The Gangster

would have telegraphed that an engine was running “wild,” was asleep in his bed.
Andy begged permission to blow the whistle. Bell vetoed it. Screaming like banshees was not in the interest of crossing Connecticut as stealthily as a ghost.
His luck held as 106 highballed past small-town stations at Cheshire, Plantsville, and Southington—all three lights-out and fast asleep. But the next station was Plainville. Boldface print in the timetable indicated it was a big depot, and, indeed, as 106 rounded a curve into the town, Bell saw the station house and platform ablaze in light.
Trainmen were on the platform, and he feared there would be workmen on the tracks. He reached for the air brakes. Then he saw that the signal post showed a clear white light—the proceed signal, according to the Locomotive Catechism.
“Pull the whistle, Andy.”
Andy yanked the cord looped from the roof of the cab. Steam coursed through the whistle with a deafening shriek. Men on the platform jumped back and watched, slack-jawed, as 106 tore into and out of Plainville at sixty miles an hour.
Bell raised his voice so all could hear above the roar.
“The jig is up.”
The boys groaned. “What are we going to do, Isaac?”
“We’ll turn off into the Farmington yards and head for Miss Porter’s cross-country.”
Bell showed them the way on his map. Then he handed out train tickets, one-ways from Plainville to New Haven. “Head back to school in the morning.”
“Lights ahead!” called Andy, who was watching from the window. Bell eased back on the throttle, the speeding locomotive lost way, and he braked it to a smooth stop.
“Doug, there’s your switch. On the jump, they know we’re coming. Andy, douse our lights.”
Andy extinguished the headlamp, and Doug ran to the switch and shunted them into the yard, which stretched toward the lights of Farmington. Quiet descended, the silence eerie after the thunder of the pistons.
“Wait,” Bell whispered. He had heard the rustle of boots on gravel. Now he sensed motion in the starlight.
“Someone’s coming!” Ron and Larry chorused.
“Wait,” Bell repeated, listening hard. “He’s going the other way.” He glimpsed a figure running away from the locomotive. “Only some poor hobo.”
“Cops!” A lantern was bobbing toward them.
Bell saw a single cop stumbling through a pool of lamplight. A nightshirt was half tucked into his trousers, and he was struggling to tug his suspenders over his shoulders while he ran. “Stop! Halt!”
A figure ran through the same pool of light where Bell had seen the rail cop.
The bobbing lantern veered in pursuit.
“He’s chasing the hobo.”
“Run, guys, now’s our chance.”
The boys bolted for the dark. Bell looked back. The hobo had an odd running gait. His right foot flew out with each step at a sideways angle, reminding Bell of how a trotting horse with a flawed gait would “wing.”
A second watchman ran from the station house, blowing a whistle, and charged after Bell’s classmates. With a sinking heart, Bell knew that it was his fault they were here. He ran after them as fast as he could, got between them and the watchman, and when the watchman saw him, bolted in the opposite direction. The trick worked. The cop galloped after him, and the rest of the boys disappeared toward the town.
Bell headed toward a cluster of freight houses and coal pockets, timing his pace to gradually pull ahead, veered through the buildings, and used them for cover to sprint into a clump of trees. There, he hid and waited. This early in spring, branches hadn’t yet leafed out and the stars penetrated so brightly they gleamed on his hands. He dropped the satchel at his feet, pulled his collar around his face, and hid his hands in his pockets.
He heard footsteps. Then labored breathing. The hobo limped into the trees. He saw Bell, plunged a hand into his coat, and whipped out a knife in a blur of starlight on steel. Run? thought Bell. Not and turn his back on the knife. He grabbed the heavy satchel to block the knife and formed a fist.
Ten feet apart, the two eyed each other silently. The hobo’s face was dark, barely visible under the brim of his cap. His eyes glittered like a hunted animal’s. His arms and legs and entire body were coiled to spring. Isaac Bell grew aware of his own body; every muscle was cocked.
The watchmen blew their whistles. They had teamed up, far in the distance, hunting in the wrong direction. The hobo was breathing hard, eyes flickering between him and the whistles.
Bell lowered the satchel and opened his fist. The instinct was correct. The hobo returned the knife to his coat and sagged against a tree.
Bell whispered, “Me first.”
He slipped silently from the trees.
When he looked back at the rail yard from the shelter of a farm wall, he saw a shadow pass under a light. The hobo was wing-footing the other way.
Doubting Thomas had called it wrong.
When Bell’s classmates tossed pebbles at the Old Girls’ house on Main Street, the girls flung open their windows and leaned out, whispering and giggling. Who are you boys? Where did you come from? How did you get here in the middle of the night?
They had decided, while stumbling across the countryside, that it would be best for everyone’s future not to admit that they had stolen a train. They stuck to a story that they had chartered a special, and Miss Porter’s girls seemed impressed. “Just to see us?”
“Worth every penny,” chorused Larry and Doug.
Suddenly, from around the corner, a pretty blond girl appeared on the grass in a flowing white robe.
“You boys better run. The housemother telephoned Miller.”
“Who’s Miller?”
“The constable.”
The Yale men scattered, all but Isaac Bell, who stepped into a shaft of light and swept off his hat. “Good evening, Mary Clark. I’m awfully glad to see you again.”
“Isaac!”
They had met last month at a chaperoned tea.
“What are you doing here?”
“You are even blonder and more beautiful than I remember.”
“Here comes Miller. Run, you idiot!”
Isaac Bell bowed over her