10

“What?” I started to back away slowly.

“No, this is my kid brother.” Shawn tried explaining.

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me just to be sure.” he started moving towards us.

“Rick…”

“Yeah?”

“Run.”

            We bolted back down the street with the cop chasing after us, ”How did he know me?”

“Your jerk dad probably stuck the cops on you, happened to me.”

            We ran in-between two buildings and stopped panting like a couple of dogs, I peeked out of the opening, he wasn’t anywhere in sight.

“That was close.” Shawn said.

“You think?”

            Shawn led the way and stepped out of the other alley way that led to a street, immediately someone grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, I stepped back into the darkness of the alley.

“Where’s your friend?” the cop asked as he shoved him against the side of the wall.

“Who?”

“Very funny, let’s go.”

            It was easy to find the sheriff’s office in this pitiful place, the entire town revolved around it and the church. The train whistle sounded somewhere in the distance, probably just pulling in. The only question was, was how was I supposed to get Shawn out of there? I could have left him, but he stuck up for me, so I felt like I need to pay him back.

            I walked across the street and around the back of the station. There was a window about 10 feet off the ground with the ever so original metal bars blocking escape. I moved a couple of old soda crates over to the window and stacked them up. Looking into the station there were 3 cells and no one but Shawn was in them. The sheriff sat behind a desk doing paperwork. On the wall behind him there were tons of pictures of wanted people or missing kids.

“Let me go I didn’t do anything wrong.” Shawn said.

“You were obstructing justice.”

“Obstructing justice,” He mumbled, “Who are you Barney Fife?”

“Pipe down.” The phone rang and the cop answered it and waited for the person on the other end to finish what he was saying, “Can’t you take care of it? I’m watching a prisoner and no one else is here.” he groaned, listened some more, “yes, I’ll be there in a minute.” He stood and glared at Shawn, “You have time to tell me where your friend is or I’ll send you back to Colorado.”

“You can’t touch me, I’m legally an adult, and don’t you guys have anything better to deal with besides a couple of kids?” Shawn said sarcastically.

            The cop left the office and Shawn turned around and looked up at me, he had a deep cut on his face but otherwise seemed fine, “How long have you been there?”

“Not long enough to know where the keys are.”

“Since when did you get a since of humor?”

            I rolled my eyes, the police car pulled away and I got down off the boxes and walked around to the front and opened the door, “Where are the keys?”

“Top desk drawer.”

            I quickly walked to the desk and pulled out the large set of keys.

“Why must people insist on keeping every key they own on the same keyring?” Shawn asked.

            I went to his cell and put a couple of the keys through the keyhole but no one of them worked.

“Are you sure the right key is on this?”

“Yes I saw him use one of those keys on the door.”

“Which one?”

“This one,” he pulled a key from his back pocket, “I wanted to let you live the moment.” He unlocked the door and stepped out, “I found it under the crummy mattress.”

“Of course you would have that kind of luck.” I put the keys back and saw the missing poster with my name and picture on it, ‘parents miss him dearly’ one of the captions read, parent I thought before I ripped it down.

            By the time we found the train station the train was already pulling out. We had to run to catch it and when we did we climbed to the top because the boxcar was shut. It was nice up there, cold wind rushed through our hair, the view was great but after a while the pine trees were behind us.

“So what happened to your face?”

“When Pap told us they were tough he wasn’t kidding.”

            We came to the next town as it got dark. Shawn and I climbed down the ladder before the train had stopped to avoid the guards.

“Let’s go check out the schedule I’m not sure the train goes to-“he stopped a moment.

“Flagstaff, he lives in flagstaff.”

“Yeah.” We walked into the brightly lit ticket building and found the clerk, “Excuse me.” I said.

            He looked at me through his glasses, “Yes?”

“Do you have a train going to Flagstaff?”

“We have one that stops there on its way from Phoenix, but it doesn’t leave for two days, not much demand to go out there.”

“I see.”

“Would you like to purchase tickets?”

“No thank you.” I said and Shawn and I left and went out to the front of the building.

“That’s too bad, we can’t avoid the cops for that long.”

            I leaned against the wall thinking about what we should do next. A red mustang passes by and honked the horn at us.

“Hey grease!” they shouted at us as they passed by.

“We could hitch hike.” I suggested.

“Worth a shot.”

            We walked down the main road jutting our thumb out at any car that passed us by. We made it to the outskirts of town and were about ready to give up and walk to Flagstaff when a station wagon with a huge load of suitcases and who knows what else, pulled to a stop.

            The window rolled down, and if you had to think of the most generic dad, this was it, sweater vest and all.

“You guys need a ride?”

“Sure, where are you going?”

“New Mexico.”

“We’re going to Flagstaff.”

“Okay, one of you hop up front with me and one of you get in the back.” I opened the back door, “It’s a bit of a mess back there though, I’m Carmen by the way.”

            No kidding, all the seats had been taken out and replaced by a mattress with dirty sheets and a pile of clothes. I looked at Shawn who smirked at me and sat in the front seat. I got in the car and shut the door and sat between the front seat and the mattress and the car sped off.

            Apparently the front wasn’t the preferred spot either, Carmen liked to tell jokes, a lot of them, and Shawn had to listen to them.

“What do you get when you cross a dog with a flower?”

“What?”

“A collie-flower!” then he would laugh and tell another, “What’s black and white and red all over?”

“A newspaper.”

“Ha! You knew it!” and then he would continue the endless cycle.

            It was around midnight when Carmen stopped the overloaded station wagon on the side of the road in a grove of trees.

“Where are you going?” Shawn asked.

“To get some sleep.” He got out of the car, “Hope you guys won’t leave me here.”

“Wait, you aren’t sleeping in the car, on the mattress?” I asked.

            He pulled a sleeping bag from the roof of the car, ”I prefer the great outdoors.” He shut the door and layed the sleeping bag out in front of the car.

“What’s the mattress for?” I climbed into the empty driver’s seat.

“Maybe we should leave him there for all those bad jokes.”

“Naw, looks like everything he owns is packed onto this car.”

“Any food?” Shawn asked.

“Not back there.”

“Too bad.”

            We were silent a moment, “Shawn?”

“Yeah?”

“That cop mentioned Colorado…Does your dad know that-“

“Yeah,” he closed his eyes, “He knows.”

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