Jailbreak

by Giles Tippette

  He had a pleasant face and creased and crinkled skin around his eyes. He gave a half laugh and said, “Well, I don’t know if I can explain it or not. It started out purty simple, but it jest kep’ a-goin’ and a-goin’. Best I can say is you know Norris and how he can git.”

  “Yes,” I said dryly. “Only too well. Tell me what you can.”

  He said, “Wahl, we went out and taken a look at that land and, shore enough, he finds they is a rough bunch of hombres staked out there. See, the Rio Grande had done took a shift here a while back where it kind of throwed your land downhill from the river. Well, some smart compesinos figured it out and they dug ’em a drainage ditch right down the middle of that patch of land and damned if they didn’t get some grass growin’. So they’ve turned a bunch of scrawny Mexican cattle in there and is fattenin’ ’em up at a right smart rate.”

  Ben said, “I bet that set right good with Norris.”

  Jack laughed. “Oh, he got a little hot about it. ’Fore I talked him out of it he was all for ridin’ in thar and clearin’ out the bunch of ’em. We finally went into the courthouse in Laredo. He’d seen the sheriff, but they discovered the deed was clouded by something that had happened a hunnert years ago. I never really got the straight of it. But they told him he’d have to go over to Mexico, on account of it being a Spanish land grant. You know how them goes. So we went over there an’ he got another lawyer, a Mex lawyer. Upshot was he didn’t git no satisfaction from the authorities in Nuevo Laredo. They told him he’d have to go to the capital, to Monterrey, where they had complete records.”

  Ben said, “Oh, shit.”

  Jack looked at him and smiled a little. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. By then ol’ Norris was gettin’ his back up higher’n his head. So we goes down there to Monterrey, only this time he ain’t gonna git no lawyer. Says he’s tired of payin’ out to clear his own land. ’Course I went along as kind of an interpreter since ol’ Norris don’t speak that much Spanish.” He stopped and shook his head and looked at me. He said, “Justa, the whole damn matter could have been cleared up for a hunnert dollar bill. But—”

  I nodded. “But Norris had his back up.”

  Jack said, “Yeah. We taken this here official out to git a drink to some cantina and the ol’ boy just let it slide that a little fee of a hunnert dollars would get Norris a clear title. A title he could have taken back down to Laredo and had the sheriff run them hombres off the land with maybe. But then Norris got stiff-necked. He said he happened to know for a fact that a title search didn’t cost but ten pesos and he was damned if he was going to pay ninety-nine dollars for something that was already his. Got right angry about it, too. Right there in that cantina.”

  “I can see it,” Ben said.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Wahl, Norris announced to that official that he was gonna report him for askin’ for a bribe, which me and you know is about as good as pissin’ in the alley down here. But what it done was make that official damn mad. So he ups and tells the police that Norris has done threatened his life.”

  “Oh, shit!” I said. It was looking worse and worse.

  Jack said, “It might have still been all right. They sent a captain of police and a couple of federales around to the hotel. I happened to be in the room when they come in and I tried to grease the captain on the sly, but Norris wasn’t having any of it. He said he was a United States citizen trying to protect his property from a bunch of goddam thieves and he was damned if he’d be arrested for something he hadn’t done.”

  “I bet that impressed the hell out of them,” I said.

  Jack smiled. “Naw, they got impressed when the captain laid hands on Norris. Norris busted him square in the mouth. Knocked the shit out of him.”

  Ben laughed, but Hays and I sort of groaned. I said, “What’s the rest of it?”

  Jack shook his head. “I dunno. When I left Monterrey they hadn’t made no formal charges, but last I seen of him, he was still giving them trouble. Justa, I’m sorry, wadn’t a damn thing I could do.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Fact of the business was, it cost me fifty dollars not to git arrested myself. I figured the best thing I could do was get on back to Laredo and git off a wire and wait for help.”

  “You done right,” I said. “And you won’t be the loser for it. What’s the earliest train we can get out on in the morning?”

  “Eight.”

  “What you reckon it’s going to cost to square matters?”

  Jack shook his head. “I ain’t got no idea, Justa. Them Mexican police don’t take too kindly to havin’ no gringo punch ’em. I ain’t even sure it can be squared with money.”

  “You’ll go with us? I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Oh, sure. An’ you ain’t got to pay me. Yore family has done me more than one favor I ain’t forgot.”

  I got up. “It’s past midnight. I reckon we ought to all get some rest. Jack, we’ll be taking our horses. How about you?”

  That sort of raised his eyebrows. But he said, “Well, long’s you is gonna go ahead and pay fer a horse box, I might as well take my old nag along.”

  I said, “We’ll see you at the depot a little after seven. And I’m much obliged to you.”

  He shrugged. “Nothin’ you wouldn’t have done fer me.”

  Before we went to bed, Ben took occasion to lift my spirits by saying, “I reckon you’re pretty relieved Nora don’t know how much trouble you got on your hands or how long it’s going to take to fix it.”

  I looked at him. I said, “Ben, one of these days that mouth of yours is going to get filled up. With my fist.”

  He laughed. “Big brother is worried. Listen, I’ll protect you from Nora.”

  “Oh, shut up. We got work ahead.”

  We loaded up on the Texas side of the river. The train wasn’t too crowded until we got into the station in Nuevo Laredo. Then it got swarmed on and over and in by so many peons carrying crates of chickens and leading goats that we all elected to go back and ride in the horse car we’d paid for.

  It was about a hundred miles to Monterrey, but because we would stop at every village along the way, the trip would take at least four hours. The train was so overloaded that they had to put sand on the rails so the locomotive wheels could take a grip. Sitting, waiting, it seemed to be even hotter than it had been back in our part of the country. But once the train got moving, the breeze blowing through the opened side doors was a welcome relief. I’d got the hotel kitchen to put us up some roast beef and cheese and bread, and about midmorning we brought out the grub and had a feed. Jack had a bottle of tequila and we had the remains of the two bottles we’d bought the night before.

  Jack finally said, “Justa, how come you’re bringing horses? You figuring you might need to leave in a hurry?”

  I said, chewing on some beef, “Jack, I ain’t figuring on anything. I’m just trying not to leave anything I might need later.”

  He hesitated and then said, “Only reason I’m pryin’ is that I figure I ought to tell you I ain’t much of a gun hand anymore. That is if it comes down to it.”

  I looked at him in some surprise. I said, “Jack, I’d never involve you in our scraps. But I’m kind of took up to hear you lost your touch. You always impressed me as a man could handle himself.”

  He said, “The spirit’s still there. But—” He held out his right hand. It was visibly shaking.

  I said, “What the hell, Jack?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Age, I reckon. I’m near fifty. Too damn much whiskey. Too many scares. Started about a year ago when a bunch of rurales caught me brangin’ some gold up from the interior. Fer a joke they acted like they was gonna hang me. ’Cept they didn’t let me in on the joke until my heart had nearly stopped beatin’. Ain’t really been the same since.”

  Rurales were Mexican rural police. Or at least that was what they were supposed to be. They was also supposed to suppress the outlaw bands that
roamed the countryside. But from what I’d heard, most folks would rather fall in amongst the outlaws than the rurales. I said, “Yeah, them boys got a hell of a sense of humor.”

  Jack said, “They cut the rope three quarters of the way through figuring it would break before my neck did. It didn’t break and neither did my neck. I was pretty blue in the face before they finally figured to cut me down.”

  I shook my head. “How you stay over here, Jack?”

  He started to say something, then just shrugged. Finally he said, “I really ain’t got that much selection, Justa.”

  I didn’t ask him anymore.

  Outside the countryside rolled by, becoming even more desolate with every passing mile. The country was mostly flat, but here and there it was marked by little humps of rock and sand and slashed by severe ravines and deep canyons. Far off in the distance you could see the beginnings of the Sierras, the several lines of high mountain ranges that cut Mexico up like fenced-off pastures. About every twenty miles or so the train would come to a grinding, jolting halt and dozens of peons dressed in white britches tied at the ankles and white shirts and wide straw sombreros would stream off, their women and children following behind. There would be no apparent village, just a marker by the track, but the Mexicans would go off across the hot, flat plain, walking with that patient stride that could take them miles. Somewhere out there would be a tiny pueblo, adobe and straw huts built around the only water in the district. To live they raised corn and beans and peppers and skinny cattle. Looking at it, it was hard to understand how anyone could make a living on such land. But the peons did, and had for centuries.

  As we got closer to Monterrey the land became more hilly and a little greener. But it was never going to get very green because Coahuila was about as poor a state as there was in Mexico.

  Monterrey was a pretty big city. Where our hometown, Blessing, didn’t have quite a thousand souls, Jack said Monterrey had a population of near forty thousand. That was big for a city in that part of Mexico.

  We come steaming into the depot about two in the afternoon. Some railroad workers brought up a ramp and we led our mounts down and then swung aboard. We rode for the center of town. Even though Monterrey was a big city it wasn’t much to look at. The streets were all dust and there were no boardwalks in front of the buildings. Most of the houses we saw were poor shanties. We finally pulled up in front of what looked to be the best hotel in town, the Mirador. Some boys came out to tend to our horses so we unslung our saddlebags and went into the lobby. It was a big, cool place with a high-beamed ceiling and a lot of that heavy Mexican furniture sitting around. I took two rooms. Hays would bunk in with me, and Ben and Jack would share a room.

  We got upstairs and got settled on the second floor. Hays and I had drawn a big room with big casement windows and a big table with a couple of washbasins. The desk clerk had booked me for a bath at the end of the hall. But first we crowded into our room, sat in chairs and on the beds and talked over what we should do. I was for going straight on over to the jail and looking into matters, but Jack thought it would be better to hire a lawyer who had some pull and let him front for us. I said, “Just how are we supposed to know which lawyer has got the pull around here? I bet this town has got a hundred lawyers in it.”

  He got up out of his chair. “Why don’t you get that bath and slick up a little while I go have a look around. I think I know a couple of hombres here and I figure I can find out what we need.”

  I said, “My plans for today are for me and you to do the scouting around. I’m going to leave Ben and Hays here.”

  He half smiled. “Just in case you and I get throwed in jail?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  While he was gone I dug some clean clothes out of my saddlebags and then went on down the hall to the bath and had a shave and then a bath in cold water. When I was dressed in clean clothes I felt a deal better though I knew I’d be sweating five minutes after I left the hotel.

  Jack got back a few minutes after I returned to the room. He said, “I think I found our man. Name of Julio Obregon. He’s crooked, but then they all are. But it sounds like he stands in with the politicos, which means he’s automatically in with the jefes in the courts and the police. His office ain’t but a couple of blocks from here.”

  I said, “Well, you go get cleaned up and we’ll go.”

  I got a couple of hundred dollars off Ben, who was carrying our bankroll. I figured I’d need at least that much for a retainer. As near as I could figure, Norris was in some serious trouble. I’d been mad as hell at him back in Matagorda when I’d first got Jack’s telegram. Now I was plenty worried. You just didn’t go around punching police captains in Mexico. It was just like Norris. He thought I solved everything with my fists or a gun. He never realized how much more thinking I did. And for a man as smart as him to use his fists was just plain foolish. He was going to come to a bad end someday if he kept on trying to prove he was as tough as Ben and me.

  But that could wait. Right then I had to figure out a way to get him home before he could get into any more trouble.

  Senor Obregon was a short, fat little man of some thirty years with a thick, black mustache and sleek, black, oily hair. He had just returned from siesta when we arrived, and one could see he’d changed into a clean white shirt. He was just hanging up his coat when his clerk showed us into his office. We made our howdies and then sat down. I said, “Senor Obregon, my family, the Williamses, are ranchers down in Matagorda County, Texas. That’s about three hundred miles north of here. We’re considered well-to-do business people and have some little influence in the Texas state government. Through a misunderstanding my younger brother, Norris Williams, has run afoul of your local police and is now in jail. I’ve come to you for your assistance in getting his release to get out of this trouble.” I looked at Jack.

  Jack started to translate, but Obregon held up his hand. “Pleese,” he said. “Ah heeve some Anglish. An’ I know of choo brudder. Et es a very deffecult matter. He es in mucho trouble. The policía are, how choo say, very angry.”

  I glanced at Jack and he shrugged as if to say, “I told you so.”

  Señor Obregon said, “Choo brudder hes been telling meny, meny peoples that he es a muy importante hombre in Estados Unidos. He make meny threats to meeny peoples. He make el jefe de policía muy angry.”

  I cussed silently under my breath. Damn Norris didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut.

  Señor Obregon leaned toward me. He said, “Choo comprende, Señor Williams, muy importante in Estados Unidos es no the same as muy importante in Mexico.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I understand. Sometimes my brother tiene caliente de cabeza.”

  Señor Obregon looked puzzled. He said, “What means thees hot of head?”

  Jack said, dryly, “Justa, I reckon you better let me handle the Mex talk.” In rapid-fire Spanish he told Señor Obregon that Norris was a man with a strong belief in right and wrong and when he felt he’d been wronged he tended to get stubborn. Also angry.

  I said, “Tell him Norris doesn’t speak any Spanish and that he might have punched the captain through a misunderstanding.”

  Jack whipped off a round of Mex. Obregon answered him back. Jack looked around at me, that usual half smile on his face, and said, “He wants to know if it would be all right for a Mexican to punch a sheriff in Texas just because he didn’t speak English.”

  I said, “Just ask him if he can help us.”

  Jack talked and then Obregon talked and then Jack talked again. Finally, Obregon leaned back in his chair, intertwined his fingers over his ample belly and pursed out his lips. After a moment he said something to Jack. Jack answered back. Señor Obregon shook his head and said something firmly to Jack.

  “What?” I said.

  Jack turned to me. “He says he’ll look into it to see how serious it is but that it will cost you a hunnert dollars U.S. I told him we already knowed it was serious an’ couldn’t he
do a little more for that kind of money. Justa, it ain’t worth it. He knows you got money an’ he’s jus’ tryin’ to bleed you.”

  “Let’s get him started,” I said. “I expect this to cost a great deal. All of which I’m going to take out of Norris’s hide.” I dug in my pocket and came out with five twenty-dollar bills. I laid them on the desk and looked at Señor Obregon. “Okay?”

  He picked up the money with his fat fingers. “Hokay,” he said.

  I said to Jack, “Ask him if we can see Norris.”

  That brought on another exchange of that rapid-fire Spanish. Jack said to me, “He thinks that will perhaps cost another forty dollars. To use his words. Take careful not to count on it over much.”

  “All right,” I said. I leafed out two more twenties. Señor Obregon picked them up. I said, “When?”

  He looked at Jack and Jack said it in Spanish. Señor Obregon shrugged and said something to Jack. Jack got up. He said, “We’re to come back in the morning. He ought to know something by then.” He gave me a slight grimace. “He wants you to understand he can’t promise anything and that these matters take time.”

  “Tell him I understand,” I said. “And tell him in your most flowery Spanish how much we appreciate such an upstanding gentleman as himself coming to our aid and that we are in his debt.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows, but he did it. From the length of the speech, I figured he was setting Senor Obregon up to run for Congress.

  We shook hands and then Jack and I left, leaving Senor Obregon to count his money and figure out just how much I was good for.

  Walking back to the hotel I said, “Well, I got a problem.”

  “You mean Norris has got a problem. ”

  “Yeah, him too. But time is something I ain’t got a whole hell of a lot of.”

  Jack said, “You ain’t forgot where we are.”

  “No, I understand time is something they got a surplus of down here. But they is a date on the calendar when I got to be on my way back to Blessing. Norris just might have to do a little jail time.”