“I do what I take a notion to. He says he wants to kill Evans. I ain’t making him do it.”
“You talk about getting Evans, but you got to have somebody else do it for you,” Avery said.
“Get off my back, Broussard. I don’t take orders from nobody on this gang.”
“I’m telling you, let LeBlanc alone. He’s got a ten-year sentence, and he’s going to have enough trouble without you getting him into any more.”
“You better mind your business.”
“If you ain’t enough man to do your own cutting, don’t put a crazy man up to it,” Toussaint said.
“You guys break my heart,” Billy Jo said. “That nut ain’t going to last a year in here. Why don’t we let him get Evans while he can?”
“Get him yourself. You been talking about it ever since I come here,” Toussaint said.
“I been waiting for the right time.”
“You say you’re breaking out next week. Get Benoit’s knife and take a piece of Evans with you,” Toussaint said.
“I ain’t taking a chance on fucking up my break.”
“Then don’t put a knife in a crazy man’s hand if you ain’t willing to stick out your own neck.”
“What’s your part in this?” Billy Jo said. “Are you Jesus Christ or something?”
“I don’t like to see you send somebody to the electric chair for what you can’t do yourself,” Toussaint said.
Avery Broussard
It was Sunday afternoon, and LeBlanc had been left in detention overnight, even though it was against normal disciplinary procedure. The day was bright and the sun reflected off the tin roofs of the barracks in a white glare, and the air was very still and heavy with the smell of the pines and dust and heat. Gang three had been assigned to police the area outside the barracks. They moved about slowly with their cloth sacks, picking up bits of paper and cigarette butts out of the dirt. Their wash-faded denim shirts were bleached almost white, and the stenciled letters LA. PENAL SYSTEM were black across their backs.
Inside Avery’s barracks blankets were stretched across the windows to keep out the sun. The noise of running water came from the showers where the men were washing their clothes. Benoit and Jeffry were sweeping the grained floor with brooms, and three other men were scrubbing it behind them with soap and water. The bunks and footlockers were pushed back against the wall in order that the entire barracks floor could be well cleaned before five o’clock inspection. Avery and Toussaint stood at the window with the blanket pulled aside and looked out into the heat.
“It must be over a hundred degrees in the box,” Avery said.
“It’s hotter than that,” Toussaint said. “They’ll have to let him out this afternoon. A man can’t take more than two days of detention.”
“You guys move out of the way,” Benoit said, sweeping the dust in their direction.
They stepped back and let him sweep past.
“Why are you all standing around? We got inspection in a couple more hours,” he said.
“We were on cleanup this morning,” Avery said.
“I been on cleanup all day. I ain’t had time to do my laundry yet.”
“That ain’t our fault. You’re doing Billy Jo’s share because you couldn’t pay off your card game last night,” Toussaint said.
“Who says so?”
“Daddy Claxton.”
“Claxton’s ass. He don’t know nothing.”
“Wait a minute. I want to talk to you,” Avery said.
“I got work to do.”
“Do you have a knife?”
“I ain’t got no knife. Who told you that?”
“What will you take for it? I got two dollars.”
“I ain’t got no knife, and it ain’t for sale, anyway.”
“I’ll give you the two dollars. You can pay Billy Jo what you owe him and sleep the rest of the afternoon,” Avery said.
“If I had a knife I wouldn’t sell it for no two bucks.”
“All right, keep it. And if Billy Jo asks you for it don’t give it to him.”
“What’s he want it for?”
“He’s going to give it to LeBlanc to kill Evans.”
“Evans needs killing,” Benoit said.
“If LeBlanc gets Evans with your knife I’m going to let the warden know where it came from.”
“That ain’t good talk.”
“They’ll think you were in on it. That could mean ten to twenty years,” Avery said.
“You shoot off your mouth and you won’t finish the week.”
“Maybe you’re right, but you’ll spend the rest of your life in the work camp.”
“I only got two more years.”
“Don’t give Billy Jo your knife,” Avery said.
“I ain’t saying I will or I won’t, but it’s going to hit the fan when you mouth off to the warden.”
“Twenty years. There’s a good chance they’ll bury you here.”
“I ain’t going to say nothing about what you told me, because somebody might slip up on you one night and wrap a belt around your neck. But don’t threaten me no more, or I’ll give you that knife myself, personal.”
“It works both ways, Benoit. You give away the knife and you’ll rot in here.”
Benoit’s small eyes glared at Avery.
“You might get to ride the midnight special out of here in a wood box,” he said.
He moved off with the broom, sweeping ahead of him.
“I don’t think you got any sense,” Toussaint said.
“It scared him. He won’t give Billy Jo the knife,” Avery said.
“Like he says, he might give it to you instead.”
They looked out into the heavy stillness of the afternoon. Tufts of grass grew around the edges of the barracks, and the bare dirt grounds, trodden to dust, looked hot and dry. The men from gang three sweated in the sun. Avery watched one man pick up several cigarette butts and turn his back to the other men and conceal them in his pocket.
“Here he comes. They’re bringing him in,” Jeffry shouted from the other end of the barracks.
The men put down their brooms and mops and crowded to the windows. They pulled aside the blankets and pressed their faces against the wire mesh to see both ends of the grounds.
“Where is he? I don’t see him,” Daddy Claxton said.
“Around the other way. I seen them from the latrine. He looks like a baked apple.”
The key turned in the lock and the door opened. Evans and Rainack brought LeBlanc inside by each arm. His legs wouldn’t hold him and broke at the knees when he tried to set his weight down. His denims were smeared with black and red rust. His skin was raw, and his hands and forehead were spotted with dark red places. His heavy beard was covered with flakes of dirt and rust. They dragged him to his bunk and threw him across it. LeBlanc stared blindly at the two guards. His breath came in pants.
“Evans,” he said. “I can’t see nothing yet, but it’s you. I been thinking about it since you put me in there. I know how I’m going to do it. God damn me to hell I’ll cut your fucking stomach out.”
“You want another two days in the box?” Evans said.
“Let’s get out of here. He’s stinking up the place,” Rainack said.
“He smells like somebody pissed on a radiator, don’t he?”
“Let’s go. My relief comes on in a few minutes.”
Evans took off his sun helmet and wiped his fore head with his sleeve. There was a damp smear across the khaki. He looked down at LeBlanc and put on his helmet.
“Just like piss on a radiator,” he said.
“Come on, I want to wash this guy off my hands,” Rainack said.
They walked out of the barracks, and locked the barred door behind them.
“Look at his hands. They’re burned,” Jeffry said. “He must have tried to push the lid open.”