He fought down the rising panic in him each night, felt his belly beginning to tighten at the thought of that confinement after the slops they were fed for supper each day.
At the end of the first month he had learned to live with the situation, figuring he was only making things worse by trying to fight something he couldn’t beat.
Then that thought stirred him; why not look upon it as a challenge? Give him something to think about apart from all the discomfort and pain of serving time.
Armed guards were everywhere. The fact he was a Ranger meant nothing to them, he was a convict, and treated the same as the others, perhaps a mite more harshly. There were rough men in that jail who had no use for a Ranger in any shape or form. Two had tried to stab him and he hadn’t been ready, the home made blade had sliced his ribs and chest but a guard had been sighted and the men had hurried away. He hid his wounds and made no complaint.
But he caught one of those men in the thicket some time later. They said afterward it looked as if the man had been savaged by a wolf or a cougar. He was so smashed-up he spent three months in the infirmary. The other man who had tried to stab Enderby made his peace.
One other tried to start a fight, no doubt with his cronies in the crowd waiting to step in in the confusion and kill or maim Buck.
But he was alert for trouble and had worked at loosening the head on his pickaxe. When the giant bully had moved in, Buck slipped the head off the hickory handle, spun around and rammed the end into the man’s belly. When the stinking breath had gusted out and the large man had doubled up, he laid the handle alongside the man’s ear and stretched him out, mouth shattered, nose spread all over his face. He slipped the pickaxe head back on the handle and continued his work.
He never knew what the bully’s friends had told the guards when they found him bleeding and unconscious, but one of them, a Mexican, when helping roll a big boulder across to the crushing detail, said, ‘You are uno macho hombre, señor! My felicitations!’
One hard man … well, Buck reckoned that was just what you needed to be if you aimed to survive in this place.
Survival was his aim, but not in here. He had had a bellyful and he was ready to leave.
There were armed guards every few yards it seemed when the inmates were working on the chain gang, felling trees or clearing brush for the roads, or doing any work outside the prison walls. Two men during Buck’s stay had made attempts to escape.
The first had asked permission to go to the water-butt for a drink, obtained it, but instead, tipped over the barrel on the slope. It was high up, not just so it could be seen by the guards from their stations, but also to make the convicts work for their drink. Fifty gallons of water swept the feet out from under the guard and while he was still floundering, the prisoner jumped on him, grabbed his rifle and ran.
He stopped to trade lead with the other guards and that was his undoing. If he had just kept running into the brush he might have made it – might have – stopping to shoot back was his big mistake. For one thing, it gave them a stationary target and six bullets blew him to rags and hurled his body a yard or two into the gully….
The second man didn’t seem to care whether he made it or not, the way he acted Buck suspected that getting himself killed was his sure way of escape.
He tried to strangle the guard near the gear wagon, threw the half-choked man from him, leapt into the seat and tried to whip up the team. The wagon had only creaked about five yards before he was blown out of the seat….
‘Plumb loco tryin’ anythin’, with all them guards and guns around,’ was the general opinion. ‘Just gotta get used to it, compadres. We is here to stay, we serve our time and then we gets out. Or else we dies and gets out earlier!’ Jail humour, thought Enderby but gave the matter some thought and figured he might just be able to pull off his escape.
He said nothing to anybody, waited until a guard named Shaw was on lock-down duty at night. No guard wore a gun in the barracks. An armed man stood guard outside the locked door, while the duty man walked down the line, clamping the anklets around each man, who was supposed to have his feet ready and resting on the iron bar.
Except this night Buck Enderby’s feet were on the planks inside the bar line. Shaw rapped his ankle hard with the iron cuff. Buck moaned but didn’t move his feet.
‘The hell’s wrong with you, mister?’ barked Shaw.
‘Guess he’s plumb tuckered, sir,’ said the man next in line, no real friend of Buck’s but not wanting any trouble this close to himself.
‘Well now, ain’t that a shame … guess I’ll just have to wake him up!’ Shaw grinned, baring chipped teeth, eyes bright as he lifted the iron cuff and prepared to really smash it across Buck’s ankles. Instead, Enderby’s leather-soled foot – they did not wear boots on work details – smashed the words back into his throat.
A low gasp ran through the barracks but even in their shock, the prisoners didn’t make it loud enough for the man outside the door to hear. Buck was already moving, uncoiling off the sleeping planks, hurling himself bodily at Shaw. His weight carried him over and down to the flagged floor. Buck snatched the chain and iron cuff from the guard’s hands and slammed him twice savagely across the skull. Shaw went limp and before all the breath had gone out of him, Enderby was unbuttoning the man’s tunic.
The prisoners were excited, urging him on in hushed encouragement. He stripped Shaw swiftly, had chosen him because he was about Buck’s own build, dressed as fast as he could and pulled on the boots without socks. They hurt his swollen feet but he gritted his teeth, grabbed the man’s cap and jammed it low over his eyes, shoving his long, filthy hair up beneath the cloth. Carrying the big key ring, he gave a mocking wave to the others and hurried towards the door. He knocked on the door, the inmates now holding their breath, waiting to see if he would get away with this totally insane attempt at escape.
The unsuspecting guard outside unlocked the door and pushed it inwards, his rifle held loosely in one hand. His face registered incredulity as he belatedly recognized Buck Enderby. By then the iron cuff on its chain was whistling towards his head, connected, and he collapsed.
Enderby snatched the rifle, buckled on the pistol belt and holster. He flung the guard inside, tossed the keys on to the sleeping planks, then closed the door, locking it. He didn’t think the others would try anything, it would be too risky moving about the prison in their convict rags.
Whereas he, in guards’ uniform, obviously armed, could go almost anywhere he liked. Which included the tool shed. He had left a hard piece of granite behind a bigger rock near the door. It took only three blows to break the hasp on the padlock.
He took a coil of rope used for hauling logs, complete with hooks to drive into the wood. It took him seven throws before that hook, padded now with rags torn from an old coat hanging up, caught on the edge of the wall, on a part out of sight of the main guards.
He was thin and malnourished, but the hard labour had kept his strength high. He went over in a couple of minutes, lowered the rope, slid down into darkness and breathed free fresh air for the first time in more than three months.
CHAPTER 5
FREE!
Buddy Brosnan, now a sergeant in the Rangers, knocked on Brewster’s office door and waited for the Captain to call out that he could enter.
Brewster was sitting behind his desk, cluttered to look as if he was up to his eyebrows in work, though this was not necessarily so. Cord Brewster wasn’t a man who believed in busting a gut for a dollar – which was one reason he had joined the Rangers and called in favours and stabbed a few backs to become a Captain of Troop working out of San Angelo.
He set down the pen and eased back in his chair as he saw who had entered. ‘What is it, Bud?’
Brosnan, putting on weight since he had become sergeant and had more money to spend on carousing, eased back his hat and, wheezing a little, jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
‘That Mex is back again, sittin’ by the flagpole, Cap
.’ He knew better than to call Brewster ‘Cord’ as the man’s first name had now become his surname for the benefit of the Rangers.
‘What Mex?’ There was irritation in Brewster’s voice: he had little use for the US’s neighbours below the Rio.
‘The one that’s been hangin’ around for nigh on two days, I told you yesterday. Says he wants to see you.’
‘Yeah? Well, kick his ass out of it. I don’t want to see him or any other greaser for the matter of that.’
Brosnan sniffed, somehow making the tip of his nose slew and twist, wiped the back of a wrist across his nostrils and cleared his throat. ‘Says he’ll shoot any gringo who tries to move him before he talks to you. Reckons whatever it is is mighty important.’
‘He reckons, huh?’ Brewster’s mouth was grim, no sign of the friendly smile now. ‘Well, tell you what, you go and kick his ass off the station like I told you!’
‘He’s nursin’ a big old Colt Dragoon!’
‘Judas priest, how many men we got here?’
‘Most are away on duty, Cap—’
‘How many men?’ Brewster roared and Brosnan did some hurried calculations, came up with four, five counting himself. ‘Well, you count yourself and get rid of that Mex! Now!’
Brosnan nodded and hurried out and Brewster leaned back in his chair again, groped for a cigarillo and lit up. He went to the window to look out into the yard. Brosnan was leading four Rangers over to where, sure enough, there was a serape-clad Mexican sitting with his back against the flagpole next to the stacked cannon balls beside the old wheeled cannon that had seen action on a dozen battlefields during the War.
When he was still several yards away, Brosnan began yelling at the Mexican, the others shambling along, no doubt annoyed that they had been interrupted in whatever they were doing. The Mexican stood, moving quickly for a greaser, Brewster thought, tall, too. His hand went beneath his serape as Brosnan reached him and two of the others moved around to get behind. But the man, now holding a large old Colt Dragoon, which weighed over four pounds, began swinging the gun in a wide arc, backed up. The Rangers jumped back, the boredom suddenly dropping from their faces as they realized this fool was prepared to fight them.
Still – five to one! The man must be loco!
It wasn’t enough.
Brosnan went down first, hugging ribs that creaked and sent slivers of razor-sharp pain through his side as the Dragoon cracked him. A Ranger trooper closing in fast, staggered as the serape suddenly coiled around his face and head, blinding him. He staggered into the pole and the Mexican, now revealed as being dressed in ragged range clothes, slammed his head hard into the wood. A third man walked into a fist between the eyes and stumbled over the man sagging at the foot of the flagpole. The fourth and fifth men, wishing they had worn their guns, moved in more warily.
The Mexican, still backing off, reached the pyramid of cannon balls, scooped one up in his left hand – no mean feat when each one weighed at least seven pounds – and rolled it towards the men. They danced and dodged, not wanting crushed feet, and the Mexican banged their heads together. Groaning, they fell to their knees.
Standing amongst the moaning, scattered Rangers the man turned towards the building and Brewster, looking astonished at his window. The Mexican pushed back his straw, ragged-edge sombrero, revealing a dark, gaunt face, just a glimpse, before he pulled down the hat again.
Brewster had seen, though, and recognized the man. He opened the window and called, ‘Come on up, amigo! Reckon you’ve earned it!’
He was seated behind his desk with a bottle of whiskey and two shotglasses before him when the Mexican came in, wearing his serape again now, and closed the door behind him.
‘You son of a bitch!’ Brewster said with the old smile. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say who you were? You know I don’t care for greasers.’
As he dropped into a chair, Buck Enderby tossed the old straw hat to the floor and shrugged, draping the serape over the back. ‘Figured you’d have some kind of dodger on me on your desk. Didn’t want your men to try and collect any reward.’
Brewster laughed, shaking his head as he poured two drinks, pushing one slopping glass across to Enderby who tossed it down quickly.
‘Needed that, huh?’ Brewster said, still grinning, and tossing down his own whiskey. He poured two more and sat back, nursing the glass, studying him. ‘You sure lost weight in that jail. Makes you look meaner.’
‘Not the place to sweeten your disposition.’
‘Guess not. Well, you can relax. No Wanted notice out on you.’ Enderby arched his eyebrows, paused with his glass halfway to his mouth. Brewster’s smile took on a twist. ‘You’ve got the luck of the Irish or something, amigo. Your timing was just about perfect. You busted out just as the powers-that-be, thanks to some wrangling and pressure brought on ’em mainly by Senator Pardoe, decided that you serving three-and-a-half months was enough to keep the Mex Government happy and satisfied that you’d been disciplined for trespassing and knocking down that lieutenant.’
‘What’s that mean?’
Brewster spread his arms. ‘Means, they decided to parole you. It would’ve been through in a few more days, anyway.’
‘I don’t believe it … I’ve never had anything that easy in my life.’
‘Well, rub your Rosary or your lucky rabbit’s foot or something, but that’s how it stands.’ He picked up a paper from his desk, handed it across. ‘Official notification, ’course you busted out before the parole came through and nobody liked that, but Pardoe had his way and pushed for the parole. The guards you knocked out mightn’t be too happy but they’ll do what they’re told—’
Buck handed the paper back. He could only read some of the words anyway but he saw the seal of the New Texas Government and that was good enough for him. ‘You’re sure?’
Brewster scowled at the paper a little, then brightened his face as he set it down on his desk. ‘Pretty much. You got friends in high places now. Pardoe’s taken a shine to you. Seems his kid kinda likes you, too.’
Enderby scoffed. ‘After the way I dragged him back? He must be putting on an act for the old man or something.’
‘Whatever, it worked for you.’
Enderby was silent and Brewster watched him closely, asked suddenly, ‘What made you take a chance and come here anyway? I mean, you didn’t know any parole was coming.’
Buck looked him straight in the eye. ‘I came for my thousand bucks.’
Brewster nodded slowly. ‘Thought that might be it. Needed it for your getaway, huh?’
‘Still need it.’ No one knew about Kim Preece and Buck aimed to make sure no ever got to know about his connection with her. He had missed her and the mostly boring ranch life far more than he would have thought possible while in jail, of course, anything was better than being in that hell-hole, but he figured when he got out, he would quit the Rangers, take that thousand from the Senator and go on back to Kim’s place, and this time settle down for keeps. Sure, it would take a heap of doing, but now he knew just what he was missing and he was all set to give it his best shot.
He noticed that Brewster was turning a pencil end-for-end between his fingers again, a sure sign of his irritation. He looked mighty sober.
‘What’s wrong, Cord?’
‘Don’t use that name here, damnit!’ Brewster snapped, but Buck had a notion the man was just using it as an excuse to stall a little longer. ‘Your money, Buck … we had a robbery not long after you went to San Antonio—’
‘Robbery!’
‘Yeah … right here.’
‘Why the hell would anyone bust into a Texas Rangers office?’
‘You might be surprised, it’s happened in other stations and law offices, sometimes they’re after guns, because there’re always racks of ’em in such places. Sometimes it’s just to mess up the place, someone being vindictive because of the way they been treated, and sometimes it’s money. Lots of law offices carry cash to pay out on bounties—’
‘Well. Guess I never knew that,’ Enderby said very slowly, still looking hard at Brewster. ‘Never heard of it before, matter of fact—’
‘Oh, yeah, fairly common, this one happened when we was snowed under with work, had the whole troop scattered all over the southwest. Was just me, the cook and an orderly that particular night.’ He half-turned in the chair and indicated the big green safe. ‘Cleaned it out, took some official papers, which our investigations made us think was maybe the real reason for the bust-in, but no one would pass up that amount of money, I reckon.’
Enderby stood and examined the safe. ‘Seems pretty much secure to me. You never heard a thing?’
Brewster shook his head. ‘Cook was drunk, orderly was home with his wife, and I was, well, kind of occupied with a certain lady in town, a certain married lady.’
Enderby stared and then nodded gently, returning to his chair. ‘How much was in there?’
‘Apart from your thousand? Aw, some petty cash, little over two hundred … pretty good haul for whoever did it.’
‘No clues?’
‘Only that we think it might’ve been something to do with disbanding the Rangers, which is why the books were stolen. Lot of people don’t like us, you know.’
‘Found that out in jail. Well, looks like no chance of recovery, huh?’
Brewster was very sober now. He picked up the pencil again – tap, tap, tap – as he rotated it end-for-end. He shook his head. ‘Sorry, Buck, sorry as all getout. I busted my ass trying to find who it was, knew you’d need that money when you were released. I reckon it’s gone for keeps.’
Tennessee Renegade Page 5
