He was startled to find the street nearly empty and the sun much closer to the horizon. He controlled a growing panic only by telling himself that Charlie and the men had undoubtedly tired of waiting for him and had moved on to wherever the fireworks were being sold. He hurried down the street in the direction they had been traveling. After a few yards he began to run, but quickly reached the limits of the small town without seeing any sign of Charlie and the men.
Out of breath, he walked a little farther, feeling by turns angry and betrayed, then frightened for his brother, then worried and very alone. In this tumult of emotion his active imagination conjured up a variety of explanations for his situation:
– They had grown tired of waiting for him, bought the firecrackers and were now journeying back to Jefferson Road. (A vision that left him wondering why they hadn’t called to him, or fetched him from the store.)
– Charlie had become ill, and the men had rushed him to a doctor’s office. (Which led to a fruitless search among the few buildings of the small town.)
– The men had taken a different road back into town, had called at the store and learned that Andrew had already left, and were at this moment on the way home. (That this situation was his own fault, he was too ready to believe.)
– Charlie, angry over the gift of the quarter, had urged the men to trick Andrew, and they were at this moment laughing as they drank cool glasses of lemonade in the shade of the old oak. (Too unlike Charlie.)
Andrew, although cosseted and sheltered, was not a stupid child, and one last possibility took hold of his young mind. Perhaps the men had tricked both boys, and for reasons Andrew could not fathom, had stolen Charlie.
He felt hot tears fill his eyes, but dashed them away quickly. He wanted no harm to come to his brother, but he did not know what to do next. The thought of returning home without Charlie was unbearable.
He began to ask the few people he met on the street if they had seen Charlie or the men. Invariably, they had not. To his surprise, they were rude and brusque in their answers. These were hard people, he thought, nothing like the folk who surrounded him at home. The town and its few inhabitants suddenly seemed mean and low to him. He went back to the one place where he had been treated with courtesy.
The shopkeeper was less friendly this time, but politely told him that he knew nothing of anyone named Phil or Jack, had not seen a five-year-old boy named Charlie. When asked if he knew where firecrackers were sold, he proclaimed one could find them locally only in Andrew’s hometown.
“Would you please take me there?” the boy asked.
“Take you there? I suppose I’m to close my shop and hire a rig?”
“My father would be willing to…” He stopped before saying “pay you,” because the phrase made him realize why the men might have stolen Charlie. His father would pay for Charlie’s return-but Andrew, much cast down, certain he would be blamed for all that had gone wrong, wasn’t sure his father would want his willful eldest son back at all.
“I’m sure your father would be willing to take you wherever you like,” the store owner was saying, “but I can’t leave my place of business.”
“Please, sir, how far am I from Jefferson Road?”
“By the main road? About ten miles. Of course, as the crow flies, it’s only about three.”
“Which way does the crow fly?”
The man laughed. “Oh, westward over the oil fields, I suppose.”
Andrew brightened a little at this. His father had taken him to the oil fields twice, most recently just two days ago. The oilmen knew his father. He might see someone there who would help him return home.
He thanked the proprietor and began walking toward the forest of wooden derricks he had seen on the way into town. When he reached them, he again became frightened. Although the paths between the derricks had the same sharp fragrance of oil-soaked wood and earth, there was no sign of the bustling activity he had seen at the other oil field, the one he had traveled to with his father. Here equipment was still and rusty with disuse, the drilling platforms damaged and empty. The wooden buildings attached to the derricks, which he knew to be called doghouses, were rickety and missing boards. Even the small offices and equipment shacks appeared to be abandoned. He remembered his father talking of wells that were dry, and wondered if this was an oil field full of such wells.
He told himself that he would sooner or later find other people, and walked toward the sun. Close up, the distance between the wells was greater, and the derricks seemed much taller. They loomed over him, silent giants which began to look identical.
His feet started to ache, and then to throb and burn, but still he walked toward the sun. That the distance he must travel to reach his home was nearly double the shopkeeper’s estimate would not have mattered to him. He was thirsty and tired, but he continued to place one foot before the other, the sound of his steps a counterpoint to his troubled thoughts. He walked over hills whose shade was welcomed but confusing to his sense of direction. Coming to one rise, he at last saw the more familiar sight of an active field. He could not run, but began to shout for help as he drew closer and closer. One of the men who was climbing high on a distant derrick noticed him and pointed. Soon, two men rode horses to where he stood, swaying on his feet, exhausted more by his emotions than his exertions.
“Why, it’s the Masters boy!” one of the men shouted, leaping down from his horse.
“Charlie,” Andrew said, beginning to cry. “They stole Charlie.”
At first, his parents rejoiced in his return. They had spent several hours alarmed by the discovery that their children were not playing under the tree and could not be located anywhere on the large property. They could not know that by the time the attic and stables had been searched, Jack had already given Andrew his quarter.
They wept over Andrew when the oil field boss brought him home, and had not remonstrated against him. But quickly their alarm returned; their fears for Charlie were expressed in recriminations hurled at his older brother, who should have known better than to get into a strange conveyance, who should have known better than to leave his brother for a quarter.
“Two bits!” Papa shouted. “Even Judas held out for forty pieces of silver!”
His mother intervened then, and separated them by taking Andrew to his room. But soon there were police to be answered, and not much later the detectives from Pinkerton’s, and over time, endless others.
Tough men, large men, ill-mannered men, always badgering him for descriptions and repetition of details, making unpleasant suggestions as to how it might have truly happened that Andrew was spared. Under this assault, details became confused in Andrew’s mind, memories shifted, and to his father’s fury, he could not name the town-or be certain of the roads, or how far he had traveled. Eventually the store he had visited was located, but as Andrew could have told anyone who might have listened, no one in that town had noticed Charlie and the two men.
A ransom note, postmarked from Pittsburgh, arrived three torturous days later. The letter, filled with misspellings, was eventually deciphered to be a demand for twenty thousand dollars, details of payment to be forthcoming. Papa declared himself ready to pay.
By now, newspapers were publishing stories of “Little Charlie Masters,” whose brother had abandoned him to kidnappers. This was, of course, not at all what the papers intended to convey, but it was how every story appeared to Andrew.