Authors: J.A. Johnstone
Hard Luck Money (7 page)
“Very well.” Jennings looked over at Culhane. “I understand you wanted to turn this prisoner over to me personally, Sergeant Culhane.”
“That’s right,” the Ranger said. “My cap’n told me not to take my eyes off him until I was sure he wouldn’t be able to get away. Keene’s a tricky one. If he hadn’t had some bad luck, I ain’t sure we ever would’ve caught him.”
Don’t lay it on too thick, Asa
, The Kid thought.
, The Kid thought.
“Well, you can see for yourself he’s not going anywhere, Sergeant,” Jennings said. “You can tell your captain we’ll take good care of him.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll do that.” Culhane turned to The Kid. “So long, Waco. Don’t reckon I’ll be seein’ you again. But if I do, you can bet I’ll be shootin’ to kill.”
“Maybe,” The Kid said. “Unless I see you first, Ranger.”
“That’s quite enough of that,” Jennings snapped. “Lawrence, take the prisoner to his cell.”
“Yes, sir,” the guard said.
The Kid and Culhane traded hard looks for a second, then the guards closed in around The Kid and marched him out of the warden’s office. He was taken out through a side door and escorted to a heavy wooden gate in the wall. Again, there was a fence beyond the wall, and the gate in it wasn’t opened until the other one was closed.
A couple guards were waiting inside the fence. They were armed with clubs instead of guns. Lawrence handed his shotgun to one of the men who’d come with him before he went through the gate in the fence with The Kid. That gate was closed and locked behind them. No guns were allowed beyond that point, The Kid guessed.
But guard towers with sharpshooters posted in them loomed above the walls. The Kid could feel the eyes of those marksmen on him as he walked across the yard with the guards. He might as well have had a bull’s-eye painted on his back.
He ought to get used to the feeling, he told himself. It was probably going to be there for a while.
Chapter 13
The guards escorted The Kid into one of the big buildings. There was an open area in the middle with three levels of cells on either side. He was surprised to see most of the cells were empty until he realized that because it was the middle of the day, most of the prisoners were out working, either in the fields or in one of the shops located at the prison. Probably the few men who were in their cells were either sick or had been excused from work for some other reason.
A few of them called out jeers at the guards, who ignored them for the most part. One convict hung on the bars of his cell and spewed filthy comments.
In the lead, Lawrence didn’t look over, but slammed his club against the bars only a couple inches below where the prisoner gripped them, causing the man to jump back in alarm. If the club had hit his fingers, it probably would have broken them.
Other than that quick strike, Lawrence gave no sign he had even heard the invective.
About two-thirds of the way along the block, on the first level, Lawrence came to a stop in front of an open cell. He motioned with the club for The Kid to go in. “You’ll be issued an extra uniform later. One of the trusties will bring it by later, along with a blanket for your bunk. Since it’s past the middle of the day, you’re excused from work, but only for today.”
“What job are you going to have me doing?” The Kid asked.
“New men work the laundry. That’s where they can do the least damage if they decide to act up. Once you’ve shown you’re not going to make any trouble, maybe you can move on to something else.”
The Kid nodded. He didn’t really care what task he was assigned. Hughes had told him it was all right for him to act surly and not eager to cooperate, but to not cause any real trouble. That might delay the gang making their move.
“Who’s my cellmate?”
Lawrence smiled. “I’ll let the two of you introduce yourselves when he gets back.”
The Kid had a feeling the guard’s comment might not bode well. If he didn’t get along with his cellmate, the time he spent in there would get even more challenging.
He sat down on the bare mattress. There was nothing else to do.
Lawrence slammed the cell door. The crash of metal against metal had a terrible finality to it, and for a second The Kid was tempted to call the whole thing off. Then he steeled his resolve. He had agreed to help, and he wanted to keep his word.
But if the gang he was after was going to strike again, with him as the target, he hoped they didn’t take too long to get around to it.
The same ferret-like trusty showed up a while later with The Kid’s extra uniform and blanket.
As he handed the items through the small opening in the cell door designed for such things, he introduced himself. “I’m Ike Calvert, Keene. You need anything around here, you let me know. If I can’t put my hands on it, chances are I’ll know somebody who can.”
“It’s like that, is it?” The Kid said.
Calvert snickered. “Well, yeah. Within reason, I mean. Don’t go askin’ me for no Gatlin’ gun or anything like that!” He laughed again.
The Kid smiled. “All right, no Gatling gun.” He asked the expected question, the one convicts always asked of each other. “What are you in for, Calvert?”
The trusty’s grin disappeared. He looked down at the floor and shuffled his feet uneasily. “I don’t like to talk about that. I done some bad things, really bad things. Just as soon forget about ’em.”
Calvert looked relatively harmless, but The Kid knew how looks could be deceptive, especially in a place such as this. “That’s fine with me.”
“I know why you’re here, though.” Calvert glanced up again. “I heard you robbed trains all the way from one end of Texas to the other!”
The Kid shrugged. It was possible Calvert had some connection to the gang, but even if he didn’t, The Kid wanted to play up the reputation the Rangers had manufactured for him.
One way to do that was to not boast about it. Patently false modesty would reinforce the image he wanted to create. “I held up a few trains in my time, yeah.”
“More than a few, I heard. And you blowed up more than one express car, too.”
“Well, you have to get the door off the safe somehow, don’t you?” The Kid asked with a grin.
Calvert snickered again. “You’re gonna do just fine in here, Keene. Better keep your eyes open, though. Not everybody in here is like me. Some of ’em you can’t trust.”
“I’ll remember that.” The Kid tossed the extra clothes and the blanket on the bunk. “Thanks for bringing those things.”
“Just doin’ my job.” Calvert lifted a hand in farewell and scuttled away, reminding The Kid more of a rat than a ferret.
The Kid returned to the bunk to sit and wait some more. He thought about the likelihood Calvert was working with the gang on the outside and had to admit it was possible. Even if Calvert had no connection with the outlaws, he struck The Kid as the sort who would gossip and help spread the word about the notorious new convict, Waco Keene. The more of that that went on, the better.
Time dragged by, but eventually the afternoon waned and the guards began bringing the prisoners back in from their day’s labors. The Kid stayed where he was on the bunk when a guard paused outside the door of his cell and unlocked it. The guard stepped aside to let a middle-aged convict walk past him into the cell.
The door clanged shut as the prisoner stopped just inside the cell and looked at The Kid.
He was at least fifty, probably older. His gray hair had quite a bit of white in it, as did his mustache. His face was weathered to a permanent tan, which told The Kid that he worked outside quite a bit. The man didn’t have the pallor people usually associated with convicts. He reminded The Kid of old cowboys he had seen, men who had punched cows their entire life until they were too stove up to do it anymore.
After a few seconds, the man said, “Nobody told me I was getting a new cellmate today, but I’m glad to meet you anyway, son.” He held out his hand. “I’m John Schofield.”
The Kid stood up and gripped Schofield’s hand. “Waco Keene,” he introduced himself.
Schofield’s rather bushy gray eyebrows rose. “The train robber I’ve been hearing all the talk about?”
The Kid put a cocky grin on his face. “Word got around the place that I was coming, eh?”
“You could say that,” Schofield replied with a nod.
His voice held a note of education and culture The Kid hadn’t expected. He revised his opinion of Schofield. Instead of a cowpuncher, he wondered if the convict had been a businessman or a professor of some sort.
The Kid also wondered if Jennings had assigned him to that cell so he wouldn’t be in with someone who might prove to be a threat. The whole plan hatched by the Rangers would fall apart if The Kid was killed or even badly injured by a brutal cellmate.
“I’ve heard that you’re quite a train robber,” Schofield went on.
The Kid took the same tack he had earlier. He shrugged. “The railroads and the express companies have plenty of good reasons not to like me.”
Schofield chuckled. “I can imagine. I also imagine you’re curious about me.”
“I don’t believe in pryin’ into a man’s personal business,” The Kid said.
“Oh, it’s perfectly all right, and understandable as well. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Of course you’d like to know what sort of man I am. I used to be a Baptist minister.”
The Kid was a little surprised by that information. “Is that so?”
“Yes, but I had a crisis of faith. I suppose you could say the Lord and I had a falling-out.” Schofield cleared his throat. “It was prompted by a woman, of course, as such things all too often are. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak, so weak.”
“I didn’t know they put preachers in jail for backsliding,” The Kid said.
“They don’t. They do, however, put preachers in jail who burn down their own churches ... with the congregation still inside.”
“Good Lord!” The Kid couldn’t stop the startled exclamation that came from him. He caught himself and went on. “Sorry, Reverend, I didn’t mean—” He stopped short when he realized he was apologizing for maybe offending a man who’d just admitted to carrying out mass murder.
“It’s all right, Waco,” Schofield said. “Can I call you Waco? I understand how people feel about what I did. It’s shocking, especially when you consider I never committed any other act of violence before or since that day. But I was tormented, you see, absolutely tormented, and I thought I might be able to cleanse my soul with fire. I fully intended to die right along with the others. I locked all the doors, set the fire in a back room, and climbed to the pulpit to confess my sins before the end.”
Schofield shook his head sadly as he paused.
“When the congregation smelled the smoke and realized what I had done,” he resumed a moment later, “some sidewinder in the choir shot me. I didn’t know he was carrying a gun under that robe. The men were able to break out some windows and most of the congregation escaped. Only ten people died. I’m sorry to say they dragged me outside instead of leaving me there to die, as I would have preferred. But I suppose the Lord still has plans for me ... or at least I would assume He did, if I still believed in Him.”
Schofield talked like a preacher, all right, the words just flowing out of him like a river. He wore a serene expression the whole time he was talking about the horrible thing he’d done, and The Kid could come to only one conclusion.
His cellmate was loco. Pure loco.
But that didn’t really matter as long as Schofield didn’t interfere with the plan. The Kid nodded. “Thank you for tellin’ me about that, John. Must have been rough on you, all right.”
“I’ve made my peace with it,” Schofield said. “I may not have burned in the church that day, but I know I’ll burn in hell when my time comes.”
“Wait a minute,” The Kid said with a slight frown. “I thought you said you didn’t believe in God.”
“I don’t.”
“Then how can you believe in hell? You can’t have one without the other, can you?”
“I believe that you can.”
“I don’t see how.” The Kid wasn’t sure why he was debating theology with this lunatic, but if he was going to be sharing a cell with Schofield it was probably a good idea to learn as much about him as he could.
“Look around you,” Schofield said.
“At this prison?”
“At this world. If this isn’t the anteroom of hell, what else can it possibly be? Think of all the sin and suffering that goes on constantly, the human misery and degradation that’s all around us. When people tell me to go to hell, Waco, I tell them there’s no need. I’m already there.”
With that he started to laugh softly, and The Kid felt an unaccustomed chill go through him.
Loco or not, John Schofield was friendly and unassuming. Knowing what he did, The Kid didn’t think he would ever actually like the man, but figured they could get along all right. And since Schofield had been locked up at Huntsville for seventeen years, he certainly knew how things worked in the prison.
For instance, as they were walking toward the mess hall that evening, The Kid mentioned Ike Calvert, the trusty who had brought him his blanket and extra uniform, and Schofield frowned. “Never trust that little weasel.”
“He told me he can get just about anything a fella might want.”
“He probably can, but the price might wind up being more than you’d want to pay. He’s an evil man, Waco. I know that after the things I’ve done, I’m not one to be talking, but Calvert is truly an agent of the Devil.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” The Kid didn’t expect to have any dealings with Calvert, but it was good to know if he did, he should tread carefully.
The tables and benches in the mess hall were bolted to the floor. Guards prowled constantly between them, keeping an eye on the prisoners to make sure nobody tried to swipe a spoon that could be used to make a weapon.
“They keep a close count on utensils, bowls, and anything else that might prove to be dangerous,” Schofield explained. “If even a single spoon turns up missing, we’re all searched and so are our cells until it’s found.”
“I’ll bet fellas manage to steal one every now and then anyway,” The Kid said.
“Of course. Every man harbors the desire to commit murder inside him. Some are unable to control it.”
The Kid might have argued with that ... but he remembered how he had once pulled the trigger of a rifle he was holding to a man’s head. Did the fact that the man was one of those responsible for his wife’s death make a difference? Was that cold-blooded killing any less murder?
The Kid had long since stopped worrying about it except on the occasional dark night of the soul.
“Who are some of the troublemakers in here?” he asked quietly as he and Schofield ate.
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