The soldiers on the back of the slow-moving halftrack raised their guns. The crowd gasped, as if they hadn’t known this was the way it was, and the Walkers gasped, as if they hadn’t known, and Garraty gasped with them, but of course he had known, of course they had all known, it was very simple, Curley was going to get his ticket. The safeties clicked off. Boys scattered from around Curley like quail. He was suddenly alone on the sunwashed road.
