Terror at Hellhole (9 page)

“Set that ladder against the wall next to that guard tower,” Hack ordered, waving the 44–40 rifle clutched in his rough fists. “And don't try anything funny, Jake, not unless you figure you can beat a bullet over that wall.”

Using his impaired hand, Laustina held two fingers and thumb to his nose in the age old gesture of disrespect, but Hack merely laughed, not letting it bother him.

After placing the ladder, the men resumed their toil with sledges and shovels, gouging deeply into the caliche hill. A faint east wind wafted a slight odor of stagnant water from Gila Slough, which mingled with the musky smell of the swine yard down beyond the cemetery. And the hot, tiresome afternoon dragged on.

Under Superintendent Tarbow's policy, lifers worked until sunset, and although Powers had a shorter sentence, he was included because of his misfortune to have been in the crew with the lifers on this day. Maybe, he thought, it was because he had been with them during their escape attempt. And it had not been of his own choosing, for never would he wittingly go with such callous and brutal killers.

The sun had almost lowered to the west wall when Hack decided that the proposed cell had reached the dimensions for jail cells. The guard called to him: “Powers, you shinny up that ladder. This cell is about ready for a ventilator hole. You gotta punch a hole through about two feet of rock roof. Do a good job up there and maybe I'll see you get an easier work detail later.”

Powers put down his shovel, casting an eye to the top of the cavelike cell they had carved into the hill. He moved over to the ladder and began a slow climb. Near the top of the wall, he looked over the side of the empty tower banister, noting the small chinks of rocks hurled there by the blast explosions from the preceding day. He walked along the edge away from the ladder until he stood above the cell they were working on.

“Heads up, Powers! I'm having your tools tossed up,” Hack called.

Powers stood aside while Print, swinging the sledge side-armed, heaved it up to him. Seconds later, two chisels clanged on the sunbaked caliche near his feet.

“Take four paces back from this edge, then start hammering,” Hack called to him. “And get a move on so we can finish before dark.”

Powers held the shorter chisel in his left hand and began hammering with the other, rotating the steel drill between strokes of the hammer. Although the sun was still hot he felt better here where a listless breeze was moving up from the river below, nor was it so oppressive from dust. Exposed to the elements for centuries longer, the gray caliche crust disintegrated easily under his hammer blows until the drill dug in half its length. From then on the pounding became work again, harder and harder as the drill slowly ate its way down into the rock.

Like a swooping bird, a singular shadow caught the corner of his eye, and magic like, he swiveled his head toward the guard tower, his hammer missing the stroke, striking the cementlike rock. He stared at the empty tower now framed in the stark light of the lowering sun.

Queer, he thought, and an odd felling crept over him. He looked hard at the ominous tower, but nothing moved, save swirls of dust occasionally floating upward from the work below. He began his hammering again, striking the drill harder in his anxiety to complete the job. Yet an eerie feeling lurked in his mind and the hint of unseen eyes prickled his skin. But never when he looked at the tower could he see anything. An unexplained fear pervaded his reason. Mouth dry, he gritted his teeth, hammering the longer drill stem faster and faster, knowing that it was almost through the domed ceiling beneath.

He struck a blow, and in his haste still another, then the steel tool broke through the rock roof, and sailing from his hand, fell into the cell below him.

“All right, Powers,” Hack called up at him. “Throw your tools down, you can finish up in the morning. Let's go eat.”

Relieved, Powers tossed the hammer over the side after he had thrown the drill. He stood a moment looking westward where the dying sun had dropped below the wall. A haze was beginning to form across Yuma, and he could faintly hear cantina music as Rincon Alley inhabitants were slowly coming to life.

His glance pulled back at the tower where forty steps separated him from the ladder leaning against the wall at its base. He lingered another moment, looking eastward across the swine yard, down toward the Gila Slough. A quiet was settling over the haze of the desert.

“Dammit, Powers, you coming down or do I have to fetch you?” Hack yelled angrily, his patience worn thin after the long hot day.

“Coming,” Powers answered. Fascinated, he walked trancelike toward the tower, a strange sensation raising the hackles along his spine like a cold wind blowing over his sweaty back. Staring his eyes swept the tower again, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but neither did he care to stop and peer inside the enclosed railings.

He quickly put a foot on the top rung and took a hesitant step downward. Abruptly, a presentiment like a finger of ice touched his spine but he dared not stop now. He took another step hastily down before he heard the strange swish sounding over his head, then something cold touched his neck.

Horror strickened, he reached with both hands, groping, tearing at the thing cutting into his throat. Losing his balance, his legs kicked out and suddenly the ladder began to slide sideways along the wall as though propelled by some strange force. His scream was cut short and his struggling feet tried to walk on air when the ladder crashed to the ground. The crimson burst in his eyes before he was enveloped in the black void.

Speechless, the three convicts and Hack stared up at Powers suspended halfway up the eighteen-foot wall, quivering, but with no visible support.

And it was full minute before Hack stirred to action.

Alerted by the frantic guard who had just interrupted his evening meal, Warden Tarbow ordered the hysterical Hack to silence. “Quiet!” he snapped. “Now slow down a minute, damn it. I can't make out a thing you're saying.”

He ushered the man away from the door and off the porch, not wanting to disturb his wife still seated at the table. Then he tried again. “Now tell me what happened.”

Calmer now in the presence of his superior, Hack said: “I really don't know, sir. Powers had just finished punching a ventilator hole through the roof of that new cell, and he was coming down the ladder, which was leaning against the wall in the corner by the guard tower. I didn't pay him too much mind once he started down the ladder 'cause I didn't trust that three-fingered bastid or that big nigger as long as they had sledges in their hands. Not after what they done to poor old Sheaves.”

Tarbow nodded. “Easy now, you're doing fine. Then what happened?”

Lamplight shining from the superintendent's doorway caught the angle of the agitated guard's jaw. He swallowed grimly, then continued: “Next thing I knew the ladder slid from under him, only he didn't fall. The ladder hit the ground but Powers just kept hanging up there in midair, kicking like a man on the gallows...only we can't see no rope!”

Tarbow took the man by the arm and started toward the sally port entrance to the prison yard. “Keep talking, Hack. Tell me the rest of it,” he urged.

“Well, sir, I herded them prisoners back to their cell, then I hollered for the yard captain to bring some lanterns. I got Allison and Frettly standing by at the body now, so I came to tell you quick as I could.”

After the gate guard had allowed them inside the wall, they walked rapidly through the yard to the rear wall. Tarbow saw the lanterns circling the two guards standing watch. Powers's body could be seen hanging motionless, outlined as a darkened shadow on the wall by lantern light. Closer now, he could see the dark line of blood forming a black band around the dead man's neck, the skin bulging and cut, the front of his throat having disgorged his life's blood over his drenched clothing.

“Put up the ladder,” Tarbow directed the two guards. “Hold it while I go up there and take a look.”

He picked up one of the lanterns and carefully climbed the ladder now positioned beside the still body. By the yellow light, he could see the man's swollen neck, then he raised his eyes upward, following the silvery sheen of the thin steel wire to where it was wrapped around a corner post of the tower. Strong, but hair thin, the steel wire was invisible from the ground.

The superintendent whistled through tense lips. “Garroted and hung in the same breath. The poor beggar's hanging by his neck bone alone,” he said to the guards eagerly looking up at him. “Get another ladder alongside him, and bring a pair of cutting pliers. He's hanging by a wire.”

Jittery, Tarbow came carefully down the ladder, glad to be away from the dead man. “When you get him down, take the body around to the carpenter shop. Put him on one of the workbenches. Lock the door and put a guard on it until the doctor gets here.”

The superintendent started unsteadily away from the scene, then stopped. “You men keep your mouths shut until we find out what happened. I don't want the prisoners to get panicky, understand?”

Dr. Rufus Botts accepted a cigar from the box Joshua Tarbow held out for him. He stuck the end in his mouth, waving a hand to refuse the superintendent's match. “Damnation, Josh, I never seen anything like it. Evidently someone hid behind that solid banister with a wire tied to the corner post. When this Dalton Powers started down the wire, he slipped the wire noose over his head, then shoved the ladder, or maybe Powers kicked it away in his frenzy to get the garrote loose,” Botts said, gesturing with his hands. “That dang wire cut clean through his neck to the bone during his struggling. Without an autopsy, I don't know if he was strangled or died of a severed jugular vein.”

Tarbow shook his head as though trying to clear it, then mashed a hand across his lined face. He was tired. “Three dead prisoners within the week, two of them dying under damn strange circumstances,” he muttered.

Botts rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth with his tongue. “You think this may be part of a plot—something premeditated?” he asked.

Tired-eyed, the superintendent glanced up, his face a blank. “Frankly, I don't know what to think, Rufus.”

He got to his feet and paced the length of the office, then he paused to strike a match to another lamp setting against the back wall, striving for assurance with the additional light.

“This just couldn't have been done by someone from the inside, and I sure as hell don't believe Powers did it to himself. Hack told me that Powers had walked over to the ladder and then started down. The light wasn't too good anymore, but then Hack said he was too busy keeping an eye on them lifers to pay much attention to Powers.”

“The other three men out there were lifers?” Botts asked, trying to help shed some light on what had transpired.

“Yes. They were the men who killed Sheaves when he wasn't looking,” Tarbow said. “And Powers was along with them when they escaped.”

“Well, if the four of them escaped together, then maybe someone from the outside killed them,” Botts offered. “You know a guard with a grudge could get up there without any trouble.”

Things were beginning to come back into focus. Tarbow looked bleakly at the open office door. “You may be right, because that east wall butts into the hill, and then the hill becomes the south wall,” he said. He remembered that when they had built this prison, the guard towers covered the area adequately. No one had taken into consideration that a blind spot was created when the one tower was taken out of operation. But then neither had he considered this when he ordered the post vacated during construction.

He squared his shoulders, setting his mind harder to the task. “A guard up there wouldn't be out of place if someone noticed him. Or if someone else came over that hill on his stomach, he just might make it to the tower without being seen, especially with the rough rocks casting long shadows when the sun dropped down below the west wall.”

“But Powers climbed up the ladder right next to that tower earlier when it was still broad daylight,” Butts reminded him.

“True, but maybe Powers didn't look over the banister, or maybe there was no one there yet,” Tarbow said. “Hell, maybe the man didn't come up until it was almost dark.”

Skeptical, Botts shook his head. “Why go to all that bother getting into the prison grounds when a man with a rifle could pick off Powers easily from the outside.”

Tarbow snorted. “From where? A shot would have alerted all the tower guards. Remember, that Lowell Battery is right in line with the empty tower, and you know what a Gatling could do to the sniper.”

He watched Rufus Botts's unconvinced face, then he shook a finger at the doctor. “Besides, any spot along Penitentiary Avenue is far too low to draw a bead on a man over by the southeast tower, and the cemetery and swine yards aren't much better places,” he argued. “It just had to be someone who came into the prison from the south side of the hill. We don't patrol outside the walls because who the hell wants to break
into
prison?”

Botts nodded in agreement. “You're probably right, both sides are far too low. So now we come again to the question—why?”

“Why indeed,” Tarbow snapped. “Good Lord, here we've got two hundred and sixty men in here all anxious to get out of here, and some jasper out there breaks in here, mind you!”

Botts's eyes followed Tarbow when he walked behind his desk and sat down with a deep sigh. He'd never seen the superintendent so disturbed before. He'd do what he could to ease the problem.

“Anyway, Josh, there's no connection between Dwyer and Powers, except they just happened to be cell mates for two days. Dwyer was a weed smoker and a drug addict, while Powers was just a nervous sneak thief. Otherwise, they never had anything in common, nor did they even bother anyone,” Botts said, knowing he'd better end this conversation before Tarbow got too worked up. He pulled a fobbed watch from the small pocket below his belt, glanced at the time, then returned the watch. He waggled a finger at the desk. “Josh, I really must be on my way and the hour is getting late. For the record, these papers I signed, certify that Dalton Powers met his death at the hands of a person or persons unknown.”