The Loner: Seven Days to Die

by J. A. Johnstone

  On the morning of the fifth day of his imprisonment The Kid was up close to the door of his cell in order to catch the bread when it was shoved between the bars. Two guards came to the door, and one of them told him to move back away from it.

  At the guard’s order, he shuffled all the way to the rear wall of the cell. As he stood there, he heard the bar being removed, and a moment later a key rattled in the lock.

  “You’re coming out for breakfast this morning,” the guard said. “Don’t cause any trouble, and maybe it’ll stay that way.”

  “Is there coffee?” The Kid asked.

  “Yeah.”

  The Kid closed his eyes for a second and sighed in anticipation.

  He hadn’t been in there all that long, but already he could understand how long periods of confinement broke the spirits of a prisoner. When all the things people took for granted in their everyday lives were suddenly denied, even the smallest bit of normality was greatly magnified. The prospect of being able to sit at a table, eat breakfast, and drink coffee seemed like heaven.

  Under the rifles of the two guards, he left the cell and made his laborious way to one of the tables. The coffee had already been poured in wooden cups. The prisoners weren’t trusted with crockery, since it could be broken easily and the sharp edges of the pieces could be used as weapons.

  The Kid grabbed a bowl, dipped it in the pot of oatmeal, and sat down at the end of the table. He forced himself not to wolf down the food or gulp the coffee. Taking his time with both, he savored the taste.

  A few minutes later, someone sat down beside him. The Kid glanced over and recognized Carl Drake.

  “See, I told you they’d let you out sooner or later,” Drake said with a grin.

  The Kid used a finger to scrape the last of the oatmeal out of the bowl. “You were right,” he agreed.

  “If you behave yourself, things probably won’t go back to the way they were before.”

  The Kid didn’t say anything.

  Drake’s forehead creased a little in a frown. “You don’t plan on behaving yourself?”

  “You know I’m not Bledsoe,” The Kid said quietly. “They don’t have any right to keep me locked up here.”

  “Maybe not, but they’ve got the bars and the guns. That sort of trumps what’s right or wrong.”

  “Bledsoe made it out.”

  “Even if you escaped, you’d be a fugitive from now on.”

  That brought a faint smile to The Kid’s face as he shook his head. “No,” he corrected, “Ben Bledsoe would be the fugitive, which he already is. There are no real charges against me.”

  Drake grunted. “You know, I hadn’t thought about it like that. You’d be free and clear…unless somebody mistook you for Bledsoe again.”

  “I’d make a point of it to get as far away from New Mexico Territory as I could.”

  Drake sipped his coffee and nodded. “Well, that might work,” he said. “But there’s a better way.”

  The Kid looked over at him with interest. “What are you talking about, Drake?”

  “Find the real Bledsoe, bring him back, and show everybody that you’re not him.”

  The idea was stunning in its simplicity. The Kid had some experience as a manhunter; he had tracked down the bastards responsible for Rebel’s death, after all.

  “How long ago did Bledsoe break out?” he asked.

  “A couple weeks.”

  The Kid nodded. “The trail’s had a chance to go cold, but I might be able to pick it up again.”

  “You’re forgetting something.”

  “What’s that?”

  Drake smiled ruefully. “You can’t pick up anybody’s trail from in here.”

  The Kid downed the last of his coffee. “I don’t plan to stay in here,” he said as he set the empty cup on the table. “You’re going to tell me how Bledsoe escaped. If he can do it, I can, too, and then I’ll go after him.”

  Drake shook his head and said, “Sorry, Morgan. I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  Anger flashed through The Kid. He started to say something, but Drake lifted a hand to forestall the hot words.

  “I’m not going to tell you anything,” Drake repeated softly, not looking at The Kid, “unless you agree that when you bust out of here, I’m going with you.”

  Chapter 10

  For a long moment, The Kid didn’t say anything. He wasn’t sure he trusted Carl Drake with his life, and that was what it would amount to if he agreed to work with the man on an escape plan. Drake could betray him to Fletcher at any time.

  The same thing was true of him, The Kid realized. He could turn Drake in for plotting an escape. That meant Drake was prepared to trust him. The Kid took that into consideration. “I’ll think about it,” he said. It was as far as he was going at the moment.

  “Don’t think about it too long,” Drake warned. “I might take it into my head to go ahead and bust out by myself. Every day I’m in here with Otto is another day he might decide to go ahead and bust me in two.”

  “I thought you convinced him you didn’t have anything to do with the rest of your gang getting arrested.”

  “Every day’s a new day for Otto,” Drake said. “He’s not exactly what you’d call right in the head.”

  The Kid understood. He had seen that loco look in Otto’s eyes himself. “I’ll let you know,” he said. “By tomorrow.”

  Drake scraped the last of his food from the bowl and nodded. “You do that.”

  Each time The Kid was out of Number One, he had studied every detail he could see about Hades, searching for some clue to the way out. He hadn’t found a thing, but he kept up the effort anyway.

  A few minutes later, the prisoners were taken back to their cells. The guard named Smithson was one of the pair following The Kid to his cell. Smithson said, “It won’t do you any good, Bledsoe.”

  “What won’t?” The Kid asked.

  “Looking for a way out. There isn’t any. We’re ready now for what you pulled before.”

  The Kid glanced back and smiled coolly. Smithson had just summed up the main worry, but he wasn’t going to let the guard see that.

  An escape plan was usually good for one attempt only, especially if it was successful. Fletcher would have moved to close off whatever method the real Bledsoe had used.

  Yet Drake seemed to believe they could still use Bledsoe’s plan. It was an odd contradiction, one that puzzled The Kid.

  Instead of pondering it, he asked Smithson a question. “Did the warden send that telegram to my lawyers the way I asked him to?”

  “The warden doesn’t tell me what telegrams he sends or doesn’t send,” Smithson snapped. “Anyway, nobody’s gonna fall for that bluff of yours, Bledsoe.”

  “What if it’s not a bluff? What if I’m telling the truth?”

  “Then I guess you’re out of luck, because you’re not going anywhere.”

  They reached the cell, and as soon as The Kid shuffled inside, the door slammed behind him. The bar thudded down into its brackets.

  Those were awful sounds, and they threatened to strike despair into The Kid’s heart before he stubbornly shoved the feeling away.

  He couldn’t afford to give in to despair. That led to surrender.

  And Kid Morgan was never going to surrender.

  He might have to risk taking Carl Drake up on his proposal.

  Mid-morning, The Kid got a surprise. Several guards showed up at the door of his cell. As one of them unlocked it, the man said, “Step back, Bledsoe. You’re coming out.”

  The Kid stood up from where he’d been sitting on the bunk and moved to the rear wall. “Why?” he asked through the barred window. “Am I going somewhere?”

  “That’s right. The warden wants to see you.”

  “Why?”

  The guard snorted. “You think he tells us? He just said to fetch you.” The bar was removed and set aside. “We’re fetching you.”

  A key rattled in the lock, and the door swung open. The
guards, except the one who had unlocked the door, had their rifles at their shoulders, aiming through the open doorway at the prisoner.

  “Come on out.”

  Taking the short steps forced on him by the leg irons, The Kid left the cell. The guards surrounded him, and the little group started toward the mouth of the tunnel, moving slowly.

  Some of the prisoners watched through the windows in their cell doors. They didn’t know why he was being taken out, but they knew he would get to walk in the sunshine. They were jealous and jeered at him as he passed.

  The Kid saw Carl Drake looking at him from one of the cells. Drake’s forehead was creased in a frown. He appeared to be worried, and maybe with good reason. He was counting on The Kid helping him escape from Hell Gate. There was no way of knowing what was going to happen next.

  The gate guards opened one of the gates, and The Kid shuffled through the gap. For the first time in days, he didn’t have the stone walls of Hades looming all around and above him.

  He took a deep breath, and while he couldn’t actually call it the sweet air of freedom that he inhaled, not with those leg irons on, it still felt good.

  The warmth of the sun on his face felt even better. Good enough, in fact, that he could almost ignore those two Gatling guns aimed at him.

  Almost, but not quite.

  The Kid and the guards around him walked between the Gatling gun emplacements and the barracks where the more trusted inmates lived. A moment later they reached the rear door of the admininstration building. A couple guards backed through the door, keeping their rifles trained on The Kid.

  He gave them a wry smile. “You fellas must think I’m mighty dangerous.”

  “We haven’t forgotten what happened when you busted out before, Bledsoe,” one of the blue-uniformed men snapped. “We had to bury two of our friends.”

  The Kid didn’t waste his breath denying that he’d had anything to do with those deaths. Now that he had almost a week’s worth of beard stubble on his face, he probably looked more like Bloody Ben Bledsoe than ever.

  The guards marched him to Warden Fletcher’s office. When one of them swung the door open, it wasn’t Jonas Fletcher The Kid saw sitting behind the warden’s desk.

  It was Fletcher’s daughter Jillian.

  “Miss Fletcher,” the guard said in surprise. “Where’s the warden?”

  “He had to go over to our house,” Jillian replied. “My mother sent me to get him. He’ll be back shortly, I’m sure.” She made a dismissive gesture. “You can leave the prisoner here. I’ll keep an eye on him while we wait.”

  The guard frowned. “Begging your pardon, miss,” he said, “but you know we can’t do that.”

  “I don’t see why not. What could he possibly do with all you guards waiting right outside the office?”

  “You don’t know how dangerous this man is, Miss Fletcher.”

  “He already has leg irons on. You could shackle his hands, too.”

  The guard shook his head. “Nope. I’m sorry, miss. Can’t do it.”

  Jillian stood up and glared at the man. “For God’s sake!” she said. “I’m giving you an order.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, Miss Fletcher,” the guard broke in. “I take ’em from your father.”

  Jillian’s lips thinned angrily. “He’s going to hear about this disrespect.”

  “You go right ahead and tell him whatever you think you need to, miss. We’re still not leaving this murdering outlaw alone with you.”

  The Kid couldn’t figure it out. Jillian had to know what a dangerous man Ben Bledsoe was. It didn’t make any sense that she would want to be left alone with him.

  Unless she knew that he wasn’t Bledsoe.

  The thought made him draw in a sharp breath. Did he have an unexpected ally in that place?

  “All right, you can stay,” Jillian said with a pout signifying that she was used to getting her own way. She pointed to the chair in front of the desk. “You might as well sit down, Mr. Bledsoe. My mother isn’t well, so even though I expect my father back shortly, there’s really no telling how long he’ll be.”

  The guard closest to The Kid put a hand on his shoulder and shoved him into the chair. “Yeah, sit, Bledsoe,” the man ordered. “And don’t budge, if you know what’s good for you.”

  Jillian sat down behind the desk again. The Kid said, “I’m sorry that your mother is ill, Miss Fletcher.”

  The guard right behind him growled, “Speak when you’re spoken to, Bledsoe.”

  Jillian raised a hand. “No, that’s all right.” She looked at The Kid. “That’s an odd sentiment for a prisoner to have.”

  The Kid shook his head and said, “Not really.”

  “Most of the prisoners here hate my father.”

  A faint smile touched The Kid’s lips. “I wasn’t talking about your father. I don’t have any grudge against your mother. I’ve never even met the lady. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Bledsoe…” the guard said warningly.

  “No, really, it’s all right,” Jillian told him. She addressed The Kid again. “She has consumption. Father thought the air here in New Mexico might help her, but so far it hasn’t.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. If your father would get in touch with my lawyers in San Francisco, they might be able to recommend a specialist who could help your mother. They donate a considerable amount of money to various hospitals around the country in my mother’s name, so they know a lot of doctors.”

  The guard couldn’t stand it anymore. “Blast it, Bledsoe!” he burst out. “Stop spouting that hogwash!”

  Jillian stared across the desk. “You’re very well-spoken for an inmate. What happened to your mother?”

  The Kid folded his hands in his lap and said calmly, “She was murdered by outlaws, the sort of men that everyone around here seems to think I am. If you really knew me, you’d know how preposterous that is.”

  Without meaning to, he had hit on a new strategy in his effort to get out of there. If he could convince Fletcher that he wasn’t Ben Bledsoe, he wouldn’t have to break out, with Drake or anybody else. The first step in convincing Fletcher might be to convince the warden’s daughter, and he thought she already had doubts about his identity.

  So they all thought he was some barely literate outlaw, did they?

  He would have to show them how wrong they were. He hadn’t spent years at the finest universities back east for nothing. A few quotations from the classics ought to be a good start, maybe even throw in a few phrases of Latin…

  But before he could continue impressing Jillian with how educated and erudite he was, Jonas Fletcher roared from the office doorway, “What the hell is going on here?”

  Chapter 11

  Jillian looked up sharply, a frightened expression on her face, and started to get to her feet.

  At the same time, the guard standing immediately behind The Kid’s chair turned toward Fletcher. “You said to bring Bledsoe in here, Warden,” the man said. “We fetched him from Hades, but when we got here, you’d stepped out of the office for a minute—”

  “Then why did you bring him in here where my daughter was?” Fletcher stalked over to the desk and pointed toward Jillian with a finger that shook angrily.

  “We didn’t know Miss Fletcher was in here, sir,” the guard explained.

  “Didn’t one of the clerks tell you?”

  The guard shook his head. “None of the clerks were at their desks when we came in.”

  Fletcher threw his hands in the air. “Incompetents!” he said. “I’m surrounded by incompetents!” He whirled on Jillian, who shrank back into the chair. “And you! What do you mean by staying here in my office? I thought you were going with me back to the house. I was halfway there before I realized you weren’t just lagging behind. You were nowhere to be seen!”

  Jillian was clearly afraid of her father, but her chin tilted up with defiance as she said, “I couldn’t stand it anymore. You leave me over there to take
care of her, to watch as she coughs her life out and wastes away to nothing. I just had to get out for a few minutes!”

  Fletcher tilted his head to the side, as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. In a low, dangerous voice, he said, “By God, girl, don’t take that tone of voice with me.”

  “Why not?” she challenged him. “Are you going to throw me into Hades with the rest of the damned souls?”

  Fletcher looked thunderstruck that she would say such a thing to him. For a long moment he didn’t make any reply. Then he grated, “Go back to the house. Your mother needs you.”

  “Of course she does,” Jillian said as she stood up. “Lord knows she won’t get any real comfort from her husband while she’s dying.”

  For a second, The Kid thought Fletcher was going to slap her. The muscles in the man’s arm trembled with the all-too-evident urge to strike out.

  The Kid wasn’t sure what he would do if that happened. Could he sit by and allow any man to hit a woman, even his own daughter? Especially a bastard like Fletcher? The Kid knew even with leg irons on, he was fast enough to get out of his chair and grab Fletcher’s arm before a blow could fall.

  It would probably get him a good beating from the guards if he did.

  Thankfully, he didn’t have to make that decision. With a visible effort, Fletcher brought his rage under control. “Get out,” he rasped at Jillian.

  She left, scurrying out of the office, but not before casting a sympathetic glance toward The Kid.

  She probably had good reason to be sympathetic, he thought. Fletcher was even angrier than he would have been if none of that had happened.

  The Kid stayed put as the warden went behind the desk and lowered himself wearily into the chair. “Bledsoe,” Fletcher said as he looked across the desk. “Have you changed your mind?”

  “About what?” The Kid asked. “The fact that I’m not Bloody Ben Bledsoe?”

  Fletcher’s mouth quirked in a cold smile. “Still harping on that, are you? Give it up. With that beard, you look even more like your old self now than you did when Haggarty brought you here.” Fletcher leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the desk. “No, I was talking about the loot from all those robberies you pulled.”