Slocum's Breakout

Table of Contents

 

 

“Shut your trap, Meskin. I ain't talkin' to you.”

“I'm not looking for a fight,” Slocum said. He rubbed his left hand over the spot where his cross-draw holster usually hung. He felt naked without his Colt Navy.

“Fight! Fight!” The chant went up, and Slocum knew he couldn't walk away.

“Look, it's this way . . .” He stepped a little closer, then launched a kick aimed at the big man's crotch. Slocum's aim was an inch off, and he caught a heavily muscled inner thigh. The impact hurt his knee and sent him stumbling back. And then he was engulfed in two hundred fifty pounds of smelly, fighting convict.

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SLOCUM'S BREAKOUT

 

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Jove edition / November 2011

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“No talkin' !” A rifle butt struck John Slocum in the shoulder and knocked him to his knees. He clanked the chains on his wrists and balled his fists as he looked up at the blue-uniformed guard. The man towered over him. Seeing the hatred in Slocum's green eyes, the guard stepped away and leveled his rifle. His finger tightened on the trigger. For two cents he would put a slug into Slocum's head and not think twice about it.

“I'm getting up,” Slocum said. He put his hands down in the dry California dirt and levered himself erect. It was harder than he'd anticipated because the chains connecting the shackles on his ankles allowed only eighteen inches of play. Walking was impossible; he had to shuffle.

“Hurry it up. You're keepin' the wagon waitin'.”

“Wouldn't want that, now would we?” came a voice just loud enough for the guard to hear. The prison guard swung around, his rifle hunting for a target.

“Who said that? Who's talkin' when I tole you all to shut yer pie holes?”

Slocum shuffled forward with the other ten men, all shackled and looking as if they could chew through their chains and kill, given the chance. Slocum snorted. Most of them had killed somebody. That was how they had ended up in the line of prisoners being herded into the bed of a wagon.

The guard helped Slocum along with another hard blow to the shoulder. Slocum winced but kept walking, head down. This seemed to appease the guard because he hurried on to another prisoner who refused to show any humility at his condition. From the beating the man received, he might not make it to the prison alive.

One prisoner already in the wagon reached out his manacled hands and helped Slocum up.

“Thanks,” Slocum said, then shot a quick look back to be sure the guard hadn't heard.

“He's too busy havin' his fun with poor Gordon. But you got the right instinct. Do what those bastards tell you, and you'll get along all right.”

“You been in before?” Slocum studied the man seated across from him in the wagon. The pallor gave him away as someone who ventured out but little when the sun was high. That might mean he was a gambler, but his stubby fingers didn't have the dexterity Slocum associated with cardsharps.

“Wasn't out but two weeks 'fore they got me on trumped-up charges. The sheriff don't like me none, the dirt-eatin', mother—” He clamped his mouth shut when the guard hoisted Gordon and threw him facedown into the wagon.

Satisfied he had all the prisoners loaded, he bellowed for the driver to make good time. Slocum watched the guard recede and finally disappear in a cloud of dust as the wagon rattled along the rocky road. The drought had hung on for the entire year. The usual rain in January hadn't come down south, and Slocum had drifted up to San Francisco. As the wagon bumped along, he looked up and saw the foreboding gray stone walls of San Quentin getting closer by the minute.

“Ain't named for a saint,” the man opposite him said. “Named after some Injun what was captured on the spot.” He shook his head. Slocum saw the sunlight shine off a couple lice migrating through his greasy hair, working their way down to his beard. The man didn't take much notice. “ ' Magine that, an Injun named Quentin. Belonged to the Miwok tribe. Was a fighter fer Chief Marin back in the day.”

“How'd you come to know so much about the history?” Slocum asked. He was growing increasingly apprehensive as he studied the thick stone walls and the alert blue-uniformed guards in the towers at the corners. He was sorry he had agreed to such a crazy scheme as—

“They call me Doc,” the other prisoner piped up, interrupting Slocum's growing worry that he had dealt himself into a game that couldn't be won. “I was a professor at a college 'fore I got myself in bad.”

Slocum doubted it but said nothing about the man's background. Instead, he asked, “Anybody ever broken out?”

“Oh, sure, there've been a few. Mighty few, I'd say, but it can be done. Them guards is human mostly. They look the other way, and a few clever folks can sneak on out. Need a lot of money to bribe 'em, though, if that's what you got in mind.” Doc leaned closer and said in a husky whisper, “You got money?”

“If you've got a way out,” Slocum said. “I don't intend staying behind the walls too long.”

“Smart man. The longer they got you, the harder it is to get away. They starve you, and some of the unlucky bastards get put in the dungeon. Yup, that's right,” Doc said, seeing Slocum's startled expression. “They got theyselves a dungeon, jist like the tyrants over in Europe got in their castles.”

“Torture?”

“Not so much, 'less you earn it.” Doc looked smug. “Truth is, most new prisoners earn it. Keeps 'em from thinkin' 'bout escapin' later. That's what's known as gentle persuasion.”

“What's gentle about it?” Slocum asked.

“They reckon they don't have to hang you, that's gentle.”

The heavy gates opened and the wagon rolled through. The brief flash of shadow from the wall caused Slocum to shiver in dread. He liked this less and less, but he realized he had gotten what he deserved for not thinking things through. He should never have listened to Conchita or fallen under her spell. If he had kept riding north, up to Oregon maybe, he wouldn't have spent those nights in the sultry woman's bed and—

He jumped as the gates slammed shut behind him. Slocum watched the guards draw the locking bar into place, then padlock it securely. That lock was as big as his head and would take a stick of dynamite—more!—to open without the key. The wagon pulled around to the side of a three-story building made entirely of stone.

“You kin see San Francisco Bay from the roof,” Doc said. “Fact is the south side of the prison fetches up along the shoreline, but don't think to get out that way. Water's colder 'n a witch's tit all year round, and they got guards in boats patrolling outside all the time. A signal goes up and they shoot anything that moves.” He chuckled. “They shot 'emselves a shark last time the alarm was sounded.”

“A bell?” Slocum asked.

Doc looked at him funny, then nodded. Before he could answer, rough hands grabbed his coat and dragged him out to crash onto the ground. Slocum was similarly treated. The others in the wagon had difficulty keeping their footing, but Doc and Slocum took the brunt of the punishment compared to other prisoners getting down from the wagon. More than one boot caught Slocum in the back, making movement painful. He cried out when a guard kicked him hard in the side.