Cool Hand Luke

by Donn Pearce

  I lay there without moving, wondering who was next. I didn’t think that Koko wanted to go because he had already accumulated too much extra Time with his previous escape attempts. And everyone knew that Dragline was still waiting for his parole to come through. But I had no idea of who else was in on the deal nor was there any way of knowing how many men might try to seize on an unexpected opportunity. I shut my eyes, suppressing a giggle as I saw a magnificent panorama of escape, the entire Family deciding to try a mass break for freedom with everyone streaking off into the darkness and the confusion in a dozen different directions. But as for myself I knew that I could never make it. The idea of running away from it all was one that I had long since given up as hopeless.

  Then Society Red sat up and swung his legs over the edge of his bunk.

  Giiiyaaa!

  eeaaa!

  After going off to the toilets, urinating, flushing the bowl and sleepily ambling back to his bunk, Society Red picked up his clothes and shoes wrapped up in a tight package, silently crossed the room and ducked down through the hole. In another minute Blackie followed the same procedure as Dragline eagerly flipped through the pages of another book and shoved it under Carr’s nose. Meanwhile Koko lay there on his side watching the parade. I could see him itching and squirming, waging a tremendous battle with temptation, the escape hatch to freedom yawning wide open right beside him. And I knew just how he felt. In spite of everything I too was beginning to feel those ancient notions stirring inside myself.

  Then there was a rattling noise outside. The six-foot fence proved to be difficult to get over, the brackets on top of the steel posts supporting the barbed wire making climbing very hard. In the process of grabbing for hand holds and toe tolds Cool Hand’s shoes slipped and scraped against the chain link netting. The Wicker Man heard the sound and raised his head to listen, his unrestrained voice booming out loud in the disciplined silence of the Building.

  HEY CARR! WHAT’S THAT OUTSIDE?

  Koko had just been sliding one leg out from under the covers when the alarm was sounded. Swiftly he withdrew it and rolled over, turning his back on the whole affair. Carr threw down the book and ran over to the window, shading his eyes and trying to look out beneath the propped-up wooden shutters. He was just in time to catch a glimpse of Luke running off into the orange groves, revealed in the dim glare of the small spotlights fitted on top of the truck garage.

  Hey! Somebody’s out there, Boss!

  The two men under the Building were trapped. Blackie tried to retreat, crawling back to poke his head up through the hole. Carr spotted him, rushing over all out of breath, grabbing him by the arm and heaving, yelling out to the Wicker Man.

  I got one of ‘em Boss! They cut a hole right through the god damn floor! Right through the fuckin’ floor! But I got one of ‘em! Its’ this Blackie bastard!

  And Blackie hung there in the Floorwalker’s grip, dangling like a stricken marionette stuck in the trap door of a stage show.

  The Wicker Man ran outside on the porch and beat the hell out of the brake drum, giving a loud and frantic alarm. Then he stumbled around the Building with a flashlight and his pistol just in time to catch Society Red before he jumped off and ran, a towel wrapped round his waist, his clothes and shoes in his hands, posed on top of the fence like a bird.

  The rest of us were snoring like mad. Butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths. But I for one had to bite a wad of sheet and cover my face to keep from bursting out with laughter. And Dragline didn’t even bother to pretend, his great belly and chest jiggling up and down as he breathed in harsh, smothered gasps of mirth.

  Lights went on in the Guard Shack. Feet scraped and pounded here and there on wooden floors and porches. The gate squeaked, doors banged, motors started. The dogs were barking and howling in hysterics, trying to tear down the fence to their pen. Back and forth across the yard we could hear voices giving orders, asking questions, muttering; the protests, the shouts, the curses and the screams—

  Somebody got away! He’s out there in the groves!

  Go git the dogs! Quick! And the Dog Boy!

  Call up the Highway Patrol!

  How about the Sheriff?

  Who the hell was it?

  Who the hell do you think it was? It’s that crazy son of a bitch from Alabama. Cool Hand Luke.

  17

  NOBODY GOT MUCH SLEEP THAT NIGHT. There were too many things going on. Everyone lay there, trying his best to appear innocent and yet craning his neck to catch every detail of the show.

  Carr dragged Blackie back through the hole in the floor, twisted his arm behind his back and marched him over to the poker table where he forced him to sit down on the bench. Carr waited, looking down towards one end of the Building and then the other end, both fists balled up and placed on his hips, his face screwed up in a scowl that warned us all to stay where we were.

  In a few seconds the Wicker Man unlocked the outside door and shoved Society Red inside the Chute. Out in the yard Boss Brown stood in his underwear, blinking his eyes and holding his shotgun with tense desperation. Society Red was brought inside and placed next to Blackie, the two of them sitting there with the hanging heads of naughty children.

  Carr paced up and down, his expression ferocious. The Wicker Man was fondling his gun with nervous gestures, his enormous belly jiggling up and down as he panted, still trying to catch his breath. And yet right in the middle of it all, a man actually asked to get up. It was Cottontop.

  Kin ah git up now, Carr?

  Carr just stopped and looked at him.

  Ah gotta take a leak, Carr.

  Yes, Mister Cottontop. Yes sir. You can git up. Take your leak. But make it damn fast. And damn careful. Otherwise you’ll be leakin‘ like a lawn sprinkler.

  We all watched as the white-headed, pink-skinned albino got out of bed, wrapped his towel around his waist and shuffled off to the toilets, his head tilted back, his puffy eyelids half closed, his face composed and unconcerned. He urinated in a bowl and flushed it, turning around and heading back, oblivious to all the eyes, the tension, unaware that every one of us was holding his breath, ready to roll out of bed and fall to the floor in an instant, knowing that if Cottontop were to make a sudden dive for the hole the room would be full of explosions, smoke and scattered shot.

  Out in the darkness the dogs were going berserk. They knew that something was happening and they barked and bayed and howled, impatient to be set out on the trail. The Dog Boy was already dressed and putting on his shoes, sitting on the edge of his single bunk which was placed right next to the Wicker as a protection from the rest of us.

  Arrogantly the Dog Boy got up from his bed without a word to Carr, heavily scraping his feet on the bare boards as he crossed the floor to the john. He began to brush his teeth under the spigot. Then he rinsed his face and went over to the broken fragment of mirror to comb his hair with lingering strokes. Returning to his bunk, he put on his jacket, lit a cigarette and went over and stood by the gate to the Chute, resting his weight on one leg, his arms folded over his chest. He looked around at all of us, a sly smile on his lips as Carr handed him a folded sheet taken from Luke’s bed.

  A few minutes later, two guards came up on the porch, fully dressed and armed and ready for the chase. Carr covered the Dog Boy’s back as the Wicker Man unlocked the gate to the Chute, blocking the gate with his body until the Wicker Man locked it again. There were mutters and sounds on the porch. We knew the guards had just given the Dog Boy a pistol belt. Then there were footsteps and shadowed forms moving down the sidewalk.

  In a few minutes the sounds of the dogs became hysterical, the voice of Big Blue louder and more mellow, distinctive from the rest of the pack. But when the Dog Boy opened the gate to the pens Big Blue must have made a sudden rush for it. Before he could be stopped he was out and gone, racing into the darkness along Luke’s trail, his big, powerful voice speaking out into the night, hot, passionate and threatening.

  Out of the bedlam of noises, the yelpi
ng and yapping, the shouts and curses of the guards, we could hear the angry and forlorn voice of the Dog Boy calling out after his favorite hound.

  Here, you! Blue! Come back here! Come back here I said!

  For the next few minutes the men wrestled with the rest of the pack, cursing and slapping the dogs into obedience, finally managing to get them collared and leashed. They gave them Luke’s bedsheet to sniff and dragged them over to the fence, to the spot where Luke’s footprints began. The dogs found the scent, their voices suddenly different, anxious and eager, dragging the Dog Boy behind them as the entire posse set off through the orange groves in pursuit.

  The baying of the hounds grew dimmer in the distance. Carr paced up and down the floor. The Wicker Man clicked the safety catch of his gun on and off and on again. Blackie and Society Red still sat where they were.

  A little later an unarmed guard came inside the Building with a tool box and a length of two-by-four. Carr hovered behind him as the guard sawed the two-by-four into short lengths, nailing them over the hole in the floor. When he was finished he took the broom handle and began tapping all over the floor and the walls, dragging it across the mesh of the windows.

  It must have been at least a half hour before the Yard Man and Boss Shorty came inside carrying two sets of leg shackles, a ball-peen hammer and a ten-pound sledge. The Captain came in behind them. His false teeth shifting from one side of his mouth to the other, the Yard Man gruffly ordered the two escapees to their feet. They stood there limply, looking down at their ankles as one after the other Boss Shorty fitted a leg ring, closed it, put a short piece of twenty-penny nail through the holes and then riveted over the ends with the hammer, using the sledge as an anvil.

  The Captain stood watching and smoking. Casually he pursed his lips and spit. Carr stood behind him, his arms akimbo, glaring at the bunks. But we lay perfectly still. The Captain came over to Blackie, poking at the shackles with the toe of his shoe, both hands deep in his pockets. He turned and looked around at the far recesses of the Building. In a low voice he murmured.

  You sons of bitches are all gonna be sorry about this. You hear? You’re gonna be mighty sorry.

  At a signal the Chute was opened and Blackie and Society Red were taken outside and led down to the Box. For awhile we could hear sounds—the lid of a chamber pot, a door, a snap and a click, a bar slid into place. Then it was quiet, Carr pacing back and forth on his silent, crepe soled shoes.

  So we didn’t sleep that night. But we loved every minute of it, rolling from side to side to peep owlishly at the man in the next bunk, then burying our grins in the covers.

  18

  WE KNEW THE HEAT WAS GOING TO BE ON the whole camp when we went out on the Road the next day. We had all been in on it one way or the other and without our cooperation Luke’s escape would have been impossible.

  When we got in that night we saw two night shirts draped over the screen in front of the Box. Blackie and Society Red were still locked inside but there was always room for two more. And then Four Eyed Joe and Coon were called out.

  But we were far from daunted by a little thing like the Box, counting through the gate in the correct manner but our voices indicating our exuberance. The Building trembled beneath our feet as it was invaded. The different work squads milled together, everyone giving his own interpretations of the flimsy bits and pieces of information that were available. But there was no one to tell us for sure whether or not the dogs were still out, whether Luke had been seen or how large the search party had become.

  While we were eating our supper the Yard Man came through the kitchen and stood beside the pistol guard sitting in a chair by the door. He stood there grinding his teeth together and glaring at us over his glasses.

  Yo’ll been makin‘ too much noise out here. Ah don’ want to hear that screen door slammin‘ no more either. Ah done put two men in the Box fer that. If yo’ll don’t wont to git to go in there with ’em, why, yo’ll better watch yoreself.

  The Yard Man shifted his teeth a few more times, turned and went back into the Free Men’s Messhall. We looked at each other, knowing then what had happened to Coon and to Four Eyed Joe.

  Just as the last few men were checking into the Building a Highway Patrol car pulled up in front of the Captain’s office. The two guards who had started out after Luke the night before got out of the back seat and shuffled towards their messhall. They had mud on their shoes and pants right up to their knees. Their shirt tails were half out, their shoulders slumped, their hats shoved to the back of their heads.

  We waited. Several men kept a careful watch through the windows. After they had finished eating they shuffled across the asphalt apron, over the porch and into the Guard Shack. Anxiously we waited for Jabo the Cook to finish up his chores. He no sooner had checked into the Building when men began to sidle up to him. And after he got his Juke open he had a run on candy bars and cold drinks, every customer lingering as long as he dared in order to hear as much as he could about the latest developments in the chase for Cool Hand Luke.

  Thus we got our information third and fourth hand but nevertheless we heard all about that wild night of running through the woods and the fields, the swamps and the groves. The main fact was that a bloodhound is virtually useless on a manhunt if he is running loose. A dog must have the restraint of a leash and the guidance of an intelligent trainer. Otherwise he will simply follow his nose, exhausting himself with wasted efforts.

  The other fact was that Big Blue was the leader of the pack of dogs kept at the Camp. And whenever they heard Big Blue’s voice baying way off in a swamp or a grove somewhere ahead they would answer hysterically, surging along the trail, straining at their leashes, refusing to obey the commands of the Dog Boy.

  They would fight their way through briers and mud and over barbed wire fences, Big Blue howling and barking somewhere in the darkness ahead of them. But then out of the night and the obscurity, just a hundred feet or so to their left, they would hear Cool Hand Luke yelling at them. Not content with outwitting and outrunning them he actually began lingering in the neighborhood, waiting for them to catch up. Wafting through the night like a hunting horn, his voice would boom out of the blackness,

  Hey! You stupid bastards! Not that way! Over here!

  The men in the posse would know what had happened. Luke had backtracked and then waded through some kind of water barrier, made a big, wide loop through some open country and then returned to a point near his original trail where he would just lie down and make himself comfortable.

  But they could never convince the dogs who insisted on following a direct line of scent and the sound of Big Blue’s voice up ahead. The guards would wrestle with the dogs, kicking and beating them, swearing and tripping over themselves in the dark. Finally striking out on the new trail they would quickly lose it again at the edge of a pond. Again they would have to go around in everwidening circles until they found the place where the scent left the water.

  As a boy Luke had done enough hunting with coon dogs and possum hounds to have learned their ways. So his trail was not the straight, fatal line of desperation of a city-bred convict. It was a bewildering maze of crisscrossing spirals, back-tracks and water barriers. It was like playing ticktacktoe over the entire countryside. Eventually they expected Cool Hand to give out from sheer exhaustion. But later they came to realize that he was periodically taking naps here and there after having temporarily thrown them off.

  He knew the area well enough. He had worked on virtually every road in that part of the country and he had the natural sense of direction of a farmer and a hunter. So catching him seemed to be impossible. Nor could they ever catch up with Big Blue who relentlessly ran on ahead, unrestrained by the Dog Boy’s leash.

  Eventually the two guards from our camp just couldn’t run any more. In spite of all the stimulations of a manhunt, they had simply outdone themselves. They found a filling station and called up the Captain and the local barracks of the Highway Patrol, giving them
their location and asking for relief.

  But the Dog Boy refused to be relieved. He asked to be given a hot meal and allowed to stretch out on the ground and sleep for an hour. But he wouldn’t let anyone else take over the dogs.

  For the second night in a row we couldn’t sleep, laying there thinking and dreaming and imagining the whole scene. We knew the real issues that were at stake, the emotions and challenges that were involved. If it hadn’t been for Big Blue it might have been different. But as long as his favorite hound was on the loose, the Dog Boy would never allow himself to rest.

  The next morning the four men were let out of the Box. But as we lined up for breakfast someone let the screen door to the Messhall slam behind him. There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the line. Ears was directly in front of me. When he reached the door he looked all around for the Free Men, grabbed the spring and bent down low with a whispered curse, stretching the spring all the way down to the ground. When I got to the door the spring hung limp in a sagging loop.

  That day was long and anxious, the hours dragging at a slow and monotonous pace. All we could think of was getting back to Camp and finding out what was happening. Then we got the command and loaded up, Sleepy chainsmoking all the way in, unbuttoning his shirt and untying his shoe laces, knowing he was going to the Box for letting the door slam. But to everyone’s surprise, no less than four men were called out and taken down to the Box, two men put in each side.

  When we got inside the Building we were again amazed. Because there was the Dog Boy, sprawled out on top of his bunk, asleep and fully dressed in his muddy, torn and disheveled clothes. We stared at each other and began to grin.

  We grinned even more when we found the brand new spring on the Messhall door, an extra-large, heavy duty model with two overhand knots tied in the middle. It was all you could do to open the door and if you let it slip it would slam like a gunshot. But at that point we didn’t much care. The whole thing had become a game and somehow we were convinced that we were winning.