Boys Life

from his office, scuttling sideways like a crab. Sheriff Amory rolled his window down, and they exchanged some words but I couldn’t hear what was being said. Then Mr. White returned to his office. A few minutes later, he was leaving wearing a grease-stained jacket and a baseball cap. He got into his DeSoto and drove off, blue smoke in his wake like dots and dashes of Morse code.
    The sheriff’s window went back up again. I checked my Timex. It was two minutes before twelve.
    Two minutes later, the bus had not arrived.
    Suddenly a voice behind me said, “Don’t move, boy.”
    A hand seized the nape of my neck before I could turn my head. Wiry fingers squeezed so hard my nerves were frozen. The hand pulled me, and I retreated from the building’s corner. Was it Wade or Bodean who had me? Lord, wasn’t there some way to warn my dad? The hand kept pulling me until we were back at the trash cans. Then it let me go, and I turned to see my adversary.
    Mr. Owen Cathcoate said, “What the damn hell are you doin’ here, boy?”
    I couldn’t speak. Mr. Cathcoate’s wrinkled, liver-spotted face was topped by a sweat-stained brown cowboy hat, its shape more of a Gabby Hayes than a Roy Rogers. His scraggly yellow-white hair hung untidily over his shoulders. He wore, over his creased black trousers and a mud-colored cardigan sweater, a beige duster that looked more musty than dusty. Its ragged hem hung almost to the ankles of his plain black boots. But this was not what had stolen my voice. The voice stealer was the tooled-leather gunbelt cinched around his slim waist and the skeleton-grip pistol tucked down into its holster on his left side, turned around so the butt faced out. Mr. Cathcoate’s narrow eyes appraised me. “Asked you a question,” he said.
    “My dad,” I managed to say. “He’s here. To help the sheriff.”
    “So he is. That don’t explain why you’re here, though.”
    “I just wanted to-”
    “Get your head blown off? There’s gonna be some fireworks, if I know what the Blaylocks are made of. Get on that bike and make a trail.”
    “The bus is late,” I said, trying to stall him.
    “Don’t stall,” he countered. “Get!” He shoved me toward Rocket.
    I didn’t get on. “No sir. I’m stayin’ with my dad.”
    “You want me to whip your tail right this minute?” The veins stood out in his neck. I expect he could deliver a whipping that would make my father’s seem like a brush with a powder puff. Mr. Cathcoate advanced on me. I took a single step back, and then I decided I wasn’t going any farther.
    Mr. Cathcoate stopped, too, less than three feet from me. A hard-edged smile crossed his mouth. “Well,” he said. “Got some sand in you, don’t you?”
    “I’m stayin’ here,” I told him.
    And then we both heard the sound of a vehicle approaching, and we knew the time for debate was ended. Mr. Cathcoate whirled around and stalked to the building’s corner, the folds of his duster rustling. He stopped and peered furtively around the edge, and I realized I was no longer seeing Mr. Owen Cathcoate.
    I was seeing the Candystick Kid.
    I looked around the corner, too, before Mr. Cathcoate waved me back.
    My heart jumped at what I saw. Not the Trailways bus, but a black Cadillac. It pulled into the gas station and parked at an angle in front of the sheriffs car. I dodged away from Mr. Cathcoate’s restraining hand, and I ran for a pile of used tires near the garage and flopped down on my belly behind them. Now I had a clear view of what was about to happen, and I stayed there despite Mr. Cathcoate motioning me back behind the building’s edge.
    Bodean Blaylock, wearing an open-collared white shirt and a gray suit that shone with slick iridescence, got out from behind the wheel. His hair was cropped in a severe crew cut, his mean mouth twisted into a thin smile. He reached into the car and his hand came out with a pearl-handled revolver. Then Wade Blaylock, his dark hair slicked back and his chin jutting, got out of the passenger side. He was wearing black pants so tight they looked painted on, the sleeves of his blue-checked cowboy-style shirt rolled up to show his slim, tattooed forearms in spite of the chill. He had a shoulder holster with a gun in it, and he pulled a rifle out of the Cadillac with him and quickly cocked it: ka-chunk!
    Then the rear door opened, the Cadillac wobbled, and that big brute heaved himself out. Biggun Blaylock was wearing camouflage-print overalls