Slocum's Breakout (3 page)

Only when he had licked the plate and made certain not a drop of water remained did Slocum turn back to the scrap of paper and the solitary match. He would have to read quick. The match wouldn't last more than a handful of seconds. Over and over in his mind he played through how he had to act, where to hold the paper, the match, how he would read. He finally decided to spread the note on the floor and use both hands to steady the match. The initial flare would blind him. He had to keep his eyes shut and only peer out a little.

So many details. But Slocum had plenty of time. He pressed his ear against the door, listening hard for any hint of movement outside. It might be day or night, the guards might patrol or simply lock a door leading down into the dungeons. Being caught by a guard took on less urgency than the need to read the note
now
. What could Doc possibly have thought worth risking ending up down in solitary to pass to him?

Another few minutes' preparation allowed Slocum to press out the note on the stone floor, then clutch the lucifer. He closed his eyes, struck the match on stone, saw the dazzling flare through his eyelids, then opened his eyes fast before the match burned down.

The note was upside down. He hastily spun it around and scanned it. Doc, for all his boasting of being educated, could hardly spell, but he had written a considerable amount on the small piece of yellow foolscap. Slocum yelped when the lucifer burned down to his callused fingers. He would have traded an inch of his thumb and index finger to keep the guttering light for even a minute longer.

But the smell of burnt flesh and the blisters on his fingers were all he got.

A smile crossed his lips. He had singed his fingers but had read through the note and now had something to bolster his spirits. He reached out, pressed his palm into the wooden door, then worked his way to his right, going to the wall. From the spot where the walls met the floor, he carefully searched until he found one stone that stuck out more than the others on either side. His strong fingers pried the stone free.

“¿Quién está?”
came the immediate question.

Slocum flopped belly down on the cold floor and pressed his face close to the hole leading into the next cell.

“My name's . . . Jarvis,” he said, almost forgetting his alias.

“Gringo.”
The word came out as an insult, but the disgust and loss of hope along with it spoke volumes more.

“I'm here to break out José Valenzuela,” Slocum said. He saw no reason to lie to whoever occupied the next cell. He needed allies and had to take the risk.

“So? I am not this Valenzuela. I am Procipio Murrieta, the son of Joaquin Murrieta. For no reason other than my proud heritage have they imprisoned me.”

“I've heard of Murrieta,” Slocum said. “A while back.”

“He is dead. I seek only to live peaceably.”

“This isn't the place to do it,” Slocum pointed out. “Will you help in an escape?”

There was a long silence.

Then, “They will keep those who try and fail in these hellhole cells for years. I am only here for another day.”

Slocum pulled back from the small tunnel through the wall and reflected on spending the rest of his life in this cell. Better to be dead. He wanted nothing more than to see the sun again—and hold his Colt in his hand.

“Better to die than suffer them doing to you as they see fit. You said you were innocent. How can you be worse off?”

Murrieta took a while responding.

“I often have this thought. Another year or death? I would choose death.”

“Who else is down here? In the dungeon?”

“I do not know. I have tried to speak to whoever is in the cell on the other side, but no one answers. The one who was there might be gone.” Murrieta paused, then added, “Or dead.”

“If he's dead, can you get to his food and water?” Slocum wasn't the kind to let an opportunity slip through his fingers, but the question brought a hearty laugh from Murrieta.

“You have a sense of humor. I like that,
gringo
.”

“How hard is it to get over the wall?”

“Not possible, but there is another way. I worked on a repair of the wall and saw how badly a section was built. There might have been a doorway there at one time, but no longer. With a pick we can open the way through the wall to the outside.”

“How hard will it be opening the way?” Slocum asked.

“It will require many men for it and must be done quickly. The guards patrol constantly. We would have no longer than fifteen minutes.”

“The guards would see the hole, wouldn't they?”

“No plan is without risk. San Quentin was not built to be so easily left.”

“With Valenzuela and another, can four of us open the hole?”

“Four, yes.”

Slocum and Murrieta continued to hone their escape plans. Along with José Valenzuela, Slocum thought Doc would be willing to help. He had risked much to put the two prisoners in contact. The only reason Slocum could think of Doc doing that was a desire to escape himself.

After a while Slocum found himself drifting off to sleep. Time was measured by Doc bringing food once a day, but he had no more notes. Slocum didn't care. Being told where to find the hole and talking to Murrieta made the first effort on the other prisoner's part worthwhile. Slocum felt he owed Doc for that. And since the man was willing to risk so much, Doc was the likeliest to be the fourth needed to escape through Murrieta's wall breach.

 

“Come on out. Yer time's up.”

Slocum shielded his eyes with his arm and peered at the guard in the corridor. The dim light was hardly enough for an owl to hunt by, but for him it was blinding. He got to his feet and staggered out. Going without exercise for almost a week had left him weak. It would take a spell to get his strength back for the escape.

In the corridor he saw two guards waiting, hands on truncheons. The next cell over was already open. Procipio Murrieta had been released days earlier. Slocum tried to step lively but found himself half carried up the steps into real sunlight. He screwed his eyes closed and only slowly opened them to look around the yard, where dozens of inmates milled about. Exercise time was almost over.

“Time to put you back into your cell.”

Slocum recoiled from the guard. He wasn't going back into that dungeon.

The guard laughed harshly and said, “Not in the hole. Your cell. Your regular one.”

“Jarvis hasn't been assigned a regular cell. He got in trouble right away,” said the sergeant, who still carried his ledger. Slocum wanted to cram it down the man's throat until he choked on it. “Put him in with Doc.”

Slocum started to complain, then subsided. He let the guard lead him away, acting sullen, but inside he rejoiced. He wanted to learn more about the man who had been his only friend so far within San Quentin's walls.

The cell had two pallets on the floor, almost touching. The straw ticking spilled out of one. Doc sat on the other. He looked up when the guard shoved Slocum inside and slammed the iron-barred door shut behind him.

“You got through solitary,” Doc said in a low voice. “You don't look none the worse fer the stint.”

Slocum dropped to the unoccupied pallet and leaned back against the stone wall. It was as cold above ground as it was in the subterranean cell. He glanced out the bars and waited to be sure the guard had moved on.

“He's got a bottle down in the office. He ain't likely to be back 'til it's time to let us out for dinner.”

“How do you know your way around?” Slocum asked.

Doc laughed harshly.

“Been a regular here for years. Hardly get free and they send me back. I heard about the loose stone in the wall the last time I was in. My roommate worked it free on one of his vacations down below. I ain't never been in the cellar myself, 'cept to carry food.”

Slocum thanked him for the note and the match, then asked, “Why'd you do it?”

“I seen right from the start you're not the kind what stays locked up. You got a look about you, lean, nasty, not the type to put up with more 'n a week or two of conditions like these.”

Slocum worked his way into telling Doc about what Murrieta had said about the hole in the outer wall, finally getting him to agree to join the escape.

“I been locked up too much of my life. I get away, I'm leaving San Francisco and goin' east. Maybe lose myself in Indian Territory. I was born somewhere 'round there, though I don't remember much of it. Might be my pa was a soldier at Fort Gibson.” Doc shrugged. “Then again, he mighta been locked up in the stockade and my ma was a Cherokee squaw. It was a long time back.”

“We have to take Valenzuela with us.”

“That gent you was talkin' with when Mick picked the fight?”

“Mick?”

“Leon Mickleson. Ugly son of a bitch. Most folks inside the walls got more brains in their pinky than he does in his whole danged body, and that's bein' real unkind since most prisoners are dumb as rocks.” Doc looked hard at Slocum. “That's something else I seen in you. You're smart. Might not be book smart, but you're always thinkin' and 'less I miss my guess, you come out on top more often than not.”

“I'm in here,” Slocum said with some disdain.

“There's a real big story 'bout that,” Doc said. “I'd bet on it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Jarvis ain't yer name. When the guards call you that, it takes a second for you to remember that's what you're bein' called now.” Doc snorted. “Fact is, like Mick, I knew Jarvis. Dumber even than Mick, he was. Now there might be two Jasper Jarvises in the world, but I don't believe in coincidences.”

“How do I get in touch with José Valenzuela?”

Doc laughed so hard Slocum wondered what was wrong. Doc wiped tears from his eyes and pointed at him. When he finally caught his breath from the laughter, he pointed at the wall behind Slocum.

“Look for a loose stone. He's in the next cell.”

Slocum took a few minutes to find this stone, then pulled it out so he could peer into the next cell.

“Go on, give him a holler,” Doc said. “He ain't got company in there. It takes time fer the warden to get in new inmates 'cuz a passel of residents been paroled.”

Slocum called out to José.

“Ah, the
novio
,” Valenzuela said, laughing. “You have come for me? Am I supposed to claw my way out or will you do the work for me?”

His attitude irritated Slocum, especially after spending five miserable days in a dark hole nestled up against the cell block's foundations.

“If we can get out, there's a way through the wall. It'll take four of us.”

“Four?”

“We'll need a pick or pry bar,” Slocum said.

“That is easy. I know where the tools are kept. When I go on work detail, I will hide a pick. The guards never check,” Valenzuela said. “When will we make this escape?”

Slocum mumbled. He hadn't gotten that far yet in his planning. He didn't even know how they were going to get free of their individual cells.

“Doc, the one with you, he knows where this hole is?”

“Murrieta does. He'll be the fourth one.”

“Procipio Murrieta? You have fallen in with desperate company, hombre.”

“We can get with him tomorrow in the exercise yard,” Slocum said. He motioned Doc to silence when the man started hissing.

Then he looked over his shoulder and saw a guard staring at him, tapping his truncheon against his left palm in a slow, thoughtful way.

“What's goin' on?” the guard asked. He rattled the bars in the cell door with his truncheon.

“I'll tell you what's goin' on,” Doc said, jumping to his feet and going to the cell door. He interposed himself between the guard and Slocum, who quickly replaced the stone from the wall. “He went buggy down in the hole. He's talkin' to the damned wall! I won't put up with it. Gimme another roommate! I demand to talk to Warden Harriman. Get him the hell out of here. He might be dangerous!”

The guard laughed, shook his head, and moved on, never once looking back at Slocum or asking about the hole in the wall.

“He didn't see the hole,” Slocum said, sitting back and heaving a deep sigh.

“He prob'ly did. But I gave him somethin' else to think on. Always gets a laugh when I say it might be dangerous locked up with whoever's in the cell.” Doc hung out the cell door and looked around the cell block, then he laughed. “This place is chock-full of dangerous gents, and most of'em are in guard's uniforms.”

Slocum thanked his lucky stars that Doc understood the system and how to deal with the guards.

“You think Valenzuela next door knows where to find the tools we'll need?” Doc asked.

“I'm more worried about Murrieta finding the hole through the outer wall,” Slocum admitted.

“You got a point, Jarvis—or whatever your name is. We're gonna be hangin' out there all exposed, no matter where the hole is. If it takes more 'n a few minutes to open it up, we're gonna hang. Or wish they'd hang us since spendin' the rest of our lives down below in that dark hell is worse than anything else they can do.”

Doc turned, flopped onto the pallet, tucked his hands under the back of his head, and stared up at the ceiling.

“Git some sleep. We're gonna need it real soon.”

“Why's that?” Slocum asked.

“You wouldn't know, but it'll be dark of the moon tomorrow night. If we don't try it then, we got to wait another month.”