I was sixteen when my sister had been killed.  No one noticed but my life was in a crises.  But other than that and my sister being killed nothing had changed at home.  My stepfather was still about the same, if anything worse.  My mother?  She just wasn’t there for me.  The sheriff was always sure to stop me whenever he seen me on the street or pay me a visit from time to time whenever he thought I might have done something that might have happened in the county.  There didn’t seem to be any adult around who seemed to care as to what I did or didn’t do.  I had no friends my age or any other age.  I was having transitional problems and no one noticed and I didn’t understand why.
     Shortly after my sister's funeral school had started.  It had been over a year since I had graduated from the eighth grade so that fall I became a freshman.  That put me about two years behind in school.
     My math teacher was also my football coach.  I liked school but I was having trouble making friends.  At first I didn't understand.
     I wanted to go to church so I picked out a church close to home.  Each Sunday morning I would dress in my Sunday clothes and walk alone to the church I had selected.  Other than the church being four or five blocks from home there had been no other reason for me to have selected it as the church of my choice.
     In church I would always sit alone about halfway back.  Off to my right, a little bit more towards the front of the church, sat the choir.  I had always liked to listen to choir music so when the choir started to sing I would look that way and listened to them.  I noticed, as I looked first from one choir member to the next, a girl standing in about the middle of the front row.
     With the loss of my sister, there was a very large void that had to be filled.  Unknowingly, I desperately needed someone to fill that void.
     It had been the first Sunday morning I had attended church I had noticed Shirley Taylor singing in the choir.  I was later to find out she also was a freshman and attended many of the same classes I did.  My eyes were on Shirley throughout the services.  All I could think of, was I wanted to meet her.  Maybe take her to the "Candy Kitchen" and have a soda or take her to a movie.
     Over the next few weeks in school I tried hard to meet her.  But it seemed no matter what I did she would ignore me.  It had even been written up in the school newspaper how I was chasing after her.
     Finally, after several weeks she agreed to go on a hay-ride with me and several other kids.  The night of the hay-ride came but she didn't show up.  I didn't find out until the next day why.
     You see, her dad figured I had tried to steal his airplane.  That was when I learned who's airplane I had tried to fly that dark night a year before.  When I found that out I quit chasing after Shirley.  I knew there was no point in even trying, not with her dad against me.
     I guess that is why I was having trouble making friends with the other kids.  It seems everyone knew I had been in the reform school.  So that left me pretty much on my own in the evenings and on the weekends.
     There was one girl by the name of Bonnie Corbin who was after me.  Boy was she.  Looking back on it, it was probably because I had been in the training school.  She had more on her mind than just walk about town or sitting in the "Candy Kitchen."  She wanted to get married  in the worst way.  I was sixteen years old and I didn't have much thoughts about getting married, one way or the other.
     I liked Bonnie.  We spent a lot of time together at the "Candy Kitchen."  Maybe in time we would have gotten to the point where I would have married her but things just didn't work out that way.
     I don't know what she had in her mind for me that Saturday night she walked into the grocery store where I worked in the butcher shop.  She wanted me to take off work and go with her.  I had told her I couldn't do that.  She had gotten mad and stormed out of the market.  I think if I had gone with her that night, I would have been a sixteen year old father.  Maybe that wouldn't have been so bad, considering how things went from there.
     It wasn't long, less than two months, before I had dropped out of school.  I didn't know at sixteen I could legally do that.  One day I didn't go to school, no one said anything about it so the next day I didn't go either.
     Soon after leaving school I got a job in a combination bar and cafe as a short-order cook.  I worked there every night until early in the morning when the cafe closed.  This was the same bar and cafe my mother and stepfather hung out at.
     Working most of the night and sleeping during the day, I lost track of all the kids I knew.  The few that would have anything to do with me.
     Anytime there was a problem in the county and it was something the sheriff thought it was something I might have done, he was sure to pick me up and question me.  Before I had even dropped out of school he had me in jail at least once.
     One night while I was working in the cafe, a friend of my mother's had her purse stolen from her as she walked down the street.  The next day the sheriff came for me and put me in jail.  I was in jail overnight before my mother's friend came and told the sheriff it wasn't me that had stolen her purse.
     The last time he had me in jail had been shortly after the first of December, about a month after I had dropped out of school.  He had kept me there for three days.  It seems someone had broken into the airport west of town.  The same one I had tried to take the airplane from.
     Now the sheriff was sure that was something I would have done.  So he had put me in jail and sat about to prove it, seeing I denied doing it.
     The evening the airport had been broken into I happened to have been in the hotel lobby of the hotel that was across the street from the sheriff's office.  I had been watching "Craft Theater" on TV.  Several people there swore I had been there all evening watching TV.  One of them the clerk at the hotel.  If it hadn't been for them I probably would have been back in the training school before night fall.
     It had been a little chilly the night I had gone to the hotel to watch TV.  I had been wearing my state issued dress coat and over it I was wearing another jacket.  The outer jacket didn't cover the coat, about three or four inches of my dress coat hung out at the bottom of the jacket and that is what most of the people at the hotel noticed and remembered.
     I had arrived at the hotel a few minutes before the movie had started.  I sat down and watched about the first fifteen minutes of the movie then getting up as though to go to the bathroom I slipped out of the hotel unnoticed.
     It was dark when I had left the hotel.  I had ran past the sheriff's office, out past the cemetery, west on the abandon road and across the fields, following the same rout I had taken the year before.
     Arriving at the airport I went to the main building where I knew they kept money in the office overnight.  Standing at one of the office windows on the south side of the building, I took my pocket knife and using the leather punch I cracked the glass all around and then I removed the broken glass.  By doing it this way I knew I wouldn't make any noise.  I did learn something in the reform school.
     After all of the glass had been removed I crawled through the window.  Going behind the counter I found the cigar box the money was kept in.  Putting the money in my pocket (all small change) I opened the door and headed back towards town.
     There may have been thirty or forty dollars in my pocket and I was sure the sheriff would come looking for me the next morning.  The way I was looking at it, I figured it was a sure bet the sheriff would come looking for me the next morning.  With all of that money it would have been sort of hard to explain to the sheriff where I had gotten it so as I came to the cemetery I turned into it, ran east, up past my sister's grave, to a headstone that looked like a little lamb.  I took the money out of my pocket and wrapped it in my handkerchief then tipping the stone back I placed the money under it.
     Leaving the cemetery I took off running again.  I ran until I was almost at the hotel where I slowed to a walk.  Before going into the hotel I had looked through the front window of the lobby and seeing everyone watching TV with their backs to me I slipped back into the hotel through the front door.  Once in the hotel I sat down in back of everyone and a few minutes later I got up and went into the bathroom.  When I came out I sat down in front near the TV so everyone could see me.  I was able to watch the last ten or fifteen minutes of the movie.  I had ran fast, for I hadn't been gone much more than half an hour.  So I could pretty well figure out the part of the movie I had missed.
     Sure enough, the sheriff came for me the next morning and the first thing he had me do was to empty my pockets to see how much money I had on me.  He put me in jail, in the women's section again and seeing I wouldn't admit I had broken into the airport he set about to prove I had broken into it.  But all of the evidence he could come up with was in my favor.  There were just too many people in the hotel who swore I was there all evening watching TV and not out at the airport.
     It appears the sheriff knew about what time the airport had been broken into so I didn't have to account for all of the night.
     When I had broken into the airport I had felt it was fair game for I had gone to the training school for a year for what I felt was a minor offense.
     Today I know I shouldn't have gone into the airport but then it was a challenge for the money never meant that much to me.  I was scared when I had broken into the airport.  I didn't look on it as being exciting or that I had pulled a fast one on the sheriff.  There was nothing personal about it.
     It was one of two times I was ever to get away with something like that.  If it can be called "getting away."  I think in some way we always pay.  Sometimes when we do something and get away with it we go on and do other things that we shouldn’t.  But then what would they have done that would have helped me?  Nothing.
     I was sixteen years old at this time, emotionally I doubt if I was more than nine or ten years old.  When I had been let out of the training school I was more or less turned lose on the town, without any direction or supervision on anyone's part.  I wasn't outward going as far as talking about my problems or anything else.
     A sixteen year old boy should have been able to handle almost any problem he was faced with and that included staying out of trouble.  I thought I could, I guess everyone else did too.  I couldn't handle those problems, not logically, I had acted from my emotions not my head.  Without excusing myself, I was institutionalized.  The way I felt and rationalized things is almost unbelievable.  My answer to all of my problems was usually to run away.
     If someone had asked me when I was sixteen years old what it was I needed to straighten my life out so I could be happy and be able to live a life like any normal boy that age, I wouldn't have been able to tell them.  By then I had shut the doors to any normal interaction with other people.  But now, looking back on those days, I needed more than any normal sixteen year old boy would need.
     I needed to know someone loved me.  I needed to know someone at least cared about me and was interested in me.  I needed to have someone to spend some time with me, to do things with me, to make me feel I was important to others.  My life was completely out of control and there had been no one there.  Yes my answer to all of my problems was to run away.
     The same day the sheriff had let me out of jail I had decided to run away.  At that time, I was feeling very unwanted around Nevada.  The only one that seemed to want me was the sheriff and he wanted to send me back to the training school.  So when I had decided to run away from my home in Nevada I never thought about it, I had just "taken off."
     The hotel also served as the Greyhound bus station.  I didn't want to go to the bus station and buy a bus ticket with all of the money I had to some far off place.  I felt if I spent all of the money I had at the bus station there in Nevada the sheriff would find out and would pretty well figure out where I had gotten it.  Secondly, when he came looking for me, which I was sure he would, I didn't want him to know where I had gone.
     As soon as I could, after the sheriff had let me out of jail, I went to the cemetery and retrieved the money, then after a quick stop at home for a change of clothes and some other things I went to the bus station.  I bought a ticket to Des Moines about forty miles away.  I had timed it so I only had time to buy the ticket and get on the bus.  I didn't want to be waiting around after I had bought the ticket though it wasn't unusual for someone my age to buy a ticket to the state capital.
     At Des Moines I asked the ticket agent at the bus station to sell me a ticket as far west as the
money I had put on the counter would take me.  He counted out the money that laid on the counter before him and sold me a ticket to Salt Lake City, Utah, leaving me broke.  He must have known I was a runaway, for all of the money I had given him was in coins.  Also I had not asked for any particular destination, only "as far west as this money will take me."  When I had gotten to Salt Lake City, I got off of the bus and walked to the southern outskirts of the city where I started hitch-hiking.
     I had left my home in Nevada in the evening as it was getting dark.  The only food I had after I had left was some peanuts in Des Moines.  It had taken me two days to get to Salt Lake City and now I was hitch-hiking, to where?  I didn't know where I was going.  I guess to wherever the first car took me.  I had no idea what laid ahead of me.  I was broke and hungry and I didn't know where I would be able to get my next meal.     My first ride (My first ride ever from hitch-hiking.) took me south, into the northwest corner of Arizona where I was let out.  There was nothing there, only an empty highway that ran along the Virgin River.  A river that looked more like a creek to me.
     All I was wearing at that time was, blue jeans, T-shirt, briefs, a long sleeved shirt, a light jacket and my shoes and socks.  In a small overnight case was one change of clothes, a loaded 32 caliber revolver I had stolen from my stepfather's steamer trunk and a handful of bullets.  I didn't know anything about the west except for what I had seen in western movies.  I had this vision of wild animals and outlaws roaming everywhere.  Also I knew from past experiences there were men who would hurt me.  So the gun had made me feel a lot safer.  Maybe too safe.
     After standing by the side of the road for some time and no one came by I took the revolver out and shot a couple of times down into the river.  Not wanting to use all of my bullets I put the revolver back in the case and sat and waited for someone to stop and pick me up.
     I must not have been too good of a hitch-hiker for it was after two hours and several cars had  passed me by before I could get anyone to stop for me, then only after I had stood out in the middle of the highway waving my overnight case.  At that time I didn't know I was suppose to hold my thumb up to let people know I wanted a ride.  That had sounded sort of stupid, what else would I have been doing out there in the middle of nowhere?
     A sailor on the way to the Navy base in San Diego, California, had stopped and asked how far I was going.  I told him, "As far west as I can go."  He told he was going to San Diego and if I wanted to, I could ride all of the way with him.  He told me that was as far west I could go for the Pacific Ocean was beyond that.
     It was night time when we had gone through Las Vegas.  As we drove through town we drove past the "Golden Nugget Casino.”  (Then the highway ran through the downtown area of Las Vegas.)  We didn't stop at any of the casinos nor did we stop to rest or eat for the sailor had to be back at his base the next day.
     Arriving at the California state line we had to stop at a produce checking station.  I was worried as we pulled into the station for I didn't know what they were checking for.  There was a gun in my overnight case and I thought they would look through our things.  The sailor must have notice how nervous I was and I think he knew I was a runaway for he told me not to worry for it was only a fruit inspection station, they would only ask us if we had any fruit with us.  That they didn't allow any unchecked produce to enter the state.  Even then, I still couldn't believe they would just take our word that we didn't have any fruit and let us drive on without looking in our things.  I had been very tense until we had pulled away from the station.
     After leaving the inspection station we drove onto San Diego, arriving there near noon.  He had dropped me off somewhere on the south side of San Diego, out near the Naval Base.
     Even though it was early December and it was cold back home in Iowa, the weather there in San Diego was nice and warm.  I had walked around for a while but I didn't know where to go or what to do.  The only food I had eaten was a sandwich the sailor had given me.
     A lonely feeling came over me, for the first time in my life, I became homesick.  There didn't seem to be anyone in San Diego who cared about me.  I liked it there but I was homesick for Nevada, Iowa.  The only place I could call home.  I wanted to be with my mother.
     I had called my mother collect and she had wired me money.  Money for me to take the bus home.  But I didn't understand that was what I was suppose to do so as soon as I had received the money I had started hitch-hiking home.  Going east towards southern Arizona, rather than back through Nevada and Utah.  By three o'clock I was in Holtville, California, about forty miles west of Yuma, Arizona.
     Holtville was a small, hot, dusty town.  I had been dropped off on the west side of town.  Thinking I wouldn't be able to get a ride in town I started walking towards the east side of town. There wasn't much in the way of sidewalks so I walked in the dirt street.  There were some small stores and a gas station, where I had gotten a drink of water and a bus station which I hadn't noticed right away.  There were benches in front of most of the stores.
     As I was passing the bus station a man called to me from a bench sitting in front of the station.  Walking over to him, he asked, "Where are you heading boy?"
     I suppose he could see I was hitch-hiking for I was still carrying the overnight case.  "I'm hitch-hiking back to Iowa, Sir."  I replied, hoping he wasn't the police or something.  He was dressed in regular clothes, denim shirt and pants but in this dusty little town I didn't know how the marshal or the police dressed.
     He was in his late forties, two or three inches taller than I was.  His face was weather worn, as though he had done a lot of heavy outdoor work in his life.
     "How old are you?"  He had asked me, still remaining seated.
     "Sixteen, Sir."  Trying to sound older, knowing I looked younger.  I had thought maybe I should have added a year or two but his posture hadn't seemed threatening.
     "Do you know  there is a big desert up ahead of you?"  Now standing not more than two feet from me.
     I had replied, "No Sir."  I really didn't see what difference it made.
     "Well there is no water or anything else out there.  If someone drops you off out there, you're going to be in a lot of trouble."  He had warned me.  He had seemed concerned about my safety.
     He asked me, "Do you have any money?"  I had told him how much money I had and he said, "Give it to me and I will get you a bus ticket to Yuma, that is the first town on the other side of the desert."
     I didn't know how much a bus ticket cost and I really didn't want to spend the money but he was an adult and I felt he was only thinking what was best for me.  It never entered my mind, he would steal the money from me.  He was an adult and I trusted him.  So I handed him all of my money.
     As I waited outside he went into the bus station and in a few minutes he came back out.  He showed me two bus tickets and said, "I bought two tickets, one for each of us.  It's not safe for a boy your age to be traveling alone in this part of the country."  I felt grateful towards him, that he would be so considerate of my safety and I did enjoy having someone to talk with.
     When the bus came we got on it.  As we started across the desert he told me some of the history of the area, in the days when the west was wild.  He pointed out an old wooden road that every now and then was buried in the sand.  At one time it had been the road across the desert.  I was fascinated about some of the things he had told me.  About how at one time there had been camels there in the desert.  They had been used by the solders before the turn of the century.  I listened to him all of the way to Yuma.  It was like I was hanging on each word he said to me.
     It was only about forty miles to Yuma so I guess it only took us a little over an hour to get there but when we got there it was getting dark.  The man had kept all of my money after buying the bus tickets, explaining to me it was better he kept it until we got to Yuma.
     When we had gotten off of the bus in Yuma he said, "It's not a good idea for you to be hitch-hiking at night so I'll get you a hotel room so you can get some rest tonight."  I hadn't thought about where I was going to sleep that night.  I know I wouldn't have slept in a hotel room for fear they would call the police and report me for a runaway.  But with him getting me a room I thought it would be safe.
     He took me to the Lee Hotel, a hotel that was long past it's better days.  The lobby was small, the desk was to the left of the door as we walked in.  Yes, it had been sort of a rundown hotel.  When he registered for the hotel room he told the clerk I was his nephew.  I felt he had done that to protect me so the clerk wouldn't think I was a runaway.
    The clerk gave him a key and we went upstairs to a small room on the second floor.  It was a very small room, even for some hotel rooms I have since been in.  When the door opened into the room it almost hit the single size bed that was against the far wall.  The only other thing in the room was a chair at the foot of the bed.  The chair had sort of sat out in the room a little bit for there wasn't room for it between the end of the bed and the wall.
     He said, as he pulled the covers down, "Well let's get into bed we're going to be getting up early in the morning."
     All of my life I had been taking directions from adults and he was no different, I did as he told me without question.  After putting my case under the bed I slipped my shoes off and climbed into bed, sliding over to the wall on the far side of the bed.  But as I was turning to face the wall he told me, "Take your clothes off and hang them over the chair so they will air out and be fresh in the morning."
     Doing as he had told me, I got out of bed and took all of my clothes off except for my briefs then I got back in bed and faced the wall putting my left arm under my pillow and the other one up in front of my face to block the light from my eyes.
     He had turned the light off and climbed into bed with me.  He slid over against me putting his stomach against my back.  He had put his arm over me and his hand on my stomach, a few inches from the top of my briefs.  Then his hand began to move slowly down my stomach to the top of my briefs.  Until that moment, as he started to slip his fingers under the waist band of my briefs, I didn't have the least suspicion he was going to do anything like that.  Not until then did I realized what his intentions were.
     I lowered my arm down over his and I put my hand on the waist band of my briefs, just below his hand.  He worked to get his hand further down, trying to force his hand under mine.  All of the time, not saying a word.  I had pressed my hand against my stomach harder but it had only made him more excited and work harder to get his hand inside of my briefs.
     I knew what he was trying to do, it wasn't like it hadn't ever happened to me before but I was sacred of what he was doing.  As excited as he was getting I was afraid he was going to become violent.
     I couldn't yell for help, even if I thought someone would have helped me, for as far as I was concerned I was a runaway, the police would have taken me to jail.  From there, back to the training school in Iowa or possibly one in Arizona for I had ran away from home.
     When I had first gotten into bed I had put the overnight case under the bed, so when he was finally able to get his hand inside of my briefs, I rolled over onto my stomach and tried to reach the overnight case, open it and get the gun.  The case was too far on the other side of the bed and I couldn't reach it.  With me on my stomach and one arm reaching under the bed for the case he was able to tare my briefs off and force himself between my tightly closed legs.
     He had become violent when he had torn my briefs from me.  They now were laying somewhere on the floor, with the waist band and the crotch torn out of them.
     He had forcibly penetrated me, causing pain like I had never felt before.  His talk had become very vulgar.  He told me he knew I had lied to him about my age and I was really only thirteen.  I wanted to scream for help but I was afraid to for I knew that my quick return to a training school would soon follow any help I was given.  But even then, I am sure if anyone had been in the hallway they would have heard my cries as he had raped me.
     From the time we had gotten in bed to the time he had gotten back up and left was not much more than fifteen minutes.  Actual penetration probably lasted less than two, three minutes but it had seemed like an eternity.
     When he had gotten up and got dressed I laid there on my stomach as he had left me.  With my head laying on the bed (the pillow was somewhere on the floor) my face towards the wall, my arms beside my head, not moving, not crying, not having much feeling at all, except for the pain he had left me with.
     As he had turned towards the door he had told me he would be back later.  He had left me bleeding fairly bad so as soon as he was gone I had gotten up and cleaned myself with a towel the best I could, seeing there wasn't a sink in the room.
     After I had the bleeding stopped I got dressed and left the hotel.  By now it was dark out.  He still had some of my money and I felt he should give me what was left.  Looking down the street I could see only one place that had a light on so I headed there.  I had my jacket on and stuck under the waist band of my jeans was the gun.  I felt pain but I wasn't angry at him for what he had done to me, all I wanted was the rest of my money that he had.
     As I walked through the door of the saloon I seen several men sitting around a round table playing cards.  The man I was looking for was sitting on the far side of the table facing me.
     Walking in, I circled the table and standing at his left elbow I asked him for the rest of my money.  He said, "In a little while, but first I want to finish playing cards."  Then turning to the rest of the men he told them I was his nephew.
     He had spoken so normally, as though he hadn't done anything wrong to me.  There had been no remorse, no guilt.  He had acted so normal.  So sure of himself.  He knew I couldn't tell.  Yes he knew I was a runaway.
     I felt frustrated for I could see what he was doing.  I then realized what his intentions had been from the time he had first seen me walking down the street in that dusty little town.  I had even made it easy for him for I had money that would take us across the desert and to a hotel and money to pay for a room.
     That had been his intentions when he had bought two tickets and gotten on the bus with me.  His intentions when he had kept my money.   His intentions when he had taken me to the hotel.  He hadn't protected me when he lied and said I was his nephew.  He was protecting himself for he didn't want the clerk to think he had picked up a young boy and was taking him to a room to rape him.  He knew what he was going to do to me as he took me up to the room.  He hadn't wanted to sleep for he had left soon after he had raped me.
     Even at the age of sixteen, I didn't realize what he had done was illegal and immoral.  I wouldn't have told on him, not knowing what he had done was illegal.  Even if I had known I probably wouldn't have told for I would have been sent back to the training school.  I know I didn't want anyone to ever know what had happen to me.
     As I stood there I realized he had not been as considerate of me as I had thought.  He had planed on raping me when he had first laid eyes on me.  He had taken me for what I was, a young runaway boy who couldn't tell.   Not only had he hurt me physically and emotionally, he also had all of the money I had, it was winter time and it was a long ways home.
     I stood there watching him lose the rest of my money.  Tears were welling up in my eyes for I knew there was nothing I could do, even though I had a gun.
     The last thing I remember of that night was standing by the table, watching them play cards, with my hand on the handle of the gun under my jacket.  The next thing I remember I was in Oklahoma City, hitch-hiking a couple of days later.  I had crossed Arizona, New Mexico, a chunk of Texas and halfway across Oklahoma.  I was tired, hungry and without money.  I couldn't then, or since, remember leaving the saloon and traveling all of that distance.  I don't know what happened in the saloon that night but I want to believe, I just. . . .  walked away.
     Managing to get a ride all of the way to Omaha, I walked across the bridge to Council Bluffs, Iowa.  It was cold and it was getting dark.  Somewhere I had heard if you were a kid and you needed help to get a bus ticket to get home you could go to the Salvation Army and they would help you.
     Looking up the Salvation Army there in Council Bulls I asked them if they would help me by getting me a bus ticket to my home in Nevada, Iowa.  They had told me, "No" but they would give me a bowl of soup.  I declined their offer of soup even though I was hungry.
     I had been hurt as I turned and walked out the door into the darkness but as usual I wasn't angry.  It wasn't as though I felt they owed me anything, it was I felt I was desperately in need of their help and they had refused me.  Yes, the feeling I had was hurt for it had always been hard for me to handle rejection.
     That night as I walked out of the Salvation Army there were large snow flakes falling and I had walked in the snow to Missouri Valley, Iowa, about fifteen miles north of Council Bluffs.  I hadn't slept that night because of the cold and snow.
     The next morning, I was on U.S. Highway 30.  It had taken me several rides to get me home to Nevada.  When I had arrived home, there were no lectures, no where have you been?  Nothing.  It was like I hadn't been anywhere.  That was until my stepfather found the gun.
     I had been home about a week.  I had been through one of the most traumatizing periods of my life.  My stomach was still hurting from what had happened to me in Yuma.  I was afraid to go to a doctor for fear he would discover what had happened to me.  I was still trying to recover from the loss of my sister.  I had ran away to California and had become homesick, something that had never happened to me before.  I had come home and wanted to go back to school.  Even though I had feared the sheriff would pick me up the first time he saw me, I had come home and I had done it on my own, because I wanted to, not because someone had dragged me back.  Maybe that old saying, "He has learned his lesson" would have been appropriate for me at that time, maybe not, but I never had a chance to find out.
     All of the way back from Yuma I had carried the gun in my overnight case.  It no longer made me feel safe and until I got home and took it out of the case I never even looked at it.
     I had taken the gun out of my stepfather's steamer trunk  he kept in the garage but instead of  putting the gun back in the trunk I had hid it in the bottom drawer of their dresser, thinking I would
later take it and put it where I had found it.  But then in a day or two I had forgotten about it.
     Coming out of the bedroom my stepfather had the gun laying in the palm of his hand.  I don't think he realized the gun was loaded.  By the way he was holding it I could see bullets in it from where I was standing.  I was standing in the dining area and my mother was partially between us.
     My stepfather was mad.  He came out of the bedroom yelling at me.  The only way out for me was past him.  He was slightly shorter than I was but he had a few things going for him besides his weight.  He was an adult and I felt I was wrong for taking the gun, not that I would have done anything wrong with it but I had taken it without his permission.
     I don't know how my mother did it, not as mad as he was, but she stepped between us and told him not to touch me.  Oh he wanted to but she had backed him down.  That day, there could have been blood all over the place, all mine.
     He didn't touch me but the way he was waving the gun around made me very nervous.  I didn't say a thing in all of the time he had been yelling at me, I was too scared to.  My eyes had been fixed on the gun as he waved it back and forth, with me hoping his finger wouldn't touch the trigger.  I don't know how many bullets were in the gun but I could see two every time he had pointed it in my direction.

In The Pines MIDI By the courtesy of the MIDI Picking Harry Todd The best on the NET.

Chapter Thirty