STAND BY ME: Chapter 11
Chapter 11
THE LONG WALK AND TROUBLE ON THE WAY
We keep walking. We think we are getting close. But we are not as close as we think. We want to reach the place where the Back Harlow Road meets the tracks. We know the Royal River is near there. We think it is only twenty kilometers away. But that distance is measured in a straight line.
But the railway tracks curve a long way around some hills called The Bluffs. We didn’t look at a map before our adventure. So we didn’t know that the distance following the tracks was closer to thirty-five kilometers. And there is no other trail to follow.
Chris starts to worry. It is past noon and we have still not arrived at the Royal River. We stop. Chris climbs a tall tree and looks around. When he comes down, his face is serious. “It’s still far,” he says. “We’ll get there at around four o’clock if we walk fast.” “Jesus!” Teddy says. “What do we do now?”
We look at each other. We are tired. We are hungry. The adventure does not feel fun anymore. It feels more like hard work. We are dirty. And we are sometimes afraid. By now, our parents might be looking for us. Maybe even the police are looking for us.
We planned to hitchhike home, to ask someone to drive us back to town. But it would be late by then. No one will stop for four boys on a scary back road after dark. Chris finally speaks. “It’s still closer if we keep walking,” he says. “Let’s go.” He starts walking slowly. Head down. A few moments later, we start to follow him. One by one.
Sometimes I think about that day. I wonder why we decided to walk from Castle Rock to Harlow on the tracks. I imagine a conversation between the four of us. Maybe it was something like this:
“We can hitchhike,” I say. “It’s faster. It’ll only take a few hours to get there.” “That’s too easy, man” Teddy says. “Don’t be such a pussy, Gordie” Vern says. “It’ll be cool to walk along the tracks.” Chris only smiles. So we don’t take the shorter way, the easier way. We choose the harder way. Maybe that matters in some way. Maybe the effects of things grow bigger with time. Who knows?
If we hadn’t walked along the tracks, maybe Chris and Teddy and Vern would still be alive today. No one dies in this story, except some leeches and Ray Brower. And he was dead before the story started. But it’s true: I lost the coin toss at the dump. And I’m the only one who is still alive. I am thirty-four.
Maybe we understood something back then. Maybe we felt it, even if we didn’t say it. Seeing a dead body was a big thing. Something important. Significant. As big as sleeping with a girl for the first time.
And the big things in life should not be easy. They should feel hard. They should feel serious. So if walking is harder than we thought, then walking is the right thing to do. All the things that happened on our adventure make it a big thing. So we walk.
But there’s something we don’t know as we walk along the tracks. Billy Tessio, Charlie Hogan, Jack Mudgett, Norman “Fuzzy” Brackowicz, Vince Desjardins, Chris’s older brother Eyball and Ace Merril, their leader, are looking for the body too.
They are getting into Ace’s car and Vince’s car at the same time we start the last part of our trip. Billy and Charlie could not keep their secret. Charlie told Ace and Billy told Jack Mudgett. And by noon, the whole gang knew.
Fuzzy said they could become “heroes” if they found the body. They could lie to the police and say they were fishing in the Royal River, but they found the body by chance. They are driving fast down the road from Castle Rock to Harlow. And we are finally getting close.
