“That’s fine.” Fisher nodded patiently before looking at Harold Jackson again. “You’re our last nigger,” he said to him. “You’re the only one we got now, and we want you to be a good boy and work hard and do whatever you’re told. Show you we mean it, we’re going to help you out at first, give you something to keep you out of trouble.”
There was a wooden box underneath the table. Mr. Manly didn’t notice it until one of the guards stooped down and, with the rattling sound of chains, brought out a pair of leg-irons and a ball-peen hammer.
Mr. Manly couldn’t hold back. “But he hasn’t done anything yet!”
“No, sir,” Bob Fisher said, “and he ain’t about to with chains on his legs.” He came over to Mr. Manly and, surprising him, picked up his suitcase and moved him through the door, closing it firmly behind them.
Outside, Fisher paused. “I’ll get somebody to tote your bag over to Mr. Rynning’s cottage. I expect you’ll be most comfortable there.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Take your bath if you want one, have something to eat and a night’s sleep—there’s no sense in showing you around now—all right?”
“What are you going to do to the colored boy?”
“We’re going to put him in a cell, if that’s all right.”
“But the leg-irons.”
“He’ll wear them a week. See what they feel like.”
“I guess I’m just not used to your ways,” Mr. Manly said. “I mean prison ways.” He could feel the silence again among the darkened stone buildings and high walls. The turnkey walked off toward the empty, lighted area by the main gate. Mr. Manly had to step quickly to catch up with him. “I mean I believe a man should have a chance to prove himself first,” he said, “before he’s judged.”
“They’re judged before they get here.”
“But putting leg-irons on them—”
“Not all of them. Just the ones I think need them, so they’ll know what irons feel like.”
Mr. Manly knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the right words. “I mean, don’t they hurt terrible?”
“I sure hope so,” Fisher answered.
As they came to the lighted area, a guard leaning against the iron grill of the gate straightened and adjusted his hat. Fisher let the guard know he had seen him, then stopped and put down the suitcase.
“This Harold Jackson,” Fisher said. “Maybe you didn’t hear him. He killed a man. He didn’t miss Sunday school. He beat a man to death with an iron pipe.”
“I know—I heard him.”
“That’s the kind of people we get here. Lot of them. They come in, we don’t know what’s on their minds. We don’t know if they’re going to behave or cause trouble or try and run or try and kill somebody else.”
“I understand that part all right.”
“Some of them we got to show right away who’s running this place.”
Mr. Manly was frowning. “But this boy Harold Jackson, he seemed all right. He was polite, said yes-sir to you. Why’d you put leg-irons on him?”
Now it was Fisher’s turn to look puzzled. “You saw him same as I did.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean he’s a nigger, ain’t he?”
Looking up at the turnkey, Mr. Manly’s gold-frame spectacles glistened in the overhead light. “You’re saying that’s the only reason you put leg-irons on him?”
“If I could tell all the bad ones,” Bob Fisher said, “as easy as I can tell a nigger, I believe I’d be sup’rintendent.”
Jesus Christ, the man was even dumber than he looked. He could have told him a few more things: sixteen years at Yuma, nine years as turnkey, and he hadn’t seen a nigger yet who didn’t need to wear irons or spend some time in the snake den. It was the way they were, either lazy or crazy; you had to beat ’em to make ’em work, or chain ’em to keep ’em in line. He would like to see just one good nigger. Or one good, hard-working Indian for that matter. Or a Mexican you could trust. Or a preacher who knew enough to keep his nose in church and out of other people’s business.
Bob Fisher had been told two weeks earlier, in a letter from Mr. Rynning, that an acting superintendent would soon be coming to Yuma.
Mr. Rynning’s letter had said: “Not an experienced penal administrator, by the way, but, of all things, a preacher, an ordained minister of the Holy Word Church who has been wrestling with devils in Indian schools for several years and evidently feels qualified to match his strength against convicts. This is not my doing. Mr. Manly’s name came to me through the Bureau as someone who, if not eminently qualified, is at least conveniently located and willing to take the job on a temporary basis. (The poor fellow must be desperate. Or, perhaps misplaced and the Bureau doesn’t know what else to do with him but send him to prison, out of harm’s way.) He has had some administrative experience and, having worked on an Apache reservation, must know something about inventory control and logistics. The bureau insists on an active administrator at Yuma while, in the same breath, they strongly suggest I remain in Florence during the new prison’s final stage of preparation. Hence, you will be meeting your new superintendent in the very near future. Knowing you will oblige him with your utmost cooperation I remain…”
Mr. Rynning remained in Florence while Bob Fisher remained in Yuma with a Holy Word Pentacostal preacher looking over his shoulder.
The clock on the wall of the superintendent’s office said ten after nine. Fisher, behind the big mahogany desk, folded Mr. Rynning’s letter and put it in his breast pocket. After seeing Mr. Manly through the gate, he had come up here to pick up his personal file. No sense in leaving anything here if the preacher was going to occupy the office. The little four-eyed son of a bitch, maybe a few days here would scare hell out of him and run him back to Sunday school. Turning in the swivel chair, Fisher could see the reflection of the room in the darkened window glass and could see himself sitting at the desk; with a thumb and first finger he smoothed his mustache and continued to fool with it as he looked at the clock again.
Still ten after nine. He was off duty; had been since six. Had waited two hours for the preacher.
It was too early to go home: his old lady would still be up and he’d have to look at her and listen to her talk for an hour or more. Too early to go home, and too late to watch the two women convicts take their bath in the cook shack. They always finished and were gone by eight-thirty, quarter to nine. He had been looking forward to watching them tonight, especially Norma Davis. Jesus, she had big ones, and a nice round white fanny. The Mexican girl was smaller, like all the Mexican girls he had ever seen; she was all right, though; especially with the soapy water on her brown skin. It was a shame; he hadn’t watched them in about four nights. If the train had been on time he could have met the preacher and still got over to the cook shack before eight-thirty. It was like the little son of a bitch’s train to be late. There was something about him, something that told Fisher the man couldn’t do anything right, and would mess up anything he took part in.
Tomorrow he’d show him around and answer all his dumb questions.
Tonight—he could stare at the clock for an hour and go home.
He could stare out at the empty yard and hope for something to happen. He could pull a surprise inspection of the guard posts, maybe catch somebody sleeping.
He could stop at a saloon on the way home. Or go down to Frank Shelby’s cell, No. 14, and buy a pint of tequila off him.
What Bob Fisher did, he pulled out the papers on the new prisoner, Harold Jackson, and started reading about him.
One of the guards asked Harold Jackson if he’d ever worn leg-irons before. Sitting tired, hunch-shouldered on the floor, he said yeah. They looked down at him and he looked up at them, coming full awake but not showing it, and said yes-suh, he believed it was two times. That’s all, if the captain didn’t count the prison farm. He’d wore irons there because they liked everybody working outside the jail to wear irons. It wasn’t on account he had done anything.
The guard said all right, that was enough. They give him a blanket and took him shuffling across the dark
