the door to blink out of existence. Once their surroundings had quieted, a black teen crept to the bars of the neighboring cell.
“Hey,” the teen whispered. His brown eyes darted from the bunker door back to Noah. “Where were you goin’?”
Noah walked over to his side of the bars and knelt down. “Anywhere west of here.”
“Name’s Job.” The boy poked a hand through the bars.
“Noah.” He gave it a good shake. “How ‘bout you?”
“Same, really,” Job said. “Anywhere but here.”
Job nodded in the direction of another boy fast asleep on a cot against the wall. “That’s my younger brother, Jimmy. Me and him’s been in here together for a couple of months now.”
Noah rested his rump on the cold floor. “What did he mean about the fields tomorrow?”
Job sat cross-legged on the opposite side. “They walk us out into a big field a little ways from here. We work diggin’ a long ditch from daylight ‘til dark.”
“It’s a roof over your head and something to do.” Noah stretched out on his back.
“Maybe,” Job said. “Listen, we’ll talk more about it tomorrow. I got somethin’ real good cookin’.” He got up and walked over to a bed of straw along the wall. “Right now, I gotta get some sleep. You should, too.”
Noah eyed up the rest of the slumbering outcasts and runaways in the other cell. Some of them couldn’t have been more than nine or ten. A couple of the younger boys snored in one another’s embrace. In here, age, race, and creed---none of it mattered.
“Guess you’ve got a point.” Noah ambled to a pile of damp straw in his cell.
He spread the hay out on the floor and curled up under the rest. He rubbed his bruised nose. His left nostril remained tender to the touch, but at least the bleeding hadn’t come back.
“A fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Noah.” He rolled his back to the cell door and let the buried sorrow possess his body.
It’ll be all right. Tomorrow’s another day. The words echoed all around. Had it been in his head, or the soothing support of another child?
“No matter how bad it gets for me,” he muttered into the bricks, “it’s worse for April and Max.” He nestled his head into the hay and released his grip on consciousness. “It’s worse for them.”
No matter how bad it is, it’s gotta be worse for them.
The straw’s warmth eased his battered mind.
It’s worse for April and Max.
Worse for April and Max…
April and Max…
“Rise and shine, my little ditch diggers!” This male voice was unfamiliar.
Noah rolled over on his makeshift bed to the racket of a tin mug being run across the cell bars.
“Up and at ‘em!”
This skinny little goon must be one of Blake’s deputies. Noah got to his feet with a little help from the wall behind him. His legs wanted to move, but their icy muscles rebelled at every step. The other boys in the cell next to his stirred and moaned their way back to reality.
“Let’s go.” The deputy opened the doors. “That ditch ain’t gonna dig itself.”
Blake entered from his bunk with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. “Mornin’, Sutton.”
“Sheriff.” Sutton tipped his cover.
Blake settled into his perch behind his desk and propped his feet back up. “Takin’ ‘em down to the field, are ya?”
Sutton bobbed his head as he funneled the group of a dozen boys out the front doors. “We’ll be back around lunchtime.”
“Fair enough.” Blake knocked back a nip of his brew. “Don’t go workin’ them boys too hard, now.”
“I won’t, sheriff.” Sutton shut the door and bounded down the station’s front stairs.
“All right, piss ants.” He stomped to the front of the gaggle. “Form up single file!”
The boys, some still clearing the crust from their eyes, fell in as instructed. Sutton strode over to their left flank and drew his baton.
“Move out!”
The weary boy at the front of their detail led them across the road and down the far side. Noah took in the fresh air and rolling countryside as he walked along the dirt road southward. The sun hung high in the cerulean skies with no threat of a sailing cloud in sight.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do today, boys.” Sutton twirled his club in his right hand. “Don’t wanna end up workin’ in the rain.” A loud chortle burst out of the scrawny deputy’s gut.
Noah wandered near the back of the hobo chain gang. They past a few clusters of deciduous trees and a couple of barns before the front of their line bent off into a wide meadow. He followed suit through the ankle-deep grass trying not to tromp through a cow patty in the process.
“Dad gummit!” Sutton shook a clod off his shoe.
Several boys ahead of Noah chuckled under their breath.
“Good job, dope-u-tee,” one of them snickered.
That got the whole detail spun into a good laugh.
Sutton turned on his heels. “Hey! Shut it up back there.” He waved the rest of the line toward the long gash in the ground a short distance ahead. He walked beside the blond boy that shot off his mouth. “Another outburst like that, Kingsley, and I’ll feed your lunch to Jugs.”
The round freckled kid near the front of their line tapped his healthy gut. “Can’t ever have too much to eat!”
“All right,” Sutton pointed the truck bed, “everyone grab a shovel or a mattock, and pick out a spot along the line.”
Noah fell in next to Job along the ditch. Jimmy soon lumbered up on Noah’s other side and plunged the blade of his rusty shovel into the earth.
Sutton angled his baton out to a small thicket in the distance. “We need to get this ditch run all the way out to there by the end of the week, boys.”
Noah’s blue stare followed Sutton’s trajectory. “That’s gotta be two hundred yards.”
“Two-twenty-five,” Sutton said, walking up behind him, “but who’s counting?” Another goofy guffaw erupted at Noah’s back.
Noah shook his red curls and stomped his shovel into the grass and dirt. Just another day on the farm. A few shovels full of earth later, Job’s fist nudged him in the side.
“Hey,” he whispered, “Noah.”
He glanced at Sutton who had his back turned at the far end of the line, and then back to Job.
“Listen,” Job tossed his dirt in the pile behind them, “me and Jimmy’s plannin’ a run. You comin’?”
“Run?” Noah jabbed his tool back into the dry ground.
Job nodded and tilted his shovel handle toward the far trees. “We’s gettin’ outa here---today. You in?”
Noah raised his shoulders as he leaned on its handle. “Guess so.”
“Gonna run south,” Jimmy added from his opposite side. “I’m tired of shovelin’.” He stood half of a head higher than Noah and Job.
Noah’s brows furrowed. “You’re the younger brother?”
Jimmy nodded. “I’m fifteen. Job’s seventeen.”
“Stop your jawin’ down there!” Sutton whirled his baton once more.
The boys sped up their work, turning their heads to the ground.
“When are you wantin’ to do this?” Noah dropped another mound of dirt on the ground.
“We gonna wait ‘til beanpole over there takes his usual mid-mornin’ snooze,” Job said, evading eye contact.
“Then, whoosh,” Jimmy added, “we’ll be gone.”
Noah hopped on his shovel head with both feet. “What about the others?”
“Psshh.” Jimmy shook his curls. “They’s all scared of the hound dogs.”
“Dogs?” Noah’s voice wavered on the brink of fear.
“Blake’ll bring ‘em over here in a bit to keep us in line.” Jimmy buried the blade of his shovel in the grass. “Most of us is afraid of gettin’ caught in the jaws of them hounds.”
“And you’re not?”
Jimmy slid down a couple of paces with the rest of the line and commenced his dig into fresh ground. “Nope.”
“If we plan it right,” Job scooted in next to Noah, “we’ll have a little bit of a head start on them ole hound dogs before they show up.”
The toe-headed wisecracker across the ditch tossed a small bit of dirt onto Noah’s shoes. “Careful. I hear they feed them hounds human meat, so they drool at the thought of it.”
Jimmy shook his head and scoffed. “Hush up, Kingsley. You wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and grabbed you by the wiener.”
Several boys nearby buried their faces in their shirts.
“Back to work, fleabags!” Sutton said. “I’m gonna rest my legs under that tree for a spell,” he motioned toward a big sycamore, “and I don’t expect any funny stuff outa any of ya.”
Noah glanced at Job and smirked along with him.
“Just a little while longer,” Job whispered. He placed an index finger over his lips.
The crew had dug the ditch another five feet longer by the time Sutton’s snores became audible. The simpleton’s head lay cocked to one side on the tree’s trunk and his mouth could have swallowed half of the fly population in Kansas.
“What do you think?” Jimmy leaned in front of Noah.
“I think it’s almost---”
A couple of hounds whined farther back along the side of the road, but still out of sight.
“We gotta go right now!” Job dropped his tool to the grass. “C’mon, Jimmy.”
“You boys really gonna do this?” Jugs weight labored his breathing so much that it sounded to Noah like he snored constantly.
“Darn right, we are,” Jimmy said.
“Can I come with ya?” Jugs’s eyes widened behind his rotund cheeks.
“No way, Jugs.” Job said. “Them hounds would have you in ten steps.”
The portly boy’s jowls flattened as his head hung in shame. Barks and howls intensified from just beyond the trees near the roadside.
Job slapped Noah’s arm. “Run!”
They broke out in a dead sprint across the uneven meadow. Some of the others cheered them on which roused Sutton from his morning nap.
“What the hell?” Sutton stammered to his feet and got his baton hung up in a sapling on the trunk. “Get back here!” He jammed his silver whistle into his mouth and sounded the alarm.
“That’s done it now!” Jimmy leaped over a patch of briars.
Frantic howls raced hot on their heels as the boys bolted toward their freedom. How fast can a hound run anyway? Their barks intensified, as did the padding of their paws on the tufts of grass.
“Run, Noah. Run!” Jimmy looked back over his shoulder.
The hounds’ snorts right behind him helped Noah find an extra burst of speed. A jagged line of barbed-wire fence came into focus on the other side of the trees.
“You two,” Job said, running next to Noah, “make for that fence and jump.” Jimmy’s eyes ballooned in fear. “I’ll take care o’ them mutts.”
Job angled off in front of the trees while Noah and Jimmy plunged into the forest and wove among the trees. The hounds’ howls trailed after Job leaving him and Jimmy to make their break for the open fields ahead.
“We gotta wait for Job,” Jimmy said. “I can’t leave my brother.”
Noah shook his sweaty mop. “Can’t. No time.” He jogged over to the rows of wire and tested the top line. “C’mon, Jimmy. We’ve gotta keep runnin’.”
Jimmy’s head wagged back and forth like the northern end of a southbound hound.
“It’s what he’d want, Jimmy.” Noah climbed over the fence and held the top line down. “Now, get over here before they decide to come back.”
The adolescent stood frozen in his place.
“Jimmy!”
The return of the hounds helped Jimmy see his line of logic. Noah took an elbow in his hand and steadied his newfound companion as he wavered on the top wire. Jimmy shrieked in pain as his pant leg ripped along the top wire. The tall teen stumbled off the fence taking Noah and him both to the grass.
“My leg!” Jimmy hobbled to his feet, grabbing at the tear in his pants.
“C’mon.” Noah pulled him along. “We’ve gotta keep moving. Job can take care of himself.”
Jimmy nodded through a hard wince and tarried along behind as they made their way across a wide rolling meadow. The dogs’ barks faded into the rustling weeds at their knees giving way to the telltale whistle from the nearby depot.
“Sounds like our ticket out,” Noah said.
Jimmy slowed to a stride; his eyes narrowed. “That one’s leavin’ now, but we’ll be able to catch the next train out.”
The deep train whistle echoed around the fields once more. Seeing no further point in running, Noah fell in next to Jimmy.
“I’d say that station’s only a mile or two away at best,” Noah said. “Where’d you and Job come from before all of this?”
The youthful black boy’s eyes drifted among the bending weeds. “Job and me came up here from Missouri.”
“Just you and Job?” Noah snatched one of the weeds in his left hand and plucked its top. “Not a very big family.”
Jimmy shook his head with a chuckle. “No, no. We’re the oldest two. The other four kids, my brother and sisters, took off in the opposite direction that night.”
Noah opened his mouth to inquire, but Jimmy needed no further prodding.
“A bunch of ‘em came.” Jimmy’s eyes welled up. “Don’t know who or why. Bunch of men in white sheets. Mom and dad thought the neighbor’s house was on fire at first.” He wiped back a wet sniffle. “Big orange crosses of fire and a big sign that said, ‘Negroids go home.’ He turned his hurt gaze to Noah. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Noah led them over another fence. The small thicket had become a tiny green blob behind him.
“Dad told us to round up the others and get out,” Jimmy said. “Me and Job ran around our house gettin’ the others outa bed.” His sorrow rode out of him on a long sigh. “By the time we had come around the back of the house outside, the men were already beatin’ on our parents and pushin’ them toward the hickory tree in the yard.” Jimmy fell to his knees in the grass and sobbed. “They killed ‘em, Noah. Killed ‘em both, and for what?” Jimmy’s penned-up grief erupted from deep within him. “Job told the younger kids to just run to our aunt’s house a few blocks away. Me and him took off the other way and never looked back.”
Noah took a knee at his side and wrapped the burdened boy in his arms. “Why in God’s name would anybody hate a stranger just because they’re different or come from somewhere else?”
Jimmy wiped his cheeks on his sleeves and regained his stature and composure. “Beats me, Noah.” They wandered toward the dirt road ahead. “Anyway, now you know why I didn’t wanna leave my brother back there.”
“Listen.” Noah turned south to follow the towering column of white steam in the distance. “I’m makin’ my way out to California. Would you like to come along? I can’t promise paradise or any of that, but I’ll look after you if you’ll look after me.”
Jimmy smiled and patted the small of Noah’s back. “You’ve got a deal.” He glanced back over a shoulder to the north. “Job will probably go back to find the others.”
“And you can do like I am and bring ‘em back a pocket full of money to help out.”
Jimmy sped up to a trot across the dirt road. “I love the sound of that!”
“All right,” Noah said, trailing after him. “Let’s get down near that station and wait for the next ride out.”