Desperado Run (An Indian Territory Western Book 2)

by Patrick E. Andrews

  ~*~

  The town of Hobart seemed as good a place as any to hide for a while. All of the people were new to the area and Ben Cullen found he could blend anonymously into the newcomers who labored to establish their new habitat.

  Ben, with the money gleaned from his latest encounter, ate at the local cafes—mostly tents with plank counters sat up in front of them—and moved among the people as he firmed up plans. He avoided making friends or even becoming too well known, but he did adapt himself enough to the settlement to begin pronouncing the name of their town like the citizens. Although spelled Hobart, it was pronounced Hoburt with the accent on the first syllable.

  It hadn’t taken Ben long to find out that Hobart was but one of the new towns in this formerly wild, untamed area. There were others: Mountain View, Lone Wolf, Harrison, and Parkersburg. The fugitive could only figure that other areas of territory that once belonged to the Indians were going through the same change. That left him with very few places to hide out.

  Melting into the close-packed town also gave Ben another idea for escaping the law. All his life had been spent in the vast wilderness. With this sanctuary gradually disappearing, he figured it was time to change his tactics. If a provincial area like the country of Kiowa offered shelter, think of the great populated areas of the east, where entire cities beckoned to him. Ben Cullen could imagine the ease of pulling a robbery in a bank, then quickly melting into the teeming crowds or down narrow alleys as posses of city policemen vainly tried to mount a pursuit.

  There were two matters to be taken care of before his move, however. First he had to pick a place to go, and that was easy. Old time cowboys had told him of trips to Chicago on cattle trains when they would accompany their herds to the great stockyards. There were crowded streets, tall buildings, and whole neighborhoods where the inhabitants didn’t even speak English. Ben could imagine blue-clad policemen trying to ask some thick-headed foreigner, “Which way did he go?” as the confused immigrant merely scratched his head in ignorance.

  The second matter he had to attend to was getting a grubstake to finance the move and allow him some time to get established and learn his way around before he began pulling off the numerous jobs he planned. A couple of hours of scouting around Hobart brought the solution to that problem. The answer was in the form of a two-storied frame building with a freshly painted sign proudly mounted on the false front that proclaimed it as the Kiowa County Bank.

  Once the place was picked, Ben settled into a routine to carefully check it out. Through simple observation, a casual question here and there and listening to conversations, he learned a surprising number of things. The president of the new institution was W. T. Abernathy, a portly individual whose residence was located west of the business district in an easily identifiable small but well-built house with a picket fence around the yard; the bank’s money was kept in one large safe in the building; the only guard was a bachelor carpenter named Ned Brownley who earned extra money by sleeping on a cot by the safe; and, finally, Abernathy was bragging how his bank now had assets totaling more than twenty thousand dollars.

  By this time Ben’s finances had sunk low enough that he had to make a move whether he wanted to or not. He took his last remaining dollars and bought some canned goods and other nonperishable items. During the purchases, he made numerous statements about leaving Hobart and striking south for Texas where he was going back to the family farm and pick up his “wife and young ’uns” then return to Kiowa County to homestead. These remarks involved him in several inane conversations with locals, but he figured it worth the trouble if he would be dismissed from their minds as a possible suspect after the bank robbery. And if they did remember him with suspicion, their recollections would send any posses south into Texas looking for him, while he went north to Wichita, Kansas, where he planned on taking a train to Chicago.

  Then, with all his money spent but his saddlebags loaded with food, Ben rode south of Hobart for several miles, then swung back east until he found a secluded spot where he could camp without being observed for two or three days.

  With his horse hobbled but contentedly grazing on the thick, rich prairie grass, Ben settled down to wait. Part of his purchases had been a fifth of whiskey, and he sipped off the bottle and let his imagination—as active as it had been when he was a boy—take him to his new life in Chicago.

  Ben pictured a street literally crammed with people along the sidewalks while wagons and buggies of every sort choke the avenue. A huge bank, located in a granite building on a corner, stands imposing and solid. Ben walks into the place and crosses the thick carpeting to a teller. The man, silent and thoroughly frightened at the sight of Ben’s pistol, hurriedly fills several canvas bags with thick wads of bills. Then, in Ben’s mind, he fires a number of shots into the ceiling and runs out the door. Pushing and shoving, he submerges himself into the shoulder-to-shoulder, teeming mass of people on the street until he extracts himself to rush up to his hotel room and deposit the loot on the bed. There is at least fifty thousand dollars.

  Beautiful!

  On the third night following his departure from Hobart, Ben resaddled his horse, checked his guns, then rode through the darkness toward the east side of town where bank president W. T. Abernathy lived.

  Chapter Four

  After Ben’s trial for breaking into Beardsley’s store, the sixteen-year-old spent only a short time in the local lockup. A pair of marshals, who trailed after the circuit judge to pick up the sentenced prisoners left in his judicial wake, took Ben from the custody of the sheriff while curious townspeople gathered to watch.

  Ben almost felt like a hero of sorts from the way people looked at him. His age peers displayed awe and respect as he was led from the town jail wearing handcuffs and leg irons. Although he shuffled awkwardly in the restraints, Ben displayed a bit of defiant bravado. Pride and a desire to show no fear motivated that appearance rather than pure courage.

  The show ended, however, when the youngster was put into a large wagon with other prisoners. The vehicle had only small barred windows, and the summer heat made it stifling inside.

  The trip to prison was one of pure agony with only occasional stops for water and the one meager ration issued daily by the uncaring escorts. The journey took eight days and they reached their destination one blistering hot afternoon.

  Young Ben Cullen’s first impression of the Kansas State Penitentiary was the sound of large metal portals clanging as they were opened. He sat in the suffocating heat of the enclosed wagon with a half-dozen other new convicts waiting to go into the prison yard when the loud noise startled him. Then the vehicle lurched forward and rolled about fifty yards before the team of horses pulling it were brought to a halt.

  Next he could hear a large key being worked in a padlock, then the clanking of chains before the back door opened and a burly guard wearing a blue uniform bellowed in at them.

  “All right, get out, get out, goddammit! I ain’t standing here all day waiting for you sumbitches!” Ben followed the example of the older men and scrambled out as quickly as he could. He was roughly pushed into a line with the others as he moved awkwardly in the handcuffs and shackles he had continued to wear since the beginning of his trip from Pleasanton.

  One of the marshals who had accompanied them on the trip removed the restraints and tossed them back into the wagon. He turned to the prison guard. “They’re all yours, Charlie. See you next trip.”

  “Yeah,” the other responded. He pointed his cudgel at the prisoners, then swept it toward a foreboding gray building in front of them. “Get moving!”

  Shorn of the bonds, Ben felt lighter and freer as he walked with the others in the indicated direction. The interior of the place was as unremarkable as the exterior, and they walked down a long hallway and turned into a room off to one side.

  Two more guards had joined their original mentor, and the three, each holding a heavy club, seemed cold and aloof.

  “Strip!” the senior of t
hem commanded.

  Once again Ben numbly imitated his companions and within moments stood naked in the heat of the windowless room.

  A man wearing a suit suddenly appeared and, without ceremony, gave each a perfunctory physical examination which consisted of checking their teeth and making each demonstrate an ability to move their limbs freely and fully. Then, after a quick glance to see if any displayed any obvious signs of physical disability or illness, he turned to the chief guard. “All fit for hard labor.” Then he left the room as quickly as he had come.

  Another man instantly replaced him. This newcomer, a convict, went to each one with a pair of hand clippers and unceremoniously clipped their hair down to the scalp leaving them bald with red spots where the crude, dull instruments had pulled at the sensitive skin of their heads.

  “Let’s go,” the guard said.

  Ben felt ill at ease walking out of the room naked, especially when one of the guards looked at him with a foreboding shake of his head.

  Their next stop was a bathhouse where a convict duo, using a hand-pumped fire-fighting apparatus, hosed them down with icy water. For the first time since his confinement, Ben felt truly humiliated. The stinging spray on his bare skin seemed to emphasize the terrible, shameful predicament he was in.

  Another naked walk down the corridor led them to a room where a long wooden counter stood. Behind this were piles of clothing and blankets. Another prisoner tossed various articles of wear at them along with a sack of toilet articles and two blankets.

  “Put ’em on!” came the order.

  Ben, grateful to be covering himself despite being wet, began to hurriedly dress. The clothing, which was too large for the boy, was remarkable in its unattractive black and white stripes. There was also a pillbox-type cap of the same design. When he’d donned the uniform, Ben felt ridiculous.

  The guard who had given him the strange look walked up to him. “You been in prison before?”

  “No,” Ben answered.

  “It’s ‘no, sir’ and ‘yes, sir’ when you speak to a guard.”

  “No, sir,” Ben said, correcting himself.

  “Jesus!” the guard smirked. “By this time tomorrow, kid, you’ll be a girl.”

  Ben, puzzled, continued to dress until he stood there in his striped apparel and, like the others, held his blankets and other belongings in front of him.

  Another short walk took them to a room that held a wooden bench. The new convicts sat down and, remaining silent, waited to see what was next on the entrance agenda. For half an hour they sweated in the growing heat of the room before they were startled with a bellowed order to get to their feet. As they stood in anticipation, another man in a suit came into the room.

  “This is Warden Hopkins,” the head guard said as a way of introduction. “He has a few words to say. You listen up good.”

  Hopkins, a portly man with large whiskers, nodded curtly. “You’re here because you’ve broken the laws of this state,” he bluntly began. “For that you’re being punished. If you want to avoid any further punishment, make sure you don’t break the rules of this institution. For doing so, there are quick, unpleasant consequences. Those who try to get along will find their stay here relatively uneventful. Obey the regulations, the guards, and—most of all—me. By doing so you might even get a reduction in your sentence for good behavior.”

  Ben felt a glimmer of hope. Perhaps if he showed them he would be more than happy to obey any and all rules, his stay not only would not be too bad, but much shorter than the ten years the judge had ordered him to serve.

  “Another way to improve your lot is to work hard,” the warden continued. “The Kansas State Penitentiary is self-supporting through our coal mine. And we pay the convicts who labor there. For actually digging the coal, the state of Kansas will generously pay you a salary of one dollar and seventy-one and one-half cents a day. If you’re assigned the task of pushing one of the carts, then you’ll earn one dollar and twenty-three and two-thirds cents per day.”

  Ben was itching to get down in that coal mine and show what a marvelous worker he would be.

  The warden handed the head guard a sheet of paper. “Here’s the names and numbers.” He turned back to the new convicts. “Remember what I said. Keep your noses clean and we’ll treat you right. Make our lives unhappy and we’ll make yours miserable. That’s all.”

  The warden abruptly left. The guard called out their names and numbers with a warning to quickly commit them to memory. Later on the digits would be painted on their clothing.

  Benjamin Cullen became Convict 2139.

  When they left the room they went through a confusing system of barred doors that had to be locked and unlocked. Then they reached a building sporting two-storied tiers of cells. One by one each convict was checked into a cell and dropped off.

  Ben, the last, found himself at the end of a row where he was ushered into an unoccupied cell. The other guards left, but the one who had spoken to him stayed. “The bunk is chained up to the wall. Undo it and it folds down,” he explained.

  “Thank you—sir,” Ben said. He did as he was told and found that the wire contraption held a mattress stuffed with straw.

  “The cap’n put you in this cell because he felt sorry for you,” the guard said. “It’ll take ’em longer to find you down here.”

  After another quick glance of genuine sympathy, he strolled away to his other duties.

  Ben vaguely wondered what the man meant, but dismissed it from his mind as, sad and lonely, he sat his belongings up on a plank shelf anchored to the wall. He sat down on the bunk. At that moment he missed his room in Mr. Larkin’s attic with such emotion he felt as if there were a large, empty hole in his heart. Since his troubles had begun, his mind had dwelt on Maybelle Beardsley for hardly a moment. The awfulness of her unkind rejection in the form of having her brother beat him up was something he couldn’t bear to think about. Each time the girl’s image entered his mind, he suppressed it as quickly as he could.

  Now, utterly miserable and homesick, young Ben Cullen dully watched the shadows in his cell lengthen as the sun slowly descended through the summer sky.

  Suddenly the sound of shuffling feet and clanging bars interrupted his dismal period of self-pity and he could hear many men—none saying as much as one word—walking in step along the tiers of the cell block.

  A burly guard suddenly appeared at the bars. “2139?” the man asked gruffly.

  “Sir?” Ben responded weakly.

  “Goddammit! Didn’t they tell you to learn your number?”

  “Y-yes, sir, they told me,” Ben stammered fearfully.

  “Well, it don’t look to me like you done the job very good,” the guard said with a ferocious frown.

  “My number’s 2139,” Ben quickly responded.

  “Yeah. That’s more like it” the guard said. “We go to chow in fifteen minutes. When the whistle blows, you step outside this cell, and from that point on you do as the others and keep your yap shut, understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The guard sensed he would have no troublemaker here, so he relaxed his mood a bit. “And, kid, don’t talk in the chow hall either. Eat up quick and follow the leader.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You done any jailing before?”

  Ben wasn’t exactly sure what the man meant. “Well, sir, I ain’t never been in any kinda trouble at all.”

  The guard’s expression was one of genuine sympathy. “My God,” he said under his breath. “What’d you do to get sent here?”

  “I busted into a store,” Ben said trying to be helpful.

  “How many times?”

  “Just once, sir. Like I told you, I ain’t never been in no trouble before.”

  The guard sighed. “Well, kid, you got troubles

  Ben, a feeling of dread growing now, watched the man walk away. When the whistles blew, he did as he was told and stepped outside the barred door. He found himself in line with other convicts in
their striped suits and, as a series of whistles gave the commands, the prison population moved silently, and in step, out of the building down to a communal dining hall.

  The eating facility was a large area with long, narrow tables with the chairs all on one side so that everyone faced in a single direction. The meal, served in tin plates and cups with only spoons, consisted of beans, salt pork, and coffee. Although no one spoke, Ben noticed strange looks given him by a number of the men. Several smiled, a couple winked at him, and one made a gesture that could only be interpreted as blowing a kiss at him.

  Ben quickly lowered his eyes in confusion, and ate his Spartan meal.

  The return to the cells was a reverse procedure and once again Ben was locked in. He lay back in the hot confines of his bare quarters and, using one blanket as a pillow, fell asleep.

  It was still dark the next morning when once again the whistles blew and the prison awoke. After a trip to the dining hall—and more beans and salt pork—Ben Cullen, Convict 2139, was marched with others in a work detail across the prison yard and through several gates. The group was halted in the small, cluttered enclosure that bordered the mine entrance. Here Ben was assigned the job of pushing the empty coal cars down along the narrow-gauge track into the mine and bringing them back when they were filled up. Evidently he was going to be a $1.23 man since he would do no actual digging of the coal.

  The morning passed slowly as the small youth dug in his heels and strained with the loaded cars he pushed out of the mines. In spite of well-oiled wheels and the track, it was still hard work that made the hundred-pound feed sacks at the livery barn in Pleasanton seem like bags of fluffy feathers.

  The midday meal was brought out to them—another feast of beans and salt pork—but Ben was extremely hungry and wolfed down his food as his body sent out signals it craved sustenance for the energy burned at hard labor.

  The day continued in monotonous regularity until the incident that happened late in the afternoon as Ben was returning with an empty car.