Behind the Iron

by William W. Johnstone

  “He should have thought of that before he soured.” He nodded, and two of the guards went to Fallon’s sides. They grabbed his arms and squeezed so tightly Fallon felt as though their fingers and thumbs dented the bones in his arms.

  “He did,” MacGregor tried, “help us out when Linc Harper’s gang hit the train we were on.”

  “So if Linc Harper ever shows up here, Mr. Fallon will have another friend to help him enjoy his stay.”

  MacGregor must have realized he was getting nowhere, and he likely also remembered he had promised the newspaper scribes an interview. More than likely, he recalled how attractive Julie Jernigan was.

  “He’s all yours, Fowlson. Good day.”

  The guards turned Fallon around and led him up the steps. The deputy warden followed, and once they were inside, the light vanished for a moment, and the heavy doors slammed shut.

  That was the noise that almost rocked Harry Fallon to his very core. It was the sound of solitude, of permanence, a sound that could make the toughest man go weak in the knees or wet his britches or break down and cry—or all of the above.

  Harry Fallon just blinked.

  They moved through this part of the prison quickly, and came out on the other side, stepping out of the towering building and into the light outside.

  Fallon saw the cell houses.

  He saw signs with arrows pointing. He read the board quickly, saw prison, and heard the guard who did not have a viselike grip on his arms say casually, “A-Hall.” So the men carried him over the grass and in the opposite direction from the prison.

  A cat crossed their path, but the guards did not stop. One of them even kicked at the cat, which screeched and jumped aside, turning to hiss, its tail straight up, and every hair prickled. The guards laughed, and the cat turned and sprinted off toward another building of cold, foreboding limestone.

  Naturally, Fallon thought to himself, the cat had to be black.

  They moved quickly toward a gloomy building of four stories of more of that hard, cold rock, barred windows, and ivy crawling up the nearest corner. The guards led Fallon to the center door and waited for the free guard to open the door and lead the way.

  The thought about asking to see Doctor Gripewater did not last long. Fallon had spent enough time in Joliet to know fresh fish asked guards nothing. Even his short stay in Yuma had reminded him that the best way to survive a prison sentence was to keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears closed.

  Inside, A-Hall reeked of every foul odor Fallon had ever had the misfortune to breathe in. The long, wide hallway ran the length of the building, with doors to cells lining against the walls. The doors were dark, heavy, and short. The way the closed doors were spread apart, Fallon knew the cells were small.

  The cellblock wasn’t sweltering, though. The air did not circulate, and Fallon saw no fans. Nor did he see any way that the prison could have been heated. Not that he wanted heat right now, but in the winter, this place would be colder than the Arctic.

  The guards stopped in front of Cell Number Seven.

  They released their pinching grip on Fallon’s forearms and wrists, and he took the time to try to rub circulation back into his hands while the guard who was in command found a key, stuck the big chunk of iron into the lock, and opened the door.

  Fallon saw no prisoner inside, just stacks and stacks of gray wool and black patent leather.

  “How tall is he?” the guard leader asked.

  “I’m six-even and he’s taller than me,” said the big cuss on Fallon’s left.

  “You’re six foot tall my arse,” said the leader. “What are you, Fallon? Six-two? Six-one?”

  “Six-one,” Fallon answered. He thought: According to Joliet, Illinois.

  “Hold these up.” The guard tossed out a pair of gray woolen trousers. Fallon caught them, shook them loose and held them to his waist. Although they were a couple of inches too short, the guard said, “Perfect fit.”

  The guard moved to the other side of the cell. “His feet are smaller than yours, O’Malley, but an elephant has smaller feet than yours.” A moment later a pair of ugly, tough work boots pounded over the stone floor and stopped a few feet in front of Fallon. “And here are some socks.”

  They landed in a puddle of water. At least, Fallon hoped it was water.

  “Put them on,” said the guard with the big feet.

  “Socks go on first,” said the other guard.

  So Fallon undressed and bent to pick up the pants he had laid on the floor before he started to disrobe.

  “Gawd,” said the smallest of the guards. “What the hell happened to your leg?”

  “Bullet crease.” Fallon tightened the makeshift bandanna, although the blood had dried and moving the cloth tore hairs from his leg.

  “Hell,” said the big guard. “You need stitches.”

  Maybe, Fallon thought, they would take him to see Doctor Gripewater.

  But he still pulled on the coarse, itching prison pants, the wet sock and the dry one, and the pair of boots, which he laced up.

  The shirt came next, poorly made muslin, along with a coat, also gray, also of wool that felt like iron cactus needles. And at length, they tossed him a hat. He pulled that over his head. It was like a baseball cap, only with gray and white stripes.

  “A-teeeen-shun!” the guard bellowed from inside Cell Number Seven.

  Fallon stood straight, knowing that he looked like a clown. His hat was too big, his pants too short, his boots pinched so that they might cripple him, and his jacket made for a man who weighed three hundred pounds.

  “What do you think, O’Malley?” said the leader, Mr. Fowlson.

  The big man grunted. “Make a fine addition to a dime museum in New York City.”

  “Yeah. You’ll get your soap, towels, and some long johns and another pair of socks when you’re settled in, Fallon. Let’s go.”

  At least the guards did not try to rip his arms out of their sockets. They walked toward the far end of the building, and then went down the depths to the basement.

  Fallon saw eight doors to other cells. He wondered which one he’d have.

  The guard named O’Malley quickly grabbed Fallon from behind, his giant arms pinning Fallon’s arms at his side, while squeezing most of the oxygen out of Fallon’s lungs. Fallon’s hat toppled onto the filthy floor as O’Malley swung around so that Fallon now faced the leader of the threesome.

  He caught only a glimpse of the fist, and the flash of brass, as a pair of knuckledusters crashed against his jaw.

  Immediately, Fallon tasted blood. He saw a flash of wild colors in strange geometric shapes. His head rang.

  The remaining guard grabbed Fallon’s hair and jerked, pulling his head up.

  “So why are you here, you damned sneak detective?” Mr. Fowlson asked.

  Fallon braced for another blow to his jaw.

  Only this one buried itself in Fallon’s stomach.

  “You think Underwood’s a fool?” the guard said. And kneed Fallon in his groin.

  He felt vomit in his throat, then knew he was sending it onto the floor.

  “What do you know, mister?” Another punch wrenched Fallon’s neck. “Huh? And who the hell told you about our sweet little deal?”

  Two more punches landed, but Fallon could not tell where he had been hit. His lips were mashed into a mangled mess. He felt blood leaking from other wounds, and for all he knew, his insides might be filling his body with blood.

  His hair was jerked back, and he felt himself looking at the ceiling. Or was it the floor? Or had they pulled his head completely off?

  “There’s no damned way you’re here to talk to some little hussy who got herself in the family way by some cut-rate train robber?” He must have been hit again, but every part of his body throbbed, groaned, and bled by now.

  “Why . . .” Another punch. “Are . . .” Hit. “You . . .” Kick. “Here?” Three quick uppercuts. “Answer us!” And a haymaker to his ear.

  He s
melled the foulness coming from his body. He thought he was lying on the cold, hard floor of the basement. Fallon couldn’t be certain.

  “Don’t kick him, O’Malley,” the leader said. “He won’t be able to talk for a week.”

  “What do we do with him?”

  The smallest of the guards chuckled.

  “Why don’t we feed him to The Mole?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When Fallon opened his eyes, or got them open as far as he could manage, he saw nothing but the blackness of eternity.

  He couldn’t be dead. Dead men did not feel this much pain. He wasn’t in Hell. In this midnight void, he shivered in the cold dampness. He could not see his hands, but he wiggled his fingers, but that might not mean anything. He remembered people who had arms or legs amputated and still sometimes reached to scratch an itch from a limb long since sawed off. Fallon balled his fists tightly and carved his fingernails into his palms. He could feel that slight pain, so at least he still had his arms and hands. Next he tried lifting his legs and dropped them down.

  Fallon cursed. He felt that, too. Pain shot through his calf where the bullet had torn, but despite the stinging, he did not feel any blood seeping from the wound. And although he could not see and lacked the strength to reach down and check for himself, it felt as if the rag that had served as a bandage had been removed. After all, he did not feel any hairs being ripped from his leg by the bloodstained bandage.

  “So . . .” an ancient voice called from somewhere in the deep blackness. “You are awake. And alive.”

  The sound bounced off rock walls that Fallon could not see.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  The voice answered: “They call me ‘The Mole.’”

  Fallon twisted his head. He smelled straw, and slowly realized that he must be lying atop a mattress covered with straw.

  Words tugged at Fallon’s memory—feed him to The Mole—and he thought those had been said by one of the laughing guards of “The Walls” who had beat the bitter hell out of him.

  “The name’s Fallon. Hank Fallon.” He decided to let The Mole become his friend in a hurry.

  “Welcome, Hank Fal- . . . Did you say Fal-lon?”

  “Yeah.” Fallon thought: I think that’s my name.

  He tried to sit up but couldn’t manage it. His eyes sought for some glimmer of hope, a sliver of light. There was nothing but pitch black.

  “Fallon,” the voice in the midnight said in a heavy sigh. “Do you need anything, Fallon?”

  Fallon tried to clear his throat. “You wouldn’t happen to have some water, would you? My throat is parched.”

  “About your waist. Right side.”

  Fallon wanted to ask about a match, but he worked up the nerve, the energy, and fought back to searing pain as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Two or three minutes passed before the dizziness stopped and the nausea passed. His lungs heaved, the pain became searing, but he kept sitting. Eventually, his right hand fumbled into the darkness until he found the wet rim of a wooden bucket. His fingers groped for a ladle, even a spoon, but when nothing could be found, he cupped his hands into the cold water, leaned forward, and brought the water to his mouth.

  Water had never tasted so good.

  “Or was that my slop bucket?” The Mole said.

  Fallon lowered his hand. A moment later, he laughed just enough to hurt his ribs.

  In the darkness, The Mole chuckled, too. “Laughter means you are mending, Hank Fallon. And that you are alive. I am glad you came to visit.”

  Fallon drank another handful of water.

  “Not too much,” The Mole warned.

  “I know.”

  “You have been injured before?”

  Fallon rubbed his face with his wet hand. “I have been prone to accidents.”

  “Such as the bullet crease on the back of your calf?”

  “You could say that.”

  “The warden’s guards gave you a good beating,” The Mole said. “But they did not shoot your leg.”

  “No. That came from some train robbers.”

  “Ah. Then that is why you are here.”

  “You could say that.” Fallon dipped his hand in the bucket and brought it down toward his leg, realizing that his new prison pants had been pulled up to his knee. Again, he had to let the wave of dizziness pass, but as he brought the dripping water onto the wound, he realized something. Again, he looked into the darkness toward the voice of The Mole.

  “You stitched this?” Fallon asked incredulously.

  “It needed four,” The Mole answered. “I could only do three.”

  “What did you use?”

  “My hair.”

  Fallon leaned back, his face masked in a mixture of pain, shock, and confusion. Over in the Indian Nations, a deputy marshal might have need to stitch some cuts or bullet wounds with whatever he had handy. Fishing line. Horsehair. But . . . ?

  “Human hair isn’t strong enough to hold a stitch,” Fallon tested.

  “But The Mole’s hair is strong.” The voice broke into another soft chuckle. “I had to braid some together. It will hold. But if you are not with me for too long, perhaps whoever is the prison’s doctor can remove my stitches and replace with proper ones.”

  Fallon put his hand into the bucket and drank a bit more water. “Thaddeus Gripewater,” he said. “He’s the prison doctor.”

  “Oh. I remember a Doc Wahlstrom.”

  Fallon shook his head and shrugged.

  “How long have you been here?” Fallon asked.

  “I was with the first prisoners brought here.”

  Now Fallon had to scratch his head. He had to be dreaming. Delirious. He must be alone in the solitary cells in the basement of the A-Hall cellblock. Going crazy.

  “That was,” Fallon said softly, “in the eighteen-thirties.”

  “Yes,” The Mole said eagerly. “Eighteen-thirty-six to be precise. March. While the boys at the Alamo were fighting the Mexicans down in Texas.”

  “Mister,” Fallon said. He stopped. Did it make a person even crazier to continue talking to a figment of his imagination? His head shook. He felt his leg again, but he could not be hallucinating the stitches in his calf. Someone had done that. Someone was in this room, dark as it was, and talking to Fallon. No, he wasn’t crazy, but The Mole had to be.

  “Mister,” Fallon tried again. “That was almost sixty years ago.”

  “Yes. I have been here a long time.” His sigh sounded like gas escaping from a busted pipe.

  “How old were you when they put you here?” Fallon asked.

  “Fourteen,” the voice replied. “I stole a man’s watch.”

  Fallon shook his head. “They don’t keep a man in prison sixty years for larceny.”

  The Mole made the sound of a man stretching, getting comfortable, maybe crossing his legs. “There were but few roads in those days,” The Mole said. “We arrived by boat. The last prisoner to visit me—who actually talked to me, that is—told me that we built the prison, the first prisoners sent here, but he was mistaken. And young. Much younger than you. No, there were buildings already here when we arrived. A cellblock, a keeper’s house, privies, and some outbuildings. And a wall of Missouri limestone.”

  The voice sighed. “Forty cells. There are more now.”

  “Yeah,” Fallon said, barely audible.

  “They shaved my head when I first arrived,” The Mole said. “But it has grown back. Long enough to stitch your wound in your leg. Long enough to stitch up many wounds. They did not shave your head.”

  Fallon shrugged. “I expect they will when they bring me out.”

  “Will they bring you out?” The Mole asked.

  That made him shudder. “I . . . well . . .”

  “Some years back, they tossed a man in here to be with me. He was a funny man. At first. They forgot him. They even forgot me. I had to eat him to survive.”

  Fallon tried to swallow but found his throat and mouth had turned
to sand. He reached for the water bucket again but made himself stop. The man was a comedian. So Fallon chuckled. “You have a good wit.”

  “I do not joke,” The Mole said. “His bones are in the corner still. But he was a mean, vile man. I detect that you are . . . not evil.”

  “I hope I’m not.”

  “But there is evil in this prison.”

  Fallon kept quiet.

  “We did build this building,” The Mole said. “Prisoners, I mean. We cut the stone, hauled the blocks here. It was hard work.”

  “So,” Fallon said, “you haven’t been in darkness all this time.”

  “No. This cell was built . . . I don’t know . . . years and years and years ago. There were more and more bad men, evil men, who came here. Too many for forty cells.”

  Too many for a thousand cells, Fallon thought, remembering the last number he had heard that the Missouri State Penitentiary held, making it something like the second-largest prison in America.

  “How about women?” Fallon asked, realized how stupid that must have sounded, and tried again. “Women prisoners? Do you remember them?”

  “Yes. We were excited when we first learned that a woman had tried to poison her husband and would be joining us. But, alas, the governor—whoever it was those long years ago—pardoned her. And something like that stopped the next woman from coming. But eventually, maybe after I’d been here six years. No, seven. Yes, in the summer of ’43, a woman joined us. They made her work for the warden, as a scullery maid, and then . . .” The Mole broke into a boisterous laugh. “She escaped. She escaped.” He must have slapped his hands together or his thighs. “Oh, my, that made us laugh. But she was caught soon enough.”

  “Where were they confined? After you got more than just one female prisoner?”

  “Around the time the big war started, the War Between the States, we—us prisoners again—put up a new cellblock for the women. Before that, they lived in the same facility—but on a different floor.”

  “And this building?” Fallon asked.

  “It went up after the big war had ended. In . . . ’68.”

  “And when were you first sent here? To the basement. To solitary confinement?”

  “I was the first. They thought I would die. They tried to kill me. I had tried to escape a few times. They kept a fifteen-pound ball chained to my ankle. After a while, they brought me here. Five days the first time. Thirty the next. Then sixty. Sixty again. One hundred. So at some point—I cannot quite recall exactly when—but I recall there was a big party, something that brought people from all across the world to the city where I was born. Philadelphia.”