The Hobo Kingdom: A Chase of Blood on Steel Page 3

  “That’s right Big, you probably have never heard Due’s legal name, it is Stosh, short for Stanislaus I’m sure…Grabolski, his boy is Dennis or Denny as Stosh says. So you have that now.”

  “I just thought he was Due…Due North, leader of the Equalizers, ain’t that what you said Marv, we are the calm that bashes the storm.”

  “Banishes.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “You said bashes”

  “I know vowels, continents, punch you nations.”

  “Consonants…punctuation.”

  “Yah, yah, I know, not again.”

  “Let’s go, they’re not here,” Due stepped back out to the stoop.

  “School day.” Marv noted.

  “Yes, he’s not at the public any more…saw a letter by the frig, some priest or nun got Denny free tuition at St Mary’s…child at risk or something…how can they say that Marv?”

  “Balderdash, the clerics regularly have trouble judging youth, what do you expect…they have no children of their own.” Marv raised both arms in the air, then spread them wide. “What can you expect?”

  “In case you didn’t notice, the catholic school is right back down there.” Big pointed west, nodding his head, circling his eyes.

  “We saw it Big.”

  “Let’s go,” Due North agreed with Marv, they all knew where the school was, the question was; is Denny there?

  “Lunch hour must be over.” Marv was noting empty swings swaying in the warm breeze, his eyes naturally shying away from the midday suns glared reflection off the polished steel of the slide chute. The only activity in the playground caused by assorted birds hopped around chirping and singing as they completed the inspection and clean-up of each bit of paper wrapper and crumb of bread and bit of fruit or cheese with an occasional scrap of meat triggering a battle of beaks, wings flapping until the scrap was devoured by the strongest or in some cases fastest bird.

  “When we having lunch, I’m starved.” Big rubbed his stomach watching the birds to see if it was worth joining the fray.

  “We just had breakfast an hour ago Big.” Due was looking to the windows of the school, scanning for faces through the glass.

  “Have some water Big, we’ll head back to the camp soon, school won’t be out for a few hours.” Marv raised an army issue canteen in Big’s direction.

  “That all you got, gads it’s a hot one, what we got for lunch?”

  “You’re right Marv, can’t even be one o’clock yet. I wonder when school’s out, we’ll stop by that gas station on the way, they should know.” Due North strode west toward the Texaco station.

  “Hey, they got stuff here,” Big was staring through the front glass of the sundry case at the chocolate bars, Slim Jims and Life Savers wedged between Viceroy and Camel cigarettes on one side and metal Zippo lighters, cans of fluid and yellow packs of replacement flints flanking the other. “Whoa! Somebody busted the heck outta this thing.”

  “I guess that means it wasn’t you.” Due, Marv and Big all turned to a muscular guy, tall, clad in working blues, big wrench in hand, pencil stub behind his right ear and shop rag dangling from a back pocket. “But you’re the same kind, get out of here.”

  “We are most certainly not in any way the same kind…” Marv stretched out the last. He stood tall, clean, addressing the jury. “If the culprits engaged in this destruction are the hoodlums we met last night, I can assure you there are no similarities between us.”

  “And easy for you to claim, but clearly men of the rails, bums, I have about had my fill. Whether my assumptions are right or wrong; from my point of view, they are safe. So get out of my gas station.”

  “Hobos…not bums. There is a difference friend. We are here to visit; my wife and son live in this town. Tramps and Bums steal and cheat and worse. Hobos are hard working men and women drawn to a life on the move, on the tracks. If you will tell us when the catholic school lets out we will buy some pops and get out of here.”

  “Schools out at three-twenty, they broke the pop machine last night too, so I’ll take thirty cents for three bottles before you go.” The station owner held out his free hand.

  “Coke? I wanted Orange Crush.” Big grabbed a bottle and started guzzling, drained a third and pulled the Coke down and burped loudly. “Ahhh but it’s cold and good too. Marv you gonna drink yours?”

  “All they had was Coca Cola, the bums must have stolen the others.” Due swallowed a big sip.

  “Yes Big I am, apparently my level of dehydration is not as high as yours, as I am able to pace myself.” Marv had yet to tilt his bottle, thinking of the prejudices that tramps and bums were building for hobos, could they ever change that?

  “No wonder that guy was mad, they broke his place up pretty good, had to be Two Trains and his crew. Let’s head back to the jungle, clock in there read one-twenty, we’ve got a few hours to burn, might as well do it in the shade.” Due led them further west to the camp.

  CHAPTER 7

  St. Mary’s of the Woods final bell signaled the end again; children moving with remarkable speed, strode taller and smiled wider as each step narrowed the distance to the sun gate shimmering below the exit sign, freeing the lively from artificial to natural light, from sedation to motion, from quiet to loud. Students burst forth laughing.

  “Hey, where you going?” Denny spun Glen around on the gravel road just across the main road from the school.

  “I told you, I can’t talk to you.”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t say why not?”

  “Cause,” Glen’s mind scrambled, couldn’t say they were no good.

  “Yeah?”

  “You made me late!”

  “Huh…late?”

  “That first day. Not yesterday.”

  “Ahhh you’re scared, hobo jungle, I get it.”

  “No! Not that. My Dad got after me, he doesn’t understand…”

  “Oh yeah, Mom says mine’s no account, but I remember him, he was good, you know strong, safe, I felt fine with him. Never got a chance to check him on understanding.”

  “Well mine was pissed, whacked my butt for being late.”

  “So, long as you ain’t late, you’re good?” Denny smiled.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “Scotty, beam us to gophers.” Denny impersonating Captain Kirk from the television show.

  “We don’t need space ships for gophers, they’re right over there.” Glen pointed to the big meadow sprawling behind the skinny tree line that edged the gravel road which led all the way up past Jaskie’s to the turn that brought Glen home. The meadow was about the same size as four undeveloped city blocks, the heat of July and August had sucked the life from most of the vegetation, only the most adapted native grasses and flowers showed any life.

  “Well, what are you waiting for,” Denny leaped through the shallow ditch and dodged the pines before bursting to the sundrenched field amidst milkweed seeds floating around like little parachutes dancing in the calm air to the sawing sounds of grasshoppers and other leapers. Surrounded by sounds like the trill of a finger scrapping a plastic hair comb and the buzzing of flying insects at first soft from meandering flies and honey bees and but then loud as a bumble bee almost landed on his ear. “Whoa!” He swiped at the black and yellow monster who continued its leisurely flight searching for sustenance.

  “Ha, who’s scared now, that bee won’t hurt yah. Watch the deer flies though, they’re biting even before they land. Quiet now, these pocket gophers are stupid but not deaf.” Glen waved at the piles of bare dirt erupting across the meadow like tiny volcanos that started to push but stopped. The telltale mounds seemed to be spaced in all directions from ten to twenty feet apart like big versions of ant hills disrupting the plant life.

  Glen gave a shrill whistle and heads popped all over the place. Not every hole but certainly one of every five located within thirty feet of them showed first a head and then the striped body of an upright pocket gopher.

  “Th
ere’s one,” Denny shouted as he pulled his slingshot from his back pocket with one hand as his other fished for pea gravel in his front pocket.

  “Shssh! They’re gone. We’ll walk quiet; about fifty feet and try again. Ok?”

  “K” Denny learned fast and shot fast too. He took two gophers before they had walked forty feet.

  “My turn,” Glen reached out for the slingshot.

  “Here,” Denny handed the sling, “you gotta knife? I’m gonna keep the tails for something.”

  “Yeah, here.” Glen unclasped the blade from his Barlow folding knife, it had a wood handle and had been his grandfather’s. His grandpa was dead and Glen had never known him. “Watch you gonna do with the tails?”

  “Don’t know maybe tie em to something.”

  “You could put em on your bike handle bars.” Glen looked to see how his idea sounded but Denny looked down and away. “Yeah, kinda dumb idea I guess.”

  “Nah, its good, no bike.”

  “Oh…well than even dumber idea, huh. Stand back, there’s gonna be tails everywhere.” Glen turned and nailed a gopher first shot.

  “I guess these are easier than coffee cans huh, Glen?” Denny waved his hands over his head a tail streaming in each.

  “And meadowlarks too, I ain’t seen any flying in circles around here.”

  “We missed them.” Due North knew they had, Marv and Big and he had heard the bell from two blocks away.

  “He can’t be too far ahead of us Due, we heard the school bell.” Marv was looking toward town figuring the boy would go home after school. He could see children on both sides of the street walking further into town with each step.

  “There’s a couple kids out in that field Due. We could ask em.” Big pointed south a block away at the most. One boy aiming a slingshot, the other waving his arms in the air.

  “Slingshot, Denny has one, I made it for him myself, let’s check it out.” Due North marched south.

  “Really, you made it, how’d yah make it Due,” Big had never owned a slingshot.

  “Branch, inner tube, the usual.”

  “Quiet Big, you’ll scare the boys.”

  “I won’t neither, boys ain’t scared of me…are they Marv?” Big had not met many that quaked in fear at his presence, he didn’t expect it to start now.

  “Just be still.” Marv hushed as they approached the two boys.

  “It’s not Denny,” Due was zeroed in on the boy with the sling, the other was bent down working a knife on a gopher.

  “Here Denny, it’s your turn.” Glen turned with the slingshot before striding to retrieve his latest score.

  “Denny?” Both boys turned at the voice. Glen cringed a bit seeing that these men must be from the tracks too.

  “Dad?” Denny was standing straight, peering closely; making sure.

  “It’s me boy.” Due North rushed forward meeting his son in an embrace.

  “It is you Dad. Mom will be so happy.”

  “Probably not Denny, those days are gone, and rightfully so.” Due gave Denny another hug.

  “Whatta yah mean…”

  “I’m not back to stay son, I came for you, time for you to grow up, ride the rails, and see the trails; become a man. You’ll learn from Marv and Big and I. It’s time Denny, come join us.” Due waved to the tracks and then to Marv and Big before turning back to his son expecting to see a nodding head; he did.

  “What about Mom?”

  “She’s had you the last six years, it’s my turn, she may not agree but it is fair. Join us, whenever you want to come home, you say the word and we’ll bring you back, promise.” Due North master of logic.

  “Will you let me come with to tell her?”

  Glen looked from Denny to his dad. Could it be? Denny said his dad was no account. He guessed a hobo could be no account.

  “No, I won’t face her. She has a way…and I’ll lose. Come with me son.”

  “But dad…but I have to tell her, I can’t just go.”

  “I’ll take care of it Denny.”

  “How?”

  “I wrote her this letter yesterday, hoping to see you, hoping you’d come.” He waved a folded paper pulled from his shirt pocket.

  “Your friend can take it to her.” Due looked at Glen. “You need more than schooling to live the life Denny, I’ll show you the way, we’ll ride steel and see the land and let me tell you, it’s something to see. You can school anytime, I want to show you the whole country.”

  “Well”, Denny turned to Glen, his eyes wide and a smile stretching wide.

  “Will you give my ma the letter Glen?”

  “I could, but not till after school tomorrow, it’s already late.” Glen did not want to repeat being late, that was the first time that his dad had ever spanked him. It was not a good memory.

  “That’d be fine boy, tomorrow’s fine.” Due thought it was perfect. A little head start wouldn’t hurt.

  “Okay bye, Glen”

  “Bye, Denny, you sure about this?”

  “Yeah, I miss my dad. You’ll give the letter to ma won’t you Glen?”

  “Yeah, Denny, tomorrow.” Glen stuffed the paper in his front pocket and left.

  He darted across the field, jumping from mound to mound whenever possible like a giant hopscotching from mountain to mountain and he ran south to the field behind his house. It was three blocks and he ran as hard as he could. Glen raced up to lot line as the sun slid over in the west. His dad was waiting again.

  CHAPTER 8

  “God, Glen! What in the world has gotten into you? Two out of three days your mother doesn’t know where the heck you are.”

  “It’s Denny, dad! He left with his dad.”

  “What! I told you to stay away from that boy.”

  “We were hunting gophers and all of a sudden his dad was there and Denny’s going with him to ride the rails and see the trails. Those men were scary dad.”

  Glen’s dad’s face turned white, stunned.

  “They gave me this letter to give Denny’s ma.” Glen pulled the paper from his pocket and handed it to his dad.

  Glen’s dad unfolded it and read.

  Louise, I took Denny with me. It’s my time and I’ll keep him safe. You’ve had him these years it’s my turn. I’ll bring him back when he’s learned the world and grows to a man. Stosh

  “Stosh is Denny’s dad?” Glen’s dad asked.

  “They called him Due, don’t know who Stosh is.”

  “The note is signed Stosh, I don’t know either, Glen. We’d better take this to Denny’s mother, she’s got to be worried. Sunset in less than an hour.”

  They got in the four door Lincoln and drove into Altonville.

  “Do you remember where the house is?”

  “Yes sir, right through town past the Dentist office, on the left, I’ll point it out.”

  Glen pointed out the little house and his dad blew a gust of air, eyeing the neighboring shacks and opening his car door.

  “You’d better come along.”

  Glen’s dad rapped twice on the paint starved door and it was opened a crack, Denny’s mother leaned against the door from the back and peered around the edge.

  “Can I help you,” her eyes traveled from Glen’s dad down to Glen.

  “You’re Glen, Denny’s friend right, what’s wrong?” Their stance caused her to glance around looking for Denny.

  “I’m Will Roylihan, Glen’s dad. He brought this home tonight said that Denny’s dad gave it to him to deliver to you.” He handed the note.

  She’d straightened at the mention of Denny’s dad and tore the note from Will’s hand, scrambling to read it.

  “Oh God, you son of a bitch!” She crushed the note jamming it in her apron pocket, slammed the door open and vaulted off the steps, running for town, her house dress and apron flapping behind.

  “Where’re you going?” Will called.

  “Calling the sheriff, that bastard won’t get away with this!”

  “Wait, I’ll dri
ve.”

  They leapt into the Lincoln and Will spun around racing to the filling station at Main and County 6, the only place still open after five p.m.

  Denny’s mom jumped from the car and dashed into the office.

  “Can I use your phone?”

  At her shriek the station attendant just pointed behind the counter. “Right here.”

  A few minutes later she was back outside.

  ‘They’ll be right here. They had a car on Route 4, couple miles he said.”

  “Yes, that’s close,” said Will.

  “They heard the siren in seconds and watched the squad car come over the hill on County 6, cherry ball flashing in the dusk.

  A freight train whistled from the east as the deputy skidded to a stop at the Texaco. He pulled on his brimmed hat with the mini Sheriff’s badge on the front. He was just under six foot and broad with muscle stretching his uniform. He patted the pistol and flashlight at his belt as he walked over.

  “Are you Mrs. Grabowski?”

  “Yes, Grabolski, Yes. That bastard stole my son!”

  “Stole?”

  “Here’s the note, you tell me”

  The deputy read the note, looked at her and read it again.

  “Is this Stosh, the boy’s father?”

  “That no-account’s nothing, accept a smiling story teller that doesn’t even know what a father is. He’s kidnapped Denny.”

  “Ma’am is he the boy’s real father...”

  The train pulled past, whistle blowing at the intersection, engine bellowing as steel wheels clacked up the slight incline, burying the rest of the deputies words. Finally the whistle and wail returned to a rumble.

  “Yes. But you can’t just stand here. Call the Sheriff. Get a search party. Dogs. We have to find him. That bastard will run, you can be sure of that. It’s what he does!”

  “Ma’am, Glen said they were hobos, there’s a hobo camp right around here, it can’t be far, do you know where it is deputy?”

  The Deputy was already pointing, “Right there, sir, right where that caboose is passing, on the north side of the tracks. We don’t usually have any trouble from them.”