Stoner's Boy

by Robert F. Schulkers

  “WAIT A MINIT.”

  “Wait a minit.”

  Bill dropped his fist. I turned quick. There was the Skinny Guy, standing by the bunk, with that same old grin on his face.

  “Link,” I hollers, “doggone if it ain’t Link Lambert.”

  He stepped up quick and shook my hand and grinned like he always used to do. I says, “Stand back there, Link, give us a good look at you.”

  Link grinned again. “You ain’t changed none either, Hawkins,” he says.

  I says, “Link, why in the dickens are you hiding away from us like that? We knew you were back; we saw you and your houseboat.”

  Link walked over to the door. “Hawkins,” he says, “I just been dying to come up to the houseboat again, but I got work to do, and I ain’t allowed to come up to meet the fellas till it’s all done; but just as soon as I am free you boys will see me again.”

  Then he turned and ran out of the shack. I started to go after him, but Bill grabbed me. “Don’t go, Hawkins,” says Bill. “He made me promise not to tell anybody, and you wouldn’t snitch on the Skinny Guy, would you?”

  I didn’t say a word. I heard a steamboat whistle, and I says, “Come on, Bill, we must tell Dick.”

  We walked up the hollow together. Dick was waiting for us. I told him what happened in the shack and how I talked to the Skinny Guy. I told him about Bill’s promise to Link. Dick says, “If Bill promised him, we will have to keep our promise.”

  Which we did.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lost Sheep Located

  SUNDAY NIGHT.—Us boys had a little meeting right after church this morning, and after the other fellas went home, Dick and Bill and me stayed down to talk about the Skinny Guy. Dick says, “I am afraid our skinny friend is in trouble; he won’t come to see us, and he makes us all promise not to tell anybody that he has been here.”

  “Yeah,” says Bill, “looks like Link is in bad.”

  But I says, “Boys, what’s the use of us talking that way about him. You fellas don’t know if he has anything to do with those stolen sheep or not.”

  “No,” says Dick, “we don’t know; but didn’t me and you see him go into the cave, and didn’t we hear the sheep bleating in there?”

  “Yeah,” I says, “we did that, but we didn’t see no sheep.”

  “No,” says Dick, “but you know they are there.”

  I didn’t answer. I felt purty much worried about Skinny Link. I says, “Us boys better take a look in the cave for ourself and see what’s there.”

  Dick says, “Plenty of time to do that tomorrow. I am going to a picture show this afternoon.”

  So him and Bill went uptown together.

  I walked down to the riverbank to look around. Oscar Koven was on watch. I says, “Anything doing, Oscar?”

  He grinned at me. “No,” he says, “no excitement at all; only I seen a man I used to know.”

  I says, “Who was it?”

  Oscar says, “It was the Skinny Guy’s pop.”

  “Oh,” I says, “is he here, too?”

  Oscar says, “He went up the cliffs. I guess he went in the cave.”

  I didn’t say no more to Oscar. I went home to dinner.

  MONDAY.—After school we all held a meeting. Dick got up and told all the fellas that the Skinny Guy was around here, and no matter what any of us fellas saw or heard, we must not say a word to anybody outside of us boys. “We got to help the Skinny Guy,” says Dick. “He is in trouble, and we must get him out.”

  Jerry Moore says, “Seems to me we are trying to help a lot of fellas out. How about Roy Dobel? The poor kid can’t come down here no more till he finds his pop’s lost sheep.”

  Dick says, “Jerry, if we help the Skinny Guy out first it will be helping Roy, too, because we will find the sheep.”

  “I hope so,” says Jerry.

  After the meeting was over, Lew Hunter come up to me and says, “Hawkins, is this Skinny Guy a nice fella?”

  I says, “Best in the world, Lew; wait till you meet him.”

  Lew says, “Can he sing?”

  I looked at Lew and answered, “Sing? Why, he is a regular songbird; makes you think of springtime when you hear him warble.”

  Lew looked pleased. “I’ll help you boys,” says Lew. “I’ll help you get him out of trouble. We can use another good singer in our choir.”

  I says, “All right, Lew.”

  He went out. I thought to myself, maybe it wasn’t right to tell Lew that; wait till he hears the Skinny Guy’s voice. Oh, boy! Like a rusty hinge on a gate what ain’t been opened for twenty years.

  TUESDAY.—Right after our meeting in the houseboat today, me and Dick and Bill Darby snuck down to the cliffs. We walked slow when we come to rocks behind which the cave opens. Dick says, “Lend me your flashlight, Hawkins.”

  I handed it to him. We slipped into the cave one after the other. I could smell sheep right away. Just as soon as we got in Bill’s foot slipped on some loose stones and down they went, clatter-clatter. Right away we heard the cry of the sheep—Bla-a-a-a, Bla-a-a-a—coming from inside the cave.

  “There they are,” says Dick to me. “What’s the use of going further?”

  I says, “Aw, go on, I want to see how many are here.”

  “Well,” says Dick, “be quiet; don’t make a noise.”

  We got down on our hands and knees and crawled ahead. It was slow work, and oh boy! that cave floor was muddy.

  All of a sudden Dick stopped ahead of me. “Look here,” he whispered.

  Me and Bill crept up quietly. I looked down into a little round place that kinda looked like a washbasin. Sometime during the winter a storm must of torn loose some of the rocks and trees in the roof of this cave, for the daylight came through a hole like a big church window and lit up the whole basin in the middle of the cave. There must of been a dozen sheep there. I couldn’t count ’em, and there in the middle of the sheep was the skinny figger of Link Lambert, giving the sheep something out of a bag. Dick tried to stand up to get a better look at them, and he slipped and fell. Right away the Skinny Guy looked toward the place we were hiding.

  The next minit he dropped the bag and hopped up out of the sheep place and disappeared in the dark shadows on the other side of the cave.

  “He knows the cave like a book,” I says to Dick. “No use trying to find him; he knows every corner and hole in this cave.”

  We snuck back out of the cave, each one of us as much puzzled as the other. As we walked back to the houseboat, Dick says to me, “What are we going to do about it, Hawkins?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t ask me,” I says. “I ain’t going to do anything.”

  WEDNESDAY.—Today right after school I went to Doc Waters’s office to tell him what we saw in the cave. But Doc wasn’t home. So I went back down to the houseboat. Jerry Moore was on watch, and he says to me, “Hawkins, Stoner’s Boy was here last night.”

  I says, “How do you know?”

  He led me around to the back of the houseboat. “Look here,” he says, pointing to the ground. The ground was soft, and there was the footprints of a fella what wore shoes with lots of roundheaded nails in them.

  “That’s his footprint,” says Jerry. “I saw it before. I followed them footprints many places, but never caught the fella who wore them.”

  While we was talking a steamboat whistle sounded from down the river, and all the fellas come running out of the houseboat, and we all went down to the river. Here come the Hudson Lee up the river, and hitched to her side was the purtiest new houseboat I ever seen. The Hudson Lee landed right by the willows, where the old houseboat belonging to the Skinny Guy’s pop used to stand. We saw the men on the steamboat unhitching the purty houseboat. The steamer gave three sharp toots on her whistle, and then two more, and then one. The men swung the houseboat clear, and two of ’em leaped on the bank and tied the new houseboat to tree stumps that used to hold the old houseboat. Then the Hudson Lee backed away and got out in midstream and
kept on her way up the river.

  We watched her going past and waved our hats at her. “Look,” says Dick.

  We all turned around and looked at the new houseboat. Three men with guns were peeping in the windows of the houseboat.

  “Back up,” says Dick, “get out of sight, everybody.”

  We all jumped behind trees.

  “Who are they?” asks Dick.

  I says, “It’s the sheriff and his two helpers.”

  The sheriff and his men stood awhile and talked, and then they went on up the bank.

  “Stay where you are,” says Dick to us fellas. “Keep your eyes open, Jerry; you are our watchman today.”

  “Yeah,” says Jerry, “and look who’s coming now.”

  We all saw two more figgers coming. One was the Skinny Guy, and the other was his pop. They went hurrying down to where the new houseboat stood. The Skinny Guy seemed to be tickled to death. He couldn’t wait till he got in the boat. His pop took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. They both went in.

  Dick says, “All you fellas beat it for home now and don’t hang around the houseboat.”

  So they all went up to town but Jerry and me and Bill Darby.

  Dick says, “Hawkins, shall we go down and pay a visit to the Skinny Guy in the new houseboat?”

  I shook my head. “I ain’t ready to talk to him yet, Dick,” I says. “I can’t figger this thing out. It looks like there is some crooked work going on, but I can’t figger it out.”

  “All right,” says Jerry, “you boys trot along uptown. If I need you I will call you.”

  So we left Jerry standing by the tree on the bank, with his gun over his shoulder. “He will watch close,” says Dick, “and if anything happens he will tell us about it.”

  THURSDAY.—We held our regular meeting this afternoon. Johnny was on watch today. Jerry says to Dick and me, “Say, fellas, it seems to me like there’s an awful lot of houseboats around here.”

  I says, “Where?”

  “Well,” says Jerry, “last night after supper I thought I would take another look at the houseboat, so I come down. Just as I reached the bank I thought I heard a boat on the river. And believe me, there was a boat, but it was a small one, like the Skinny Guy and his pop used to live in, but the funniest thing about it was that there wasn’t no steamboat or nothing pulling it.” Dick says, “What you trying to do, string us?”

  “No,” says Jerry, “it come down the river with the current, and I could see the shadows of men who held long poles and steered it.”

  We all looked at Jerry when he said this, as if we didn’t believe him.

  Then Dick says, “Where is that houseboat now?”

  “It’s gone,” says Jerry.

  Dick smiled at him.

  “You think they pushed it back up the river with them long poles, Jerry?” asks Dick.

  Jerry got kinda sore. “Listen,” he says, “you don’t have to get smart.”

  “Couldn’t they have kept on going down the river with the current?” I says. “Fellas, it don’t make no difference where it went; we ain’t going to fight about it.”

  So that ended the argument right there.

  Johnny McLaren come over to me when I was alone. “Hawkins,” he says, “I believe what Jerry says is true.”

  “So do I,” I says, “but what difference does it make?”

  “Just this,” says Johnny. “I saw that same houseboat when I was on watch the other night, and it came down the river just the same way, by itself, and men steering with long poles.”

  I says, “How did it get back up the river?”

  “Search me,” says Johnny.

  I shook my head. “I give it up,” I says. “I don’t understand all this funny business.”

  FRIDAY.—I stopped in Doc Waters’s office again today. Doc was sitting by his desk. “Well,” he says, “what’s on your mind, Hawkins?”

  I says, “A whole lot, Doc; us boys are all stirred up.”

  He says, “About sheep thieves?”

  “Yeah,” I says, “why don’t the sheriff go into the cave, Doc, and get the sheep back?”

  Doc looked at me for a minit. “So,” he says, “you knew they were in the cave, did you?”

  “Yeah,” I says, “we heard them in there, and we went in and seen ’em.”

  Doc looked worried. “Listen, Hawkins,” he says, “I wish you boys would keep away from there until the sheriff is finished with that job.”

  I says, “Why didn’t he get the sheep? All he has to do is go in and drive ’em out.”

  Doc smiled. “Good old Hawkins,” he says, “you always got your ideas about things, ain’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I says, “what worries me is why don’t the sheriff get the sheep?”

  “Because,” says Doc, “because he wants to get the fella what stole ’em first.”

  “Oh,” I says, “do they know who it was?”

  Doc smiled. “Wait and see,” he says.

  I run down to the houseboat. “Fellas,” I says, “it’s all off with the Skinny Guy. The sheriff knows about the sheep in the cave and is gonna get the fella what stole ’em first.”

  Dick says, “Us fellas got to get busy right away. All you boys who can get out tonight meet down here by the houseboat.”

  FRIDAY NIGHT.—Right after supper we met down by our houseboat. Dick wouldn’t let us go inside. “No use lighting those lamps in there to give that Stoner’s Boy a chanst to trick us,” he says.

  So we sat down on the houseboat steps. I says, “Who is on watch tonight?”

  “Hal Rice,” says Bill Darby.

  Jerry Moore says, “Us boys got to be purty careful tonight. I kinda feel something is going to happen.”

  We all talked in whispers. We all was scared to death by a dark figger coming out of the bushes. We jumped up.

  “Who is it?” I whispered.

  “It’s me,” says Hal Rice’s voice. “Don’t yell. I just come up to warn you Stoner’s Boy just landed.”

  “Was he alone?” asks Dick.

  “No,” whispers Hal, “he come in a houseboat.”

  I says, “We didn’t hear it.”

  “No,” says Hal, “they come quiet. There was some other fellas on the houseboat with long poles; they come without a sound.”

  Dick says, “Hal, you stay here with the other fellas, and if we call all of you come running.” So Hal stayed with the others, and me and Dick and Bill and Jerry snuck off down the bank. We could see a light in the window of a houseboat down on our bank. Further down was the new houseboat what come a couple days ago, but it was all dark, and nobody could of seen it unless he knew just where it stood. Us four fellas snuck down to the strange houseboat.

  We tiptoed over the gangplank and peeped in the window. Nobody was in it. “Look,” says Jerry, in a whisper. He pointed to the end of the houseboat. There was a gray launch tied by a chain to the houseboat. But just then a shot rang out, then another, then a whole lot of shots, like a half dozen guns going off at one time. “Beat it!” hollered Dick.

  JERRY MOORE

  We started up the bank. Bill Darby slipped on the gangplank and had to jump into water up to his knees. We started back to help him. Just as we had him back on the gangplank we heard a yell like an Indian, and the next minit we were all back in the water up to our knees. I turned around to see what hit us, and there was a gray figger running over the gangplank. It had a muffler over the lower part of its face.

  “Oh, Lord!” says Dick. “It’s Stoner’s Boy.”

  The gray figger heard Dick say that, and he picked up a long pole and started for us again, but just as he came near another shot rang out. The gray figger turned back and leaped into the gray launch. In another minit I heard the engine chugging, and off went the launch pulling the houseboat with it, and up the stream they went.

  We stood there in the shallow water watching it. We couldn’t move; the sight of Stoner’s Boy and the mud of the river held us th
ere. I felt like I was in a dream. The next thing I knew was a strong arm lifting me out of the mud, and Doc Waters’s kind voice saying, “I told you boys to stay away from here. It serves you right.”

  I says, “What was the shooting, Doc?”

  He says, “The sheriff went after the thief tonight. You should of been at home, where you belong.”

  I says, “Oh, Lord! and he got away.”

  “Got away,” says Doc, “what you mean, Hawkins?”

  I says, “Stoner’s Boy, we saw him go.”

  Doc laughed. “The sheriff couldn’t fool with that boy,” says Doc. “He was after the thief, and he got him.”

  I walked up the bank with Doc. Bill and the others was already up on the main road. I felt awful blue. I wanted to ask Doc what they would do with the Skinny Guy for stealing sheep, but I didn’t have the heart to ask. We walked along without a word. By the main street Doc says, “Good-night, Hawkins, don’t let your maw see those muddy shoes and wet stockings.”

  I says, “Good-night, Doc.”

  I didn’t have the heart to talk anymore.

  SATURDAY.—This morning we came down to our houseboat early, there being no school. The other fellas was all waiting to hear what happened last night. They run home as soon as they heard the shooting. We held our regular meeting, and Dick told ’em what happened. While he was talking the door opened, and in come the Skinny Guy. We all was supprised.

  “THERE WAS A GRAY FIGGER RUNNING OVER THE GANGPLANK.”

  “Hello, fellas,” he says, quietly.

  I jumped up and grabbed his hand. “Link,” I says, “we thought the sheriff got you.”

  Link smiled. “No,” he says, “I was helping the sheriff all the time. You boys thought I was the sheep thief.”

  We all stood like statues.

  The next minit we all give a cheer.

  “Link,” I says, “tell us all about it.”

  Link smiled.

  Lew Hunter come up. “I ain’t never met Link,” he says. “I am the new fella who come since you went away. I am glad to know you, Link.”