Fourteen
T hey stopped, paralysed.
It was a trap.
Someone had blabbed.
Someone had been dazzled by those hundred dollars in gold - worth a herd - and had sold out.
Tommy felt his legs grow as heavy as lead and his stomach contract painfully, then he felt an irresistible urge to escape.
‘Run! Run! Run Tommy, don’t get caught!’ But he could never run faster than a gunshot. And where to? He neither had the strength, nor the will.
How many weeks had they been on the road?
Tommy thought about it.
He looked at Papa and Mamma and saw the same disbelieving bewilderment on their faces.
The white man at the door was big and fat, his face sunburned and his flaming hair a shade of incredible red. He wore enormous working man’s boots and faded blue overalls straining over his stomach.
He loo
