The Brave Cowboy (18 page)

About ten minutes of satisfying agony was sufficient. He then pulled himself up and crawled, a sad empty stricken animal, into the cab of his truck and stretched out across the leather seat and closed his eyes, invoking sleep; which did not come immediately: he had time to savor the corrosion of his bile and liver, the deadly metallic residue of his sunken, clystered stomach: he had time to speculate—what was it? he thought, what’s wrong with me? Never before… never before quite so bad, so quick, as this.

He heard the scream of the city soaring over him, felt the yellow dusty night falling on his steel shell, the weight of his eyelids growing under it; never like this, he thought. I’ll drive no more tonight. Sleep tonight, maybe see a doctor in the morning. Maybe it was just something I ate. God, it has to be…

I need some rest, sleep, a change of rhythm; my kidneys are cracking under the jar and pressure… When I finish this trip, soon as I finish this trip… see a doctor, knock off for a while, maybe go home for a couple of weeks…

Sleep came at last, vague fumbling sleep, and his mind rolled in it, pushed and drawn and split in dreams, smoky shards of dream, reconstructions, recollections:

… On a redstone road, past shagbark hickories and a rail fence—alone, or mostly alone—sometimes accompanied by a familiar but unnameable figure—silent as all dreams, soundless but troubled—and then the splintering of barriers and a scramble, an insane charge of pigs, hogs, monsters with red eyes, horns, gaseous withering breath, fury without purpose, blind maniacal destruction…

In this manner, filmed in sweat and riven through the heart and brain by internal, insubstantial and
powerful terrors, he passed, slept, endured, fought, lost seven hours.

While the city, new and terrible, rode the night, groaned and triumphed over the night and the rolling earth.

A
T
SIX
O’CLOCK
IN
THE
EVENING
THE
CELLBLOCK
lights went on: one dim yellow glow recessed deep in the ceiling of each cell.

Burns glanced up at the light, then at Bondi. “Will they come in now?” he said; he continued to file as he spoke. Beside him the Navajo, relieving Bondi, worked on without stopping or speaking. The iron bar was solid, heavy, and still intact, but a deep notch had been gouged in on two sides. On the floor between the Indian and the cowboy the metal dust piled up, shining softly in the light “Is somebody coming?” Burns said again.

Bondi heard him and raised his head from his hands. He was sitting on his bunk watching the labor, not seeing it. “No,” he said; “they always turn the lights on about this time. Doesn’t mean that anybody’s coming.”

“Maybe I oughta knock that light out,” Burns said.

“They’ll turn it off in a few hours. Nobody can see in through those windows anyway.”

“It worries me a little.”

“You have worse to worry about, in my opinion.”

They all worried about it but the work went on; at ten o’clock the lights switched off, except for one light above the cellblock’s central corridor.

Bondi and the cowboy lay on their adjoining bunks, the cowboy smoking; behind them the two Navajos hewed with the files at the stubborn iron, chanting a slow sullen dirge as they worked.

We can’t go on like this all night, Bondi was thinking. Something unpleasant is bound to happen; they’ve probably already discovered us and are now waiting outside below the window with submachine guns, having a joke at our expense, ready to blast the first head that shows in that window. Burns’ head, of course.

“What’re you thinkin about?” Burns said.

“Your head.”

“My head?”

“I’m afraid,” Bondi said. “I have a queer feeling in my stomach that things aren’t right.”

“We know that,” said Burns.

“I mean that something bad is going to happen to one of us—soon. Maybe tonight.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.”

“You know,” Bondi said, “I’ve never done this sort of thing before—jailbreaking. It’s a novel experience for me. Interesting but not very comfortable. A little frightening, in fact.”

“I know how you feel. It’s a worrisome business.”

“Maybe we’ve already revealed ourselves,” Bondi went on. “Perhaps the bars are wired in some way… electrically. I can see a little red light blinking on a switchboard in the booking office.”

“That’s the sub-jailer’s wife callin up,” Burns said. “Checkin on the old man.”

“But if they already knew,” said Bondi, “why would they wait? What are they waiting for?”

“To catch us in the act,” Burns said; “the guards prob’ly need some target practice.”

“I was wondering about that…”

Burns turned toward the Navajos. “You boys ready for some relief?” he said.

It must have been near midnight when the final filestroke was made on the bar; the metal hung rigidly above its own base, severed through. For the first time in six hours there was nearly absolute quiet in the cell-block. Bondi and the cowboy squatted on the cold con
crete, facing each other, smiling nervously, listening to the snores, the coughing and groaning, the delirium sounds of the sleeping men around them. For the first time they felt it needful to whisper.

“That’s it,” Bondi said, whispering; “what now?”

Burns was grinning at him; Bondi could see the white teeth shining in the dark face, a glint of the eyes, the indirect light from the corridor outlining the cowboy’s head and hat and his narrow shoulders.

“What do we do now?” whispered Bondi.

In answer Burns wrapped his hand around the lower end, the free end of the bar, and pulled: nothing happened. He put both hands around the bar, braced his feet against the base of the grill, and strained backward with all his weight and strength: slowly, very slightly, the metal yielded, the bar bent inward. About one inch. Burns stood up, gasping, and kneaded the small of his back. “We need a strong man,” he said; “we need some gorilla like Gutierrez now.”

“Want me to try it?” Bondi said.

“Don’t bother.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bondi said quickly. “Eh?”

The cowboy laughed. “Go ahead, if you want to. Be careful you don’t bust a gut, that’s all. Use your legs as much as you can and spare your back.”

So Bondi put his hands to the bar, straightened his back, bent his legs, and tugged, heaved, jerked without perceptible result. Burns stood watching him, hands on hips, grinning. Bondi bit his lip and tried a second time, pulling steadily and carefully at the grudging iron. Without success. He gave up then, saying: “To hell with it; this is no office for a gentleman.”

Burns laughed again. “No, it ain’t,” he said, “What we need is about three feet of steel pipe; that would help us some.”

The two Navajos were watching; the cessation of the filing had awakened them. One of them stood up and came forward. “I’ll do it,” he said. He squatted and
pulled, the sweat popping from his forehead, and managed to bend the bar another inch or two inward and upward. Then Burns pulled at it a second time and brought it forward another inch and the two of them, alternately straining and resting, succeeded in bending the bar in and up to a position approximately perpendicular to the plane of the grill of bars. This left an opening twelve inches wide and about sixteen inches high, allowing for the bent bar above and the slight rough butt of the bar below.

“You can’t get through that,” Bondi said.

“I can,” Burns said; I don’t know about you, what with all that fat around your middle and them wide hips.”

“Never mind; I’m not going anyway.”

“This fella can get through,” Burns said, indicating the Navajo. “You’d be surprised how flexible the human body is when it has to be. I remember a time up in the Shoshone Mountains I got caught in a crack in a dead pine tree—I’d been a-chewin jerky all day long and was gettin kinda bloated—”

The lights went on.

The light seemed to intensify the sudden stillness. “Now what the hell…” Burns said. “What’s up now?”

“I don’t know,” Bondi said. They listened but could hear nothing—other than the cacophony of sleeping prisoners.

“Well,” Burns said, “let’s not stand around worryin about it. We gotta rig up some kinda rope now; about three or four of these blankets, maybe.” He stooped to pull a blanket off the nearest bunk.

And then they heard the squeal and rumble of the cellblock door rolling open. And the voice of Gutierrez:

“Burns!” the voice said; “John W. Burns!”

They heard the grinding of the crank and saw the cellgate slide open. Open to the corridor, the gaping gray space…

“Don’t answer,” whispered Bondi. “He may not be
sure you’re in this block. He might look for you in one of the others.”

“Are you crazy? He knows damn well I’m in here.”

“Burns!” cried the voice beyond the corridor; “you’re wanted in the office. Telephone call!”

“A very funny fella,” Burns muttered, his eyes taking on the dull glaze of hatred. “The bastard…”

“Buns!”

“I’d better go,” the cowboy said. “If I don’t he’ll come stompin in here and see what we done. Hide the files,” he said to the Navajo. And to Bondi: “I’ll be back in a minute.” He smiled briefly, bitterly; and walked out of the cell and down the long corridor. They heard his boots rapping on the cement, a growl from Gutierrez and the closing of the door—a ponderous grumble of steel, the slam and mesh of locks. The cellgate screeched on its trolley, slid shut and locked. Bondi stared, unbelieving, frozen in fear and astonishment. An awakening, it seemed to him, from a bad dream into a nightmare. But he was unable to think beyond that point; stunned and incredulous, he gazed through the wall of bars, into the yellow light in the corridor, the spreading shadows.

The lights were not turned off.

The two Navajos did not wait. One of them was already engaged in trying to twist his body through the opening in the bars. He had his head and one shoulder through but was having difficulty with the other shoulder. His companion squatted beside him, whispering advice and encouragement. The man in the hole squirmed and writhed patiently, delicately, anxious but not in haste.

The other men in the cell, except the old man Konowalski, were now awake. They sat up on their bunks and stared in silent stupefaction at the Navajo wriggling among the bars like an impaled worm. The Mexican giggled nervously, biting his fingernails; the Pueblo Indians smiled and nudged each other with their elbows.

The Navajo seemed unable to get through. After several minutes of wordless struggle, sweating and breathing heavily, he withdrew his shoulder and head, returned his entire body to the cell. He sat on the flow for several minutes, panting and staring gloomily at his fists. The other Navajo, a thinner man, whispered suggestions into his ear and made signs with his hands.

Bondi returned to his bunk after a while, sat down slowly and cautiously, and tried to avoid imagining what was probably happening to the cowboy. His helplessness fed his anger; he fumed and cursed internally, sick with rage, with surprise, with apprehension. He shut his eyes, lay back and made some pretence at sleep, hoping in that way to induce true sleep, but this was foolish and worthless: his fear made sleep impossible, despite his aching body, his overwhelming weariness.

It’s my fault, he decided; if I had stood up to Gutierrez at supper there, like a man should, Burns wouldn’t be where he is now. No—I’d be there instead.

The idea made him pause in his thought; he stared up at the bottom of the bunk above his head.

Of course, he went on, that doesn’t diminish my moral responsibilities. But then—wife and kid… And maybe they’ll come and get me anyway, when they’re finished with… (This possibility, suddenly realized, sent a little hot flash of terror through the core of his body.) That Gutierrez is a clever villain, waiting until God only knows what hour in the morning—one o’clock? two o’clock?—-to seize his revenge. We should have expected it; the shrewd brute, waiting till now, till the jailer’s gone home or out or is drunk or asleep…

And maybe they’re coming for me too, he thought again. For me—what do they do? Slaps, kicks, I could take—I’d shut my eyes and relax, try to faint; but suppose they do something more sophisticated—use a rubber hose; ducking in water, steam heating? A man like
Gutierrez—capable of anything, I’m sure, any mode of horror…

Bondi felt a queasy loosening in his entrails, a sudden need to go to the toilet. But after a few bad moments he managed to get a better grasp on his thoughts and nerves, to make his speculations revolve around the reasonable, the human, the ordinary: What they’ve done, he argued, undoubtedly what they’ve done, they’ve taken him down there for further questioning, investigation. Perhaps some unsolved robbery or adultery is involved; or maybe it’s merely the FBI come to inquire about his draft status. He’s in some kind of difficulty there, didn’t he say? Yes, it’s late at night but the FBI has its methods, so I’ve heard, it’s good and sufficient reasons, answerable to nobody… Earnest, intelligent, well-trained men, they know what they’re doing—best that common citizens not attempt to interfere: would only muddle things unnecessarily…

Telephone? But why telephone?

The Navajo removed his shirt; he wore no undershirt. He put his head through the aperture to liberty, then one smooth brown shoulder—his skin and muscles sleek as a skinned cat—and then the second shoulder This was the difficult part; the flesh became jammed and compressed between bone and iron: neither would yield. But the man continued to tug and gasp, sweat glistening on his animal hide; the other Navajo endeavored to assist him, pushing from inside at the imprisoned limb, gently dislocating the shoulder bone to get it through, shoving with both hands at the slippery meat. The breathing of the struggling Indian filled the cell with its noise, seemed loud enough to be heard throughout the cellblock. A slight tearing sound, like the ripping of tissue, and the man was through—but wounded, a bad laceration welling with blood on his side. He ignored the pain, dragged his hips and legs through and rested for a minute or more on the floor
between the bars and the window. The second Navajo passed him his shirt and he put it on.