“I say what I know,” Salvaje answered. “He fought well and deserves better than this.”
Renda nodded slowly, thoughtfully, before saying, “I’ll tell you something now. You went out of here with twelve horses. You came back with ten. Worry about where you’re going to find two horses and I’ll worry about this one.”
Salvaje shook his head. “You supply horses. We bring back escaped men.”
“I think you’d do better,” Renda said, “if you’d never learned to talk English.” His tone changed suddenly and he pointed a finger at Salvaje. “You’re going to find two horses to replace what you lost, or you’re going to find yourself back at San Carlos! You savvy that, Mister Indian?”
Salvaje did not answer, but his eyes remained on Renda.
“Now get out of the way,” Renda told him. He waited for Salvaje to move, then stepped up to Bowen, rubbing his fist into the palm of his left hand. Suddenly then, he cocked the fist. Bowen started to roll away from it, but as he did Renda’s left hand lashed against his jaw.
Lizann watched Bowen as he tried to rise, as he fell back again and rolled to his stomach. She looked at Renda then to see what he would do.
Renda’s glance went to Salvaje. “Pick him up.”
With the Mimbre’s help, Bowen came to his feet. He stood swaying, as if ready to fall, his head hanging forward, but as Renda swung at him again he rolled with the fist, and suddenly threw himself at Renda, lowering his head to drive against him. Renda went back a half step. He pushed Bowen away from him and moved in with his fists before Bowen could lower his head again. He hit him with both hands-short body jabs that kept Bowen backing away, trying to twist with the jabs, then a hard solid left hand to Bowen’s stomach and as he started to fold forward Renda’s right hand hammered against his jaw and he went down.
Renda stood over him, his thick chest rising and falling as he breathed. He backed away then and said, “Pick him up.”
“Don’t you think,” Lizann said mildly, “he’s had enough?”
Renda looked at her. “Do I tell you how to take care of Willis?”
“You’d like to be able to,” Lizann said.
Renda glanced at her leaning against the ramada post. She always seemed to be lounging, watching something going on, but never taking part herself. He turned to Salvaje again. “I said pick him up.”
Bowen was again lifted to his feet, but this time staggered and almost went down before Renda could reach him. Renda’s hand caught the front of his shirt. He held Bowen momentarily, then dropped his hand as he shifted his weight and he hit Bowen in the face as hard as he could swing his fist.
He stepped back then, his eyes raising from Bowen to Salvaje. “Throw him in with Pryde. They’ll think about it over bread and water for a while.” He paused. “Say twenty days. That’s a good round number.”
Lizann watched Renda hand Salvaje a key; then Salvaje made a sign and two of his Mimbres lifted Bowen to his feet. He stood between them, his shoulders raised awkwardly by the support of their hands under his arms. His legs moved as they led him away, following Salvaje, but his head hung heavily, chin against chest, and Lizann realized that he was barely conscious.
Her eyes followed as they took him across the compound to the convicts’ barracks, then along the wind-scarred adobe front of it, past five doors to the sixth one, the punishment cell.
She was thinking of her husband, comparing him to this man Bowen, and wondering if he could have taken half the beating Bowen did.
No, Bowen was a different breed-a man who would undoubtedly again try to escape, even if failure meant another beating and a longer period in the punishment cell. A man, Lizann reflected, who would go to any extreme to escape. Any extreme.
She saw Salvaje open the heavy door, the two Mimbres move inside with Bowen, then reappear, one carrying the length of rope that had fastened Bowen’s hands, then Salvaje padlock the door again, and she continued to think of Bowen, though no longer comparing him to her husband.
Pryde sat against one wall, his legs straight out in front of him. Fifteen feet away, Bowen lay on his side, his face resting on the hard-packed dirt floor. Above him was the outline of a window. It had been bricked in, all of it except a narrow space where the top row of bricks would have gone. This opening ventilated the six-by-
fifteen-foot cell, and now it framed a thin line of outside light, a faint ray that penetrated the dimness of the room to show Pryde’s face in a pale streak against the wall.
He waited until Bowen stirred. Then he said, “Corey-” his voice clear in the stillness though it was barely above a whisper.
Bowen raised his head. “Ike…is that you?” His face was numb and swollen tight and as he spoke he could not feel his lips move.
“It’s me,” Pryde said.
Bowen came up on his elbow. “Ike, I’m sorry.” His eyes narrowed as if to see through the dimness. “Ike, did you go after Brazil?”
Pryde’s head nodded.
“Why’d you do it?”
“I don’t know, I saw him trying to bring up that Winchester and I went for him…got him off the horse and hit him once, but that’s all.”
“I’m obliged to you, Ike.”
Pryde said nothing.
“And he gave it back to you over the head.”
Pryde’s eyes moved. “He gave me more than that. When we got back here, Renda said, ‘Learn him a lesson,’ and Brazil went and got a pick handle to do it with.”
Bowen crawled over to him. “You hurt bad?”
“I don’t know. I can’t move my back.”
“Your arms are swollen.”
“I think I’m swollen about all over.” He said then, still calmly, “Listen…you got to know something.”
“We have a long time to talk,” Bowen said. “Go to sleep now.”
“Listen to me!” Pryde’s voice rose. But he relaxed again as he said, “After Renda emptied his shotgun, he ran back to where we were. Brazil fired then, but it was too late. I was on the ground and my head buzzed like hell. That’s why I’m not sure of the exact words…though the meaning was plain enough.”
Bowen shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”
“You will. Renda looked like he wanted to kill somebody.” Pryde went on, “But there wasn’t anything he could do. Then he yelled out, ‘You said not till the grade!’ or words just like that.”
Bowen frowned. “He said that to Brazil?”
Pryde shook his head slowly. “To Manring. Somewhere along the line Earl told him you were going to run.”
They counted the days by marking the wall with Pryde’s belt buckle, a mark for each day scratched in a row on the adobe wall. But even with this, after little more than a week had passed, they were not sure of the count and it seemed there should be more marks on the wall than there were. Twice a day the door opened and they were given bread and water. The guard who carried the bucket and dipper and a half loaf of bread was never armed. But another guard stood in the doorway with a shotgun. They were ordered not to talk to the prisoners and would not answer with even a sign when Bowen or Pryde asked the number of days they had been there.
In the morning, they would hear Renda or Brazil in front of the barracks lining up the convicts for the wagon trip to the construction site. Then, throughout the day, there was silence, long hours of dead silence only occasionally broken by the sound of a horse crossing the compound.
In the evening, after the convicts were in the barracks again, the faint murmur of voices, bits of conversation that were never completely clear, would drift into the darkness of the punishment cell. Bowen would sit with his back against the adobe not moving, listening for Manring’s voice. But thinking of Manring, wanting to be sure he would still be here at the end of twenty days, made the time pass even more slowly.
Why had Manring warned Renda that he was planning to escape?
Pryde said, because he’s paid for it. He had seen the same thing at Yuma. There were special privileges for the convict who kept the guards informed on what was going on inside the cell blocks. And, Pryde said, there was only one way to deal with that kind.