The Loner: Seven Days to Die

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Maybe I will. But even if I do, I’ve got a hunch it won’t really matter.”

  The Kid groaned in a mixture of pain and disappointment, then he thought of another possibility. “Tell Miss Fletcher.”

  Thurber frowned. “Jillian? Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because she already has doubts that I’m Bledsoe. Convince her of the truth, and then both of you can try to persuade her father that I’m not lying.”

  The doctor shook his head. “Sorry, but I’m not saying anything to that girl. The warden doesn’t like it when she takes any interest in the prisoners. Doesn’t like it one little bit. Getting her involved any more than she already is would just turn him against you that much more.”

  Something about Thurber’s voice prompted The Kid to ask, “What do you mean, any more than she already is?”

  The doctor’s fingers rasped on the white stubble on his chin. “That’s right, you’d passed out by then,” he said. “I guess Jillian found out somehow what was going on. She came running out, screaming at her father, and tried to take the whip away from him. He raised holy hell right back at her and told her she was forbidden to leave their house.” Thurber shook his head. “That won’t sit well with her. That young lady has a mind of her own, and she doesn’t mind expressing it.”

  The Kid had seen evidence of it with his own eyes. He still thought Jillian Fletcher would be a good ally to have, along with the doctor. But he supposed the effort to enlist her help could wait. Given the shape he was in, he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. He would have to heal up some first.

  “What happens now?” he asked.

  “You lay there and let that medicine I spread on your back do its work, that’s what happens now,” Thurber said. “I cleaned the wound in your side, took some stitches in it, and bandaged it again. Maybe it’ll stay closed better this time. I hope so.”

  The Kid shifted his legs. They wouldn’t move very far.

  “I’m chained to the bed, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, but you don’t need to go anywhere. You need to rest.”

  “For how long?”

  “You’ll be here for a few days, anyway. Maybe a week or more.” Thurber got to his feet. “Just don’t get any fancy ideas about taking advantage and trying to get away. There are two guards right outside the door, and will be that many around the clock as long as you’re here.”

  The Kid glanced at the window. It was too small for him to get his head through, let alone his body. It let a little air and light into the room, and that was all.

  “I still wish you’d say something to Fletcher about my ear,” he said.

  “I’ll think about it,” Thurber replied with another shrug, “but I can’t guarantee anything.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t want to get on the warden’s bad side any more than anybody else around here does.”

  “He’s a lunatic. A cruel, ruthless lunatic. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know anything,” Thurber said, “except that I want to draw my pay and not bring any trouble down on my head. That’s what I know…Bledsoe.” He left the room.

  As the door closed and Thurber’s footsteps faded away, The Kid fought once more against the feelings of helplessness and despair welling up inside him and painfully tightening his chest. That one brief moment of hope had faded, but he couldn’t forget what he had seen and heard while he was chained to the whipping post. Rebel had come to him to offer hope and encouragement and extract a promise from him.

  A promise that someday he would shoot Jonas Fletcher right between the eyes.

  The Kid had to live in order to keep that promise. He couldn’t give up, no matter how hopeless things looked. “Stay with me, Rebel,” he whispered to the empty room. “Stay with me.”

  Though there was no sound, he seemed to hear her speaking soft words of comfort to him.

  Chapter 14

  Kid Morgan was in the infirmary at Hell Gate Prison for ten days. Part of that time, he suffered from a fever brought on by infection from his numerous wounds. Dr. Thurber said the fever had to run its course, and eventually it did, breaking during the night. When The Kid woke in the morning, his bedding was drenched from the cold sweat that had leached the sickness out of him.

  By the time the guards came to take him back to Hades, he was weaker than a mountain lion cub, but his head was clear. The wounds on his back had scabbed over, and after examining them that morning, Thurber had declared they were healing nicely. So was the bullet gash in his side. The cut on his head from Haggarty’s gun was all right now, leaving only a small scar.

  “Try not to get in any more trouble,” Thurber advised before the guards took The Kid out. “You’ve already lost more than your share of blood.”

  The Kid nodded. His beard was full, which he supposed made him look more like Bloody Ben Bledsoe than ever. He was convinced Thurber doubted he was the outlaw, and so did Jillian Fletcher. It would have been a good start on ultimately winning his freedom.

  But he wasn’t going to wait for that. The whipping he’d received at the hands of Jonas Fletcher convinced him the warden would never believe him, and as had been pointed out to him more than once, Fletcher’s word was law. If he stayed in Hell Gate for the months or years it might take to get out through legal means, Fletcher would kill him.

  He had to escape as soon as he had his full strength back. There was no other answer.

  When the guards marched him into Hades, the man-made cavern was empty except for other guards. The prisoners were locked up in their cells. The Kid wanted to talk to Carl Drake as soon as he could, but he’d have to wait for that opportunity.

  He walked slowly into the Number One cell, the door of which stood open waiting for him. When The Kid was inside, one of the guards said, “Next time the warden asks you a question, Bledsoe, maybe you better answer him.”

  The Kid sat down on his bunk and didn’t say anything. He was tired of arguing with those people.

  The door slammed shut, the lock rattled as the key turned in it, and the bar thudded down in its brackets.

  Home, sweet home, The Kid thought bitterly.

  He half expected he’d be put back on bread and water, but when evening rolled around he was taken out of the cell for supper. He shuffled to the tables, got a bowl of stew, and sat down to eat.

  A minute later, Drake appeared beside him and sat down without waiting to be invited.

  “How are you doing, Kid?” Drake asked in a low voice.

  The Kid jerked his head in a curt nod. “I’ve been better,” he said, “but I reckon I’ve been worse.”

  “Hard to believe anybody could be worse off than you were after that whipping, without being dead.”

  The Kid glanced over at him. “You couldn’t see what happened from in here.”

  “No, but some of the trusties could from their barracks. They talked about it a little, when the guards couldn’t hear. They said Fletcher whipped you until your back was nothing but blood.”

  “It wasn’t quite that bad,” The Kid said with a slight shrug. “Plenty bad enough, though.”

  “To tell you the truth, I figured we’d never see you again in here. Word filtered in that you were healing up, but I wasn’t gonna believe it until I saw you with my own eyes.” Drake regarded The Kid intently. “You don’t look very good…but that’s still a whole heap better than dead.”

  The Kid lifted his bowl of stew, drank some of the juice, and licked his lips. “You still want to get out of here?” he asked in a half whisper.

  Drake leaned forward. “Of course I do! You want to throw in with me?”

  “As soon as I get my strength back,” The Kid said. “Then, whatever you have in mind, as long as it stands a decent chance of getting me out of here, count me in.”

  “All right,” Drake said softly. “All right. Now you’re talking. The two of us can make it. I know we—”

  He didn’t get to finish that declaration of confidence. Two massive hands came
down on his shoulders, jerked him off the bench, and slung him across the stone floor of Hades. “I told you I’d get even with you for double-crossin’ us!” Otto roared as he stomped after Drake.

  “Otto, no!” Drake cried as he came up on one knee after rolling over a couple times. “I didn’t—”

  Otto wasn’t listening, and as The Kid looked on, he knew that in his current condition, he couldn’t do anything to stop the huge, bullet-headed outlaw. Otto drew back a big foot and swung it at Drake in a vicious kick.

  Drake ducked under the kick, which would have broken his jaw if it had landed. He reached up and grabbed Otto’s foot, heaving and twisting as he surged up from the ground.

  Otto yelled as he windmilled his arms and went over backward. He landed on one of the tables, scattering men and bowls of stew. His shoulder hit the pot, upset it, and sent hot stew splashing in the laps of a couple prisoners.

  With angry shouts, the men jumped him and started pounding him. Drake crowded in and joined the effort.

  Before they could do much real damage to Otto, several guards arrived and began pulling the men away from him. Rifle butts slashed, knocking the struggling prisoners apart. Other guards leveled their weapons and yelled for the prisoners to get on the ground. The fight was broken up quickly.

  Otto clambered to his feet, still blustering threats, but he had to back away with the muzzles of the guards’ rifles threatening him. He pointed a long, blunt finger at Drake and said, “This ain’t over, you bastard. It ain’t over by a long shot.”

  Drake came back to the table where The Kid sat and lowered himself to the bench. He looked shaken. A grim chuckle came from him as he reached for his bowl of stew that was still sitting on the table. “You see what it’s like,” he said quietly. “I knew something like this was going to happen sooner or later. I’m just lucky he didn’t bust my skull open or break my back before somebody stopped him. You can see why it’s important to me that we get out of here just as soon as we can. It’s my life we’re talking about.”

  “Mine, too,” The Kid said, thinking about what Fletcher had done to him. “I’ll let you know as soon as I’m strong enough.”

  “Make it soon,” Drake said, nodding. “Very soon.”

  Chapter 15

  Another week went by, although it seemed more like a year to The Kid. He regained some of his strength. The meager, monotonous rations and the lack of exercise made it difficult for him to recover fully. The delay gave him a chance to talk to Drake several times, and during those conversations, The Kid began to understand how Ben Bledsoe had gotten out of that hellhole.

  “I reckon you’ve noticed it doesn’t get real smoky in here, even with those torches burning all the time,” Drake said as he and The Kid sat at tables eating the breakfast gruel one morning.

  Drake didn’t look at The Kid as he spoke, and he kept his voice low. The guards discouraged too much conversation among the prisoners.

  “Yeah,” The Kid replied, also without looking at his companion. “There are vent holes drilled in the ceiling, all the way to the top of the cliff, I suppose.”

  “That’s not all. There aren’t enough of those holes to carry all the smoke away. But back in the corner, there’s a natural chimney. They either uncovered it when they were blasting this place out, or the blasting itself opened a crack in the earth that runs all the way to the surface.”

  The Kid frowned. “I haven’t seen anything like that. And I’ve been looking.”

  “That’s because the way the wall juts out and curves around, you can’t spot it if you’re more than three or four feet from it—especially as bad as the light is in here. Look for a spot where a couple guards are always standing, not moving, and that’s where it is.”

  “Fletcher keeps guards there all the time?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then how did Bledsoe get past them?”

  A guard wandered closer to them, prompting both men to fall silent. A few moments later they were marched them back to their cells, so The Kid and Drake weren’t able to finish talking about Bledsoe’s escape.

  Their next opportunity to discuss it came the following day. Drake picked up the story where he’d left off. “One of the trusties smuggled in a knife to Bledsoe. He got out of his cell one night by pretending to be sick.”

  The Kid grunted. “I’m surprised any of the guards fell for that old trick.”

  “It wasn’t a trick. The trustie smuggled in something he stole from Doc Thurber that made Bledsoe puke his guts out. That didn’t stop him from knifing a guard, getting his hands on a rifle, and shooting his way past the men at the chimney. He started climbing out.”

  “Why didn’t the guards who were still down here just shoot up the chimney and stop him?”

  “Because it takes a sharp bend about twenty feet in. Bledsoe must’ve gotten around that bend before they could open fire. They tried ricocheting some slugs up the chimney, until Fletcher got here and ordered them to stop. He didn’t want Bledsoe killed, just stopped.”

  “Because of the loot,” The Kid murmured.

  “What?”

  The Kid shook his head. “Go on.”

  “There’s not much else to say,” Drake continued with a shrug. “Bledsoe climbed all the way to the top and got out. That’s the last anybody’s seen of him. Nobody knows for sure if he was wounded. They found some blood in the chimney, but that could’ve been from the guard whose throat he cut.”

  “Why didn’t—”

  Again the discussion was interrupted by a guard, but it was resumed at breakfast the next morning.

  “Why didn’t Fletcher send men up top to be waiting for Bledsoe when he got there?” The Kid finished his question from the day before.

  “He tried, but because of the terrain, it takes about twenty minutes for anybody to get from here to the top of the cliff. By the time they got there, Bledsoe was out and gone.”

  “One of the guards told me they’d closed off Bledsoe’s escape route.”

  Drake nodded. “Yeah. Fletcher has two men up there around the clock now. I’ve heard rumors that he’s considered walling up the crack down here, but he doesn’t want to do that because it vents so much of the smoke.”

  “That smoke would make the climb pretty bad,” The Kid mused.

  “Yeah, but breathing smoke for a little while is a lot better than being stuck in here.”

  The Kid couldn’t argue with that.

  “So if both ends of that natural chimney are guarded now,” he said, “I don’t see how you plan for us to use it to get out.”

  Drake smiled. “I didn’t say it’d be easy. The trick is to take the boys up top by surprise. We can deal with them if they don’t know we’re coming.”

  The Kid frowned and shook his head. That didn’t answer his question at all. “How do you figure on doing that?”

  “We have to get out of our cells and kill the guards on this end without raising a ruckus.”

  The Kid sighed in exasperation. “You’re still not telling me anything.”

  “Otto’s going to provide a distraction for us.”

  That took The Kid by surprise. “How’s he going to do that? And why would he help you? He hates you.”

  “Not right now, he doesn’t. You have to understand. Otto’s like a little kid. One day he can want to wring your neck, and the next you can talk him into being your best friend, if you know how to handle him. I know how to handle him.”

  “You’re putting a lot of faith in that,” The Kid pointed out.

  “I’ve always been a good planner. The gang I led pulled off some complicated jobs.”

  The Kid grunted again and glanced at Drake. “Yes, I can tell what a good planner you are by the fact that you’re in here with me.”

  “Hey, everybody runs out of luck sooner or later, no matter how good they are. You want to hear the rest of this or not?”

  “Yeah,” said The Kid. “Go ahead.”

  “Otto’s going to start a big ruckus at br
eakfast tomorrow, big enough that all the guards except the two at the chimney will have to pitch in to stop him. That’s when we’ll jump them, take their guns, and climb out…if you think you’re up to it. If you’re not, I’ll talk to Otto and try to get him to wait. That might not be easy, though.”

  “I’m up to it,” The Kid said. “But won’t those guards see us coming as we’re shuffling along toward them?”

  “We’ll move faster than that.” Drake rested a closed hand on the table and opened it part of the way for a second, just enough for The Kid to catch a glimpse of a small key. “That’ll unlock our leg irons.”

  “How’d you get that?”

  “One of the trusties stole it while he was cleaning the guards’ barracks. He smuggled it in here in a pot of oatmeal. I made sure I got to the pot first and knew where to dip my bowl.”

  “The same trustie who smuggled the knife to Bledsoe?”

  “No, that fella, well, he met with an accident not long after that, I heard. I figure Fletcher probably killed him with his bare hands.”

  “How did you get this one to go along with the scheme?” The Kid asked.

  “It was easy enough. His brother was the one who helped Bledsoe escape. He doesn’t care about anything anymore except getting back at Fletcher.”

  “What about Otto?”

  Drake smiled. “I promised that once we escaped, we’d put together a gang and break him out, too. Of course, that’s not going to happen.”

  The Kid felt bad about taking advantage of the dimwitted brute like that, but he knew Otto was a ruthless killer, so he wasn’t going to worry much about it. “It still sounds like an awful long shot to me,” he said.

  “Nobody claimed it’d be easy. But it’s your best chance to get out of here. If you’d rather stay and see what happens the next time Fletcher takes it into his head to beat what he wants out of you, you’re welcome to do it.”

  The Kid gave a tiny shake of his head. “I didn’t say that. I’m with you, Drake. I just don’t want us to get killed.”