Across the Thin White Lines: Sundance Series

By Jim Green

I gulp so loud old Rolling Eye looks right at us. I know he hears my heart beating, and I think we're caught for sure. The bull snake continues his crawl out into the clearing and heads for the blankets of Fayo with his ratty old hat resting over his face. When the old hobo reaches to feel the movement, and discovers that it's a snake, he yells to the top of his lungs, his hat flying one way and the snake sailing another. It lands square in old Rolling Eye's lap, and he comes out of his cardboard bed like a shot from a Sherman tank. The snake hits Lalo in the back of the head, slinks around his neck, and total confusion is on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597051637

Book preview

Across The Thin While Lines

We go creeping through the thick brush and tall trees. The shade is cool and inviting.

Shhhh. Chris leads the way.

What, what is it? What do you see? I ask.

His eyes squint, and he shakes his head tight and fast, putting his finger to his mouth to tell me not even to whisper, but he isn’t looking up into the trees. Me and Donny listen, and sure enough, we hear voices.

I pull Chris by the arm, making the words with my mouth without uttering a sound: Let’s get out of here! But, no, that’s not Chris’s style.

Come on, he motions. He has to find out who’s there and what they’re doing. We sneak across a little clearing as quiet as any Indian stalking the wagon train. Pretty soon we’re crawling on our tummies just as John Wayne and Audie Murphy do on Saturdays at the movie house.

I know what Chris is doing. He’s pretending. He’s always pretending. He’s acting like he’s some army captain with his men sneaking up on the Japs someplace in the Pacific.

We listen.

There’s a considerable amount of cussing. Then all gets quiet. We part the weeds and, lo and behold, three makeshift beds with people, probably hobos, are lying around a small campfire. It really cheeses me off! This is our place, not theirs! Besides, it’s too hot to need a campfire, but I see an old black coffee pot sitting on a small grate over the flames.

About that time, one of the three passes gas loud enough to blow the hair off a dog. It’s as if the old boy’s eaten a whole bushel of pinto beans and bacon. The other two cuss and snort, saying some really foul things.

Donny gets to laughing under his breath. This sets off Chris, who’s trying not to laugh, but it’s no use. You know how it is when you get the tickles in church or school. The harder you try not to laugh, the funnier it gets. We all three commence to roll in the weeds with hilarity. Tears are coming to my eyes, but I can’t help it. In a few minutes, when we look up to see three ugly figures watching us, my belly-rolls immediately turn to stark fear. It’s mad dog Lalo, scarecrow Fayo, and old Rolling Eye standing there above us like vultures ready to feed.

Across The Thin White Lines

by

Jim Green

A Wings ePress, Inc.

Young Adult Novel

Wings ePress, Inc.

Edited by: Robbin Major

Copy Edited by: Leslie Hodges

Senior Editor: Robbin Major

Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

Cover Artist: Pat Casey

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright © 2007 by James A. Green

ISBN 978-1-59705—163-7

Published In the United States Of America

Wings ePress Inc.

3000 N. Rock Road

Newton, KS  67114

Dedication

This story is dedicated to Sue and Barb who lived it with me long ago.

Author’s Note

This story begins in 1948. Ten miles from Phoenix, Arizona, in the Salt River Valley, a small town is making an effort to recover from the throes of war. Phoenix, the state capital and largest city in the Valley of the Sun is still a cow town, but the surrounding agricultural land has become a desert oasis watered by the collection reservoirs in the mountains to the east. The small towns that surround the city are labor Meccas for the people who work in the produce, cotton, and feed products grown in abundance across the sparsely populated farmland.

World War II has seen its end with the surrender of the Japanese after the dropping of atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even though the final years of the war help to lessen the pain for many, racial prejudice and segregation remain a big part of the American culture.

In this small Southwestern town in the heart of the Arizona desert, the citizens must come to grips with their relationships. Educational institutions are segregated—the school for whites is on one side of town; the one for Mexican-Americans is on the other. The town is also geographically and socially divided. A group of Mexican-American citizens decide to sue in federal courts for integrated schools. They are successful.

Across the Thin White Lines is a serious subject told through the eyes of Shortstack Johnson, a seventh grader who attends the white school but counts a Mexican-American as his best friend. It is also a humorous celebration of youth in small-town America.

One

The Deal—

"Y o, Shortstack? Que Pasa ?" Chuey Flores calls to me from down the street as I walk toward the main drag of town. Shortstack, you see, that’s me—Shortstack Johnson. My uncle tagged me with that name before I could walk, and, boy, am I glad. My mom and dad named me Ennis Henegar after both my grandpas. I’ve had a dozen fights in my life just because of a stupid name. At school the teachers call me E. H., but to everybody else, I’m just Shortstack.

"Amigo, what you gonna do with that silver dollar you found on your school ground?"

Chuey’s my best friend in the world, although we go to different schools. All the white kids go to Unit One on the north side of town. All the Mexican-Americans go to Unit Two on the south. His folks live in one of those adobe houses in Mexican Town, and they work in the fields picking onions and lettuce and melons, stuff like that. Chuey’s dad goes from here around Phoenix to California to Texas and back again, following the crops. That’s the way the whole family survives—the old man picking fruit and vegetables all year round. Man, that’s got to be a drag.

I’m eleven—be twelve in the summer. When I turn thirteen, that’s when I’ve got to pay my dues. You can’t be cool in our town unless you go through the flume after your thirteenth birthday.

The flume is this tunnel across the dry river bed where the canal water flows to the other side. It’s a long, dark, and scary pipe, nearly a football field in length. That’s just looking from the outside. They say, as you go through, if you don’t catch your breath at the right times when the water sloshes, you’re gonna die. Sometimes you might have to hold your breath the entire way. It’s the most dangerous thing in the whole world. Still, you’re treated worse than a smelly old pair of gym socks if you don’t do it. I’m not saying I’m scared, but sometimes at night I wake up in a cold sweat dreaming about it. I wouldn’t tell a soul, though. I’d be laughed out of town.

I know I’ve got to do it. I’m really worrying about it because Randy Bakersville drowned last year trying it, and over the years several other kids have nearly drowned. The chief says it’s got to stop, but Chuey’s done it, and Jimmy Bradstreet did it during the early summer. All the guys I know who are thirteen have taken the challenge. I won’t be a sissy; I know that. Still, I’ve got the rest of this year, the summer, and another year to get ready. I’ll be older, and I know I can do it.

Anyway, I find this silver dollar on the playground right after school starts in September. Only it’s not silver. Been there a long time, I figure. I take it to the office like I’m supposed to, and old man Snyder, our principal, makes me wait a month to get it back. He says it probably belongs to some poor kid, and we have to see if somebody claims it. I swear, the old boy drives me nuts. His face is red as a strawberry soda, and while I’m sitting there talking to him, he’s digging in his ear, wiping earwax on a crumbled up napkin. You’d think he would have a little respect, but I guess to him kids are just nobodies.

Well, I check every day. Finally, I figure he gets tired of me and gives in. I know he’s hoping I forget so he can pocket it himself—the old wino.

Chuey walks up carrying a medium sized brown paper bag and one of those military fold-up little shovels the soldiers use, you know, to dig their foxholes.

The silver dollar Snyder gave you today... let me see it; you still got it, don’t you? He shakes his head with his eyebrows raised like I’m supposed to make him a part of something.

His coal black hair stands straight up on top. Little black eyes don’t miss a thing.

How’d you know? Who told you? I ask him.

"Hey, pendejo, the whole town knows you got it. Becky Sue Brown works in your principal’s office, you know, and her best friend is Jenny Noriega. That means the entire population, at least all the grammar schools kids on both sides of town, know everything that happens when them two talk."

Oh, yeah, that’s for sure, I comment.

Well? he persists.

Well, what?

"The dollar, ese, the silver buck? Where is it?"

What you wanta know for? I challenge.

I heard you was gonna buy a Duncan yo-yo, one of them maple woods with the row of diamonds on each side. Let me tell you, a dollar won’t get one, but I can help you. Chuey is a couple years older than I am, but I’m lots heaver. He’s got a really long face, and he needs a haircut all the time. He’s short with long arms and looks something like a little monkey; in fact, his nickname is Changito, but I don’t usually call him that because he’s my friend.

I don’t need any help. I can buy my own yo-yo at the variety store, I say.

Yeah, but can you get one like Dennis Conner’s got?

You mean that one he got hit in the head with at school?

Yeah, that one. We all heard about it when the yo-yo guy came over to our school. Can you get one of them for a dollar?

I stand there thinking about what happened at school the Friday before. Old man Snyder or someone brings the World’s Champion yo-yo guy for a fall assembly, and while he’s doing his tricks and stuff, the string breaks; the yo-yo goes sailing out through the auditorium and pops Dennis Conner thud right in the forehead. He falls out of his seat like he’s been shot with an M-1 carbine. Well, the nurse and a gaggle of teachers rush to him stretching him out in the aisle while all the kids laugh. The yo-yo guy continues with his yo-yoing, and, oh, yeah, Dennis pees his pants while the show goes on.

Then the yo-yo guy calls old Dennis to the stage, knot on his head and all, and wet pants down the front. I suppose he feels much better when the man gives him his prize Duncan diamond studded twister. Dennis looks funny with the red knot sticking out like a third eye, but it’s a cheap price to pay. The yo-yo guy’s gift is one of those four or five dollar wheels with fancy diamonds, special colors, and the yo-yo guy’s name autographed on it.

All the kids would have gladly taken the whack to the forehead for that baby, but, no, it couldn’t be me. It had to be somebody else, somebody like the goof, Dennis Connor.

"Well, can you get one of those, ese?" repeats Chuey, his words bringing me back to reality.

What, oh, no, you know I don’t have that much money, but, boy, would I love to have been Dennis; wouldn’t you?

I wasn’t there, remember, but I heard the goof peed his pants. Besides, Unit One always gets first choice of everything, and he makes it a point to let me know how he feels.

Chuey holds up his shovel and paper bag, "I don’t need to be the goof, though, to get that diamond studded yo-yo. I’m gonna trade for it. Then I’ll sell it to you for your silver dollar. Deal, amigo?"

Now I’ve seen Chuey at work, and he’s a really cool operator. I think he could talk Lamont Cranston out of his shadow.

"Yeah, I’ll give you fifty-cents for it." I say to him as we head up the street toward the businesses on the main drag.

Won’t work. Gotta have a dollar or no deal, buddy.

I don’t think too long because a yo-yo