Jesus Christ, Bob Fisher said—not to Mr. Manly, to himself. He had to get out of here; he didn’t need any sermons today. He nodded thoughtfully and said to Mr. Manly, “I’ll bring them in here whenever you want.”
When Junior and Soonzy came back from clubbing the Indian and the colored boy, Frank Shelby told them to get finished with the unloading. He told them to leave a bottle of whiskey in the wagon for the freight driver and take the rest of it to his cell. Soonzy said Jesus, that nigger had a hard head, and showed everybody around how the hunk of wood was splintered. Junior said my, but they were dumb to start a fight out in the yard. This old boy over there called them sweethearts and that had started them swinging. If they wanted to fight, they should have it out in a cell some night. A convict standing there said, boy, he’d like to see that. It would be a good fight.
Shelby was looking at Norma Davis outside the tailor shop. He knew she was waiting for him, but what the convict said caught in his mind and he looked at the man.
“Which one would you bet on?”
“I think I’d have to pick the nigger,” the convict said. “The way he’s built.”
Shelby looked around at Soonzy. “Who’d you pick?”
“I don’t think neither of them look like much.”
“I said who’d you pick.”
“I don’t know. I guess the nigger.”
“How about in the mess hall,” Shelby said. “The Indin showed he’s got nerve. Pretty quick, too, the way he laid that plate across the boy’s eyes.”
“He’s quick,” Junior said.
“Quick and stronger than he looks,” Shelby said. “You saw him swimming against the river current.”
“Well, he’s big for an Indin,” Junior said. “Big and quick and, as Frank says, he’s got some nerve. Another thing, you don’t see no marks on him from their fighting in the snake den. He might be more’n the nigger can handle.”
“I’d say you could bet either way on that fight,” Shelby said. He told Junior to hand him the bundle for the tailor shop—a bolt of prison cloth wrapped in brown paper—and walked off with it.
Most of them, Shelby was thinking, would bet on the nigger. Get enough cons to bet on the Indin and it could be a pretty good pot. If he organized the betting, handled the whole thing, he could take about ten percent for the house. Offer some long-shot side bets and cover those himself. First, though, he’d have to present the idea to Bob Fisher. A prize fight. Fisher would ask what for and he’d say two reasons. Entertain the cons and settle the problem of the two boys fighting. Decide a winner and the matter would be ended. Once he worked out the side bets and the odds.
“Bringing me a present?” Norma asked him.
Shelby reached the shade of the building and looked up at her in the doorway. “I got a present for you, but it ain’t in this bundle.”
“I bet I know what it is.”
“I bet you ought to. Who’s inside?”
“Just Tacha and the old man.”
“Well, you better invite me in,” Shelby said, “before I start stripping you right here.”
“Little anxious today?”
“I believe it’s been over a week.”
“Almost two weeks,” Norma said. “Is there somebody else?”
“Two times I was on my way here,” Shelby said, “Fisher stopped me and sent me on a work detail.”
“I thought you got along with him.”
“It’s the first time he’s pulled anything like that.”
“You think he knows about us?”
“I imagine he does.”
“He watches me and Tacha take a bath.”
“He comes in?”
“No, there’s a loose brick in the wall he pulls out. One time, after I was through, I peeked out the door and saw him sneaking off.”
Shelby grinned. “Dirty old bastard.”
“Maybe he doesn’t feel so old.”
“I bet he’d like to have some at that.” Shelby nodded slowly. “I just bet he would.”
Norma was watching him. “Now what are you thinking?”
“But he wouldn’t want anybody to know about it. That’s why he don’t come in when you’re taking a bath. Tacha’s there.”
Norma smiled. “I can see your evil mind working. If Tacha wasn’t there—”
“Yes, sir, then he’d come in.”
“Ask if I wanted him to soap my back.”
“Front and back. I can see him,” Shelby said. “One thing leads to another. After the first time, he don’t soap you. No, sir, he gets right to it.”
“Then one night you come in”—Norma giggled—“and catch the head guard molesting a woman convict.”
Shelby shook his head, grinning.
“He’s trying to pull his pants on in a hurry and you say, Good evening, Mr. Fisher. How are tricks?”
“God damn,” Shelby said. “that’s good.”
“He’s trying to button his pants and stick his shirt in and thinking as hard as he can for something to say.” Norma kept giggling and trying not to. “He says, uh—”
“What does he say?”
“He says, ‘I just come in for some coffee. Can I get you a cup, Mr. Shelby?’ And you say, ‘No, thank you. I was just on my way to see the superintendent.’ He says, ‘About what, Mr. Shelby?’ And you say, ‘About how some of the guards have been messing with the women convicts.’ ”
“It’s an idea,” Shelby said, “but I don’t know of anything he can do for me except open the gate and he ain’t going to do that, no matter what I get on him. No, I was wondering—if you and him got to be good friends—what he might tell you if you were to ask him.”
Norma raised her arm and used the sleeve to wipe the wetness from her eyes. “What might he tell me?”
“Like what day we’re supposed to move out of here. If we’re going by train. If we’re all going at once, or in groups.” Shelby spoke quietly and watched her begin to nod her head as she thought about it. “Once we know when we’re moving we can begin to make plans. I can talk to my brother Virgil, when he comes to visit, get him working on the outside. But we got to know when.”
Norma was picturing herself in the cook shack with Fisher. “It would have to be the way I asked him. So he wouldn’t suspect anything.”
“Honey, you’d know better than I could tell you.”
“I suppose once I got him comfortable with me.”
“You won’t have any trouble at all.”
“It’ll probably be a few times before he relaxes.”
“Get him to think you like him. A man will believe anything when he’s got his pants off.”
“We might be having a cup of coffee after and I’ll make a little face and look around the kitchen and say, ‘Gee, honey, I wish there was some place else we could go.’ ”
“Ask him about the new prison.”
“That’s what I’m leading to,” Norma said. “I’ll tell him I hope we’ll have a better place than this. Then I’ll say, like I just thought of it, ‘By the way, honey, when are we going to this new prison?’ ”
“Ask him if he’s ever done it on a train?”