Terror at Hellhole (8 page)

He staggered rapidly toward the door leaving the waiter to stand at the counter until his customer was done with his conversation. Outside, he drew a deep breath, pleased with his success. A storm was brewing and dark clouds crowded each other as a prelude to rain. The thin crescent moon could only be seen at intervals through the roiling clouds.

A streak of lightning zigzagged down the middle of the dim street, and dull thunder rolled overhead. Another spurt of lightning lit the intersection at Second Street, and he saw two gray figures standing on each side of the road. He blinked his eyes hard until he could make out their ominous shapes in the dark, blocking his path. Tall they were, dark and silent they stood, and a twinge of fear touched his spine, for one of the shadows carried a large war club and the other held a ceremonial spear.

“Who are you?” he cried. “Speak up! I'll have you know I'm Judge Morcum!”

There was no answer, no did either figure move. Another crinkle of heat lightning framed them in the gray light for a moment.

“S-speak up, you hear?” and when there was no answer, he tried again: “W-what do you want?”

The dark shapes remained silent and a grim foreboding touched him like a cold hand. His eyes, darted right and left, but nothing presented itself.

Maybe, he thought, if he walked away they'd let him alone, maybe they wouldn't bother him. He angled off to his left toward a darkened house as fast as his whiskey-wobbly legs would go. He reached the back of the house in safety, then staggered along the fringe of the hill. By keeping in this direction he would pass behind the blacksmith's shop on Laguna Street and arrive at his own backyard. The path was rocky and he stumbled several times, falling to his knees in his haste. He looked back, straining his eyes but he saw nothing, nor were there any sounds that he was being followed.

He dusted off his trousers. Probably just his imagination, he thought, or maybe a couple of cowboys standing out in the dark street. Somewhat relieved, he started homeward again along the base of the hill.

The storm evidently was passing without dropping any rain and the lightning was dissipating in its wake. A flash lit up the distant sky, and his heart almost stopped for the two specters were now standing twenty feet ahead of him. With a strangled cry, he started to run up the slope, slipping and sliding, scrambling on all fours he labored up the hill until he reached an old picket fence. Clutching the railing for support, he gulped air into pumping lungs while he listened for sounds of pursuit in the dark night.

Suddenly he realized that the fence he was clinging to was part of the cemetery located on the hill behind the blacksmith's shop, and that below lay the safety of his own home. But heart pounding, sweat pouring profusely from his whiskey-sodden body, he was again aware of the dark specters moving ominously toward him, their weapons held menacingly in front of them.

Cringing, he moved with his back along the fence, his hands feeling the way along the wooden pickets as he went. He paused at the open gateway, his heart thumping in his chest in abject fear when one of the dark specters appeared directly in front of him. Terrified, Morcum's eyes darted to the right, seeing the black shape of the second figure. Mouth agape, he backed through the cemetery gateway, moving backward until he bumped a wooden grave-marker. Still peering toward the dark figures, he backed sideways until he stumbled against a mound of another grave, falling to his knees.

He raised his glance toward the pathway, now hearing footsteps where before there had been none. What sort of devils were these? Morcum cried out in panic: “Who are you? L-leave me alone—please!”

But the footsteps kept coming, slowly, precisely, as inexorably as judgment day. Heart palpitating fiercely, he scrambled to his feet, eyes searching the night for a place to hide, but it was too dark. Then footsteps crunched to his right, joining the sounds in front of him as they herded him farther into the cemetery.

Terrified, he sought to cry out for help but fear had constricted his vocal cords and he was only able to whimper hoarsely. He turned and ran, stumbling, bulling his way among the wooden markers in his haste.

With his breath coming in great wheezing gulps, his body completely enervated, he was forced to stop. He heard the gravel crunch on both sides of him, felt dark fingers snatching lightly at his clothing, weapons prodding him to move. And then it suddenly came to him that these devils were purposely herding him toward some specific place; in stark terror to escape, he began to run backward.

Suddenly the ground beneath his feet was gone, and he dashed headlong, six feet down into the rectangular pit. His backward thrust and the force of gravity combined to drive his paunchy body downward and he landed on the back of his head. His neck snapped with an audible sound and dust rose from the grave as sand trickled in on the body that once was Bliss Morcum.

And the cemetery was silent save for the shuffling whisper of Quechan moccasins moving quickly down the hill toward Rincon Alley.

On the last day of his life Dalton Powers was already awake before the guard came walking down the corridor clanging his keys against the cell doors. All night long visions of Dwyer's faceless body had moved sickeningly through his dreams, disturbing his rest.

Built like a jockey, his scant four inches over a five-foot frame carried a slim one hundred and eighteen pounds, but recent fear and worry had peaked his weasel face. His cell mates began stirring. Now wide awake from the rattling of the keys, he watched Three-fingered Jake Laustina rise up to needle the guard.

“Hey, Allison, one of these days I'm gonna jam them damn keys down yore throat so hard they'll stick out yore ass everytime you open yore mouth,” he jibed.

Easygoing, the brown-uniformed guard, Frank Allison, snorted. “Better you say ‘Sir' before you try it because you're gonna need someone to help pick you out of the mud.”

“Shee-it,” Laustina smirked, reaching for his pants hanging from a peg on the wall. “You'll never...”

“Hold it, Jake!” Print cried, then he admonished the three-fingered convict. “Don't be gittin' them guards riled. We got us enough troubles without thet, an' smart-assin' will do it!” Carugna glared through the bars but agreed with Hedgemon.

The four men finished dressing in silence while the guard made his run up the other side of the stone-walled corridor. But it was Hedgemon Print who broke the silence. He scowled deeply before questioning Powers.

“How you think thet damn Fish git his hands on somethin' to kill hisself like thet?” he growled, awaiting an answer from the little convict.

Powers shook his head. “I never saw nothin'—just heard the explosion.”

“Thet junker must'a gotten a blastin' cap from one of the workmen in the yard,” Laustina said.

“Naw, none of the prisoners was allowed to git near them civilians who done the blastin',” Print told them. “But maybe he did find one thet got lost out there.”

Laustina shook his head. “Them caps is too dangerous, they don't jest git lost,” he said, shrugging his burly shoulders, and adding: “Hell, what's the difference—thet junker jest blew his damn fool head off, is all!”

Print wrinkled his brow speculatively. “Think maybe he did it on purpose? Maybe he was out to git one of us an' somethin' went wrong. You know we was always ridin' him perty hard.”

“Who the hell knows,” Laustina snapped, “or even gives a shit what thet silly bastid done. Let's git in the chow line.” He slid from his bunk and strode to the door.

Powers followed his three cell mates through the short archway to the corridor after watching them squeeze through the double gates. Content to follow them, he didn't much care to be in their company, knowing that each was hair-triggered and highly capable of killing anyone who angered them. Their kind would even kill a comrade over anything that might benefit them in the least. And it had always been so with the low caliber of men he had known.

Years ago, while he was growing up, he had discovered that he would have a tough row to hoe because of his size, his jockey's body. Through each of his tormented years, he'd had to fight off every bully in town. And as he grew older, the bullies seemed to get bigger and stronger until he had became so bruised and pounded that he gave up fighting, and decided to stay healthy by his wits alone. One thing he had learned for sure was to keep away from the toughs, and when that wasn't possible, he made it a point always to agree with them. This often ran him afoul with the law, but at least he took less bumps and bruises by doing so.

But this fact had also been the cause of his recent trouble because he hadn't wanted to join the escape, at least not with killers like Print and Laustina. From the very start, right after Print had smashed the adobe block over Homer Sheaves's head, he had sensed that Fish Dwyer had been an unwilling victim like himself and had been too frightened object. He meant to side with Dwyer whenever he could safely do so, but the chances had been infrequent.

The other man in the group, Alexio Carugna, had turned out to be just another foul-mouthed devil, and Powers had decided to stay clear of him as well as the others. He shuddered, thinking back to the blood-spattered adobe hovel, and the bloody orgy the outlaws had enjoyed, the raping and mutilating of the Quechan women.

He brushed a hand across his chest. The striped prison clothes were now sticking to his perspiring body and he stopped walking to lean against the wall, pale and trembling, paralyzed with the effort it took to keep from screaming. And through his present fright, he remembered that Dwyer, too, had recoiled from taking part in the grisly affair. He swallowed uncomfortably, using the flat of his hands to push away from the corridor wall he had unwittingly been leaning against to keep from sagging.

Stark reality primed his mind; was this why Dwyer had killed himself—was it remorse or disgust? A tense grayness settled over his features and he tried to shake off this sordid feeling. Then putting all thoughts aside, he forced his feet to move, hurrying to the mess hall before the door was closed against latecomers.

At work call after breakfast, the four men were ordered to assemble at the tool room. Then, armed with shovels, sledges, and drillbits, a mustached guard known only as Hack, marched them to the southeast corner of the yard where several holes had been blasted into the caliche wall.

“All right, you men,” Hack informed them. “Today you're gonna dig out another cell in this wall.” He pointed with his rifle barrel toward the corner of the yard. “You're also gonna dig a gateway alongside that east wall.”

“A gateway?” Laustina snorted. “Ha! You mean we get tuh dig outa here with you watchin'. That'll be the day!” Sneering he gave the guard his three-fingered nose salute.

“Hell no, you ninny,” Hack growled. “You birds is gonna dig a gateway into that hill, then you're gonna dig out a whole damn new yard over the next year, and I'm gonna be right here to see that you do it, every rock-smashing inch of it!”

Then he called attention to the guard tower where the east and south walls joined. “Just 'cause that tower ain't manned, don't go getting no ideas. The Super figured it'd be too dangerous having a guard up there while they was blasting holes, but remember, I'll be standing right here among you with this.” Hack tapped the 44–40 rifle cradled in his left arm.

Powers looked up at the square guard structure in question. Its four sidewalls were boarded almost waist-high, then opened as far as the pyramidal roof, permitting the guards an unobstructed view in all directions. The hill on the south side of the prison formed an eighteen-foot-high wall where the yard had been dug into the solid caliche. On the east side, the hill sloped downward, necessitating the long wall to extend the entire length of the prison, northward from the hill where they were working.

“Pick up those tools and start pounding,” Hack cried. He moved back a few paces so that he could better watch them all, not wanting to be too near the swinging sledges.

Being smaller than the others, Powers held the drill for the huge Print who swung the ten-pound sledge with effortless regularity. The other men shoveled away loose rock shattered by the earlier blasting.

Heat and sweat irked the toiling prisoners, while the sound of ringing steel splintering rocks and the grating of shovels dragging stone chips mingled with the heavy dust shrouding the area.

And the morning ticked slowly away. The sun was a fiery orb hanging directly overhead when the whistle blew to signal the noon meal.

“You men can lay down your tools now and line up,” Hack told them, his rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. “You'll have a chance to fill your bellies with beans.”

Powers wiped a hand across the thin film of moisture on his upper lip. Hell, he hardly sweated anymore. Dwyer, he recalled, hadn't sweated much either, only when he had been seized with those body-shaking fits that often beset him. Otherwise, Fish hadn't been perspired, hadn't even enough meat on his rack of bones to perspire.

Lined up, the prisoners were ready to eat. At the guard's command, Powers stepped off, following in the footsteps of the other convicts. Damned Arizona sun, he thought, hot enough to bake the balls off a man without any juices. He grumbled to himself all the way up to the mess hall area where he got into line with the other prisoners without comment.

But not even the time they spent in the hot, steamy hall did much for him because he had somehow lost his appetite in the noisy, clattering area permeated with a boiled cabbage odor. He did, however, drink two glasses of cool water while picking desultorily at the food on his plate. He was glad when the whistle signaled them back to the job.

At the lineup, Hack ordered Print and Laustina to pick up a ladder from the carpenter shop building just north of the mess hall, then they marched back to the work site in silence.