Slocum's Breakout

by Jake Logan

  “Into the cell block,” Slocum said. “It’s our only way to get out.”

  “How? There is nothing but . . . cells.”

  Slocum wasn’t sure, but since this was his only route left, he had to take it. He and Atencio slipped through the open door and into the holding area. Slocum remembered it only too well. From here he had been herded to the room where he was scrubbed down and given the prison uniform.

  “Uniforms,” Slocum said.

  “Sí, yes, I have one on.” Atencio grabbed the heavy canvas of the striped shirt and held it out. “They would bury me in this, the pigs.”

  “Guards’ uniforms. Where can we find some?” He had gotten into the prison before by pretending to be a guard. It was a long shot but all he had if they were to get out.

  “I do not know. There, perhaps. The guards have bunks there.”

  Slocum didn’t wait to see if Atencio followed him. He ran for the door and kicked it open, ready to gun down any guard who might be inside. The room was empty. Bunks lined two walls and at the far end were hooks, some with guard uniforms dangling from them. Hardly breaking stride after kicking the door, Slocum reached the clothing and quickly sized up the blue wool coats and trousers with the dull brass buttons.

  “Here,” he said, tossing a set over his shoulder to Atencio. “Put it on over your prison uniform. No time to strip.” As he spoke, he found a uniform for himself that was several sizes too big. This worked to his advantage. He tightened a belt around his middle so that the pant legs dropped far enough down to cover the tops of his boots. The coat went on and hid his cross-draw holster with the ebony-handled six-shooter in it. He sent his hat sailing under a bunk and tried on three caps before he found one that didn’t perch on the top of his head like a bird hatching an egg.

  “You look silly,” Atencio said.

  “So do you. Let’s hope we don’t die laughing.”

  Slocum returned to the door and peered out into the holding pen. Four guards had come in, all armed with their sticks but no guns. He considered taking them, but the sound would bring other guards running.

  He took the bull by the horns.

  “Where’s the sarge?” Slocum bellowed. “I gotta talk to him.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Wilkinson, you dimwit. Where’s Sergeant Wilkinson? I heard there’s a tunnel being dug outta here.”

  “Who the hell cares about a tunnel? We have a riot and jailbreak on our hands,” one guard said.

  “He’ll want to know. Them that’s not got away already can escape in the tunnel.”

  The guards exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Get on down to solitary and see if I’m not right. At the far end, out through a cell wall. Looks like they’re making a beeline north.”

  The four grumbled but vanished down stairs Slocum hadn’t even noticed before. He went to the top of the stairs and saw a door open. From below he heard the cries of prisoners in solitary, begging for food or warmth or to be let out or just to die.

  Slocum grabbed the door and pulled it shut but could not lock it without a key.

  “They’ll be back up here in a minute or two. We have to be long gone.”

  “They are bringing in the prisoners they recaptured. Where can we hide?”

  “With the guards, that’s where. Keep your face down and hope none of the prisoners rats you out.”

  Just then the doors opened and the prisoners crowded through, herded by the guards with their truncheons whacking asses and heads and any other slow-moving portion of their jailbirds’ anatomy. Slocum shouted and shoved the prisoners along, stooping to pick up a truncheon he saw lying on the floor.

  Atencio lowered his face, muttered under his breath, and tried to duplicate everything Slocum did. Their act was unconvincing, but the confusion of returning so many prisoners to their cells kept them from being noticed.

  As they passed a corridor leading away into the heart of the cell block, Slocum shoved Atencio from the crowd.

  “We cannot do this,” Atencio whispered as he walked shoulder to shoulder with Slocum. “This is the office of the warden. We will be found quickly!”

  Slocum didn’t bother answering. He needed some advantage and thought this might pay off for them. The door with the name plate WARDEN HARRIMAN was locked, but he forced it with his knife. He didn’t care if the warden noticed the sprung lock or not.

  “This is such a fine place, no?” Atencio went to a table and pulled the cork from a bottle of wine. He upended it and drained what remained in the bottle in a single gulp. “I have lived so long without wine. This is good. Where is there more?”

  “Don’t get drunk,” Slocum said as he dropped into the chair behind the warden’s desk. The drawers were locked but yielded to his thick-bladed knife. He rummaged through hunting for something—anything—useful and found nothing but papers.

  “Why not? Never will we escape this accursed place.” Atencio found a second bottle, this one full, and worried the cork out of the neck with his teeth. Before he could get down to the serious work of draining the bottle, sounds in the corridor alerted them.

  Slocum pointed to a spot behind the door. Atencio took up his post there, the empty wine bottle gripped hard to use as a club.

  “I don’t care what it costs. I want them all back in their cells by midnight!” Warden Harriman stormed into his office, then stopped, hands still on the doorknob as it slowly penetrated something was wrong.

  Slocum leaned back in the warden’s chair and said nothing.

  “Get out of my chair,” Harriman snapped. “You can’t—wait! The lock’s broken. You’re not going to steal anything from my office!”

  Slocum nodded and Atencio kicked the door shut, sending Harriman staggering. Then Atencio pressed hard to hold the office door shut against anyone trying to follow the warden.

  Slocum drew his six-gun and aimed it at the warden as the man went for a small hideout pistol.

  “You don’t want to die like this. Give him your gun,” Slocum ordered.

  Atencio grabbed the gun from Harriman and stepped away. He cocked the pistol, obviously intending to put a bullet in the head of the man who’d almost executed him.

  “Stop,” Slocum said sharply. “We need him to get out of here.”

  “I want him dead.”

  “No. No killing.”

  “What are you, a lily-livered coward who can’t shoot an unarmed man?” Harriman laughed hard, pointing at Atencio.

  “He’s trying to goad you,” Slocum said.

  “We will use him to get away,” Atencio finally said, swallowing his anger with obvious effort. “How do we do this?”

  “Think any of his guards want him dead?” Slocum saw the flash of fear cross Harriman’s face. “Might be you can stay alive awhile longer if you keep them at bay.” Slocum rounded the desk and jammed his six-shooter into the warden’s ribs. He pulled his coat out enough to hide the weapon.

  Using the barrel, he steered the warden out of the office. Atencio stared hard, then yielded his position, falling in on the other side of the warden as they went into the corridor where a half-dozen guards milled about.

  “What are you layabouts doing here?” The warden bellowed again to get the men moving.

  Slocum moved fast, knowing he had little time before Harriman figured out some way of alerting his guards. If the warden ever considered his chances less with Slocum and Atencio than he did with his own men, he would call out for help.

  “I won’t let him kill you,” Slocum said softly, steering Harriman out into the prison yard. “I won’t unless you try to get away.”

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “That depends,” Slocum told the warden, “on how fast you can get all three of us horses to ride through that big gate.”

  Atencio kept his face down so the guards wouldn’t notice, but the uniform proved a good disguise. The men cleaning up the yard, hunting for hiding prisoners, and working to get back a semblance of discipline
saw only the blue coat and the garrison cap, not the face.

  “Where are you going, Warden?”

  Slocum tensed. He recognized Sergeant Wilkinson’s raspy voice.

  “Tell him you’re going to supervise the hunt outside the walls.”

  Harriman spoke in a monotone voice that caused Wilkinson to come over.

  “Something wrong, Warden?”

  Slocum considered just shooting the guard sergeant, then knew that would only get him and Atencio killed on the spot. As good as it would feel to cut down Wilkinson, the feeling would be short-lived once the tower guards opened fire on them.

  “Nothing, nothing’s wrong. Get me those horses. Th-These men and I will find the escapees since you are unable to do so.”

  “We just started, and those yahoos can’t get far,” Wilkinson said.

  “No back talk, Sergeant!”

  Wilkinson went off, grumbling. Slocum relaxed a little and told the warden, “You saved both your lives.”

  “Go to hell. I’ll see both of you on the gallows with your damned necks broken! Mark my words!”

  A guard brought up three saddled horses. Slocum found himself jockeying around so the warden would mount under the cover of the six-shooter but had to mount himself. In those seconds there wouldn’t be anything to keep Harriman in line.

  “Kill him if he tries to warn the guards,” Slocum whispered to Atencio loud enough for the warden to overhear. “Use that derringer you took from him. It’s not much of a gun, but you’ve got two shots.”

  Harriman started to kick his heels into his horse’s flanks, but the threat slowed him long enough for Slocum to mount and cover him again.

  “Out. Now. Take it slow. Order the gates open.”

  Slocum and Atencio rode knee to knee with Harriman to keep him in line. The hair on the back of Slocum’s neck rose as they approached the gate. So close to getting out of San Quentin. So close.

  The gate swung open, and they started forward.

  “Hold on! Stop them!” came Wilkinson’s order.

  They’d been discovered.

  19

  “Run for it!” Atencio galloped away, leaving Slocum and Harriman in the dust. Slocum wanted to duplicate that escape effort but held back. Outrunning a posse of guards from the prison wasn’t possible.

  “Wilkinson!” Harriman half turned in the saddle. He stopped when he saw the gunmetal blue of Slocum’s Colt. The muzzle pointed directly at his belly.

  “Keep your wits about you, and I won’t spill your guts all over the ground.”

  “I’ll have you back, Jarvis. I swear it!”

  “Say anything wrong and you’ll never live to see me anywhere but in hell.”

  Slocum’s cold tone caused the warden to suck in his breath. He turned the rest of the way in the saddle to face his sergeant.

  “Warden, we got word.”

  “What are you going on about?” Harriman glanced at Slocum and the pistol, then back at his guard.

  “Some of the men heard ’bout a tunnel from the solitary cells out under the wall. That might be where some of the prisoners went.”

  “Have you seen the tunnel with your own eyes?” Harriman sounded genuinely pained at the notion of his prisoners being clever enough to tunnel out under his nose.

  “Can’t find it. Do I have your permission to loosen some of the stones in the walls to hunt for it?”

  Harriman looked hard at Slocum, then nodded brusquely.

  “We need to tighten security, sir,” Wilkinson said. “There’s no telling how many of them thievin’, murderin’ bastards might have gone out that way.”

  “Plug the hole, Sergeant. Whatever it takes.”

  “Yes, sir.” Wilkinson started to go back into the prison yard, then stopped.

  Slocum’s finger tightened on the trigger. First he would kill Harriman, then Wilkinson. From there it would be a race to get away, but at least two of them from San Quentin would pay for all they’d done to him during the eternity he’d spent in solitary confinement.

  “Is there something wrong, Warden?” Wilkinson took a step back. Slocum didn’t have to know the sergeant was eyeing him hard. “Come on back, and I’ll show you where the tunnel’s supposed to be.”

  “Get on with your job, Wilkinson. I’ll see to rounding up the escapees out here.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “Do as I order, Sergeant Wilkinson!” The warden’s voice rose and almost cracked with strain. “I cannot have my prisoners roaming the countryside one instant longer than needful.”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  Harriman pointedly turned his back. Slocum gestured with the gun, and the warden rode ahead at a trot. Never looking back, Slocum caught up.

  “Don’t bother looking to Wilkinson for help,” Slocum said. “You did good. You kept him alive. Yourself, too.”

  “I’ll personally throw the trapdoor on the gallows for you, Jarvis. I swear it!”

  Slocum let the warden rant on until they came to the junction in the road. The left fork went back to the San Francisco ferry. Since he had no idea about the schedule, Slocum couldn’t afford to wait long there. Closer down another peninsula was the Tiburon ferry. Its schedule was a mystery, too. He had no choice but to ride north.

  The lure of Oregon called powerfully. Anything to be away from California and San Quentin. But he had to make sure he had plenty of time.

  “Off your horse,” Slocum ordered. “Now take off your shoes.” He had Harriman tie the laces together and drape them over the now riderless horse. By the time the warden hobbled back to the prison, Slocum hoped to be long gone.

  “You’re not going to kill me?”

  “I’ve done my share of killing,” Slocum said, “during the war and after. Never killed a man who wasn’t trying to kill me.”

  “I said I’d see you hanged.”

  Slocum laughed. “You trying to get me to shoot you? Start running. That way, toward the San Francisco ferry.”

  Harriman hesitated, then saw how Slocum sighted along his barrel. He took off at a dead run. Slocum watched him for a minute until he disappeared around a bend in the road, then swung his horse around and galloped north. He held the reins to the other horse to keep it close by. When the horse he rode tired, Slocum switched horses. He shucked off the guard uniform and kept riding hard until he saw how the shoreline bent around and back southward.

  He knew better than to poke his nose back San Francisco way, but he had unfinished business. Just the thought of that business made him run eager fingers over the worn handle of his six-shooter.

  “Not sure when the ferry’ll be across, mister,” the port agent said.

  Slocum looked across the Bay but couldn’t see San Francisco through a thin veil of fog. He considered giving up on his quest for vengeance and clearing out. Oakland wasn’t his kind of town, and San Francisco might be too hot to bear, no matter how much he wanted to put a bullet in José Valenzuela for all he had done.

  He worried that his sudden concern for revenge might be tied up with wanting to see Maria again, too. Atencio had lit out like his ass was on fire. Slocum hoped he had gotten back to Murrieta’s small village, where they could hide him until the man could escape south to Mexico. Going back to find out would put him in jeopardy, though, from both Harriman and Sheriff Bernard.

  “You wanna ticket or no?” the agent asked.

  Slocum started to say no when he heard a whistle from out on the Bay.

  “You’re in luck. That there’s the Berkeley Delight comin’ over from Frisco. Won’t be but a half hour ’fore she heads back.”

  Slocum silently paid for the ticket, damning himself as a fool the entire time. He tucked the cardboard stub in his coat pocket and went to find a place to sit until the ferry unloaded and he could board. But he sat a mite straighter when he saw the first passenger off the ferry.

  José Valenzuela kept his face down and almost ran, though clearly still in pain, as he tugged on the reins to keep his skittish horse
moving. When he was well off the ramp leading to the ferry’s deck, he vaulted into the saddle and galloped away, scattering pedestrians and gaining their angry curses and gestures.

  It took Slocum less time than that to step up into the saddle. He left his spare horse tethered as he raced after Valenzuela, getting the same gestures and curses the fleeing outlaw had. Slocum concentrated on keeping Valenzuela in sight as he wound through the Oakland streets and finally stopped at a hotel that had seen better days.

  Slocum had to take a quick turn when Valenzuela stepped into the street, hand on six-gun thrust into his belt, and looked to see if anyone had followed. The wicked might flee when no man pursued, but in this case it was John Slocum pursuing the wicked. Satisfied he had evaded anyone on his trail, Valenzuela swaggered into the hotel.

  Hastily dismounting and going to the boardwalk outside the open hotel door, Slocum caught the last part of Valenzuela’s argument with the clerk.

  “She is my sister. Not that it matters to you.” Valenzuela drew his six-shooter and laid it on the counter. “What room is she in?”

  “Mister, we got brothers and sisters stayin’ here all the time. I’m tellin’ you she ain’t in, and I ain’t lettin’ you in her room ’less she says it’s all right.”

  “I will—” Valenzuela cut off his angry tirade when Conchita came from the hotel dining room, drawn by his loud voice. “¡Hermana!”

  They embraced, speaking in low, rapid Spanish that Slocum could not follow. He peered around the door frame as they continued to talk. Finally Conchita pointed toward the dining room and José followed.

  Slocum waited a few minutes, then entered, going straight to the clerk.

  “I’m looking for friends of mine. The Valenzuelas,” he said.

  The clerk gave him a sour look, then spit into a cuspidor behind the counter.

  “They’re eatin’.”

  “All three of them?”

  “Yeah, the lady and the old coot. And the lady’s brother,” the clerk said, as if he didn’t believe José.

  Slocum had heard all he needed to know. The entire Valenzuela clan was holed up here. But where was the loot they had taken from the Miramar bank and the stage?