don’t cost us a cent. When you push against the whole convict body it had better be important and you had better be ready to shoot and kill people if they push back.”
“I told them they could put on their paint if they wanted.”
“Well, that’s up to you,” Fisher said. “Or it’s up to them. I notice they been keeping their faces clean.”
When Mr. Manly didn’t speak right away, Fisher said, “If it’s all right with you I want to get downstairs and keep an eye on things. It’s Visiting Day.”
Mr. Manly looked up. “That’s right, it is. You know, I didn’t tell you I been wanting to make an announcement. I believe I’ll do it right now—sure, while some of them have their relatives here visiting.” Mr. Manly’s expression was bright and cheerful, as if he thought this was sure a swell idea.
“I don’t know what you’re doing,” Shelby said, “but so far it isn’t worth a rat’s ass, is it?” He sat facing his brother, Virgil, who was leaning in against the table and looking directly at Frank to show he was sincere and doing everything he could to find out when the goddamn train was leaving. There were convicts and their visitors all the way down the line of tables that divided the mess hall: hunched over talking, filling the room with a low hum of voices.
“It ain’t like looking up a schedule,” Virgil said. “I believe this would be a special train, two or three cars probably. All right, I ask a lot of questions over at the railroad yard they begin wondering who I am, and somebody says hey, that’s Virgil Shelby. His brother’s up on the hill.”
“That’s Virgil Shelby,” Frank said. “Jesus, do you believe people know who you are? You could be a mine engineer. You could be interested in hauling in equipment and you ask how they handle special trains. ‘You ever put on a special run? You do? Like what kind?’ Jesus, I mean you got to use your head and think for a change.”
“Frank, I’m ready. I don’t need to know more than a day ahead when you leave. I got me some good boys and, I’m telling you, we’re going to
“You’re going to do what?”
“Get you off that train.”
“How?”
“Stop it if we have to.”
“How, Virgil?”
“Dynamite the track.”
“Then what?”
“Then climb aboard.”
“With the guards shooting at you?”
“You got to be doing something too,” Virgil said. “Inside the train.”
“I’m doing something right now. I’m seeing you don’t know what you’re talking about. And unless we know when the train leaves and where it stops, we’re not going to be able to work out a plan. Do you see that, Virgil?”
“The train goes to Florence. We know that.”
“Do we know if it stops anywhere? If it stops, Virgil, wouldn’t that be the place to get on?”
“If it stops.”
“That’s right. That’s what you got to find out. Because how are you going to know where to wait and when to wait if you don’t know when the train’s leaving here? Virgil, are you listening to me?”
His brother was looking past him at something. Shelby glanced over his shoulder. He turned then and kept looking as Mr. Manly, with Bob Fisher on the stairs at the far end of the mess hall, said, “May I have your attention a moment, please?”
Mr. Manly waited until the hum of voices trailed off and he saw the faces down the line of tables looking toward him: upturned, solemn faces, like people in church waiting for the sermon. Mr. Manly grinned. He always liked to open with a light touch.
He said, “I’m not going to make a speech, if any of you are worried about that. I just want to make a brief announcement while your relatives and loved ones are here. It will save the boys writing to tell you and I know some of them don’t write as often as they should. By the way, I’m Everett Manly, the acting superintendent here in Mr. Rynning’s absence.” He paused to clear his throat.
“Now then—I am very pleased to announce that this will be the last Visiting Day at Yuma Territorial Prison. A week from tomorrow the first group of men will leave on the Southern Pacific for the new penitentiary at Florence, a fine new place I think you all are going to be very pleased with. Now you won’t be able to tell your relatives or loved ones what day exactly you’ll be leaving, but I promise you in three weeks everybody will be out of here and this place will open its doors forever and become a page in history. That’s about all I can tell you right now for the present. However, if any of you have questions I will be glad to try and answer them.”
Frank Shelby kept looking at the little man on the stairway. He said to himself, It’s a trick. But the longer he stared at him—the little fellow standing up there waiting for questions—he knew Mr. Manly was telling the truth.
Virgil said, “Well, I guess that answers the question, doesn’t it?”
Shelby didn’t look at his brother. He was afraid he might lose his temper and hit Virgil in the mouth.
11
For three sacks of Mail Pouch, R. E. Baylis told Shelby the convicts would be sent out in groups of about forty at a time, going over every other day, it looked like, on the regular morning run.
R. E. Baylis even got Shelby a Southern Pacific schedule. Leave Yuma at 6:15 A.M. Pass through Sentinel at 8:56; no stop unless they needed coal or water. They’d stop at Gila at 9:51, where they’d be fed on the train; no one allowed off. They’d arrive in Phoenix at 2:40 P.M., switch the cars over to a Phoenix & Eastern train and arrive at Florence about 5:30 P.M. Bob Fisher planned to make the first run and the last one, the first one to see what the trip was like and the last one so he could lock up and officially hand over the keys.
Shelby asked R. E. Baylis if he would put him and his friends down for the first run, because they were sure anxious to get out of here. R. E. Baylis said he didn’t know if it could be done, but maybe he could try to arrange it. Shelby gave him fifty dollars to try as hard as he could.
The guard told Bob Fisher about Shelby’s request, since Fisher would see the list anyway. Why the first train? Fisher wanted to know. What was the difference? R. E. Baylis asked. All the trains were going to the penitentiary. Fisher put himself in Shelby’s place and thought about it a while. Maybe Shelby was anxious to leave, that could be a fact. But it wasn’t the reason he wanted to be on the first train. It was so he would know exactly which train he’d be on, so he could tell somebody outside.
Fisher said all right, tell him he could go on the first train. But then, when the time came, they’d pull Shelby out of line and hold him for the last train. “I want him riding with me,” Fisher said, “but not before I look over the route.”
It bothered R. E. Baylis because Shelby had always treated him square and given him tobacco and things. He stopped by Shelby’s cell that evening and said Lord, he could sure use that fifty dollars, but he would give it back. Bob Fisher was making them go on the last train. Shelby looked pretty disappointed. By God, he was big about it though. He let R. E. Baylis keep the fifty dollars anyway.
The next morning when he saw Junior and Soonzy and Joe Dean, Shelby grinned and said, “Boys, always trust a son of a bitch to be a son of a bitch. We’re taking the last train.”
All he had to do now was to get a letter of instructions to Virgil at the railroad hotel in Yuma. For a couple more sacks of Mail Pouch R. E. Baylis would probably deliver it personally.
Virgil Shelby and his three men arrived at Stout’s Hotel in Gila on a Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Stout and a couple of Southern Pacific division men in the lobby got a kick out of these dudes who said they were heading south into the Saucedas to do some prospecting. All they had were bedrolls and rifles and a pack mule loaded with suitcases. The dudes were as serious about it though as they were ignorant. They bought four remount horses at
