The Ridge: The Whisper of the Leaves - Chap. 24

As Marshall had hoped, he spent the rest of the day uneventfully in the park. About an hour before the sun went down, he got his things together and started toward the train yard. When he got there, he saw a train idling a couple of hundred yards to the south. He came to a likely box car and, after looking around for any bulls or cops around slid the door open about six inches. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a butcher knife.

“Find’ja another car,” a gruff, frightened, female voice came from just inside the door. “This’n’s taken.” The arm jerked back into the car and the door slid shut.

Marshall took it in stride and walked to the next car, this time sticking his ear to the door to listen for any activity. He thought he heard mumbling coming from inside, so he went on to another car. Then another and another until with the eighth car he heard nothing.

After looking around again, he cautiously slid the door back a few inches and waited, listening. When he heard nothing, he pushed the door back for him to squeeze in then jumped up and into the car. He slid the door closed behind him, turned the flashlight, and saw a completely barren boxcar.

This car was completely barren. It didn't even have any straw to make a bed like the car he was in the first night. But, at that point, Marshall didn’t care so much about comfort, as he did about having a quiet trip to wherever the train ended up.

His arrival to the train was well timed, because less than five minutes after he closed the door, the train jerked and began rolling toward the south. As he could feel the train picking up speed, Marshall, using his poke as a pillow, made himself as comfortable a bed as he could muster on the car’s barren floor. Hoping nothing would happen for a while, he settled in for a night of riding, he thought.

Just a few miles down the track, though, the train suddenly came to a screaming stop. But, even before the train had completely quit rolling, Marshall could hear doors being shoved open, people hollering and crying and cursing.

“Bulls”, Marshall said out loud and jumped to his feet.

He didn't wait to see if his guess was right. He just grabbed his things, jerked the door open and without looking either way, jumped out. He began running straight away perpendicular to the boxcar into an overgrown pasture.

He ran for a good hundred yards before he peeked over his shoulder. No one seemed to be following him, so he stopped and crouched down in waist high weeds. He looked back at the train and the just setting sun cast the whole scene in a warm, reddish, surreal glow. It reminded Marshall of some of the silent movies he had seen when he was younger. But it was no movie he was watching. What he was viewing was real and it chilled him.

He saw that he had had a lot of company on the train. At least six cars, besides his had the doors thrown open and he could see several people lined up in front of some of the cars, their hands raised. Others must have been on the ground and resisting the bulls because he saw a couple of them beating downward at something at their feet.

A couple of the people who had been lined up suddenly bolt toward the south, running along the track. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a man on horseback galloped after them. When he got to the first runner, he clubbed him across the head, and he dropped out of sight.

Seeing what happened to the first man, the second escapee threw his hands up and backed up against a car. The act of contrition did not stop the rider from smashing this second man in the head as well crumpling him to the ground as well.

Marshall decided he had seen enough and with little else he could do, he started away from the train again. He stayed crouched over for another two hundred yards until, he came to a paved road running basically north and south.

He took one last look back and, seeing he had safely gotten away, threw his poke onto his shoulder, and started walking south. He soon saw a sign which said Mena was fifty miles away while Texarkana was 148 miles. Marshall had never been to either town, but knew they were on the way to Texas, so he kept walking.

The early March weather in this part of Arkansas was unseasonably warm at about sixty degrees, so it was pleasant for a long walk. Marshall hadn’t gone more than two miles, though, when he got the first of three rides he would get over the next couple of hours.

By 7:30, he had caught three rides which had gotten him about 100 closer to Texarkana. The last of the three rides dropped him on the outskirts of DeQueen. The town was small, smaller than Wynne, but quite busy being a Saturday night so Marshall decided to find something to eat.

At a small grocery store a block down the street, he went in and got a quarter pound of “rat” cheese, an apple and a coke, for fifteen cents. After making his purchase, he walked back outside and sat down on the edge of the store’s porch to eat. He didn’t see or hear the man come up behind him.

“Passin’ through.”

Marshall turned and saw a man of fifty or so, wearing an old hound’s tooth coat and a dusty brown cowboy hat. The man had his hands on his hips which had thrown his coat open. A deputy sheriff’s badge was visible.

“Yessir,” Marshall said, standing and turning to face the officer. “Just tryin’ to head to the south.”

“Just south or somewhere in particular?”

“Dallas.”

“What’s in Dallas?”

“Thought I might have some better chances at a job there,” Marshall said.

“From here in Arkansas?”

“Yessir.”

“Don’t live close to that, uh..., Crowley’s Ridge do ya?”

Marshall’s heart seemed to skip a beat and he could feel his pulse coursing through his temples.

“Yessir,” Marshall tried to sound surprised, but not anxious. “How’d you know that?”

The man grinned and Marshall relaxed slightly.

“Just a guess. I’m pretty good at accents and you sound like you’re from the east part of Arkansas. I got an uncle who lives in Paragould.”

“No kiddin,” Marshall grinned back. “That’s just north of Jonesboro.”

“Small world,” The man said and started walking away.

“Yessir, it is.” Marshall said and turned back around to sit down.

“By the way,” The man stopped and pulled out a note pad from his back pocket. “I like to keep up with strangers in the town. Ya know how it is these days. So can I get your name?”

“Uh, sure. Marshall Bentwood.”

“Fine. Leavin’ as soon as ya get through eatin’ I guess.”

“Just as soon,” Marshall agreed.

“Gooood,” The man nodded, smiled, then continued walking away, but added. “See that you do.”

“Yessir,” Marshall said to the officer’s retreating back, then sat down and finished his meal. After sitting there for a moment, he got up and went back inside the store. He came out a few moments later with a handful of licorice sticks. After putting one in his mouth, he put the rest in his poke and, as he told the officer he would, started walking toward the south.

Marshall had been gone from in front of the store about fifteen minutes when the officer he had been talking to came rushing out of the alley beside the store with another man close behind.

“He’s gone,” the deputy said.

“Ya sure it was him, Hal?” The second man, who was older than Hal, asked.

“Positive!” Hal answered. “Looked just like that picture. And besides, he gave me his name. Said it plain as day. Marshall Bentwood.”

“Evenin’ Jack, Hal.” A collared, black clad preacher nodded as the two men split to let him pass. “Hope ya’ll can be in church Tomorrow.”

“Evenin’ preacher,” Jack said, ignoring the solicitation.

“I’ll try, Reverend,” Hal answered.

“Well,” Jack said. “He can’t have gone far if he ain’t got a ride yet. Get ya car and go over to the tracks. Maybe ya can spot ‘im. I’ll drive around town to see if he’s tryin’ to hitch a ride.”

“Done,” Hal nodded and headed back toward the satellite Sheriff’s office one street over.

Jack stood for a moment looking both ways down the main street, then stepped off the porch and followed Hal to the office.