No, she thought then. You made the mistake yourself. And you’ll live with it the rest of your life unless you do something. You should have been more patient. There were others. But you guessed wrong and picked Willis-who was then what he is now. So you can’t really blame Willis.
They had met in Washington less than a year before. Three weeks later they were married. Lizann: a young woman whose father had been killed at Second Bull Run a year after she was born, killed in a cavalry action, leaving wife and daughter a name, but very little money to support the name. And Willis: a young man whose father, also with a name, had also died, leaving his son sole heir to a moderately large estate. But it was not until after their wedding and honeymoon that Lizann learned Willis had gambled away almost his entire inheritance. All that remained were the stories of his fortune-the same stories which had attracted Lizann to him. Still, she was not yet discouraged. Willis did have influential friends. And a political appointment was in the offing. Three months later they were in Prescott. There, Willis was told he would serve “somewhat as a liaison man” between the territorial government, the military and a privately operated road construction project. A few weeks later they were at Five Shadows. After the first day, Lizann fully realized the mistake she had made.
Now she looked out across the yard again to the stable and she thought of Bowen-remembering how she had compared her husband to him the day he was placed in the punishment cell; remembering now how she had catalogued him in her mind: a man who would do anything to escape.
She thought of him calmly, impersonally now, feeling that there had been something almost instinctive in choosing him from among all the convicts. As if-since Willis would do nothing-Bowen was the next logical choice to help her.
But how?
In some way that would benefit him. That, she realized already. A way that would help him escape. But, she thought now, talk to him first. He isn’t on Renda’s side. But neither is he necessarily on yours.
Before leaving the window to change into her riding suit, she saw her husband ride out of the gate. Less than ten minutes later, she walked across the yard and into the wide opening of the stable. She saw Pryde immediately, at the far end sweeping the aisle between the stalls-then Bowen. He was in the first stall on the right side, curry-combing Renda’s big chestnut mare. She walked toward him.
“Frank didn’t waste time putting you back to work, did he?”
Bowen looked up. “No, ma’am.” He watched her move toward him. She came almost into the stall, stopping to lean against the end of the partition that separated this stall from the next one. This was the first time she had even spoken to him and her relaxed, almost familiar manner surprised him.
“Will you saddle my horse?”
“All right.” He looked back, over the partition. “Which one?”
“The sorrel, on the other side.”
Bowen turned, taking a step as he did, then stopped abruptly. Lizann, less than an arm’s length from him, had not moved.
“I’m in no hurry,” she said. “Finish what you’re doing.”
“I’ve got all day to do this,” Bowen said.
Lizann was studying him openly. “How do you feel?”
“Not so good,” Bowen said. Her eyes made him conscious of his three weeks’ growth of beard, his ragged, sweat-stained appearance.
“I saw what Renda did to to you,” Lizann said quietly. “I was standing behind him.”
Bowen nodded. “I noticed.”
“It’s too bad your hands were tied.”
“Maybe it was good. I might have killed him.”
“Do you mean that?”
Her question surprised him. “I mean I was mad enough at the time.”
Lizann nodded slowly. “I could see why you would be. You’ve been here, what-three months?”
“That’s right.”
“And Yuma before that,” Lizann said. “With six years to serve of a seven-year sentence. I can’t say I blame you for trying to escape.”
“How do you know all that?” Bowen asked. He was reminded of Karla Demery. Now a second woman who seemed to know all about him.
“I looked up your record,” Lizann said.
“For a reason?”
“Perhaps.”
“What were you looking for?”
Lizann smiled. “You’ve a very suspicious nature. Perhaps I just felt sorry for you…thought you needed a friend.”
Bowen shook his head. “Not in a convict camp. With a husband.”
“My husband doesn’t know everything I do.”
“But Renda does. He has to know what everybody’s doing. Even you.”
“You sound very sure of yourself.”
“What’s going on here,” Bowen said, “is black and white and you know it as well as anyone else. Renda gets seventy cents a day for each convict-thirty of us-for food, clothes and shelter. But he doesn’t spend two bits a man on his best day. He buys cheap flour, full of worms. The coffee goes twice as far as it should. The Mimbres shoot most of his meat which costs him only for bullets. We sleep on straw mats you wouldn’t put a dog on. Since I’ve been here three men have died on those mats. Not one of them had a doctor, though Renda’s supposed to provide medical care. He makes money on the road contract and he’s keeping it going as long as he can, for every day he can stretch it he makes that much more money off the convicts. Anybody who’s been here longer than one day knows it. So it comes down to this-living here you’re either his friend or his prisoner and either way he knows what you’re doing.”
Lizann’s eyes remained on him. “You’ve thought it out very carefully.”
“I’ve had the time.”
“Which do you think my husband is, friend or prisoner?”
“Maybe both. But he drinks so he won’t have to admit to being either.”
“And I?” Lizann asked. “Which am I?”
“Until a while ago, I would’ve thought you and Renda got along fine.”
Lizann’s eyebrows raised inquiringly. “And now?”
“Now I’d say you want out.”
“You just thought of that,” Lizann said. “You’re guessing.”
Bowen moved his hand slowly over the smooth back of the chestnut. “I’ll guess something else.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re looking for somebody angry enough to help you.”
For a moment there was no sound in the stable. They were aware then of the faint sound of Pryde sweeping at the far end, but that was all. Their eyes held, neither of them moving until Lizann asked, quietly, “Are you angry enough, Corey?”
“That all depends.”
“On me?”
Bowen nodded. “On what’s on your mind.”
“I’ll be perfectly honest with you,” Lizann said softly. She moved closer to him. “I don’t know how it can be done. All I know is I have to get away from here. My husband has refused to help me and Renda has me watched constantly. That’s why I have no choice but to-”
“Come to a convict.”
“I wasn’t going to say that. I have no choice but to devise my own means of getting away from here.”
“You’d leave your husband?”
“He’s already left me, you might say.”
“Why won’t he help you?”
“You said it yourself. He’s Renda’s prisoner.”
“He could get word out somehow,” Bowen said. “Mail a report from Fuegos.”
“He could…if he wasn’t accepting money from Frank.”
“Renda’s bribing him?”
Lizann nodded calmly. “If he reports Frank, Frank will report him. Staying here, Willis is desperately protecting what he chooses to call his career in government service.”
“I didn’t think Frank was making that much that he could afford to pay somebody off.”
“He doesn’t have a choice.”
“It seems to me,” Bowen said, “he could get away with just threatening your husband.”
“Perhaps he could, but it wouldn’t be as sure as the way he’s doing it.”
“How long has your husband been taking the money?”
“I suppose from almost the first day we came here. It wouldn’t have taken Willis long to realize what Renda was doing. Willis keeps the books…That’s something else, another way Renda has him. All the accounting is in Willis’s handwriting-the entries of the government subsistence funds, then the recording of fictitious expenditures to cover the funds going into Renda’s pocket. As far as the people in Prescott know, the convicts are getting the equivalent of seventy cents a day-in food, clothing, blankets…well, you know, you mentioned it a moment ago.”