The Boxcar Blues

by Jeff Egerton

  “No, there’s nothing I’m not telling you. Leave now.”

  With a lecherous leer on his face, Jones walked up until he was very close to Maxine and said, “Take it easy, baby. The law is here and everything is going to be all right.” He then tried to put an arm around her shoulders.

  Maxine knew Jones was beyond reasoning and talking to him would do no good. She had to be more persuasive. Using the only weapon within reach, she grabbed a hot skillet and clobbered Jones in the jaw.

  “Arrgghh.” Jones screamed. “God damn it.” He staggered drunkenly around the kitchen as he recovered from the blow. “You done it now, bitch. You’re gonna pay.”

  Maxine backed away, moving toward the forty-five. With her eyes on the enraged deputy, she felt for the pistol. When she came up with the gun, Jones grinned.

  “You gonna shoot me, whore lady?”

  “I’m not kidding, Jones. You leave now and we can forget this. If you don’t, I’ll pull the trigger, just as sure as it’s daylight.”

  The boys heard the car drive up, and watched the Deputy force his way into the house. When they heard the shouting they became concerned.

  Curly said, “I don’t like this, Cat. That guy sounds like a mean bastard and he could be forcing Maxine to tell where we are.”

  Catwalk answered, "That’s the same policeman who was looking around the corn field earlier. What’re we gonna do?"

  "I’m going to see what’s going on.”

  "But, Curly, that man is the po-lice. You want him to see us?"

  Curly said, "You stay here. I'm gonna sneak up to the house to see if Maxine's O.K."

  "Well, all right, but if you don't come back, I'm gonna hightail it outta here tonight. If we get separated I’ll meet you over by Junction City. That’s where she said we could catch the hay truck to Oklahoma.”

  "Don't worry partner, I'll be right back." Curly slid off the hay bales and out of the barn.

  Seething rage and rubbing his jaw, Jones said, “You ain’t gonna shoot a deputy lawman. They’ll hang you for it.”

  Maxine countered, “In this county, they’ll pin a medal on me for getting rid of you.”

  Jones stared at the redhead while he weighed the odds of her shooting. She looked ready to kill, but he knew it took more guts to pull the trigger than most people had in them.

  Maxine said, “Get out, Jones. Get out while you can walk out.”

  Jones held up a calming hand and walked toward her. He said, “Now just wait a second….” He slapped her across the face.

  She backed up a step and said, “You bastard! You’re good at hitting women, aren’t you? Well, I’ve seen your kind before and that’s all you’re good for. You couldn’t please a woman on your best day. Hell, I’ll bet you can’t even get it up.”

  Jones turned red and screamed, “You fuckin’ whore. I’ll show you how a real man treats a woman.” He stepped toward her while watching her trigger finger.

  Maxine held the pistol at arms length and yelled, “Damn you, Jones. One more step and I’ll shoot.”

  Jones took a small step and laughed at her. “You’re bluffing whore lady. You ain’t gonna shoot.”

  Maxine fired. The shot rang out. She waited for Jones to fall to the floor.

  He glared at her, then held up his arm, showing her the hole she’d shot through his shirt. The bullet never touched his flesh.

  She thumbed back the hammer, intent on firing until he fell.

  Jones saw this. Without hesitation, he drew and fired from the hip. The bullet went through her heart. Maxine Puckett was dead before she hit the floor.

  Curly had just arrived at the back door. When he saw Jones gun down Maxine, he blurted out, “Holy shit.”

  Jones heard this and turned toward him. Curly took off running toward the road.

  Jones sprinted out the door and shouted, “Stop kid, or I’ll shoot.”

  Curly knew for sure that the deputy would shoot him in the back. Scared to death, he stopped and raised both hands.

  “Come here, boy.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Hands in the air, with the deputy’s gun pointed at his back, Curly walked to the house. Climbing the steps he wondered if this was the walk to his death.

  Jones motioned him into the kitchen, then asked him, “What’d you see, boy?”

  Curly nervously shook his head and muttered, “N-nothin’.”

  “Nothin’, huh. You must be blind.”

  “I was outside. I didn’t see anything.”

  Jones shoved his pistol into Curly’s gut and said, “Where’s your buddy?”

  “Huh? What buddy?”

  “The black boy; the kid you were traveling with. Where’s your friend?”

  Curly stared back at Jones, but said nothing.

  Jones persisted, taking a menacing step closer to Curly. “I said, where’s your buddy?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There ain’t no one with me.” His shaking voice gave him away; he cursed his stupidity.

  The Deputy laughed and said, “You and that colored boy are wanted by the law for them two hoboes you fucked and murdered. You got one chance. Say the right words and you can walk outta here a free man, without going to jail for killing them hoboes."

  Curly didn’t know what the deputy wanted. He asked, "Wh-what do you mean?"

  The Deputy said, "You tell me where I can find your buddy and you walk outta here as free as a bird. You clam up, you're dead, just like that Louisiana whore lady."

  Curly's mind whirled; he couldn't give up Catwalk 'cause the Deputy would kill him for sure. If he didn't talk, he'd die. His eyes teared-up as he struggled with his dilemma.

  From the hayloft Catwalk heard the shot that killed Maxine. Then he saw Curly running, and heard the deputy yelling at him. He watched Curly go back in the house, at gunpoint.

  He knew the fate that awaited him if he was taken in by the law. Still he couldn’t sacrifice Curly; he had to help his friend. He climbed down from the loft and headed for the house. Standing outside the back door, he heard the Deputy threaten Curly.

  Catwalk backed away from the door. He was scared of the policeman, because he was a mean guy who hated blacks and because the man could arrest him and take him to jail. Then he thought about Curly. The deputy would kill him if he took a mind to, and it didn’t make any difference if he was a boy.

  He knew what he had to do. Standing on the steps outside the door, and in a loud voice he said, "I'm right here, Deputy. Let him go."

  Jones turned toward the voice and grinned, a vile, decadent sneer He hadn't expected to capture the other murderer so easily. He walked toward the back door and said, "We'll, I'll be damned. Look what we got here. A murdering nigger. An' he just turned himself in."

  Jones opened the door and immediately snapped his handcuffs on Catwalk's wrists. He then led his prisoner to the sedan wearing a grin of satisfaction.

  Curly watched from the kitchen door, feeling as helpless as a newborn child. After handcuffing Catwalk to a handle in the back seat, the Deputy came back. He grabbed Curly by the front of his shirt and pulled him close, until their faces were inches apart. Teeth bared he said, "Now you listen to me, boy. You hop a train and get as far away from here as you can. You don't tell no one about this an' you don't talk to no police about this. If I find out you told anyone about me taking him, I'll hunt you down and cut your throat. You got that?"

  Curly nodded, knowing the mean bastard meant every word of it. The Deputy then pushed him away and headed out the door. As the car drove away, Curly sat down on the kitchen floor and cried. As long as Catwalk was the prisoner of the Deputy, he was in danger of being hung. Now he knew what Catwalk meant when he said he could tell the ones that got the hate in them. That deputy was one of the most hateful people he'd ever seen.

  Curly picked up the Colt Forty-Five and checked the ammunition. Five rounds. Taking one last look at Maxine laying dead on the kitchen floor Curly left the house. Even if it got him ki
lled, he was determined to find some help and free his friend.

  Alton Jones drove to a friend's house, avoiding areas where someone might recognize the car. The anticipation of the next few hours had his pulse racing.

  As he rode in the back seat Catwalk knew he had to do something, because his life depended on it, but he didn’t know what. He’d never been in a critical, life threatening situation like this. In his sheltered life on the farm he’d had to defend himself in fights with other kids, but they never resulted in injuries, let alone death. Now his life hung in the balance and the odds were stacked high against him.

  In a raised voice he said, “You’re arresting an innocent man, deputy. We threw those guys off the boxcar in self defense. They attacked Curly and I tried to help him.”

  “Shut up!”

  He shouted, “I’m innocent!”

  The deputy held up his thirty eight revolver and said, “See this, boy. One more word out of you and I’m putting a bullet right between your eyes. My report will read that you tried to attack me when we got out of the car and I had to shoot you.”

  Catwalk didn’t challenge his claim.

  The deputy parked in front of a small house and said, "You just wait here, boy.”

  Jones’ voice chilled Catwalk to the bone. If he wasn’t handcuffed to a handle on the back of the front seat, he would have run. He suspected that he’d never survive the night.

  A tall bearded man in a dirty white tee shirt appeared in the doorway. Alton shouted, "Get some rope and your gun, Larry."

  The man took a pull off a brown bottle and opened a screen door. "Alton, what're you doin' here? I thought you was going after them murderers. Whose car is that?"

  "Larry, look at what I brought you." Alton took the bottle and turned it up in a long swig.

  His friend looked into the back seat of the car and said, "Damn Jones, is that the murderer you got there?"

  Jones passed back the bottle and said, "What the hell does it look like, Larry?"

  "You taking him in to the lockup?"

  "Larry, you stupid shit, why would I want to do that? Can't you see, he's guilty? We’re gonna round up some of the boys an' string him up. We’ll save the county some money."

  "I’ll get some rope."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Darkness had fallen and Curly was growing tired. He’d already walked for miles, but had to keep going. If Catwalk had any chance to survive, he was it. No one else would take a black man’s side. He needed help, but couldn’t go to the police. He headed for the nearest tracks, intent on finding a hobo jungle.

  As Curly waited near the tracks a few hundred yards from a water tank, a locomotive approached with its groaning, hissing and grinding. After the train took on water, Curly saw two men making the practiced trot of experienced hoboes right beside an open box car. One by one they vaulted into the open door. He hopped on right behind them.

  Once in the car he asked them, "Where’s the nearest jungle up ahead?"

  "There's one just before the next grade, kid, under the bridge. About seven miles ahead."

  "Good, do you know if there's any black folk hang around there?"

  "Hard to tell. People come and go so much; you never know who’s going to show up."

  Curly sensed the train slowing. As soon it had cleared the trestle, he jumped off and turned back toward the bridge. The glow of two or three small fires gave away the location of the hobo jungle; a place to rest, maybe get a meal, and talk to other down and out souls. He spotted three black men sitting under a huge oak tree.

  He approached them and said, "Can I talk to you guys for a minute?"

  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 th
e 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.”