The card game broke up before Dally even got off the phone. They were all laughing and yelling... something about Will cheating. Dally rubbed his forehead and leaned against the kitchen table. "Hey!" Johnny yelped coming into the kitchen and seeing that Dally had hung up the phone. "How come nobody wanted to talk to me?" Dally looked at him with tired amusement. "How do you know it was somebody that would want to talk to you?" Johnny rolled his eyes. "Well, who else would it be?" "College recruiters. They found out I was here and they really want me at their school." Johnny almost doubled over laughing. "Yeah, right!" He turned to Tom. "Hey, I'm gonna walk Caroline home, ok? I'll probably stop in and say 'hi' to her folks too." "All right, be home by 11. Good night, Caroline." Tom waved as he came back into the kitchen. "See ya, Dal." Johnny called. "It was nice to meet you," Caroline said quietly, giving Dally a small wave. Dally nodded to her. He watched the two kids heading for the door. He knew he should have been in the other room ribbing Johnny, trying to follow them out the door, tag along, just to be annoying. For crying out loud, Dally thought. Say 'hi' to her folks? He was already buddying up to the girls parents? Had Dally's head not been swimming with other thoughts, he might have had a lot of fun with that. He could see Johnny through the window as he left. He was so... different. So full of life now. It would be ok to leave him here. He would be all right, Dally decided. Part of him was relieved to realize this, but part of him just felt empty again, like when Johnny had left Tulsa weeks ago. "So what's the word, Dallas?" Tom asked. Dally looked up tiredly. "Huh? Oh, uh... I'm gonna be takin' off early. The train leaves at 5 a.m." Dally had intended to walk and just hop the train, same way he'd arrived. But without batting an eye, Tom just nodded and said, "OK, I'll be ready." "What?" "I'll be ready," Tom repeated. "You know, to drive you to the train station." "Good night, everybody!" Will yelled from the other room. "'Night Will!" Tom replied, glancing over his shoulder. Then he turned back to Dally. Dally was looking at him in surprise. "Uh.. you don't have to. I was gonna walk." Tom laughed. "Dallas, it's almost ten miles away! You're not walking." he stepped closer to him and put a hand on Dally's shoulder. Dally tensed slightly, but didn't pull back. "And you're not going to be a stow away, either." Dally put on his 'who's gonna stop me' face and narrowed his eyes. "I ain't got the cash." Then a thought crossed his mind. "And I don't need your charity!" Tom just shook his head. "You worked almost a 40 hour week in the stables. It's not charity, kid. I think you've earned a ticket home. Have you ever ridden on a train? The legal way?" "No." "Well, you're in for a real treat! Now, you better get on upstairs and get some sleep. We got an early start tomorrow!" Dally hid his amazement and watched Tom leave the room. Then he headed upstairs himself. He sat down on the edge of his bed. I'll just pack up and leave, he thought. Let him try to buy me a ticket... givin' me charity... But then, he had put in a lot of hours at the stables. And part of him was really curious about riding the train- the legal way. He laid back on the bed. Then he began to think...Maybe if he had to ride to the train station with Tom, he could get some answers about the family history. He could find out about Emily and Christopher and learn about this first husband of Gandma Cade. There was something strange about all of it. Something was still eating at him... putting up red flags in the back of his mind. He stopped himself for a moment. I should be worryin' about Ponyboy right now, he thought. Stupid kid...But what could he do from here? No, worrying about Ponyboy was not going to be productive. He only had a few hours left here and there was something strange going on. He needed to find out what before he had to leave. Dally sat up then, his interest in the Cade family history renewed. He stared at all the photo albums on the bookshelves. He knew that at least some of the answers to his questions could be found in the pages of those books. There was something in one of them that had seemed odd to him. Something Johnny had shown him or told him the night they'd looked throgh the albums. But he'd been so tired that night, and then the thunderstorm... it was like pieces of a puzzle had fallen into his mind, but he'd been too groggy to put them together. And now he wanted to try again. He stood up and walked over to the shelf and pulled down some of the albums. He found the picture of the little boy that looked somewhat like Johnny. There had to be something else. More pictures, something! He was going to figure out who this kid was. He fumbled around on the book shelf, looking a little more carefully, nosing around a little further than would be considered polite in someone else's house. Tucked behind some smaller books on the very bottom shelf, he found something. An old newspaper was wedged tightly between the shelf and the wall as though it had slipped down from another shelf. Dally pulled it out carefully and looked through it. On the second page, an image caught his eye. There was the boy again, next to a headline that read "Child Drowns in River". A shudder went up Dally's spine. He read a little of the article. Enough to catch a phrase indicating that the death had been "suspicious". And enough to find out that the child, had he lived, would have been the older brother of Johnny Cade.