doc?” Tyree laughed at his own joke.
“What’s this I hear about you telling people you’re going to be getting out today?”
Tyree chuckled. “Some folks will believe anything,” he said. “Don’t tell me. Simmons reported it to you and you paid him off with some tobacco. Am I right?”
Pollard chuckled as well. “Yeah, I gave him a small twist.”
Tyree shook his head. “I can’t believe you were dumb enough to fall for that. But then, you are dumb enough to have a job like this, so, I guess it isn’t all that hard to believe.”
“I’m dumb?” Pollard said. “In a couple of hours, I’ll be home with the wife and kids. You’ll still be here.” Pollard sniggered. “In fact, you’ll be here for the rest of your life.”
The smile left Tyree’s face. “So they say,” he said.
“So they say,” Pollard said with a snort. “You damn right, so they say.” He started to unlock the cell, then stopped and looked over at Tyree. “Get up. You know the procedure,” he said.
Tyree was well acquainted with the procedure. He had already been in prison for a year, and this wasn’t the first time he had ever been incarcerated.
“Come on, Tyree, I’m waiting,” Pollard said again, more impatiently than before.
“Yeah, keep your shirt on. I’m movin’ as fast as I can,” Tyree grunted.
Tyree got out of his bunk, then leaned against the wall. Pollard stepped into the cell then, and cuffed Tyree’s hands behind his back. The cuffs were held together with a twelve-inch length of chain.
“All right, Tyree, let’s go,” Pollard said. “You lead the way; you know where the dispensary is.” He pushed Tyree roughly to get him started.
“I’m goin’, I’m goin’, ain’t no need to be a’pushin’ me like that.”
“Come on, let’s go.” He jabbed Tyree with his nightstick again, this time in the small of the back, hard enough to make the killer gasp. “That hurt.”
“Did it now?” Pollard taunted.
They left the cell block and stepped out into the yard. This being the heat of the day, the yard was empty, and as Tyree checked each of the guard towers, he noticed that none of the guards were looking inward; they were all looking out, away from the prison. Just in front of him, Tyree saw a wagon sitting outside the prison commissary. It had just made the two-thirty delivery. Tyree was expecting to see it—in fact, that was why he’d arranged to have his nine o’clock appointment traded with one of the other prisoners.
Suddenly, Tyree stopped and stooped down.
“What are you doing?” Pollard asked. “Stand up.”
“I’ve got a rock in my shoe,” Pollard said.
“Just leave it, you don’t have far to go.”
“It hurts,” Tyree complained. “It’ll just take a second to get it out.”
“All right, but hurry it up,” Pollard said.
“Look up there at the wall. What the hell is Cooper doing, pissing off the wall like that?” Tyree said. “This may be a prison, but we have to live here, and I don’t like it when a guard steps out of the tower and pisses in our yard like that.”
“What are you talking about?” Pollard asked, looking toward the wall. “I don’t see anybody—unnhg!”
While squatted down on the ground, Tyree had stepped back over the length of chain in order to get his handcuffed hands in front of him. Then, before Pollard knew what was happening, Tyree had used the length of chain as a club to knock the guard down.
Tyree fell upon Pollard, hitting him with the chain several more times, until he was sure the man was dead. Quickly, he got the keys and released the handcuffs. Then he dragged Pollard’s body over to the well and dropped him down into it. After that, he climbed into the delivery wagon and hid himself under a roll of canvas.
A moment later, the driver and one of the cooks came out of the prison commissary.
“I won’t be makin’ the delivery next week,” the driver said. “I’m goin’ down to Yorkville to visit my daughter. She just had a baby.”
“Just had a baby, did she? Was it a boy or a girl?” the cook asked.
“Boy.”
“Ha! Knowin’ you, you’ll have him out huntin’ with you in a couple of years.”
“I may not wait that long,” the wagon driver said, and both laughed.
Tyree felt the wagon sag as the driver climbed into the seat, then pulled away from the commissary. The driver stopped at the gate, and Tyree grew tense. This was the critical moment.
“Open up!” the driver shouted. “I just came to deliver groceries. I don’t plan to stay here all day.”
“Make you nervous, does it, Zeb?” one of the guards called down from the tower. “’Fraid we might keep you in here for a while?”
“Just open the damn door, will you? This place gives me the willies.”
“What do you think, Paul? You think we should go down and check it out?” the guard who had been talking to Zeb asked the other.
“Nah, no need to do that,” Paul replied. “I can see the wagon from up here. Ain’t nothin’ in it but a tarp roll. Let
