he Great Daylight Robbery of the New Zion Gen. Mdse was pulled off on a Wednesday toward the end of November shortly after lunch. I remember it was a Wednesday because I always took Wednesday afternoons off. My law partner would have told you it was not just Wednesdays and not just afternoons, but she was young and ambitious and thought everybody else ought to be.
The store used to do a pretty lively lunch business. You'd
step up to the meat case and point to the particular loaf of
lunch meat or brick of cheese you fancied
and Otis Goins, in a white bib apron for the occasion,
would slice off however much you wanted, weigh it up, hand
it over on a piece of white butcher paper, take your money,
making change out of the cash drawer he had removed from the
register at the front of the store, and jot down the amount
of the sale. Later on he'd ring it all up to keep things
tidy. A nearby counter held bread, lettuce, pickles,
mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup and other condiments so you
could make your sandwich to suit yourself. Then you'd swing
by the drink box and make your selection and move on to the
big table in the back of the store. I favored pickle and
pimento loaf, a thick slab produced by the Number 4 setting
on the electric slicer, with a slathering of mayonnaise, a
few good dashes of Cajun Hot Sauce and can of Red Pop. It
was good and filling and lethal according to people who
worry about little things like fat. I wasn't one of them.
A few of the lunch crowd still lingered at the table, some delaying as long as possible returning to work, others like me, with no demands on their time, having no intention of bestirring themselves. It was one of those gloomy overcast days we tend to get in late November. Otis had offered to turn on some lights but somebody begged him not to because he said he had seen the rest of us in good light and he's just as soon not do it again.
Otis had taken off his apron and moved back to his usual station near the front door on a high stool behind the cash register where he had a good view of the street and of the self-serve gas pumps at the side of the store. He had finished ringing up the lunch sales, meticulously drawing a line through each one afterward, and was staring out the front window. After a while we heard him say, "Hump!"
"Hump what?" somebody asked.
"That's the third time that car's been by here. Must be circling the block. Lost, I reckon, or maybe looking for something."
"Or casing the joint," Billy Blackburn said. Billy watched way too much television. "Maybe he's going to rob you, Otis." Afterwards he claimed he had a premonition--a funny feeling just run all over him, he said--and had tried to warn us, but nobody would listen.
"Naw," Otis said. "He's pulling in to the gas pumps. Guess he was driving around looking for cheaper prices."
"It's all one price," Ben Poser said. "Too high." Ben ran the town's taxi. Kept it parked in front of the store. Used the store phone for business. Gave out the number for people to call. Had it painted on the side of the taxi. It was an arrangement he had with Otis.
We heard the ding the car set off as it passed over the little hose by the pumps that serves to alert Otis somebody is about to get gas.
"He's a long way from home," Otis said. "Michigan plates."
We sat waiting for the man to come into the store to pay his bill. Finally somebody asked, "What's he doing, Otis?"
"Well, he had to put in looks like 17 and a half gallons, must have been running on pure fumes. Now he's checking the oil. Uh-oh. I've done let them wipes run out. He's having to wipe the oil off with his fingers. Now, he's taking out a bandana to wipe his fingers on. Why would he want to tie that greasy bandana around his neck, you reckon?"
"I could have told you about them wipes," Billy said. "I took the last one when I checked the oil in my truck this morning."
"Well, why didn't you?" Amos Blackburn said. Amos is uncle to Billy and all of the Blackburns tend to argue, especially with one another.
"None of my bidness," Billy said. "It's up to Otis to keep that wipe box full."
"Still, it wouldn't of hurt you none."
"Will yawl put a stopper in it!" Ben said. He knew from experience that unchecked they would keep it up for hours. "Hey, Otis, that fellow ain't gonna drive off without paying, is he?"
"Naw," Otis said, "he's around on the passenger side, talking to somebody. Funny, I didn't notice anybody with him when he drove in. Looks like they're arguing about something. Now, whoever it is, is getting out. Why, it's a kid! Guess that's why I didn't see him. Too short to show up." Then he began to chuckle.
"What's funny?" somebody asked.
"Wait a minute and you'll see," Otis said, "they're coming in."
We waited. Suddenly the door flew open and in jumped a figure about four foot high. The top eight inches of him consisted of a high-crowned, wide-brimmed cowboy hat. Below that were bright eyes and a blue bandana pulled up over his nose to hide the rest of his face. He was wearing a holster and cowboy boots and had a toy pistol in his hand.
"Stickum up!" he hollered at Otis. "This is a holdup!"
Otis raised his hands grinning. "Don't shoot," he said. "I got a wife and six little ones depending on me."
Otis and the rest of us were looking at the kid and for a minute didn't pay any attention to the man behind him. Then Otis noticed him and said, "What the hell!" because the man had a bandana pulled up over his nose, too, and was also pointing a gun at Otis, but his gun was no toy. It looked like one of those nine millimeter German Luger semi- automatic pistols that some people brought back as souvenirs from World War Two.
"Lak he said," the man told Otis, quietly, "hit's a holdup."
They may have had Michigan plates and may even have come from there, but you could tell immediately they were not native to that part of the country. They spoke the tongue of the south, not delta south, more like mountain south. In New Zion, nobody under ninety said "hit" for "it" anymore. But I had acquaintances in the mountains that still did.
"I don't want no trouble," Otis said, his voice higher than normal with a little quiver in it.
"Me neither," the man said. "Just act decent and everything gonna be awright. You by yerself? What about that taxicab in front? Where's he?"
Before Otis could decide whether to betray Ben and the rest of us or not, the little one spotted us and hollered, "Hey, hit's a whole bunch of um hiding back here in the dark!".
The man swung his gun around in our direction, then back to cover Otis, then back again at us, then again at Otis, as if he couldn't decide which posed the biggest threat.
"Listen," the little one said, coming back a little ways to speak to us at the table, "he's got that gun pointed straight at that old man's head. Any of yawl make the least move and he's gonna blow his damn brains out, cause he's mean."
We all looked to see if the man looked mean enough to blow Otis' damn brains out. We couldn't tell because of that bandana, but we were willing to take the kid's word for it, especially after the man raised his gun, which had been pointed generally at Otis' chest, up to Otis' head and said, again in that quiet voice, "Lak he said."
"They ain't going to bother you," Otis said, and then to us he said, "For God's sake, just keep still and do like he says." And to the man again, "They ain't going to try nothing."
"Less hope not," the man said. "Now, how much money you got in that cash redster?"
"I don't know for sure."
"Well, open hit up and less find out."
"Hold it!" the kid hollered. "You crazy? Hit could be a gun in air."
"You watch yer mouth," the man said. And then to Otis he said, "Is hit a gun in that drawer?"
Otis swallowed hard and nodded.
"Well, open hit up and take hit out, real slow, and then take all the bullets out and hand them to me."
"Give me the gun," the kid said. "I'll do hit."
"Naw you won't," the man said. "He'll do hit, and I'll watch real close."
"And you better be sure you got um all, Mister, cause when yer done, he's going to put that gun to yer head and pull the trigger, cause he's mean," the kid said.
"Lak he said," the man said, but he didn't. He just put the bullets in his pocket and told Otis to put the gun back where he got it.
"You got as much as a hunnert dollars in that drawer?"
Otis said that was what he started the day with.
"Then give hit to me."
While Otis was counting out the money, the kid wandering around noticed the big glass jar of gumballs Otis kept on top of the meat counter. It was too high for him to reach and he began jumping up trying to grab it.
"Aw," Cletus Thibble said. "Lookee there. He can't reach it." And before any of us could grab him, he got up to help.
You have to understand about Cletus. Cletus was something over six foot tall and forty years old but his clock had stopped forever along about six or seven, about the same age as that kid. Every day Cletus walked four miles into New Zion, to do occasional odd jobs--he was good at lifting and toting--and to scrounge around for castoff cardboard, which for reasons known only to himself he collected. Ben, out of compassion, at the end of the day would drive Cletus and his cardboard home in his taxi when he could find him. Otherwise Cletus walked, bent under his unwieldy load.
We all held our breath, expecting to hear the kid holler and that Luger go off, but I suppose he read that big grin on Cletus' face for what it was and let Cletus take him by the waist and hoist him up. He reached into the jar and took out a red gumball and tried to put it in his mouth but was prevented by the bandana and put it in his pocket instead. Then he got out a couple more and put them is his pocket. And then he asked Cletus if he wanted one and without waiting for a reply fished out another and popped it into Cletus' mouth. Cletus put him down and came on back and sat down, the gumball between his gum and cheek making him look lopsided like a chipmunk with a hickornut stuffed in his jaw pouch, and we all started breathing again.
Up front, Otis was counting money into the man's hand and neither of them had noticed Cletus. When Otis reached a hundred, the man said. "Awright. Now, we gonna need a little something to eat. How about a dozen hot dawgs."
"They come ten to the package," Otis said.
"That'll do. And buns to go with them."
"They come eight to the package."
"Don't make much sense," the man said.
"No, it don't," Otis said.
"Well, gimme a package. And a six pack of Pepsis. Now, what does that come to?"
Otis added it up on a piece of paper. "Four dollars and twenty eight cents."
"And hit was fifteen even for the gas. That's nineteen dollars and twenty eight cents I owe you," the man said and handed Otis back a twenty.
Otis looked at it as if he had never seen one before.
"Go ahead, ring hit up. I got some change coming back."
"Wait," the kid said. "I got me some gumballs."
"How many?"
"Four."
"Take out for them, too."
It finally got through to Otis that the man was trying to pay him. "No charge for them gumballs. I give them out as treats when people pay their bill."
"I'm much obliged," the man said. "Now that makes exactly a hunnert dollars I owe you, and when I get where I'm going, I'll send hit back." And to the kid he said, "Come on, less get outta here."
"Don't forget the telephone," the kid said. "Cut the damn cord."
Otis handed over the phone without having to be asked, and the man took out his pocket knife and cut the cord between the receiver and the cradle. "There," he said, " a new one won't cost you much."
"Make him get back air with the others," the kid said.
"Lak he said," the man told Otis.
Otis came back to join us with the kid following. "Listen," he said, "Air one of you tries to leave or even shows yer head in the winder fore we get out of sight is gonna get a bullet in you."
I expected him to tell us again how mean the man was, but he didn't. He walked over to Cletus and stood grinning at him for a minute. Then he hit him on the arm and said "Tag, yer hit!" and wheeled and took off for the front of the store, hollering to the man, "Go! Go! Go! Go!" And they both slammed out of the door banging it shut behind them.
None of us moved except Cletus. He started to get up but somebody pulled him back and Otis told him to sit tight. "And that goes for everybody. Don't do nothing silly."
Almost immediately we heard the car doors slam and the starter grind. The engine hit a lick or two and then died. The starter ground again and then again, but nothing happened.
"Flooded," somebody said.
"He needs to run that starter with the key off and his foot all the way to the floor. That clears it out," Amos said.
"Naw it don't," Billy said. "People always tell you that but it never works. What he needs to do is pump the hell out of it while he's a-turning it over. I better go tell him before he runs the battery down."
"You ain't got a lick of sense," Amos said. "Didn't you hear the man say if he even sees a head sticking up he's gonna blow it off?"
"Actually it was that little one that said it," Billy said.
But before Amos could answer, the car started and put an end to the argument. The engine came alive, coughed once and then roared wide open. Gravel spurting from the spinning wheels peppered the side of the building like buckshot, and the tires screamed as they hit the pavement. We all jumped up then and ran to the front and managed to catch a glimpse of the car accelerating down the street, headed out of town toward the four lane, rocking from side to side as the driver overcorrected.
"They're getting clean away!" somebody said. "What are we gonna do?"
"Call the sheriff," I said, "let him handle it."
Amos, who was closest, snatched up the receiver and said, "What's the number, somebody?" and then noticed the cut wire. "Shoot, he's way over in Eddyville, anyway. Lot of good he would do."
"I got a gun in my taxi," Ben said, "under the seat."
"I got more bullets for mine in the drawer under the cash register," Otis said.
"Then get them and let's go!" Ben said.
"I'll swing by home and get my rifle and follow you," Billy said. He lived on the way.
"I'll go with you and borrow your daddy's double barrel," Amos said.
Otis told the ones left to mind the store, and we ran out, Billy and Amos to Billy's truck, Ben and Otis and I to the taxi. I didn't have a gun, but I wasn't about to miss anything. We got going first, but Billy and Amos were soon riding our back bumper. They stayed there until they had to turn off to go to Billy's house.
Ben was not as reckless as Billy, and the taxi had quite a few miles on it, but still we made good time covering the eight miles to the four-lane. And just before we reached it, we ran into a miraculous piece of luck. A highway crew working on the road had it blocked and a flagman was stopping traffic. There were several cars ahead of us, and we hoped one of them might be our robbers. Ben pulled over on the right shoulder and began easing up to the front of the line, but we reached it without seeing them.
The flagman saw us, though, and came stalking over. "You can't get through here. Can't you see the road's blocked?"
"We ain't trying to get through," Ben said. "We're looking for a blue Chevy, Michigan license plates, and two people, a man and a boy. You seen them?"
"I done told you this road is blocked. Now back that thing out of here and get back to the end of the line."
I was sitting in the back seat. I rolled down my window and said in my best courtroom voice, "Just step over here to the car, son."
The flagman , who looked to be around fifty, came closer. He was a big man, but even so he was carrying too much weight for his size, and the neon yellow vest he was wearing over his dark work clothes made him look like a giant yellow jacket. He stooped down and peered in at me, looking puzzled. I didn't give him too much time to think. "A robbery has just been committed, and we are in hot pursuit of the perpetrators. Now, this gentleman just asked you a question. Are you going to respond or do you want to be charged with aiding and abetting?"
The man didn't answer right away because he was having trouble swallowing. Finally, he said, "I didn't unnerstand the question."
I repeated it. "It would have been in the last five minutes," I told him.
"No sir. They ain't been through here."
"Are you positive? Would you be willing to swear to that in a Court of Law if need be?"
"This road's been completely blocked longer than that, Mister."
I thanked him for his cooperation and rolled the window back up.
"They must of turned off somewheres," Otis said.
"But where?" I said. "The only place they could have turned off is the road to the Blackburns. If they took that, Amos and Billy would have seen them. The only other place would be in somebody's driveway, and then we would have seen.them"
Ben, who knew the area better than the rest of us since he drove it so much, said, "There is one place, not too far out of New Zion. It's a dirt track leading off into Sutter's woods. But it's so growed up I doubt they would even notice it."
I knew where he was talking about. "And why would they pull in there anyway? You'd think they'd want to put as much distance as possible between us and them."
"Maybe they didn't think we'd be chasing them," Otis said, "and maybe they was hungry."
Ben began carefully backing the taxi along the shoulder to the end of the growing line of cars, but before we reached it, Billy and Amos came charging up in the truck. I leaned out and motioned for them to back up. When they finally got my meaning, Billy threw that truck in reverse and went tearing back out of there about as fast as he had come in, and was waiting for us when we cleared the line. Ben turned the taxi around and headed back toward New Zion, and I hollered to Billy to follow us as we passed.
They did, never more that six inches behind us. They would have pulled out and passed us if they had known where we were going, which is why I didn't tell them.
Ben knew exactly where the track was and slowed down in time to be able to pull into it. After about a car length he stopped, leaving the truck just enough space to pull in, too. We could see new tire tracks leading on into the woods. Before we could get out, Billy appeared on one side of the car and Amos on the other, both with their guns. They were life-long hunters and not about to flush their prey prematurely.
"They're in there awright," Billy whispered.
"Them or somebody else," Amos said. "There's tracks going in but not coming out."
"Yawl wait," Billy said. "I'll go scout them out."
"I'll come, too," Amos said.
"Just takes one. Twice as much chance of being heard with two."
"He's right," Ben said.
"Well, be careful," Amos said, "and don't try nothing on your own." But Billy was already gone.
We waited. We listened to the noises a woods makes. To the ticking and clinking of the engines cooling down. To a squirrel fussing about something.
"You don't really think he'll try to take them on alone, do you?" I asked.
"I hope not," Amos said.
And then Billy was back, popping up out of nowhere. "They're roasting hotdogs!" he whispered as if he couldn't believe it. "They've got a fire going and some sticks and are roasting hotdogs just like they was Boy Scouts on a camping trip!"
"What about that gun?" Amos asked.
"Nowhere in sight."
"Just about perfect. Get them while they're mind's on feeding their faces. They won't be thinking about us. We can move in and get the drop on them."
"I don't want nobody hurt," Otis said. "I just want my money back."
"And there's that kid," Ben said. "We don't want him to get hurt."
"That kid is the one you'd better watch out for," I said. "He seems to be the brains of the outfit. Look, we're not dealing with a hardened criminal here. Whoever heard of a holdup artist using part of the money he took to pay for gas and food? And would believe once he got out of town he was out of danger and could stop for a leisurely picnic before going on his merry way?"
"You don't think he's dangerous?" Amos asked.
"Oh I didn't say that. Pick the right circumstances and anybody is dangerous. What I'm saying is he doesn't think like a criminal. He thinks like an honest man. And he's way too trusting for his own good. I believe I could walk right in there with my hands up where he could see them and talk him into giving up, and that's what I'd like to do if yawl are agreeable."
"Can't let you do that, Jim," Amos said, and the rest agreed with him, all of them probably thinking I was the one too trusting for my own good, though nobody said so.
"Then if we must take him by force, let's overwhelm him before he has a chance to do anything rash. You saw how rattled he got in the store when he found us sitting back there in the dark, how he dithered around, not knowing what to do until that kid came to his rescue. Let's come at him from all sides at once, completely confuse him."
They agreed to that. Amos, falling back on his Army experience of forty years before, took charge. Detailed Billy to circle around until he hit the track on the other side and then slip up as close as he could get without being seen. Set Ben to take the left flank and Otis to take the right. "I'll give you plenty of time to get in place. And then on my signal, everybody come charging in, hollering and making as much noise as you can."
"What's the signal," Billy asked.
" I'll fire one barrel of this shotgun in the air."
"Gotche," Billy said and disappeared.
Ben and Otis went, too.
"You ain't got no gun," Amos said. "Maybe you better wait here."
" I'm coming with you," I said. "I don't need a gun." He didn't argue, just nodded.
We crept along the edge of the track where the trees and bushes partially hid us until we could see the car. We couldn't see them but we could see the smoke drifting up from the fire they had built in the middle of the track in front of the car.
"If we're careful we ought to be able to ease on up right behind the car," Amos said. "Watch out you don't step on no stick."
Hunkered down behind the car, we still couldn't see them but we could hear them.
"Want a nuther weenie?" the man asked.
"Yeah. Damn! Wish we'd a-thought to get mustard."
"You better watch yer mouth. We get home, yer Gran'maw will tear yer head off if she hears such as that."
"Shit!"
"Don't say I didn't warn you."
We heard it before they did but not much, the thud, thud, thud of big feet slapping the ground in a trot, growing louder as they came on.
"What's that?" Amos whispered.
"What's that?" The man said.
And then we saw him running up the track toward us. It was Cletus.
"We gotta stop him!" Amos hissed.
"You can't stop him without making things worse," I told him. "Don't even try."
When Cletus saw us crouched down behind the car, he began to laugh but he didn't slow down. He went around the side of the car going "Huh, huh, huh."
"Now!" I said, dragging Amos up and shoving him forward. "Right behind him!"
We came around the side of the car just in time to see Cletus run up and slap the kid on the shoulder and holler "Tag, you're It!" And take off down the track with the kid right behind him.
The man jumped to his feet and stood staring after them, his mouth gaped open. Amos, stopped directly behind him, was doing the same. I had to nudge him before he poked that double barrel into the man's back and said, "Raise your hands, Mister. Slow. Get his gun, Jim"
I moved around in front of the man. Without the mask it was just an ordinary face, coarsened by weather like a farmer's or construction worker's, an outdoorsman anyway. Age about thirty, I would have said. I'd have felt silly frisking him, so I just asked him where the gun was.
"In the glove box," he said, and as I went to get it, he added, "Hit don't shoot. Got no bullets. And I think the foreign pin is missing."
I checked. I couldn't tell about the firing pin, but it didn't matter anyway because the gun wasn't loaded. I put it back in the glove box.
"You mean you held us up and threatened to blow Otis' head off with a gun that wouldn't even shoot,?" Amos said.
"Hit was my nephew said that. He didn't know it wouldn't shoot."
At that point Ben and Otis jumped out of the bushes, holding their guns out at arms length with both hands, like I guess they had seen on TV, and waving them around.
"Set the safety on them things and put them away before you accidentally shoot somebody," Amos told them. He had already broken the double barrel.
"Why didn't you signal?" they asked.
"Didn't have time. When Cletus come up we had to move fast."
"Cletus?" they said. But the explanation had to wait because here came Billy up the track holding that kid by the shirt collar with one hand and his rifle with the other. Billy was half pushing, half carrying him, and the kid was fighting and cussing him every step of the way.
"Well," he said, "I see you already got the other one. I had just struck the track when Cletus come tearing by and in just a minute, here come this one right after him. I jumped out and grabbed him, but he made such a racket, I knew the other one heard us. Thought I might use him as a shield or hostage or something."
"You turn him loose," Cletus said. None of us had noticed he had come back until he spoke. He was walking toward Billy and he said again, "You turn him loose."
"Hey, Cletus, take it easy. I ain't hurting him. I'm just holding him. I can't turn him loose."
"You got to turn him loose cause he's It and it's his time to chase me," Cletus said.
"Might as well," Amos said.
When Billy let him go the kid wheeled and kicked him in the leg and then ran to the car and came out with that Luger held in both hands and pointing straight at Billy. "Lay hands on me, will you? Well, get ready, you bastard, cause you gonna die!" And he began squeezing the trigger.
The man told it in his quiet southern mountain voice, a story that had been repeated many times with only minor variations, no less tragic for being outworn. His sister had followed the boy's father to Flint, Michigan, and been abandoned by him soon after the boy's birth. She had struggled along for years but now the boy had become more than she could handle and work, too. The man had gone to bring the boy back to live with his grandmother. On the way home an unexpected and probably unnecessary replacement of the car's exhaust system took just about every cent he had. They drove on until the gas gauge hit empty, then took the next exit. It was the boy who had suggested the holdup.
"Seems like a pretty drastic way out of your problem," Amos said.
"How would you have handled it in his shoes?" I asked.
"Well, I'd a-tried to borrow the money."
"I cannot imagine you, Amos, or any one the rest of you asking a perfect stranger for money. And even if he had asked, would you have loaned him a hundred dollars? Would you have, Otis?"
"Are you crazy?" Otis said.
"A hundred dollars is a lot of money," Billy said. "He didn't need that much." It was the first time he had spoken since that kid shot him point blank in the head. I guess he was recovering.
"Hit's still a ways to go," the man said.
"Take more than a tank of gas to get him there, wouldn't it?. Besides, he could have more car trouble," Amos said. I didn't know whether he had swung over to the man's side or was just arguing with Billy.
Ben, who had been studying it over, said, "I guess you could think of that hundred dollars as a forced loan instead of a robbery. He aimed to pay it back, or said he did." Ben had a kind heart. Everybody knew it.
"Soon as I could get home and scrape hit up," the man said.
"Well," I said, "that throws a different light on the matter entirely. The law considers robbery to be a felony, but makes no mention of a loan made under duress. A judge would need to rule on it, and my guess is he'd call it a misdemeanor, and if the loan was repaid, he'd probably turn him loose." I was putting a good face on the facts of course, but after all, I'm a lawyer. It's my job.
"But I can't afford to lend him no hundred dollars," Otis said.
"Could you afford twenty?" I asked.
"I guess I could manage that."
"Amos? Billy? Ben? Will each of you lend this man twenty dollars?"
One by one they agreed.
"And I will, too. Hand your money to Otis and that repays the forced loan and no harm done."
"What about that kid shooting me with that pistol?" Billy said.
"About the only harm that could have done is caused you to mess up you britches," Amos said. "That gun don't shoot."
"He didn't know that. He tried to kill me."
"You want to swear out a warrant on him for attempted murder?" I asked.
After somebody had taken the gun away from him, the kid had gone over and sat down beside Cletus, who had put his arm around him. Now he stood up, grinned at Cletus and slapped him on the shoulder. "Tag, yer hit!" he said and took off down the track.
Cletus took off after hum, going, "Huh, huh, huh."
"When you get him home," Billy told the man, "you better make sure you keep him on a short leash."
"Don't worry bout that. His Gran'maw will straighten him out," the man said with utter conviction.
