It’s coming now, somebody said.
There it was, poking along close to the wall, a driver and a helper on the seat, one of the trusties. The guard stood up and yelled for them to get down here. Shelby took time to watch the injured man as he ground his teeth together and eased his shoe off. He wasn’t wearing any socks. His toes were a mess of blood, but at least they all seemed to be there. He was lucky.
Raymond was more than halfway across now. The guard was motioning to the wagon, trying to hurry it. So Shelby watched Raymond: just a speck out there, you’d have to know where to look to find him. Wouldn’t that be something if he made it? God Almighty, dumb Indin probably could if he knew what to do once he got across. Or if he had some help waiting. But he’d look for the boat that wasn’t there and run off through the brush and see all that empty land stretching nowhere.
Eleven fifty-six. He’d be splashing around out there another minute easy before he reached the bank.
Shelby walked past the group around the injured man and called out to the guard who had gone partway up the slope, “Hey, mister!” When the guard looked around Shelby said, “I think there’s somebody out there in the water.”
The guard hesitated, but not more than a moment before he got over to the wall. He must have had a trained eye, because he spotted Raymond right away and fired the Winchester in the air. Three times in rapid succession.
Joe Dean looked up as Shelby handed him his pocket watch. “He make it?” Joe Dean asked.
“Just about.”
“How many minutes?”
“Figure five anyway, as a good average.”
Junior said to Shelby, “What do you think?”
“Well, it’s a slow way out of here,” Shelby answered. “But least we know how long it takes now and we can think on it.”
Mr. Manly jumped in his chair and swiveled around to the window when the whistle went off, a high, shrieking sound that ripped through the stillness of the office and seemed to be coming from directly overhead. The first thing he thought of, immediately, was,
Only there wasn’t a soul outside. No convicts, no guards running across the yard with guns.
Of course—they were all off on work details.
When he pressed close to the window Mr. Manly saw the woman, Norma Davis, standing in the door of the tailor shop. Way down at the end of the mess hall. He knew it was Norma, and not the other one. Standing with her hands on her hips, as if she was listening—Lord, as the awful piercing whistle kept blowing. After a few moments she turned and went inside again. Not too concerned about it.
Maybe it wasn’t an escape. Maybe it was something else. Mr. Manly went down the hall and opened the doors, looking into empty offices, some that hadn’t been used in months. He turned back and, as he reached the end of the hall and the door leading to the outside stairway, the whistle stopped. He waited, then cautiously opened the door and went outside. He could see the front gate from here: both barred doors closed and the inside and outside guards at their posts. He could call to the inside guard, ask him what was going on.
And what if the man looked up at him on the stairs and said it was the noon dinner whistle? It was just about twelve.
Or what if it was an exercise he was supposed to know about? Or a fire drill. Or anything for that matter that a prison superintendent should be aware of. The guard would tell him, “That’s the whistle to stop work for dinner, sir,” and not say anything else, but his look would be enough.
Mr. Manly didn’t know where else he might go, or where he might find the turnkey. So he went back to his office and continued reading the history file on Harold Jackson.
Born Fort Valley, Georgia, September 11, 1879.
Mr. Manly had already read that part. Field hand. No formal education. Arrested in Georgia and Florida several times for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, striking an officer of the law. Served eighteen months on a Florida prison farm for assault. Inducted into the army April 22, 1898. Assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment in Tampa, Florida, June 5. Shipped to Cuba.
He was going to read that part over again about Harold Jackson deserting and being court-martialed.
But Bob Fisher, the turnkey, walked in. He didn’t knock, he walked in. He looked at Mr. Manly and nodded, then gazed about the room. “If there’s something you don’t like about this office, we got some others down the hall.
“Caught one of them trying to swim the river, just about the other side when we spotted him.” Fisher stopped as Mr. Manly held up his hand and rose from the desk.
“Not right now,” Mr. Manly said. “I’m going to go have my dinner. You can give me a written report this afternoon.”
Walking past Fisher wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. Out in the hall Mr. Manly paused and looked back in the office. “I assume you’ve put the man in the snake den.”
Fisher nodded.
“Bring me his file along with your report, Bob.” Mr. Manly turned and was gone.
4
Harold Jackson recognized the man in the few moments the door was open and the guards were shoving him inside. As the man turned to brace himself Harold saw his face against the outside sunlight, the dark-skinned face, the one in the mess hall. The door slammed closed and they were in darkness. Harold’s eyes were used to it after half a day in here. He could see the man feeling his way along the wall until he was on the other side of the ten-by- ten-foot stone cell. It had been almost pitch dark all morning. Now, at midday, a faint light came through the air hole that was about as big around as a stovepipe and tunneled down through the domed ceiling. He could see the man’s legs good, then part of his body as he sat down on the bare dirt floor. Harold drew up his legs and stretched them out again so the leg-iron chains would clink and rattle—in case the man didn’t know he was here.
Raymond knew. Coming in, he had seen the figure sitting against the wall and had seen his eyes open and close as the sunlight hit his face, black against blackness, a striped animal in his burrow hole. Raymond knew. He had hit the man a good lick across the eyes with his tin plate, and if the man wanted to do something about it, now it was up to him. Raymond would wait, ready for him—while he pictured again Frank Shelby standing by the wall and tried to read Shelby’s face.
The guards had brought him back in the skiff, making him row with his arms dead-tired, and dragged him wet and muddy all the way up the hill to the cemetery. Frank Shelby was still there. All of them were, and a man sitting on the ground, his foot bloody. Raymond had wanted to tell Shelby there wasn’t any boat over there, and he wanted Shelby to tell him, somehow, what had gone wrong. He remembered Shelby staring at him, but not saying anything with his eyes or his expression. Just staring. Maybe he wasn’t picturing Shelby’s face clearly now, or maybe he had missed a certain look or gesture from him. He would have time to think about it. Thirty days in here. No mattress, no blanket, no slop bucket, use the corner, or piss on the nigger if he tried something. If the nigger hadn’t done something to Shelby he wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t be here, Raymond thought. Bread and water for thirty days, but they would take the nigger out before that and he would be alone. There were men they took from here to the crazy hole after being alone in the darkness too long. It can happen if you think about being here and nothing else, Raymond said to himself. So don’t think about it. Go over and hit the nigger hard in the face and get it over with. God, if he wasn’t so tired.
Kick him in the face to start, Harold was thinking, as he picked at the dried blood crusted on the bridge of his nose. Two and a half steps and aim it for his cheekbone, either side. That would be the way, if he didn’t have on the irons and eighteen inches of chain links. He try kicking the man, he’d land flat on his back and the man would be on top of him. He try sneaking up, the man would hear the chain. ’Less the man was asleep and he worked over and got the chain around the man’s neck and crossed his legs and stretched and kicked hard. Then they come in and say what happen? And he say I don’t know, captain, the man must have choked on his bread. They say yeah, bread can
