Junior jabbed his trowel into the foot of the man working next to him.
The man let out a scream and the guard was on his feet at once, coming down from the rise.
Shelby waited until the guard was hunched over the man, trying to get a look at the foot. The other convicts were crowding in for a look too and the man was holding his ankle, rocking back and forth and moaning. The guard told him goddamn-it, sit still and let him see it.
Shelby looked over at Raymond San Carlos, who was standing now, the wall in front of him as high as his hips. Shelby nodded and turned to the group around the injured man. As he pushed Joe Dean aside he glanced around again to see the wall empty where Raymond had been standing. “What time is it?” he said.
Joe Dean took out his pocket watch. “Eleven-fifty about.”
“Exactly.”
“Eleven-fifty-two.”
Shelby took the watch from Joe Dean as he leaned in to see the clean tear in the toe of the man’s shoe and the blood starting to come out. He waited a moment before moving over next to the wall. The guard was asking what happened and Junior was trying to explain how he’d tripped over the goddamn mortar bucket and, throwing his hand out as he fell, his trowel had hit the man’s shoe. His foot, the guard said—you stabbed him. Well, he hadn’t meant to, Junior told the guard. Jesus, if he’d meant to, he wouldn’t have stabbed him in the foot, would he?
From the wall Shelby watched Raymond moving quickly through the brush clumps and not looking back—very good—not hesitating until he was at the edge of the mud flats, a tiny figure way down there, something striped, hunched over in the bushes and looking around now. Go on, Shelby said, looking at the watch. What’re you waiting for? It was eleven fifty-three.
The guard was telling the man to take his shoes off, he wasn’t going to do it for him; and goddamn-it, get back and give him some air.
When Shelby looked down the slope again Raymond was in the water knee-deep, sliding into it; in a moment only his head was showing. Like he knew what he was doing, Shelby thought.
Between moans the injured man said Oh God, he believed his toes were cut off. Junior said maybe one or two; no trowel was going to take off all a man’s toes, ’less you come down hard with the edge; maybe that would do it.
Twenty yards out. Raymond wasn’t too good a swimmer, about average. Well, that was all right. If he was average then the watch would show an average time. He sure seemed to be moving slow though. Swimming was slow work.
When the chow wagon comes, the guard said, we’ll take him up in it. Two of you men go with him.
It’s coming now, somebody said.
There it was, poking along close to the wall, a driver and a helper on the seat, one of the trusties. The guard stood up and yelled for them to get down here. Shelby took time to watch the injured man as he ground his teeth together and eased his shoe off. He wasn’t wearing any socks. His toes were a mess of blood, but at least they all seemed to be there. He was lucky.
Raymond was more than halfway across now. The guard was motioning to the wagon, trying to hurry it. So Shelby watched Raymond: just a speck out there, you’d have to know where to look to find him. Wouldn’t that be something if he made it? God Almighty, dumb Indin probably could if he knew what to do once he got across. Or if he had some help waiting. But he’d look for the boat that wasn’t there and run off through the brush and see all that empty land stretching nowhere.
Eleven fifty-six. He’d be splashing around out there another minute easy before he reached the bank.
Shelby walked past the group around the injured man and called out to the guard who had gone partway up the slope, “Hey, mister!” When the guard looked around Shelby said, “I think there’s somebody out there in the water.”
The guard hesitated, but not more than a moment before he got over to the wall. He must have had a trained eye, because he spotted Raymond right away and fired the Winchester in the air. Three times in rapid succession.
Joe Dean looked up as Shelby handed him his pocket watch. “He make it?” Joe Dean asked.
“Just about.”
“How many minutes?”
“Figure five anyway, as a good average.”
Junior said to Shelby, “What do you think?”
“Well, it’s a slow way out of here,” Shelby answered. “But least we know how long it takes now and we can think on it.”
Mr. Manly jumped in his chair and swiveled around to the window when the whistle went off, a high, shrieking sound that ripped through the stillness of the office and seemed to be coming from directly overhead. The first thing he thought of, immediately, was, somebody’s trying to escape! His first day here…
Only there wasn’t a soul outside. No convicts, no guards running across the yard with guns.
Of course—they were all off on work details.
When he pressed close to the window Mr. Manly saw the woman, Norma Davis, standing in the door of the tailor shop. Way down at the end of the mess hall. He knew it was Norma, and not the other one. Standing with her hands on her hips, as if she was listening—Lord, as the awful piercing whistle kept blowing. After a few moments she turned and went inside again. Not too concerned about it.
Maybe it wasn’t an escape. Maybe it was something else. Mr. Manly went down the hall and opened the doors, looking into empty offices, some that hadn’t been used in months. He turned back and, as he reached the end of the hall and the door leading to the outside stairway, the whistle stopped. He waited, then cautiously opened the door and went outside. He could see the front gate from here: both barred doors closed and the inside and outside guards at their posts. He could call to the inside guard, ask him what was going on.
And what if the man looked up at him on the stairs and said it was the noon dinner whistle? It was just about twelve.
Or what if it was an exercise he was supposed to know about? Or a fire drill. Or anything for that matter that a prison superintendent should be aware of. The guard would tell him, “That’s the whistle to stop work for dinner, sir,” and not say anything else, but his look would be enough.
Mr. Manly didn’t know where else he might go, or where he might find the turnkey. So he went back to his office and continued reading the history file on Harold Jackson.
Born Fort Valley, Georgia, September 11, 1879.
Mr. Manly had already read that part. Field hand. No formal education. Arrested in Georgia and Florida several times for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, striking an officer of the law. Served eighteen months on a Florida prison farm for assault. Inducted into the army April 22, 1898. Assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment in Tampa, Florida, June 5. Shipped to Cuba.
He was going to read that part over again about Harold Jackson deserting and being court-martialed.
But Bob Fisher, the turnkey, walked in. He didn’t knock, he walked in. He looked at Mr. Manly and nodded, then gazed about the room. “If there’s something you don’t like about this office, we got some others down the hall.
“Caught one of them trying to swim the river, just about the other side when we spotted him.” Fisher stopped as Mr. Manly held up his hand and rose from the desk.
“Not right now,” Mr. Manly said. “I’m going to go have my dinner. You can give me a written report this afternoon.”
Walking past Fisher wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be. Out in the hall Mr. Manly paused and looked back in the office. “I assume you’ve put the man in the snake den.”
Fisher nodded.
“Bring me his file along with your report, Bob.” Mr. Manly turned and was gone.
4