The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  Arnie and I traded places in the crates just before eight o'clock the next morning. I was awakened, stiff and tired from dreaming, by the incredible sound — a sort of rusty squeal, like a huge wheel turning on an ungreased axle — of the hundreds of sparrows who nested in the girders of the cell block roof. In the first colorless light of day I lay in Arnie's bunk watching them flash past the cell door, and out through the bars of the great cell-block windows, opened at the tops for ventilation. Later I heard the cell block wake; first, a cough, then from somewhere a quiet murmur of conversation. Presently water ran in a basin. more men coughed, and the volume of conversation swelled. I heard a toilet flush, heard a curse, heard an unidentifiable sound; far off down the block someone began singing. More water ran, men coughed, hawked. and spat; some shouted, calling to other men. A shaft of sunlight slanted down into the block through one of the tall windows, and presently Arnie's cellmate — first his legs, then his upper body — slid down from his bunk.

  We dressed, one at a time, and when the locking bar rose, he pushed open the door, and was gone. I followed a few moments later, and taking the same route as yesterday, lined up in the great mess hall for breakfast. I had it, then — hot cereal, toast, bacon, and coffee — with three identically dressed strangers, and I ate it with good appetite. The danger to me now was as real as yesterday's, but I could no longer believe that. I felt confident, actually cocky about the incredible thing I had done, and in the industrial area, just before eight, I traded places with Arnie — watching the guards, I felt, as expertly as he had on the day before. We each asked and answered a few brief questions; then he was gone, and I lay back in the crate.

  I gathered up my rope coil at twelve-thirty that night and climbed as soundlessly as possible out of the crate. Then I climbed the wall as before, lying on its top watching the road below me and resting for several moments; then I climbed down, yanked my rope, and began climbing the dark hill. Beside the county road on the other side, I waited half an hour, maybe, lying in the weeds. Then a car rounded a bend, moving slowly, its lights switching from bright to dim, bright to dim, and I stood up, and whistled. The car stopped. I ran out, yanked open the door, and tossed my rope and hook to the floor; then I slid into the front seat beside Ruth, and the car started up immediately. After a moment, her eyes on the winding road, Ruth said, "You all right, Ben?"

  "Sure. I'm fine," I said. "So's Arnie." She didn't answer, and I turned to look at her, and in the faint light from the dashboard I saw she was crying.

  On Highway 101, Ruth turned north toward the U.S. 40 junction far ahead. After I had told her all that happened, and answered all her questions, I climbed into the back seat, and lay down under the car blanket. Ruth turned the radio on low, and pretty soon I went to sleep, the car moving steadily on through the night toward the Sierra Nevadas, Donner Pass at the summit seven thousand feet up, and Reno on the other side.

  Friday morning, dressing in my cell, I knew Ben had made it out of the industrial area last night; if he hadn't, they'd have come for me during the night. At unlock I walked out of the cell thinking, the last time!, and I thought it all day at the factory, and at noon leaving the mess hall. By four o'clock, quitting time, my hands were shaking, I was so scared and excited. This was the time, during the next three or four minutes — and if they caught me now trying to escape, they'd know why, and throw me into an isolation cell under direct guard till Hafek arrived in the morning to point me out. Then it would be the Row for certain.

  Outside the factory, I walked back along the east wall of the building, so scared it was hard to breathe, but I made myself saunter, looking casual and unhurried, toward the big wall at the rear of the area. I was directly under the eye of the wall guard in the corner tower under which I'd stood digging last night, but he wouldn't be giving me any special attention yet. I could be walking this way to meet a friend, before we left the area for the cell blocks and the four-thirty count, or for any of a lot of other harmless reasons. For the moment I was simply one of several hundred men filling the industrial area at quitting time.

  I walked slowly, conserving the steps between me and the wall ahead, and I was getting nervous and worried, when suddenly I heard it — a shout, loud and prolonged from behind me, around the corner at the front of the factory out of my sight. It was repeated right away — Yaay! Yuh-hoo! — and I knew what was happening. Two twenty-year-olds were horsing around in front of the factory in a direct line of sight over the factory rooftop for the guard in the tower a few steps in front of me. Ben had brought a hundred and fifty dollars in fives and tens into the prison with him in his canvas bundle, and I'd offered it to the two kids this morning in the block, right after unlock. I had Al with me, and gave him the money to hold while they watched, to pay over when they delivered. They knew him, and knew he would pay. They'd squawked about the price. They wanted a hundred apiece, and I didn't blame them; they knew they were creating a diversion for something, of course, and that whatever I was up to, they'd be in for some tough questioning and punishment. It was worth a hundred, but seventy-five apiece was all I had, and when they were sure of that, they took it.

  Now they were earning their money — one of them shouted again, and I knew one was standing on the other's shoulders, balanced precariously, holding onto the other's hair, grinning wildly, and shouting at the top of his lungs, horsing around the way the young kids here do, in spite of everything. Yaay! Yuh-hoo! the shout came again, and now for the first time I flicked my eyes upward to the tower just ahead.

  The guard, almost directly above me now, was staring off in the direction of the shout, and I took one more step forward, and I was directly under the projecting floor of the wall tower, out of the guard's sight. By the time he turned his attention from the skylarking prisoners, he'd assume I'd gone on and turned the corner ahead to the west. There was no one else in this part of the area back here; it was quitting time, and everyone was heading for the wall gate at the front of the area.

  This was the moment. I shoved both hands, fingers working, into the dirt I'd dug last night, found the board edge about where I'd expected, and lifted. Instantly sitting down hard, I shoved both legs into the opening. Then, holding the board open above me, I wriggled into the cavity, then let the board drop hard, and lay panting in the velvet-black darkness. It had taken me three or four seconds, no more, to disappear, literally, from the face of the earth, and I could only wonder what my hiding place looked like from outside. I could only hope that no sliver or edge of board showed above ground. But I felt that it must look all right: I'd heard no earth slide from its surface.

  I'm in a grave, I thought suddenly, and a panicky feeling that I was smothering swept through me. But I'd anticipated that, and began sliding my hands carefully through the air just over my chest, and my thumb bumped the end of the pipe just past my chin. I slid down a little till my mouth touched the end of the pipe. Bunching the canvas bundle up under my head, I adjusted the height of my head and now I lay comfortably, the pipe end in my mouth. I took a deep breath, and blew hard, then did it again. Bending my knees, I moved down in the trench till one eye slid under the pipe end, and through the tiny mesh half a foot above, I saw blue sky; the dust had blown clear; I knew I could breathe now, and the panic subsided.

  I found the shape of the flashlight in the canvas pack, worked it out, flicked on the light, and as best I could looked at the shallow depression in which I lay. I could see the curve of blue shirt over my chest, and its row of fasteners, and beyond that the black tips of my shoes. Just overhead, and extending on past my feet, I saw the white pine undersurface of the plywood, and my other hand lying on my chest, and the blurred end of the pipe, too close to my eyes to see clearly. I snapped off my light, and fitted my mouth over the pipe end again. Tonight the four-thirty count wouldn't come all clear, the red light would go on, and the guard in the wall tower twenty-odd feet over my head would begin to curse, knowing that now he'd have to stay on duty, that the walls in this and every
other area of the prison would stay manned now, day and night, till the missing man was found or escaped. Within the next minutes, the prison would be alive with prowling guards, off-duty men called in to help search every place they could imagine a man hiding. I had to hope that they couldn't imagine this one. I lay breathing through my pipe, and waiting. Minutes passed, and when the siren actually sounded — first a moan, muffled through the earth over my head, then the sound climbing rapidly higher,higher, and still higher to a piercing painful wail — I couldn't help it, I shivered a little; now I was a hunted man. And yet, at the very same time, it was a thrill, it was a kick. I was terribly frightened, yet terribly excited, and now I knew why men have hidden out just for the simple hell of it. You're nobody in prison; just a pair of blue pants and a blue shirt, doing what you're told. But once you're missing at Quentin—boy, you're somebody then!

  Ruth and I had breakfast at the Riverside Hotel, in that coffee, sandwich, and breakfast place just off the gambling casino on the street floor. She'd packed a bag with my electric razor and a change of clothes for me, including a tan sport shirt and my tan slacks; my clothes and things had arrived from L.A. I'd changed clothes in the back of the car on the floor, and when we stopped for gas just outside Reno, I had shaved quickly in the filling-station washroom.

  Ruth wore a sleeveless cotton dress, white with a little pattern of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, one of those dresses with a kind of flaring skirt. She had a faint golden tan, and looked very summery and nice, as we walked out of the hotel. The streets were already fairly crowded with summer tourists, and we joined them, walking up Virginia toward Second Street.

  The first pawn shop we came to had a couple of customers in it, and we passed it by. But the next one, half a block on, was empty except for the proprietor, a middle-aged man leaning on the counter reading a newspaper. Ruth walked on, to saunter along looking in windows, waiting for me, and I went into the pawn shop, and bought a .32 Colt revolver with a blue barrel and a scored grip. It cost thirty-five dollars, and took less than two minutes with no questions asked; as I walked out, the gun shoved into my pants pocket, the proprietor was reading his paper again, and maybe three minutes later we were on our way out of Reno, heading for the mountains again.

  I drove, feeling rested now, feeling good, and during the six-hour drive back we talked a lot. Ruth's an intelligent girl, an interesting person, and we talked about everything and anything except the prison, which was a relief. In Sacramento we left the car near the big park around the State buildings, and walked to the business district for lunch. Then we found a big toy store and hobby shop and bought a wood-carving set, a big elaborate one with a lot of razor-sharp little knives and chisels, and an assortment of soft pine blocks. It was a nice day, pretty warm, but summery and pleasant, and for the first time in a long while, it seemed, I was enjoying myself; I felt happy, and it was good to be alive again. As we crossed the park toward the car, along a wide graveled path, Ruth pointed to a big oval-shaped bed of red flowers, and said, "What kind of flowers are those?"

  "Those?" I said. "They're hemophilias."

  "Really?" She nodded; it must have sounded vaguely familiar to her.

  "Yeah. You don't know much about plants, do you?"

  "Not much." She smiled at me, sauntering along the path in her summer dress, her arm under mine.

  "Well, the ones next to them," I said, "are tularemias; they're fairly rare. And the ones by the iron fence are Hepplewhites. Next to the night-blooming hollyhocks."

  "All right," she said, in amused rebuke, and I laughed, and squeezed her arm under mine, feeling good.

  But at four o'clock, after we reached home, the whole mood, the good time we'd had driving home over the mountains, was suddenly gone. I looked at my watch as we walked into the house, and said, "He's hiding out right now; the hunt will begin any minute."

  Ruth nodded. standing there in the living room, looking at me. Then, her voice very low and quiet, she said, "Ben, do you think he'll make it?"

  I was silent for a moment, staring down at the floor; then I looked up again. "He's in midstream right now," I said, "neither out nor in, and I feel almost superstitious about even talking about it." Then, seeing the anguish in her eyes, I added softly, "But yes, I think he'll make it. Certainly he will."

  She turned toward the bedrooms. "I'll go change," she said, and I walked to the big living-room window, pulled the drapes closed, then turned on the living-room lamps and got out a card table I'd seen in the closet. I moved it next to the lamp on the davenport end table, brought in a straight-backed kitchen chair, then opened up the wood-carving set I had bought, and spread it out on the table. I found a ruler and a soft-lead pencil in the kitchen, and brought them in, then put the revolver I had bought on the table, and sat down.

  Ruth came in, in a white blouse and summer flowered skirt, and sat down on the davenport at my elbow. I picked up one of the large pine blocks, and began slowly sketching on its smooth white surface the outline of the revolver lying on the table before me.

  I'm pretty skillful with my hands, and I worked quickly but carefully, constantly checking the measurements of my sketch against the real gun. The outline was finished in half an hour, and I cut it out of the soft, straight-grained pine easily, with the largest of the razor-sharp knives. Then I began work on the details with the chisels and smaller knives. Ruth dusted the living room, washed some of our clothes, and about six o'clock went out to the kitchen to prepare supper.

  All evening, I carved and sliced away the wood, Ruth on the couch beside me. Occasionally she read, but mostly we talked as I worked, talked for some reason about things we liked: books, music, plays, sports, all sorts of things, keeping at it, I guess, because our tastes agreed on so many things. Every hour Ruth would turn on the radio to a local news broadcast, and at nine o'clock we heard the first announcement of Arnie's hideout. The Warden, the announcer said, had reported that a San Quentin inmate was missing at the four-thirty count that afternoon. The Warden was certain the inmate had not escaped from the prison; there was no indication that he had. He was believed to be hiding within the prison. A search was going on, and would continue till the man was found. Up to this hour, the announcer concluded, the missing man had not been found.

  "And he won't be," I said; I felt a sudden rush of optimism about Arnie, and grinned at Ruth. Then I took the revolver from the table, and stood up, jamming the gun into my belt. Feet wide apart, arms hanging down at my sides, the fingers curled inward, my face sternly expressionless, I said, "I've just stepped out of the Silver Dollar Hotel onto the dusty street, under the hot yellow sun. Two men lounging against a pillar of the Deux Magots Saloon see me, and dart inside, the shuttered doors swinging behind them. A long-skirted woman grabs a child, and runs out of sight. Shopkeepers hurriedly close their iron shutters, and within seconds the street is empty except for one man."

  "There he stands in the yellow dust, half a block away, facing me, gun slung from his hip. He stares at me from under the wide brim of his sweat-stained hat, eyes narrowed, lips contemptuous." I glanced at Ruth. "Now, slowly, hands hanging carefully at our sides, we begin walking toward each other." Eyes straight ahead, I began walking across the room in slow measured steps. "The breathless seconds tick by, a full orchestra ominous and low, in the background. Nearer and nearer, our deadly eyes never wavering, we approach." I reached the center of the room. "Suddenly our hands move in two simultaneous blurs of speed!"— my hand shot up, sweeping the gun from my belt. "Bang! Bang! Two shots roar out as one!" I turned to Ruth. "What happened?"

  "The honest sheriff was killed," she said. "For once."

  "His own bullet went wild, striking an old lady asleep in a rocking chair, in the kneecap. And Wilkes, the hired killer from Dallas, is triumphant, the poor sheepherders are driven from the range, and I, for one, am glad to see it; danged varmints." I whirled toward Ruth, snatching the revolver from my belt again. "Reach lady!"

  "Ben, for heaven's sakes,
put that away! Honestly." She shook her head, mildly exasperated. "Let a man get his hands on a gun, and he's like a child."

  "You're lucky I don't make you dance in the road, pumping bullets at your heels." I shoved the gun into my belt again, and walked over to her, legs slightly bowed. "You the new school mar'm?"

  "Yes, for heaven's sakes. Sit down; you make me nervous."

  "Reckon I will." I sat down at the card table again. "Hear you're one of Ravenhill's new gals; gonna work over to th' new saloon."

  "That's right; in long black stockings, and a short red skirt."

  I nodded, picking up my carving knife. "You'd look pretty good, too, Ma'm," I added.

  "Think so?" Ruth smiled up at me.

  I shrugged, eyes on the wooden gun in my hand. "I think so," I said. Then I looked up, my eyes met hers, and for a moment we stared at each other.

  "Funny, isn't it." Ruth said then, "you and I here like this." I nodded, and she dropped her head to the back of the davenport. "You know," she said quietly, "a lot of it I like. I'm a domestic type, I guess, and I like keeping house, too. I enjoy cooking meals, when there's someone to cook for. And while you were gone, I worked in the garden, watered the lawn, shopped for groceries, trying to get my mind off what was happening, and there were moments when I actually enjoyed it. Sometimes, dusting or vacuuming or even washing dishes, I've felt almost happy; it's almost seemed real." She smiled. "In a way, I could feel sorry that it'll be ending soon. Though of course it's good that it is; it's been hard on you, I know. Hard on me, too."