Escape From Five Shadows Page 8

  Over Chick’s shoulder, Pryde saw Brazil coming toward them. He had left his horse close to the canyon wall, although there was no shade there now with the sun directly overhead, and was walking toward them, carrying the Winchester under his arm.

  “You better shut your mouth,” Pryde told Chick.

  Chick turned on him unexpectedly. “Who in hell you think you are? You’re no better than anybody else! You think—”

  “You better shut up.” Pryde saw Brazil coming up behind Chick.

  “Why, because you say so?” Chick placed his hands on his hips defiantly. “I don’t have to take anything from you or anybody like you! It’s enough to have to stomach Renda and Brazil telling you what to do!” Chick paused. “One more year and I’m out of here and they’re going to pay. Sure as there’s a God upstairs they’re going to pay for every last dirty thing they’ve done to me.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Chick did not move. Pryde saw the shocked surprise, then fear come over his face—his eyes wide and his mouth open as if to cry out. Then, with an effort, with a lip-biting jaw-tensed effort, his expression slowly changed and his face was almost relaxed as he turned to Brazil.

  “What’re you going to do to me?”

  “What do you think?” Brazil asked mildly.

  “I don’t want to get hit.”

  “I’ll bet you don’t.”

  “Listen”—Chick swallowed and the fear was in his eyes again—“I was just talking. You know how you get mad and say funny things—”

  “I didn’t think it was funny.”

  “Not funny. You know, you say things you don’t mean.”

  “The first thing that comes into your mind.”

  “That’s right. No! Wild, crazy things that you don’t mean, but just so you’ll be saying something.”

  “Like making me pay.”

  Chick tried to smile. “That’s right. How could I make you pay? See what I mean, that’s just crazy talk that came in my head.”

  Brazil raised the Winchester, holding it across his chest. “And you don’t think I ought to hit you?”

  Chick swallowed again. He started to back away. “Beating me wouldn’t solve anything.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t at that,” Brazil said. He lowered the Winchester so that the stock was beneath his right arm. His right hand gripped through the lever. He moved toward Chick who half turned and began edging away.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Run down and tell Renda to come here,” Brazil said.

  “You mean it?”

  “I wouldn’t say it ’less I did.”

  “You’re not going to do anything to me?”

  “Go on.”

  Chick edged away, still half turned looking at Brazil. He glanced up canyon to locate Renda, looked back at Brazil once more then turned, his quick short steps developing into a run. He had gone no more than thirty feet when Brazil fired. Chick stumbled as if trying to turn and Brazil fired again, the stock of the Winchester still under his arm and held just above his waist. He levered another shell into the chamber before his gaze returned from Chick Miller to the three men near him. His eyes moved slowly from Bowen to Pryde to the Mexican.

  “He tried to run,” Brazil said. “You saw him. He tried to run away.”

  8

  Renda made them remove Chick Miller’s clothes before burying him. Bowen and Pryde took turns digging a grave close to the canyon slope; then, after they had lowered Chick’s body into it and pushed in the dirt, the Mexican covered the low mound with stones and marked the grave with a cross he had made by tying together two mesquite sticks with a length of pinyon root.

  “He never learned to keep his mouth shut,” Pryde said. They were walking back to the team now, the Mexican ahead of them dragging the chain to the next stump.

  “There wasn’t any sense to it,” Bowen said. “I saw him do it, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t believe it. You don’t just kill a man like that—like you don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Now you know what kind Brazil is,” Pryde said.

  “It’s hard to believe,” Bowen said. “A man with only a year left and he had to say the wrong thing.”

  “I wonder,” Pryde said, “if Renda will write to his wife.”

  “He’s got a family?”

  “Sure, a wife and two girls in Wickenburg.”

  Bowen shook his head. “If he could’ve held out just one more year, maybe he could’ve made them pay. Like he said.”

  “That was talk,” Pryde said. “By the time you get out Renda’ll be in some other business. Even if he’s still working convicts, how’re you going to prove anything?”

  “I was thinking—maybe twist Willis Falvey’s arm.”

  “If you can get to him.”

  “Renda’ll have Willis write the letter,” Bowen said.

  “Which is about all Willis’s good for.”

  “Ike…do you have a family?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I did.”

  Bowen said, “Something like that can’t happen too many times. All of a sudden every convict here will start swinging picks and shovels. There’s only so much a man can take. They’ll say it’s better to get killed with a chance of escaping than getting cut down for saying the wrong thing…Ike, what if all of a sudden the thirty of us rushed them? Thirty against four.”

  “Thirty against three Winchesters and a scatter gun,” Pryde said.

  “But if it was timed right—”

  “And if the Mimbres were on our side.”

  “Let’s take one thing at a time.”

  “It’s all at the same time,” Pryde said. “Soon as one shot is fired the Mimbres are aiming down the slopes, on both sides.”

  But it’s got to be done somehow, Bowen thought. And soon. You keep still so long then one day you say the wrong thing and Brazil says, “Go get Renda.” He could say anything. “Go over and get that shovel,” or he could pull the trigger right in front of you. What difference would it make? Nobody’s bringing him to court for it. In the records it’s still killed while trying to escape. Picture six years of pulling stumps and trying not to say the wrong thing. Six years of Renda…and Brazil. After this camp, some other one, and if not Renda and Brazil, men just like them, because you don’t get the love-thy-neighbor kind to boss convicts. Or else you go back to Yuma…to the granite cells and the desert and the Gatling gun over the main gate.

  And if not six years, he thought picturing Karla, then how long? A year? Two years? How long do you think it’ll take that lawyer—assuming he’ll get you freed? Longer than you could stand. She’s some girl and it would be fine to know her better, but it even takes a week to get a letter from Prescott. So add up how many letters and how many weeks. Can you stand it even that long, a week? Maybe. But you have to be looking forward to something to do it.

  Cross the lawyer off, Bowen thought. Cross off everything that isn’t certain or anything that’s more than a week away. Then concentrate on one thing. She’s some girl, he thought then, but it would’ve been better if she gave you a gun instead of a lawyer.

  Renda stopped work at six o’clock. The convicts filed past the equipment wagon to drop shovels, picks and axes, then boarded the two wagons that waited behind. Bowen hitched the team to the third wagon. He walked back to the end gate then to climb on and as he did, Earl Manring held out his hand to help him.

  “That was too bad,” Manring said, “about Chick.”

  The wagons strained over the uneven ground, were pulled in a wide slow turn and started back up canyon to the wash they had come down that morning. Bowen moved with the swaying, jolting motion of the wagon, his eyes on Renda and Brazil again bringing up the rear.

  “I said that was too bad about Chick,” Manring repeated.

  “I heard you.”

  “Don’t you think it was?”

  “Earl, if you have something to say, say it.”

  Manring grinned. “I hear you got a
sweetheart.”

  Bowen turned to him. “That’s the way Chick started. He went right on talking till the end.”

  “That was too bad about Chick,” Manring said thoughtfully. “Something that could happen to anybody. Right?”

  Bowen shrugged.

  “Corey, I got something to talk over with you.” Manring leaned closer to him to say it.

  “What about?”

  “Later on tonight we’ll talk about it.”

  “Then what’d you bring it up for?”

  “To see if you were still as agreeable as ever,” Manring grinned.

  The last red reflection of the sun showed in the sky behind them as the wagons rolled down the slope toward the camp—toward the silent, cold-looking, deserted-looking adobes that were already enveloped in the dull shadow of this slope the wagons were descending.

  Now, at the gate, a lantern flickered, then went up to full brightness. Minutes later, off to the right of the gate, another light appeared showing the black square of the stable entrance. As the wagons neared the gate, a third lantern blinked on, this one to the left. It hung from the ramada in front of Renda’s quarters, and now a shadowy figure could be seen standing close to one of the support posts.

  One of the night guards turned the corner of the convict’s barracks as the wagons pulled up. Hestruck a match to light the lantern that hung head-high next to the middle door, then leaned against the wall, the match stick in the corner of his mouth, and watched the convicts unload. When they were lined up he counted them. Then counted them again before looking at Renda.

  “You’re one short.”

  “We’re supposed to be,” Renda answered. “Feed ’em and put ’em to bed.” He turned away, walking across the yard toward the lantern that hung from the ramada. In the dimness a figure waited for him, then stepped into the light as Renda approached the adobe.

  “I heard what that guard said.”

  Renda looked up. “Then you got good ears, Willis.”

  “You let somebody escape, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t let anybody escape.”

  “Damn it, the guard said you were short one!”

  “Willis, we buried a man today. That’s why we’re short.”

  “What happened?”

  “What do you think? He tried to run. Brazil shot him.”

  Falvey exhaled slowly. “What if he’d made it?”

  “Nobody has yet,” Renda answered.

  “But what if he had?”

  “What if you stop worrying about it?”

  “Frank, if a man got out and told what’s going on here—”

  “Who’d listen to him? It’d be your word against his.”

  Falvey shook his head. “We can’t take a chance on even the possibility of it.”

  “Willis, nobody’s ever escaped from me and nobody’s going to.”

  “Those men are thinking about it all the time.”

  “Let them. Thinking about it and doing it are about seven hundred miles apart.”

  “But sooner or later—”

  Renda shook his head. “Not sooner or later or any time. I’ll talk to them, Willis. All I got to do is talk to them.”

  After the evening meal, the convicts were marched to the stock tank in back of the stable—a round, waist-high tin-lined tank fed by a thin but steady flow of water that emptied from a rusted pipe connected to the well shaft of the windmill.

  They were given fifteen minutes to wash as much of themselves as they cared to, and shave if they wanted to do that. Part of a mirror was fastened to a timber of the windmill structure and above it a lantern hung from a nail. One mirror, four dull razors and a few chunks of soap for thirty men. For that reason few of the men shaved more than twice a week and almost a third of them wore beards. For them, Renda produced a pair of scissors once a week.

  Most of the convicts removed only their shirts, splashed water over their faces and upper bodies to remove twelve hours of grime and sweat, then dried themselves with the shirts before putting them on again.

  After that, they were marched back to the barracks, counted again, then moved inside. The three lanterns that hung from wires hooked to the ceiling would burn for an hour and a half. At the end of that time, a night guard would come in for a last check and order the lanterns out.

  But this night did not follow the usual routine.

  Shortly before nine o’clock, one of the guards came in. Two of the convicts rose from their mats to put out the lanterns.

  “Keep them on!”

  They looked at the guard. Then every man in the room looked at him and a silence followed. They watched him glance over his shoulder then step aside as Renda came in, his shotgun under his arm, followed by Brazil and the two day guards who were all carrying Winchesters. Brazil stopped near Renda, but the two guards moved past him to cover the convicts nearer the end of the room.

  Renda waited and his eyes moved slowly over the convicts. Most of them were on their own mats now, but a few of them here and there were still grouped together over a card game. Renda waited until he was sure they were all looking toward him, until there was not the smallest foot-scuffing sound.

  Then he began: “Chick Miller got killed today,” Renda stated. “He was trying to escape. Brazil warned him—called out for Chick to halt, but Chick kept going, so he didn’t have any choice but to shoot him. That’s what happened, so that’s what the official report will say that goes to Prescott,” Renda paused. “Does anybody say it happened any different?”

  No one spoke. Renda’s eyes moved along the line of men, then stopped at Bowen. “Stand up.”

  Bowen pushed himself up, turned to face Renda.

  Renda’s eyes held on him. “Isn’t that how it happened?”

  Calmly, quietly, Bowen said, “If you say so, then that’s how it happened.”

  “Chick tried to run and Brazil had to shoot him,” Renda stated.

  Bowen nodded. “All right.”

  “Sit down.” Renda’s eyes moved to Pryde, then to the Mexican. He asked them the same question and both of them agreed that it had happened as Renda said it did.

  “Now I’ll tell you something,” Renda said, including all the convicts. “Nobody here’s going to ever try that again. I’m giving the orders to shoot, the least move out of line. You hesitate one second when you’re told to do something, you’re dead. You take one step in the wrong direction and you won’t know what hit you. I want you to understand that. I want you to get it in your heads so clear you won’t move without thinking about it.” He turned to Bowen suddenly. “You understand that?”

  Bowen nodded, looking up at Renda.

  “You understand it,” Renda said. “You were standing close to Chick. Listen, I’ll tell you something else. That stunt you pulled a while back…jumping off the wagon. You wouldn’t get just twenty days for it the second time.”

  He looked over all the convicts. “You get past the guards, the Mimbres have got orders to take your scalp. You won’t be brought back here…just part of you. To prove you’re dead.

  “I’m giving you warning now,” Renda continued. “One move out of line and somebody shoots. You’ll even think before spitting over the side of the wagon. What you’re doing to get shot don’t matter to me. It goes in the report as trying to escape and the report’s the only thing that means anything. So you think about that.”

  Again his gaze moved slowly over the convicts, then he turned and left the barracks. Brazil and the guards followed him, the last one giving the order for the lanterns to be put out. Outside, they heard the lock snap on the door, the sound of footsteps fading away, then silence.

  Moments later, something touched Bowen’s foot. He sat up quietly.

  “Who is it?”

  “Come over here.”

  He recognized Earl Manring’s voice. As he rose, Manring moved away. A moment later he saw Manring’s outline against the window that was almost directly across from him. It was early and there was little moonli
ght, but enough to show the narrow shape of the window. Half of the opening had been boarded up from the outside, the other half covered by a heavy-gauge wire screen.

  As Bowen reached him, Manring asked, “He scare you?”

  Bowen’s hand touched the window sill. “He gave you something to think about.”

  “That’s all talk.”

  “You didn’t see Chick get shot.”

  “Brazil didn’t like Chick. He never did. That’s why he killed him.”

  “Brazil doesn’t like anybody.”

  Manring shook his head. “If you don’t make any noise, you don’t get in any trouble. Chick was always talking. Brazil got to the point he couldn’t stand it any more. He might’ve thought he was even doing everybody a favor shooting him.”

  “That’s a nice thought,” Bowen said.

  “You’re in the same spot as Chick,” Manring went on. “They’re watching you because you tried to run one time. I told you it wasn’t the right time, but you wouldn’t listen to me…Corey, they’re no meaner than they ever were. They’ll shoot anybody they don’t like…let you alone if you don’t make trouble.”

  “You’re one of the good ones, Earl?”

  “One of the smart ones if you want to get down to it. I didn’t spend no twenty days in the hole.”

  “You were out working.”

  “And looking around,” Manring said.

  “Go on.”

  “You’re still thinking about it…after what Renda said?”

  “Frank makes you want to get out all the more.”

  “I’ve got to be sure of you,” Manring said.

  “As sure as I am of you?”

  Manring’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You think about it a while.”

  “Look,” Manring said. “I don’t have to include you. If you’re going to start accusing me again we’ll forget about it. I’ll get somebody else.”

  “Earl, the only reason you’re asking anybody is because getting out of here is something you can’t do alone. I’m not sure yet why you’re picking me. Maybe because you thought I was easy to manage before. Whatever the reason, it’s something that’ll do you the most good.”