I almost made it home before Mr. Dodson found me. He was coming down the beach road from Miss Lil’s and he spotted me coming up it. The horse he was riding was as black as his suit. He stood tall in the stirrups when he saw me.
“You. Don’t move.”
I turned and ran. I heard him slap the horse and start after me.
“Stop, boy. You hear me?”
The horse’s hooves went whuff-whuff as they churned through sand. He was closing in on me. I didn’t know if he had a gun but if I stayed on the road, he’d be on me in no time. I turned off the beach and slogged up toward the dunes. A lot of sand stretched between me and a row of scrub pines, and I wasn’t going to make it. People walking on the beach road had stopped to watch, but none of them came over to help me.
Something hard smacked my ear and made
