by Jake Logan
“Don’t remember seein’ you in here before,” the guard said.
Slocum settled his uniform coat and moved his hand nearer the knife again. If he had to, he could gut the guard and toss away the knife so it would look as if a prisoner had killed him instead. The blood might be a problem, but Slocum doubted the other guards would be too observant if they thought they had the beginning of a prisoner riot on their hands.
“New,” Slocum said.
“That’s one crappy uniform you’re wearin’. I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.” The guard laughed.
“Yours is pretty nice,” Slocum allowed, “but I wouldn’t want to be caught dead in it either.” He half drew his knife when the guard stopped laughing. The flare of anger told of a killer no different from any of those locked up behind the prison walls.
“You got a mouth on you,” the guard said. He slapped his truncheon against his thigh, as if testing how hard he could hit before bruising started.
“That the gallows where they’re going to hang a prisoner?” Slocum pointed to the wood structure at the corner of the prison yard. The noose swung slowly in the faint late afternoon breeze, as if it had come alive and was searching for a neck to encircle.
“Now what else would we do with a gallows?” The guard glowered at him.
“What’s his name? Atencio? The one getting his neck stretched today?”
“Don’t know what they call him. Don’t matter none to me.”
“I used to be an executioner,” Slocum said, an idea popping into his head. “Think anybody’d mind if I looked it over? For old times’ sake?”
The guard’s eyes went wide.
“You hung men? How many?”
Slocum sneered just a little as he said, “Not more ’n four. I got tired of riding a circuit, waiting for guilty verdicts. Then some towns did their own hanging. And vigilance committees? They always carry their own nooses, so that took away from my business. Thought it would pay better being a guard.”
“Can. Depends on what you got to sell the cons. I—” The guard clamped his mouth shut when a whistle blew. “Damnation, exercise time’s over already. Let’s get them snakes back into their holes.”
He went off to use his truncheon on the slower-moving prisoners, leaving Slocum alone in the yard. Taking advantage of the lull, Slocum walked to the gallows, trying not to draw unwanted attention. He kept his pace steady, not running and not moving too slow either. The gallows loomed high over him as he leaned against it. His heart hammered in his chest because he knew Atencio would be moved out here mighty soon and do a death jig unless something was done to save him.
Slocum had no idea how to do that. He was surrounded by guards willing to beat anyone to death that crossed them. If Sergeant Wilkinson spotted him, he would have the blue uniform ripped off and the prisoner’s canvas with broad stripes substituted. He turned slowly to see any potential problems. He was alone.
Slipping around the side of the gallows, he ducked beneath the structure and looked up, hunting for some way to gimmick the trapdoor. As he stared up, slivers of blue California sky showing between the poorly fitted planks in the platform above, he knew this wouldn’t accomplish anything. Any guard could come and fix the simple mechanism if he jammed it. Even nailing it shut wouldn’t give him the result he wanted—Atencio’s escape.
Getting the prisoner away from the gallows alive was only the first step in a long walk. They had to get outside San Quentin’s walls to where Murrieta waited with the horses. And if Slocum couldn’t get Atencio free, he had to escape himself. The task suddenly turned impossible.
He went up the thirteen steps to the platform and looked out on the empty yard. He doubted Warden Harriman would assemble the other prisoners to watch the execution. Only a handful of guards would join the warden as he sprung the trap and sent Atencio to the promised land.
Slocum caught the swaying noose and ran his callused fingers over it. The rough hemp was sturdy enough to support several men. It wasn’t likely to break unless . . .
Slocum whipped out the knife sheathed along his forearm and began carefully picking away at the strands, leaving enough so that the rope appeared untouched while cutting much of the interior. Sweating from exertion, he finally released the rope and let it swing away like a pendulum. As it swung back, he saw two guards emerge from the main cell block, a shackled prisoner between them. Immediately behind came four others, including two guards and a well-dressed man Slocum took to be the warden. The fourth was a priest, working hard at his profession of saving a damned soul by muttering a constant prayer.
Not wasting any time, Slocum dropped down beside the gallows and waited. He worried that Wilkinson might be in the party, but the sergeant was nowhere to be seen. Counting slowly, gauging distances, Slocum waited until the proper moment to step out and fall in behind the guards immediately behind the warden. The two on either side of Atencio marched the condemned man to the platform.
The warden looked irritated as he took out his pocket watch and popped open the case to study the face. He clicked the lid shut and tucked the watch back into his vest pocket.
“Where is he?” The warden asked the question, but nobody answered. The two guards with him exchanged looks and kept quiet.
Slocum turned when he heard a commotion at the front gate. He caught his breath when he saw Wilkinson escorting a man in his Sunday best to the gallows.
“It’s about time you got here, Mr. Durant,” the warden said querulously.
“Are you in a hurry, sir? You have somewhere else to be? I assure you, my client is willing to let you attend to other business and postpone this until another day.”
“Oh, shut up,” the warden said. “You’re here because you got the judge to let you witness the execution, nothing more.” The warden spun and stalked up the steps.
Slocum turned to see him emerge on the side of the condemned. Atencio looked nervous but resolved to his fate. Slocum didn’t turn away because that would bring him face to face with Sergeant Wilkinson. There might be an unscheduled execution if the guard recognized him.
“You’ve received the last rites of your faith. You have anything to say before I carry out your sentence for the state of California?”
Atencio shook his head. His knees buckled a little as the guards moved him onto the trapdoor. One fastened a sandbag around his ankles to make the drop hard and swift. The other placed the noose with the knot at one side, then added a black bag to hide his face.
The warden pushed one guard aside, gripped the lever with both hands, and yanked hard. Atencio fell like a stone. For a moment the rope remained taut, then it snapped where Slocum had cut through it. Beneath the platform Atencio cried out, gasping and choking and kicking.
“What the hell happened?” The warden shoved one guard to the steps. “Get him. Fetch the damned prisoner so we can do this again with another rope!”
“One moment!” Durant held up his hand as if he were a schoolboy wanting his teacher’s attention. “You can’t hang him again. Not today. The law won’t allow that!”
“The sentence was to hang him by the neck until he was dead.”
“Once. You get one chance only,” the lawyer said.
“Bullshit. He wasn’t properly hanged, so we keep trying until he is. I don’t care if it takes a hundred miles of rope!” The warden’s face turned an ugly beet color as his ire rose.
“Double jeopardy,” declared Durant. “You tried and failed. You can’t execute him a second time.”
“We didn’t do a first time!” Froth flecked the warden’s lips as he waved his arms around like a windmill.
“I’ll see you a prisoner in this rat hole if you try to execute my client a second time.”
The guards shifted uneasily as they held Atencio between them. The man’s knees were bent, and he hobbled as they tried to walk him to the steps leading back to the platform. They hadn’t bothered to remove the black hood.
“What are you saying, Durant?”
<
br /> “I’ll get a court order. There’s no judge in this state who wouldn’t agree that a new sentencing is necessary. You’re not allowed to swing my client any number of times! Once! You get one try only!”
The priest edged closer to the warden and whispered to him. Slocum almost laughed when the furious warden cocked his fist back, as if to punch the padre. Then he dropped his arm to his side and came to the edge of the platform so he could glare down at the lawyer.
“Father Benjamin agrees with you. He said there’s been something like this happen before.”
“Precedence,” Durant crowed.
“You get the hell out of my prison, you shyster.”
“My client had better be in good condition when he’s ordered back to court. If he’s not, the judge will know the reason!”
“Get him out. Now, damn it, get him out of my prison!”
Slocum turned slowly so Wilkinson would already be facing toward the gate. For a heart-stopping instant they faced each other, but the sergeant’s attention was on Atencio and the guards supporting him. He strode to them.
“This way,” Slocum said, taking the lawyer’s arm and pulling him toward the front gate.
Durant jerked free and shouted over his shoulder, “You’re not to touch one hair on his head! I’m warning you.”
This time he let Slocum herd him to the gate. The entire way the lawyer grumbled and cursed.
“You think you can get him out of here?” Slocum asked.
“What? Don’t be an ass. He’s guilty as sin. The best I can hope for is to gain a stay of execution and keep him alive for another week. I need to get better press out of this. The Alta California is making fun of me and destroying my reputation over this. Hanging a horse thief!” Durant smoothed out his coat and walked, chin high to the gate. He stopped there, waiting for Slocum to open it.
He worked to open the small door set in the larger one designed to let in wagons. When he swung it open, Durant ducked through. Slocum followed. For a moment, he couldn’t believe it was going to be this easy. But it was. Slocum slipped through and pulled it to behind him.
“You can get an extra week before they try to hang him again?” Slocum asked.
Durant didn’t bother to reply. He climbed into his buggy and rattled away. Slocum sidled along the wall, then headed toward the trees where Murrieta waited. He hadn’t gotten Atencio free, but the man hadn’t been hanged either. They had an extra week to figure out how to get him out of the prison.
Somehow the prospect looked even bleaker now than it had before.
13
“What is wrong? Where is he?” Procipio Murrieta grabbed Slocum by the front of the uniform and shook.
Slocum batted the man’s hands away and considered taking a swing at him. He wasn’t in a good mood, and having Murrieta act like this did nothing to smooth his ruffled feathers.
“He got a stay of execution. One week,” Slocum said. He went on to explain all that had happened. The expression on Murrieta’s face flowed like butter melting in the sun, going from elation to despair and finally matching Slocum’s own.
“We cannot hope to be so lucky to get into the prison this way again,” Murrieta said. “He will be executed.” He heaved a deep sigh. “You did what you could. That is all anyone could ask.”
“That lawyer fellow,” Slocum said. “He didn’t have to come to the prison yard for the hanging. That means he has some interest in Atencio. He and the warden don’t get along either, so there might be something personal in this for him.”
“Durant is a strange duck,” Murrieta said. “Ambitious though he does not seem to know the law well. But you are right. He did not have to come this afternoon. What can he do?”
“Let’s ask,” Slocum said. He began shucking off the poorly fitting uniform, glad to once more be in his own clothes. As the cross-draw holster settled on his hip, he felt more confident. “Where’s his office?”
“In San Francisco.”
“He’s not far ahead of us. We can overtake his buggy. Might be he wouldn’t want anyone else around when I ask him to bribe a judge or buy off a guard or two.”
“You would still break Atencio out?”
“If it comes to that. I’d rather Durant find a legal way of getting him free. A botched hanging might not be enough, but this gives us more time to bring the banker around to our way of thinking.”
They rode hard and caught the lawyer as he was driving his buggy onto the ferry across the Golden Gate. Slocum tossed the reins of the horses to Murrieta and went to talk with Durant.
The lawyer looked up as Slocum approached, slid his hand under his coat, probably resting it on the butt of a pistol. He frowned when it became obvious Slocum was not going away.
“Whoever you are, I don’t want to talk,” Durant said.
“It’s about Atencio, the man in San Quentin you went to see hanged.”
Durant frowned even more and then said slowly, “I’ve seen you before. Where?”
“That’s not important. We share a desire. Get your client out of prison.”
“You were the guard who escorted me out.”
“What do you need to free Atencio?” Slocum didn’t want the lawyer thinking too much on why a guard was interested in freeing a prisoner.
“Money,” Durant said without hesitation. “If I get enough, all things are possible.” He snorted contemptuously. “Especially in this state. There’s nothing that can’t be bought.”
“Including the warden?”
“Harriman’d never listen to me. He’d take too much pleasure throwing me in his darkest, deepest cell. No, there are others. Judges. Prosecutors.”
“The banker who brought the charges?”
“Hez Galworthy might be bought off, but I’m not sure of that. What’s your interest? You’re not one of them.”
“Them?”
“Murrieta’s little family. That village he runs. If Atencio gets out, what’s in it for you?”
“Justice,” Slocum said. He had a strong dislike for seeing men railroaded for crimes they hadn’t committed. From what he could tell, Murrieta and Maria were being honest when they said Atencio was innocent.
He didn’t much trust bankers either.
“You have tried and failed at this,” Maria said. “Why can you now find them?”
Slocum pursed his lips. He had gone over a dozen harebrained schemes since getting the stay of execution for Atencio using his knife on the rope, but none had produced any solid sense that they would work.
“I can find them,” he said. “The Valenzuelas are still in the area. That means they don’t think the law is on to them, and they might have other robberies in the works.”
“So?” Maria shrugged her shapely shoulders.
“So we need money for the lawyer. Durant hinted that he could bribe somebody into letting Atencio go. The judge, the banker, who knows? I suspect he has an inside track to the judge. Galworthy isn’t likely to go back on his testimony with Atencio so close to being hanged. That would make him look bad.”
“You have a plan to find them again?”
The woman’s barely concealed scorn stung him. Then he calmed down. She was right, and anything he did was likely to fail as it had before. Conchita had the sheriff’s ear and could turn out a posse to chase him down whenever it suited her. If he got too close—or found their loot—she would have Bernard on his trail in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
“Wait and see,” he said with more confidence than he felt. But he did have a way to find her. She was likely to be the one going into Miramar for supplies or to speak with Sheriff Bernard. José was an escaped prisoner, and their father wasn’t likely to poke about town, even if he wasn’t on his deathbed.
“Wait and see,” Maria said, standing in front of him and lifting her peasant blouse to give him a flash of bare, nut brown breasts. And then she turned and hurried from the house. Slocum heaved a sigh. He knew what his reward would be. All it took was a bit of luck to claim i
t.
He went, saddled his horse, and rode down the road toward Miramar, then cut across country before he got within sight. The seacoast town brought a fair amount of traffic along the road through the coast hills that he wanted to avoid. If no one spotted him, nobody could tell the sheriff or a posse out combing the countryside.
When he found a spot on a rocky butte looking down at the road running through the center of town, he dismounted, got some jerky, and sat gnawing on it as he watched for Conchita. He knew it might be a long wait. If it stretched longer than a few days, Atencio would swing. Durant needed time to put the money to use, and Slocum had to believe a day or two might pass before he could even find where the Valenzuelas had stashed their ill-gotten gains.
Lounging back, propped on one elbow, he stared out over the endless sea, feeling a kinship with its restlessness. Always moving, never the same when he looked back, the ocean might have been his calling if he hadn’t grown up around horses on a farm. He preferred a sturdy horse under him and the vast plains or mountains stretching to the sky over the barren, always moving gunmetal gray ocean.
His mind drifted as he daydreamed about what life might be like with Maria. She was a fiery woman. But then he had wondered the same with Conchita, and she had used him to get her brother free from prison, then made sure the law would come down hard on him if he so much as showed his face. Conchita was a schemer, a planner, the competent crook. Not at all like Maria, she—
Slocum sat up, grabbed for a small spyglass he had brought along, and peered through it. He wanted to cry out in joy but held his delight in check. Conchita was riding from Miramar, heading east through the hills. Whether he had missed her going into town or she had been there before he had taken up watch didn’t matter. She was leaving. The only place she was likely heading had to be her hideout.
He stepped up into the saddle, retraced his path to the butte, and found the road twenty minutes later. Conchita couldn’t be more than a mile ahead of him, but she wouldn’t remain on the road very long, he suspected. Riding faster, he came within a few hundred yards of her as he veered off the road and rode to a stand of trees.
