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“Stick ’em up!” Floyd said.

Fultz tried to pass himself off as a worker on his way to the brickyard. “I won’t stick ’em up,” Fultz said.

“I said put ’em up,” Floyd said.

“I won’t put ’em up,” Fultz said. “I’m going down to the brickyard and I don’t see why I should put my hands up.”

Fultz took a step forward. “Don’t come another inch, fellow, or I will pump you,” Floyd said.

“You wouldn’t shoot a working man,” Fultz said. Floyd stepped forward and stuck his pistol into the chief’s stomach. Fultz brazenly pushed past him, followed by Lon Israel and the two deputies. Floyd let them walk by, then descended the path after them, his gun still aimed at Fultz. “Now don’t run or I will shoot you,” he said.

“There’s nobody going to run,” Fultz said.

They descended another hundred feet down the dirt path. They bickered all the way to the point where Fultz came upon Richetti, still lying on his blanket. “Hello, buddy, how are you?” Fultz asked. “You seem to be taking it pretty easy.”

“Yeah,” Richetti said.

Floyd had had enough. “Don’t let him kid you,” Floyd said. “Shoot him! He’s an officer!”

Richetti dutifully produced his .45, aimed at Fultz, and pulled the trigger. The gun misfired. Fultz pulled his .38, turned back toward Floyd, and snarled, “You big yellow son of a bitch.” He fired at Floyd, missing, then turned and fired toward Richetti. In the confusion the other men scattered into the trees. Fultz stopped to reload his gun. When he was finished, Floyd was nowhere to be seen. Fultz spied Richetti running through the woods. He ran after him.

Richetti raced through the trees across the hillside, leapt a fence, and made for the back of a house. Fultz reached its yard just as Richetti reached the backdoor. Fultz fired once, the bullet striking the house about two feet from Richetti’s shoulder.

“I give up!” Richetti shouted.

While Chief Fultz handcuffed Richetti, Floyd stepped out of the trees and pulled a Thompson gun from beneath their blankets. Meanwhile, Lon Israel and the two deputies hustled up the hill, where Israel grabbed shotguns from his house. The three men had just stepped back into Israel’s yard when, to their left, they saw Floyd emerge from the woods. Floyd turned and fired a burst from his machine gun; then it jammed. One bullet struck Deputy Potts in the shoulder; he fell, wounded. Deputy Erwin got off one blast of his shotgun before diving for cover. Floyd dived into a ditch, then rose and ran across the hilltop into the trees on the far side, throwing his gun in the weeds.

The woods Floyd entered lay on the northern reaches of Appalachia. West of the river, the land bunched together in steep, rocky hills; the hollows between were creased with shallow brown creeks and pockmarked with tar-paper shacks and trash-strewn hillsides. On the far side of the hill, a thirty-one-year-old auto mechanic named Theodore Peterson and his brother William were standing outside their garage talking to a teenager, George McMillen, who had stopped to buy a vacuum tank for his Model T Ford. McMillen looked up and saw a mud-streaked man in a dusty blue suit scrambling down the hill into the Petersons’ yard.

Floyd walked up and asked if he could pay any of them five dollars to drive him to Youngstown.

“Why?” one of the men asked.

Floyd explained he had been out hunting when his car broke down. “What part broke?” one of the Petersons asked. “Maybe we can fix it for you.”

“The front axle,” Floyd said. He put his foot on the axle of McMillen’s Ford to show where the break had occurred. “I’ve got to get to Youngstown,” Floyd went on. “I’ve got business to attend to up there. I’ll give you ten dollars.” He pulled a wad of ones out of his pocket to show he had the money.

Ted Peterson turned to Floyd and said, “We’ll take you.” He and Floyd got into Peterson’s car. Peterson was backing out of the yard when his mother stuck her head out of the house.

“Where are you goin’?” she yelled.

“I’m takin’ this man to Youngstown,” Peterson shouted back.

“You can’t take this man to Youngstown and