Forty Lashes Less One

by Elmore Leonard

  Hey, boy, Shelby grinned, now you're talking.

  Jesus, yes, what was he worrying about that old man turnkey for? He had to watch that and never worry out loud or raise his voice or lose his temper. He had to watch when little pissy-ant started to bother him. The Indin and the nigger had bothered him. It wasn't even important; but goddamn-it, it had bothered him and he had done something about it. See but because of it Bob Fisher had come down on him and this was not anytime to get Bob Fisher nervous and watchful. Never trust a nervous person unless you've got a gun on him. That was a rule. And when you've got the gun on him shoot him or hit him with it, quick, but don't let him start crying and begging for his life and spilling the goddamn payroll all over the floor the way it had happened in the paymaster's office at the Cornelia Mine near Ajo. They would have been out of there before the security guards arrived if he hadn't spilled the money. The paymaster would be alive if he hadn't spilled the money, and they wouldn't be in Yuma. There was such a thing as bad luck. Anything could happen during a holdup. But there had been five payroll and bank robberies before the Cornelia Mine job where no one had spilled the money or reached for a gun or walked in unexpectedly. They had been successful because they had kept calm and in control, and that was the way they had to do it again, to get out of here.

  It had surely bothered him though the way the Indin and the nigger had painted their faces.

  Junior pushed through the mess-hall door behind Norma as she went out, and told her to go visit Tacha. That's how easy it was. When Norma got to the TB yard Joe Dean, standing by the gate, nodded toward the first cell. She saw Tacha sitting over a ways with the Indian and the Negro, and noticed there was something strange about them: they looked sick, with a gray pallor to their skin, even the Negro. Norma looked at Joe Dean and again he nodded toward the first cell.

  Soonzy stepped out and walked past her as she approached the doorway. Shelby was waiting inside, standing with an arm on the upper bunk. He didn't grin or reach for her, he said, How're you getting along with your boyfriend?

  He still hasn't told me anything, if that's what you mean.

  I'm more interested in what you might have told him.

  Norma smiled and seemed to relax. You know, as I walked in here I thought you were a little tense about something.

  You haven't answered my question.

  What is it I might have told him?

  Come on, Norma.

  I mean what's there to tell him? You don't have any plan you've told me about.

  I don't know, Shelby said, it looks to me like you got your own plan.

  I ask him. Every time he comes in I bring it up. 'Honey, when are we going to get out of this awful place?' But he won't tell me anything.

  You were pretty sure one time you could squeeze it out of him.

  I don't believe he knows any more than we do.

  I'll tell you what, Shelby said. I'll give you three more days to find out. You don't know anything by then, I don't see any reason to take you with us.

  Norma took her time. She kept her eyes on Shelby, holding him and waiting a little, then stepped in close so that she was almost touching him with her body. She waited again before saying, quietly, What're you being so mean for?

  Shelby said, Man. He said, Come on, Norma, if I want to put you on the bunk I'll put you on the bunk. Don't give me no sweetheart talk, all right? I want you to tell me if you're working something with that old man. Now hold on I want you to keep looking right at me and tell me to my face yes or no yes, 'I have told him,' or no, 'I have not told him.'

  Norma put on a frown now that brought her eyebrows together and gave her a nice hurt look.

  Frank, what do you want me to tell you? She spaced the words to show how honest and truthful she was being, knowing that her upturned, frowning face was pretty nice and that her breasts were about an inch away from the upcurve of his belly.

  She looked good all right, and if he put her down on the bunk she'd be something. But Frank Shelby was looking at a train and keeping calm, keeping his voice down, and he said, Norma, if you don't find out anything in three days you don't leave this place.

  It was Sunday, Visiting Day, that Mr. Manly decided he would make an announcement. He called Bob Fisher into his office to tell him, then thought better of it Fisher would only object and argue so he began talking about Raymond and Harold instead of his announcement.

  I'll tell you, Mr. Manly said, I'm not so much interested in who did it as I am in why they did it. They got paint in their eyes, in their nose. They had to wash theirselves in gasoline and then they didn't get it all off.

  Well, there's no way of finding out now, Fisher said. You ask them, there isn't anybody knows a thing.

  The men who did it know.

  Well, sure, the ones that did it.

  I'd like to know what a man thinks like would paint another person.

  They were painting theirselves before.

  I believe you see the difference, Bob.

  These are convicts, Fisher said. They get mean they don't need a reason. It's the way they are.

  I'm thinking I better talk to them.

  But we don't know who done it.

  I mean talk to all of them. I want to talk to them about something else any way.

  About what?

  Maybe I can make the person who did it come forward and admit it.

  Mister, if you believe that you don't know anything a-tall about convicts. You talked to Raymond and Harold, didn't you?

  Yes, I did.

  And they won't even tell you who done it, will they?

  I can't understand that.

  Because they're convicts. They know if they ever told you they'd get their heads beat against a cell wall. This is between them and the other convicts. If the convicts don't want them to paint up like savages then I believe we should stay out of it and let them settle it theirselves.

  But they've got rights the two boys. What about them?

  I don't know. I'm not talking about justice, Fisher said. I'm talking about running a prison. If the convicts want these two to act a certain way or not act a certain way, we should keep out of it. It keeps them quiet and it don't cost us a cent. When you push against the whole convict body it had better be important and you had better be ready to shoot and kill people if they push back.

  I told them they could put on their paint if they wanted.

  Well, that's up to you, Fisher said. Or it's up to them. I notice they been keeping their faces clean.

  When Mr. Manly didn't speak right away, Fisher said, If it's all right with you I want to get downstairs and keep an eye on things. It's Visiting Day.

  Mr. Manly looked up. That's right, it is. You know, I didn't tell you I been wanting to make an announcement. I believe I'll do it right now sure, while some of them have their relatives here visiting. Mr. Manly's expression was bright and cheerful, as if he thought this was sure a swell idea.

  I don't know what you're doing, Shelby said, but so far it isn't worth a rat's ass, is it? He sat facing his brother, Virgil, who was leaning in against the table and looking directly at Frank to show he was sincere and doing everything he could to find out when the goddamn train was leaving. There were convicts and their visitors all the way down the line of tables that divided the mess hall: hunched over talking, filling the room with a low hum of voices.

  It ain't like looking up a schedule, Virgil said. I believe this would be a special train, two or three cars probably. All right, I ask a lot of questions over at the railroad yard they begin wondering who I am, and somebody says hey, that's Virgil Shelby. His brother's up on the hill.

  That's Virgil Shelby, Frank said. Jesus, do you believe people know who you are? You could be a mine engineer. You could be interested in hauling in equipment and you ask how they handle special trains. 'You ever put on a special run? You do? Like what kind?' Jesus, I mean you got to use your head and think for a change.

  Frank, I'm ready. I don't need to know more tha
n a day ahead when you leave. I got me some good boys and, I'm telling you, we're going to do it.

  You're going to do what?

  Get you off that train.

  How?

  Stop it if we have to.

  How, Virgil?

  Dynamite the track.

  Then what?

  Then climb aboard.

  With the guards shooting at you?

  You got to be doing something too, Virgil said. Inside the train.

  I'm doing something right now. I'm seeing you don't know what you're talking about. And unless we know when the train leaves and where it stops, we're not going to be able to work out a plan. Do you see that, Virgil?

  The train goes to Florence. We know that.

  Do we know if it stops anywhere? If it stops, Virgil, wouldn't that be the place to get on?

  If it stops.

  That's right. That's what you got to find out. Because how are you going to know where to wait and when to wait if you don't know when the train's leaving here? Virgil, are you listening to me?

  His brother was looking past him at something. Shelby glanced over his shoulder. He turned then and kept looking as Mr. Manly, with Bob Fisher on the stairs at the far end of the mess hall, said, May I have your attention a moment, please?

  Mr. Manly waited until the hum of voices trailed off and he saw the faces down the line of tables looking toward him: upturned, solemn faces, like people in church waiting for the sermon. Mr. Manly grinned. He always liked to open with a light touch.

  He said, I'm not going to make a speech, if any of you are worried about that. I just want to make a brief announcement while your relatives and loved ones are here. It will save the boys writing to tell you and I know some of them don't write as often as they should. By the way, I'm Everett Manly, the acting superintendent here in Mr. Rynning's absence. He paused to clear his throat.

  Now then I am very pleased to announce that this will be the last Visiting Day at Yuma Territorial Prison. A week from tomorrow the first group of men will leave on the Southern Pacific for the new penitentiary at Florence, a fine new place I think you all are going to be very pleased with. Now you won't be able to tell your relatives or loved ones what day exactly you'll be leaving, but I promise you in three weeks everybody will be out of here and this place will open its doors forever and become a page in history. That's about all I can tell you right now for the present. However, if any of you have questions I will be glad to try and answer them.

  Frank Shelby kept looking at the little man on the stairway. He said to himself, It's a trick. But the longer he stared at him the little fellow standing up there waiting for questions he knew Mr. Manly was telling the truth.

  Virgil said, Well, I guess that answers the question, doesn't it?

  Shelby didn't look at his brother. He was afraid he might lose his temper and hit Virgil in the mouth.

  Chapter 11

  For three sacks of Mail Pouch, R. E. Baylis told Shelby the convicts would be sent out in groups of about forty at a time, going over every other day, it looked like, on the regular morning run.

  R. E. Baylis even got Shelby a Southern Pacific schedule. Leave Yuma at 6:15 A. M. Pass through Sentinel at 8:56; no stop unless they needed coal or water. They'd stop at Gila at 9:51, where they'd be fed on the train; no one allowed off. They'd arrive in Phoenix at 2:40 P. M., switch the cars over to a Phoenix & Eastern train and arrive at Florence about 5:30 P. M. Bob Fisher planned to make the first run and the last one, the first one to see what the trip was like and the last one so he could lock up and officially hand over the keys.

  Shelby asked R. E. Baylis if he would put him and his friends down for the first run, because they were sure anxious to get out of here. R. E. Baylis said he didn't know if it could be done, but maybe he could try to arrange it. Shelby gave him fifty dollars to try as hard as he could.

  The guard told Bob Fisher about Shelby's request, since Fisher would see the list anyway. Why the first train? Fisher wanted to know. What was the difference? R. E. Baylis asked. All the trains were going to the penitentiary. Fisher put himself in Shelby's place and thought about it a while. Maybe Shelby was anxious to leave, that could be a fact. But it wasn't the reason he wanted to be on the first train. It was so he would know exactly which train he'd be on, so he could tell somebody outside.

  Fisher said all right, tell him he could go on the first train. But then, when the time came, they'd pull Shelby out of line and hold him for the last train. I want him riding with me, Fisher said, but not before I look over the route.

  It bothered R. E. Baylis because Shelby had always treated him square and given him tobacco and things. He stopped by Shelby's cell that evening and said Lord, he could sure use that fifty dollars, but he would give it back. Bob Fisher was making them go on the last train. Shelby looked pretty disappointed. By God, he was big about it though. He let R. E. Baylis keep the fifty dollars anyway.

  The next morning when he saw Junior and Soonzy and Joe Dean, Shelby grinned and said, Boys, always trust a son of a bitch to be a son of a bitch. We're taking the last train.

  All he had to do now was to get a letter of instructions to Virgil at the railroad hotel in Yuma. For a couple more sacks of Mail Pouch R. E. Baylis would probably deliver it personally.

  Virgil Shelby and his three men arrived at Stout's Hotel in Gila on a Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Stout and a couple of Southern Pacific division men in the lobby got a kick out of these dudes who said they were heading south into the Saucedas to do some prospecting. All they had were bedrolls and rifles and a pack mule loaded with suitcases. The dudes were as serious about it though as they were ignorant. They bought four remount horses at the livery and two 50-pound cases of No. 1 dynamite at Tom Child's trading store, and on Thursday morning they rode out of Gila. They rode south two miles before turning west and doubling back to follow the train tracks.

  They arrived in sight of the Southern Pacific water stop at Sentinel that evening and from a grove of trees studied the wooden buildings and frame structure that stood silently against a dark line of palo verdes. A water tank, a coaling shed, a section house and a little one-room station with a light showing in the window, that's all there was here.

  As soon as Virgil saw the place he knew Frank was right again. Sometimes it made him mad when he sounded dumb in front of his brother. He had finished the sixth grade and Frank had gone on to the seventh or eighth. Maybe when Frank was looking at him, waiting, he would say the wrong thing or sound dumb; but Jesus, he had gone into places with a gun and put the gun in a man's face and got what he wanted. Frank didn't have to worry about him going in with a gun. He had not found out the important facts of the matter talking to the railroad people. He had not thought up the plan in all the time he'd had to do it. But he could sure do what Frank said in his letter. He had three good boys who would go with him for two hundred and fifty dollars each and bring the guns and know how to use them. These boys drank too much and got in fights, but they were the captains for this kind of work. Try and pick them. Try and get three fellows who had the nerve to stop a prison train and take off the people you wanted and do it right, without a lot of shooting and getting nervous and running off into the desert and hiding in a cave. He wished he had more like them, but these three said they could do the job and would put their guns on anybody for two hundred and fifty dollars.

  He had a man named Howard Crowder who had worked for railroad lines in both the United States and Mexico, before he turned to holding up trains and spent ten years in Yuma.

  He had an old hand named Dancey who had ridden with him and Frank before, and had been with them at the Cornelia Mine payroll robbery and had got away.

  He had a third one named Billy Santos who had smuggled across the border whatever could be carried and was worth anything and knew all the trails and water holes south of here.

  Five o'clock the next morning it still looked good and still looked easy as they walked into the little station at Sentin
el with their suitcases and asked the S. P. man when the next eastbound train was coming through.

  The S. P. man said 8:56 this morning, but that train was not due to stop on account of it was carrying convicts some place.

  Virgil asked him if there was anybody over in the section house. The S. P. man said no, he was alone. A crew had gone out on the 8:45 to Gila the night before and another crew was coming from Yuma sometime today.

  Virgil looked over at Billy Santos. Billy went outside. Howard Crowder and Dancey remained sitting on the bench. The suitcases and bedrolls and rifles and two cases of dynamite were on the floor by them. No, the S. P. man behind the counter said, they couldn't take the 8:56, though they could get on the 8:48 this evening if they wanted to hang around all day. But what will you do with your horses? he said then. You rode in here, didn't you?

  Virgil was at the counter now. He nodded to the telegrapher's key on the desk behind the S. P. man and said, I hope you can work that thing, mister.

  The S. P. man said, Sure, I can work it. Else I wouldn't be here.

  That's good, Virgil said. It's better if they hear a touch they are used to hearing.

  The S. P. man gave Virgil a funny look, then let his gaze shift over to the two men on the bench with all the gear in front of them. They looked back at him; they didn't move or say anything. The S. P. man was wondering if he should send a message to the division office at Gila; tell them there were three dudes hanging around here with rifles and dynamite and ask if they had been seen in Gila the day before. He could probably get away with it. How would these people know what he was saying? Just then the Mexican-looking one came back in, his eyes on the one standing by the counter, and shook his head.

  Virgil said, You all might as well get dressed.

  The S. P. man watched them open the suitcases and take out gray and white convict suits. He watched them pull the pants and coats on over the clothes they were wearing and shove revolvers down into the pants and button the coats. One of them brought a double-barrel shotgun out of a suitcase in two pieces and sat down to fit the stock to the barrels. Watching them, the S. P. man said to Virgil Shelby, Hey, what's going on? What is this?