Going prone again, he pulled the knife, and quickly set at cutting through the roof. He figured?rightly?that the roof would be the weakest part, unreachable as it was to the prisoners. It was old, rotted wood, the shingles soft, the tar holding them down softer, and digging assiduously, he quickly opened a seam in the roof, chopped through the wood, and at last got a bit of an opening. He could see down at Sam, sleeping restlessly on his cot.
Earl just loosed a gob of spit. It wasn't a nice thing to do, but it hit the man in the face, to the effect of minor irritation. Another followed, and the man awakened.
'Shhhhhh!' Earl commanded. 'Mr. Sam, you keep it down.'
Sam blinked, unbelieving. He looked around, dumbfounded.
'Earl, is that?'
'Shhhh!'
Sam was silent, and at last looked up. He saw the gap in the rotted wood and an eye behind it that could only be Earl's.
Quickly he rose, to close the distance between them. He stood on the cot, craning upward, until his mouth was but a foot or so from Earl.
'Good God, how did you find me?'
'It don't matter. What is happening?'
'Oh, Lord. These boys have me buffaloed on some fool charge of murder that wouldn't stand up for one second in a real court of law or even a grand jury room. What they're planning, I do not know, Earl, I want you to contact our congressman and then work through the?'
'Shhhh!' commanded Earl again.
'No, I have thought this out, and I know exactly how to proceed.
Listen to me carefully.'
'Mr. Sam, you listen to me carefully. I have eyeballed this setup, and you are in shit up to your nose.'
'Earl, you must contact Congressman Etheridge, Governor Decker, Governor Bilbo of Mississippi, and then?'
'I will do no such thing. That would get you killed right fast. What I have to do is get you out.'
'Earl, no! If I escape, I break the law. Then I am no better than?'
'And if you don't escape you are dead. Then you are no better than the worms that are eating at you and having a fine picnic at it, I might add. Mr. Sam, look hard at the cards you have been dealt: these boys will kill you. They have to. They're working up a plan even now: accident, drowning in the river, fall, quicksand, I don't know. It'll be crude but legal and you will be long gone to the next world. I guarantee you that.'
'Earl, there are laws and?'
'Not out here there ain't. Now you listen. I can get you out. But you have to be ready, you understand? I have to set dog traps and figure us a course and cache goods along the way. I need something from you, your undershirt with a lot of stink on it.'
'That I have.'
'Good. You drop it out the window. Two nights from now, at two a.m. I will come git you. You will be awakened by distractions, which I ain't yet figured. Fires, explosions, something like that. Then I will kill that big blue boss hound and the hound master and I will come git you.'
'Earl, you cannot kill anything. Not a dog, not a man.'
'Either would kill you in a second.'
'Earl, I have done nothing. If you kill, we've moved beyond a limit.
There's no getting back. I could not forgive myself for pushing you to that situation. You of all men should not be made an outlaw. I would rather be sunk in the river than be the ruination of you.' ' 'You are a stubborn old piece of buffalo meat.'
'Earl, swear to me. No killing. No matter what these boys have done.
They cannot be killed, for that makes us them sure enough.'
Earl shook his head. Sam was set in his ways.
'Throw that shirt out, Mr. Sam. I will see you two nights off, at two.
And then you and I will go on a little walk in the piney woods and go home and fall off the wagon with a big laugh.' earl got back into the deep trees just before dawn broke and stole a few hours of sleep. Some internal alarm awoke him, and maybe the sleep was pointless, for he never quite relaxed enough to let it take a good grip of him.
But he awoke, washed again in the cold water, fighting a shiver that came through the dense heat of the place, and then set to thinking. He thought about direction, and looked through his effects until he found that goddamned 1938 WPA Guide to the Magnolia State, God bless them commies or whoever done the work, they done a good job. Besides the big map, he found on page eighty-three a nice map marked 'Transportation.'
Squinting hard, he found what he needed, a rail line running north-south more or less, as it wended from Pascagoula to Hattiesburg, a spur of the Alabama and Great Southern. That's where they'd head, and hope to snag a train as it came by.
Earl knew it would be a close-run thing. The dogs would be on them almost immediately, and he had to throw the dogs off the track as many times as he could. The straighter the dogs tracked them, the worse off they'd be. They might never make the railway, or they might get there but no trains would come. Fortunately the land was too fore sty for horsemen; the deputies would have to pursue on foot, and as horsemen they'd be slow and reluctant on their own two legs. They'd tire long before the dogs, but the dogs would drive them on, and that nameless hound master and of course that Sheriff Leon, who'd have all his pride on the line. He wondered if they'd have time to involve the prison security people. In a way, he hoped so, for that would take more time in the organizing, and time was precious for him.
He maneuvered his way through the trees until he picked his positions: where he'd enter the compound, how he'd move, how he'd get Sam out, which way they'd move, what their landmarks would be as they moved into the woods. He used his compass to orient himself, and when he reached a stream, he cached his pack, his rifle and his pistol, to be picked up on the outward trek. That rifle might be the smartest thing he'd brought, for with it he could kill the dogs that the boys sent after him.
Night came, and he penetrated the prison compound again. He went first to the stable and worked his way among the shifting, seething, beautiful animals. In a tack room, he found what he needed most of all: rope.
Good, strong four-ply rope, which anyone who administered horses would pack.
Next he worked around back to the shed that housed the generator. The boys shut it down at night. He slipped in and found several twenty-five-gallon cans for the gasoline. He looked about until he found the gallon cans by which the tank would be filled and took three of them, loading them to the brim and screwing the caps down tight.
Three gallons of gasoline. Fella could do a lot with that.
That done, he again slipped out before the dawn, to get some sleep. He had another hard day tomorrow. And after that, the days got harder still. the sheriff came by at 3:00 p.m. 'Well, sir,' he said, 'at last I've got some news for you.'
'Well, that's wonderful,' Sam replied. 'And I have some news for you.
Not only will I file formal complaints, Sheriff, with the state police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I will sue you and your men in a civil court of law. It'll be a great pleasure not merely to send you behind bars for a very long time, but to leave you destitute and without hope for gainful employment for the rest of your life. Possibly you can replace some of the Negro washerwomen at the prison farm when you get out.'
'Sir, you have got a vicious tongue, I do believe I ain't never met a man with a golden voice and a poison tongue combined like you. You surely wouldn't fit in down here in Mississippi.'
'When I am done with you, Sheriff, you will rue the day not that I set foot in this state, but that you did, goddammit all to hell.'
'We shall see about that one. As for tomorry, you'll be moved downriver and sent to a small town called Lucedale. That's where we'll present our findings to the judge of the Third Circuit, and he will determine whether or not we have the evidence to try you on a charge of murder.'
'You know I could not have committed that crime. There is no physical evidence, there was no blood anywhere on my person, I left no fingerprints. A coroner would have concluded that the woman's death was well in
