Free Stop This Man! by Peter Rabe

stop kicking at it, hear?” Catell’s voice shook with rage and he suddenly felt cold under his wet shirt. That bastard was getting to him.
    “How about pullin’ that heap off the pavement some more, city feller? We got an ordinance about highway parking.”
    Catell got behind the wheel and kicked at the starter. The gears crashed and the car jumped ahead a few feet, off the paved strip of highway. That bastard, that lousy hick bastard. Catell took a deep breath. What he could do to that raw-necked, rat-faced—Better not think like this. Better think of the big things at stake here, better look like you’re taking it. Got to take it.
    “One more thing, city feller. Don’t park where you’re parkin’ there. We got an ordinance.” He laughed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He jumped back in his car and pulled it up even with Catell’s.
    “I’ll be by after a spell. Better not be here no more.” He shot away, the wheels spitting gravel at Catell’s windshield.
    After a few minutes Catell got out of the car again and slammed the hood shut. It made a nasty sound and somethingcame loose, leaving the hood jammed at an angle. The damn car was corning apart at the seams. First he’d had a pretty good one, but it had Michigan license plates and the car had to be ditched. He hid it in a ravine somewhere in Indiana and buried the license plates. Then he hitchhiked for a hundred miles. Next he bought a prewar job in southern Indiana and drove it as far as Kentucky. That’s where he drove it into an abandoned mine after throwing away the plates. At night he walked to the nearest town, took a train for two hundred miles, and then bought the third car. He drove it to Terryville, Louisiana, left it in a vacant lot, and bought his last car. This was a real junker, but there wasn’t much choice. Selma’s two thousand was almost gone.
    Catell started the car and headed it back on the hot pavement. There better be a town close by. The radiator was almost empty and there probably wasn’t much oil left. The old car gathered speed, whining down the white road and shooting thick black clouds out the tailpipe.
    A sign flipped by, saying: “You are entering—” and it was gone. After a bend in the road a tree appeared, two trees; then Catell saw the houses. They were gray clapboard and looked old. Some were adobe. The only new-looking place was the filling station, rigged up like a fort, and Catell breathed easier.
    When he pulled up to the pumps he heard the gravel crunch on the right. A car stopped sharply and the voice said, “City feller, don’t they got not ordinance about speeding where you come from?”
    The sheriff got out of his car and grinned, crackly lips drawn back over his gums.
    “Get out,” he said.
    “What in hell do you want now?”
    “Don’t get porky, stranger. I’m the law around here and you just broke one of our ordinances.”
    “What goddamn ordinance?”
    “The one about speedin’. You gonna pay up or you gonna spend some time in our jail?”
    “How much will you take, officer? ”
    “Seeing it’s you, city feller, that’ll be seventy dollars.”
    “Why, you stinking sonofabitch!” Catell jumped out of his car. His door hit the gas pump and slammed back into his chest. Before he could get free, the sheriff had come around the car, swinging a sap that came down hard and caught Catell on the shoulder. But the sheriff was slow; too slow for Catell, anyway. Twisting his injured shoulder back, Catell lashed out with one foot and caught the tall man in the groin. Before he had time to double over and groan, Catell’s hand caught the back of his neck and jerked it down, and a knee smashed up into the sheriff’s face. Then a sharp kick into the chest and the half-conscious man flew back, crashing hard into a pump. There wasn’t any time for Catell to enjoy the sight because a sharp blow from behind made him buckle and pitch, and then all turned black.
    “I guess they both ain’t gonna be much