Forty Lashes Less One

Mr. Manly began to nod, slowly. “Maybe.”

“We could get them some boxing gloves in town. I don’t mean the prison pay for them. We could take us up a collection among the convicts.”

“I sure never thought of fighting as a way to achieve peace. Bob, have you?”

Fisher said quietly, “No, I haven’t.”

Shelby shrugged. “Well, peace always seems to follow a war.”

“You got a point there, Frank.”

“I know the convicts would enjoy it. I mean it would keep their minds occupied a while. They don’t get much entertainment here.”

“That’s another good point,” Mr. Manly said.

Shelby waited as Mr. Manly nodded, looking as if he was falling asleep. “Well, that’s all I had to say. I sure hope you give it some thought, if just for the sake of those two boys. So they can get it settled.”

“I promise you I will,” Mr. Manly said. “Bob, what do you think about it? Off-hand.”

“I been in prison work a long time,” Fisher said. “I never heard of anything like this.”

“I’ll tell you what, boys. Let me think on it.” Mr. Manly got up out of the chair, extending a hand to Shelby. “It’s nice meeting you, Frank. You keep up the good work and you’ll be out of here before you know it.”

“Sir,” Shelby said, “I surely hope so.”

Bob Fisher didn’t say a word until they were down the stairs and Shelby was heading off along the side of the building, in the shade.

“Where you going?”

Shelby turned, a few steps away. “See about some chow.”

“You can lose your privileges,” Fisher said. “All of them inside one minute.”

Go easy, Shelby thought, and said, “It’s up to you.”

“I can give it all to somebody else. The stuff you sell, the booze, the soft jobs. I pick somebody, the tough boys will side with him and once it’s done he’s the man inside and you’re another con on the rock pile.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” Shelby said. “I used my head and put together what I got. You allow it because I keep the cons in line and it makes your job easier. You didn’t give me a thing when I started.”

“Maybe not, but I can sure take it all away from you.”

“I know that.”

“I will, less you stay clear of Norma Davis.”

Shelby started to smile—he couldn’t help it—even with Fisher’s grim, serious face staring at him.

“Watch yourself,” Fisher said. “You say the wrong thing, it’s done. I’m telling you to keep away from the women. You don’t, you lose everything you got.”

That was all Bob Fisher had to say. He turned and went back up the stairs. Shelby watched him, feeling better than he’d felt in days. He sure would keep away from the women. He’d give Norma all the room she needed. The state Bob Fisher was in, Norma would have his pants off him before the week was out.

6

“Boys, I tell you the Lord loves us all as His children; but you cross Him and He can be mean as a roaring lion. Not mean because he hates you boys, no-sir; mean because he hates sin and evil so much. You don’t believe me, read your Psalms, fifty, twenty-two, where it says, ‘Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces’—you hear that?—‘tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver….’ None to deliver means there ain’t nothing left of you.”

Mr. Manly couldn’t tell a thing from their expressions. Sometimes they were looking at him, sometimes they weren’t. Their heads didn’t move much. Their eyes did. Raymond’s eyes would go to the window and stay there a while. Harold would stare at the wall or the bookcase, and look as if he was asleep with his eyes open.

Mr. Manly flipped back a few pages in his Bible. When he looked up again his glasses gleamed in the overhead light. He had brought the two boys out of the snake den after only three days this time. Bob Fisher hadn’t said a word. He’d marched them over, got them fed and cleaned up, and here they were. Here, but somewhere else in their minds. Standing across the desk fifteen, twenty minutes now, and Mr. Manly wondered if either of them had listened to a word he’d said.

“Again in the Psalms, boys, chapter eleven, sixth verse, it says, ‘Upon the wicked shall rain snares, fire and brimstone and a horrible tempest’—that’s like a storm—‘and this shall be the portion of their cup.’

“Raymond, look at me. ‘He that keepeth the commandments keepeth his own soul’—Proverbs, chapter nineteen, verse sixteen—‘but he that despiseth His way shall die.’

“Harold Jackson of Fort Valley, Georgia, ‘There shall be no reward for the evil man.’ That’s Proverbs again, twenty-four, twenty. ‘The candle of the wicked shall be put out.’ Harold, you understand that?”

“Yes-suh, captain.”

“What does it mean?”

“It mean they put out your candle.”

“It means God will put you out. You’re the candle, Harold. If you’re evil you get no reward and the Lord God will snuff out your life. You want that to happen?”

“No-suh, captain.”

“Raymond, you want to have your life snuffed out?”

“No, sir, I don’t want no part of that.”

“It will happen as sure as it is written in the Book. Harold, you believe in the Book?”

“What book is that, captain?”

“The Holy Bible.”

“Yes-suh, I believe it.”

“Raymond, you believe it?”

“What is that again?”

“Do you believe in the Holy Bible as being the inspired word of Almighty God as told by Him directly into the ears of the boys that wrote it?”

“I guess so,” Raymond said.

“Raymond, you don’t guess about your salvation. You believe in Holy Scripture and its truths, or you don’t.”

“I believe it,” Raymond said.

“Have you ever been to church?”

“I think so. When I was little.”

“Harold, you ever attend services?”

“You mean was I in the arm service, captain?”

“I mean have you ever been to church.”

“Yes, I been there, captain.”

“When was the last time?”

“Let’s see,” Harold said. “I think I went in Cuba one time.”

“You think you went to church?”

“They talk in this language I don’t know what they saying, captain.”

“That was ten years ago,” Mr. Manly said, “and you don’t know if it was a church service or not.”

“I think it was.”

“Raymond, what about you?”

“Yes, sir, when I was little, all the time.”

“What do you remember?”

“About Jesus and all. You know, how they nail him to this cross.”

“Do you know the Ten Commandments?”

“I think I know some of them,” Raymond said. “Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not commit adultery.”