– someone grabbed MacNally’s arm, driving him backwards and pinning him to the ground.
A guard? Or one of Rucker’s lieutenants?
MacNally swung his head around and saw a fist blurring toward him. Before he could react, the punch landed on his right cheek and whipped his neck around.
MacNally struck out-a wild backhand with the metal bar-and landed a blow across the man’s back. He stiffened, as if he’d lost his breath-and swung again, striking him across the buttocks-
“MacNally! Lindahl,” yelled a voice from behind him somewhere.
Whistles blew, footsteps.
“Drop it! Drop your weapon!”
MacNally did not realize he was still holding the rod. He was hyperventilating, eyes wide, chest heaving, heart pounding in his ears.
A hand pried angrily at his fingers, and he released his grip. Two officers yanked him onto his stomach, then fastened handcuffs around his wrists.
“Rucker. He started it,” MacNally said as they pulled him to his feet.
“You’ll have a chance to tell your story,” one of them said. “After we get you to the hospital.”
It was then that MacNally felt the pain in his side, where his cleanly sliced blood-soaked denim shirt was adhering to his skin.
Rucker lay unconscious on the floor, blood oozing from his nose and a deep gash on his forehead. Lindahl, his buddy, was on his knees, writhing in pain as another set of officers gathered him up and snapped handcuffs around his wrists.
Dozens of nearby inmates appeared to be looking at MacNally with newfound respect-and fear.
“Everyone back to work,” an officer called out.
As they led MacNally away, a man in a white medical coat with a black leather doctor’s bag in hand was being ushered through the crowd of inmates.
“Watch it, clear aside,” his escort, another uniformed guard, said. The two men huddled on the ground alongside Rucker.
“When did he get transferred here?” MacNally asked, his demeanor calmer, the adrenaline clearing from his system.
“Who?”
“Harlan Rucker. He escaped from Leavenworth.”
“Transferred over directly into the Treatment Unit. Got out about a week ago.”
Segregation. Apparently, either the US Marshals Service, FBI, or local police caught him at some point after he left MacNally at the bottom of the forty-foot Leavenworth wall. “You saw him attack me, right?” MacNally asked.
“Looks like you’re lucky to be alive,” the guard said. “That’s all I’d be thinking about right now.”
MacNally knew that to be untrue. He now had to worry that Rucker or his cohorts would find him again, at a time, and a place, when he least expected it.
MACNALLY WAS TAKEN UP TO THE HOSPITAL through a staircase originating just inside the dining hall. He climbed the steps slowly, as it felt as if each flexion of his hip separated the wound’s margins, causing more blood to seep out.
He was led to a large room outfitted like so many others in the institution: barred windows. Mint paint. Highly polished concrete floor. This, however, was an operating or trauma suite.
He lay down on an articulating metal table, where a massive track- mounted light fixture hovered above him. Stainless steel cabinets, stocked with medical supplies, boxes of gauze and bottles of saline solution, stood against the walls.
Within ten minutes, MacNally’s wound was sutured with a dozen stitches. He was given penicillin and released to the officers, who had remained at his side. MacNally asked to be returned to his post in the glove shop, because he did not want to risk losing his job and he figured it might score points with the officer in charge: most cons, after an incident like that, would consider it an excuse to return to their cells and skip the rest of the workday.
Instead, he was placed in his cell pending an administrative hearing, which was expedited and held two hours later in A-Block. At a consular table pushed close to the cellhouse wall and facing the row of Civil War-era military cells, MacNally sat before Associate Warden Dollison, Industries Lieutenant Carson Eldridge, and two other officers. A brief discussion ensued during which charges of fighting and possession of a weapon were proffered. After listening to Eldridge’s testimony, followed by one of the other guards, and then by MacNally’s, Dollison nodded and held out a hand.
“I’m convinced that this altercation was brought on by Inmate Rucker and that you, Mr. MacNally, were an innocent bystander, attempting to defend yourself.”
“Yes, sir,” MacNally said.
“Your work record has been exemplary and you have been, for all intents, a model inmate. It’s my ruling that you be spared time in the Treatment Unit. You may return to your job in Industries.”
MacNally thanked Dollison, once again feeling as if he had been dealt with more than fairly. Often, a prisoner involved in a fight was automatically sent to segregation, as the facts almost did not matter. In reflection, he felt fortunate to have found both Voorhees at Leavenworth and now Dollison on Alcatraz. Reasonable and just treatment at a penitentiary was something MacNally had not expected.
When the dinner whistle sounded and they convened in the dining hall, MacNally recounted to his planning crew what had happened. Anglin claimed not to have known that Rucker was now at The Rock, and admitted the man had a proclivity toward seeking revenge. MacNally had wondered how much Anglin really knew about Rucker when he vouched for him back at Leavenworth. Was Anglin in on the setup to have him get caught?
Could Anglin be trusted now?
“Are we done with this Rucker thing?” West asked. He was squirming on his bench, leaning forward as if he had important news to share.
“What’s the deal?” Morris asked West. “You look like you’re gonna jump out of your pants.”
“I got it,” West said. “The job, painting the cellhouse. I start tomorrow. And that means our tickets out of here have been issued and punched. Now we just gotta do what we need to do, and be smart about it. If all goes right, we could be outta here in a few months.”
MacNally gazed off at the far wall and thought again about Henry. He could deal with a few more months on Devil’s Island with the Harlan Ruckers of the world if it meant he’d be getting out. He leaned forward, rejoined the conversation, and helped map out the details of what needed to be done next.
