MacCallister Kingdom Come (8 page)

“One thousand dollars,” A. M. Jaco said to Lou Miller, who was standing in the corridor, separated by the bars of Jaco's cell.

“Where are you going to get one thousand dollars?” Miller was a trusty due to be released in one more week. At the moment, he was supposed to be sweeping the corridor in front of the row of cells.

“I've got a thousand dollars put away in a secret stash. Actually, I've got more than that,” Jaco said. “All you have to do is get me a key. I know you can do that. I've seen you come in 'n out when you're cleanin' and such.”

“Why should I take a chance on doing anything like that? I'm gettin' out in a week. I'd be crazy to risk such a thing.”

“What are you goin' to do for money when you get out?” Jaco asked. “Wouldn't you like to have a thousand dollars? Why, with that much money you could go somewhere new 'n start all over again. Nobody would ever have to know you was once in prison.”

“A thousand dollars would be good to have,” Miller said. “Where is it hidden?”

“You get me a key so's I can get out of here, then meet me in Seven Rivers. I'll give you the money then.”

“Is that where you got the money hid? In Seven Rivers?” Miller asked.

“No, it ain't where I got it hid, 'n I ain't goin' to tell you where I got it hid. But I will have the money when you meet me there.”

Miller nodded. “All right. It's a deal.”

 

 

The next day Miller was mopping the corridor out in front of the jail cells. When he got in front of Jaco's cell, he knocked the pail over, causing the dirty water to splash into the cell.

“You clumsy pig! Watch what you're doin'!” Jaco shouted loudly. Going up to the bars, he saw a key lying in the water that had been splashed into his cell, and he put his foot on it.

“What's goin' on in there?” the guard called.

“This oaf spilled his dirty water into my cell,” Jaco called.

“Did he?” The guard chuckled. “Miller, if it was up to me, I'd let you out a day earlier just for makin' Jaco a little more uncomfortable.”

“I didn't think you would mind all that much,” Miller replied to the guard. Very quietly he said to Jaco, “Seven Rivers, two weeks from today.”

“I'll be there,” Jaco promised.

Jaco took the key back into his cell and slipped it into a cut he had made in his mattress. Then he resumed working on his dummy.

 

 

Three days later, Jaco lay on his bunk with his hands laced behind his head waiting for the guard to complete his ten o'clock rounds. He and Blue Putt were scheduled to be hanged at nine o'clock the next morning.

He heard the door open at the far end of the corridor.

“What do you think, Putt?” Jaco heard the guard say. “This is your last night. You won't have to put up with me anymore after tonight.” The guard giggled. “Just think about it. This time tomorrow night, you'll be dead.”

Jaco heard some sort of response from Putt, but it wasn't loud enough or clear enough for him to understand.

Footfalls signaled that the guard was coming up the corridor to Jaco's cell. He held his lantern up to the bars and, with the reflector, cast a beam of light into the shadowed cell. Playing the light through the dark cell, it fell upon Jaco's bunk. Jaco's eyes were open.

“Hell, Jaco, it's ten o'clock. You're most always asleep by now. What's the matter? Can't you sleep any tonight?”

“No,” Jaco replied.

“Well, I can't say as I blame you,” the guard said. “I mean, thinkin' about gettin' hung tomorrow would just about keep anyone awake. Who would want to sleep on their last night alive? I mean, no more hours than you got left to live, I can understand how you'd want to be awake for 'em.” The guard chuckled, but Jaco didn't answer.

“Well, one good thing. Fellas like you 'n Putt are bound to have lots of friends when you get to hell. And when you stop to think of it, you know that's where all the bad women wind up, too. Why, I wouldn't be none surprised a-tall if, by this time tomorrow night, you won't be partyin' with the likes o' Sam Bass, Curly Bill Brocus, Jesse James, and purt nigh' ever bad girl there ever was. Yes, sir, you just go look those fellas up. I'm sure they'll be glad to show you around.”

“That's right, Lucas. Me 'n Putt will be partyin' with liquor 'n woman, 'n you'll still be workin' in this prison.”

“What do you think, Jaco? You want to trade places with me?” Lucas asked.

“What? And miss out on all that?”

Lucas laughed loudly, and was still laughing as he walked away.

Once the guard left, taking his lantern with him, the cell was again plunged into darkness. Jaco continued to lie on his bunk, perfectly still, listening to the receding clomp of the guard's footsteps and the echoing rattle of the door being closed.

Not until there was one full minute of silence did Jaco hop out of bed. He stepped up to the bars, where he looked and listened until he was satisfied the guard was no longer present. Then he reached down into the chamber pot and extracted something wrapped in a towel. The towel was wet with urine, and soiled with offal. When he unwrapped the towel, it proved to be a gourd, but not just any gourd. This gourd had hair and eyebrows, so that it resembled a man's face. Jaco put the gourd on the small, thin pillow, then draped the blanket in such a way as to make it look as if a man was sleeping peacefully in the bunk.

That done, he dug around in the padding of his mattress until he found the key.

Stepping up to the cell door, Jaco stuck his arm through the bars, inserted the key carefully, then turned it. He was rewarded with the satisfying click as the key tripped the tumblers in the lock. Pushing the door open quietly, he stuck his head out and looked up and down the center corridor. Lucas, the guard who had checked on him but a moment earlier, was truly gone, and the coast was clear.

Jaco closed the door and locked it behind him, then he looked through the door back into his cell. He was satisfied with what he saw. From the corridor and in the reduced light, to a no more than cursory inspection, it would appear as if he were still in bed.

Jaco moved quickly down to a cell on the other side and at the opposite end of the corridor, where he knew he would find Blue Putt. The prison officials had purposely separated them as far as they could, so that they wouldn't be able to “come up with any mischief.”

Jaco stepped up to Blue Putt's cell. “Putt,” he whispered. “Are you ready?”

“Damn! You done it! I didn't believe you'd be able to actual do it.”

“I told you we was goin' to get out of here, didn't I?”

For purposes of economics, rather than have all the doors keyed differently, the territorial prison of New Mexico was arranged so that one key would fit every cell door. That made it simpler for the guards to move the prisoners around. It also made it simpler for Jaco to open the door to Putt's cell.

Just as Jaco had done, so too had Blue Putt prepared a dummy head, and though it wasn't as good as the one Jaco had made, it did serve its purpose. If someone didn't look too closely, they could easily believe that Putt was sleeping in his bed.

Moving quietly through the dark, they walked down to the far end of the corridor, the end with the door that opened into a hallway connecting two buildings. Jaco knew that the key he had would fit that door, as well.

It helped that, for the moment, Jaco and Putt were the only two prisoners on death row. There was little chance of their escape being compromised, at least at this stage of the operation.

Jaco opened that door that led into the hallway, then closed it behind him. The hallway was not part of the confinement area, so the windows had no bars and could be easily opened. He raised the nearest window, and he and Putt climbed through, then dropped down into the prison yard.

They were free of the cell, but not out of prison, for the prison yard was surrounded by a high wall with guard towers at every corner.

“Damn! Look at that.” Putt pointed toward a gallows. This was the first time either of them had seen it. “They was gettin' ready for us, wasn't they?”

“Yeah, well, it ain't our worry now, is it?” Jaco replied. “Come on.”

Moving swiftly through the dark, they hurried across the open yard to the prison kitchen. This, too, was a part of their escape plan. Every Monday and Friday night, a garbage wagon would come into the prison grounds to carry away the kitchen slop. The prison paid to have the garbage hauled off, and the garbageman made more money by selling the edible slop to the pig farmers. Jaco got the key on Tuesday, which meant he missed the opportunity to try his plan on Monday. He had to wait until Friday. It was not only the next opportunity to take advantage of the garbage wagon, it was positively the last opportunity to incorporate the garbage wagon into his escape. And without the wagon, he knew there was no way they would be able to get outside the walls.

Jaco and Putt hid under the kitchen porch where they waited until the wagon was loaded and the driver had gone back inside to conduct his business.

“Now,” Jaco said.

The two men moved from the porch to the wagon, where they lifted up the canvas then crawled under it to hide in the slop that was being carried away from the prison. The canvas was used to help contain the smell so the wagon wouldn't be so offensive when it passed through residential areas. It did an excellent job of containing the smell. Inside, the stench was so strong as to be almost unbearable. They could barely breathe.

As they waited for the driver to conclude his business and return to the wagon, Jaco lifted enough of the canvas to glance back toward the big, dimly lit blockhouse from which he and Putt had just come. The guard would have already made another round, but so far, there had been no escape alarm given. So far, the guard had been fooled into thinking they were both asleep in their bunks, and the dummies that he and Putt had made were doing their job

Five minutes later, the back door to the kitchen opened and a wedge of orange lantern light spilled out onto the same porch under which Jaco and Putt had been hiding earlier.

Two men came outside.

“What gets me is how they can call garbage edible, and nonedible,” the prison official was saying. “Ain't none of it edible at all, far as I can tell.”

“If pigs will eat it, that means it's edible . . . at least to pigs,” the wagon driver said.

“Yeah, well, if you charged us by the stink, we'd have to pay you more money just to have you haul it off tonight,” the prison official said, laughing.

“Fish heads 'n guts do have a way of stinkin'. But it seems like the more the slop stinks, the more them pigs seem to liken it,” the driver said with a chuckle.

“When you think about it, I suppose there ain't nobody that's ever said that pigs got 'ny sense.” The prison official waved as the garbageman drove the wagon away.

A moment later, the wagon started toward the front gate. As they passed the kennel, the dogs started barking.

One of the dogs managed to leap over the kennel fence and came rushing toward the wagon, growling viciously, his fangs bared. He darted toward the wagon and jumped at it, barking and growling.

“Get the hell out of here!” cried the driver of the garbage wagon. He banged against the side of the wagon with his whip.

“What's going on?” one of the guards asked as the wagon stopped at the gate.

“What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on. Your damn dog has gone crazy,” the driver answered. “Call him off.”

The guard yelled at the dog, who stood crouching, his head lowered, as he continued to growl. Finally one of the dog handlers arrived.

“What's got into him?” the guard asked.

The handler smiled. “More 'n likely he's wantin' some of what you're haulin'.”

“Yeah? Well he can have it, if you're willin' to pay for it. Pig farmers pay me for this.”

“Smells like fish,” the handler said.

“That's most what it is.”

“Yeah, well, I don't want my dogs eatin' fish. They'll get bones in their throat.”

“Well, open the gate then,” the wagon driver said. “I'd like to get out of here before he takes it in his mind to attack me.”

The guard nodded at someone up on the wall and the gate, assisted by swinging weights, opened. The driver snapped his reins and the team moved forward through the open space.

“Let's get out of this here wagon,” Putt said quietly. “I'm damn near to suffocatin'.”

“Not yet,” Jaco replied. “Not till I'm sure we're far enough away from the prison that we ain't likely to be seen.”

Jaco waited until
he
reached the point where he couldn't wait any longer. Surely, he thought, they were far enough away to take a chance. “All right. Get out of the back and off the road quick as you can.”

Dropping down onto the road, they scrambled quickly into the drainage ditch that paralleled the road, then lay there for two minutes, breathing deeply, gulping in the fresh, clean air.

Finally, Jaco stood up. “Let's get goin'.”

“Which way?”

Jaco looked up at the night sky, found the Big Dipper, then located the North Star. “That way is Texas,” he said, pointing east. “I want to get the hell out of New Mexico.”

At three o'clock in the morning, the two men rode into the small, quiet town. The only sounds were night-singing crickets and frogs and the gentle squeak of a sign moving slightly in the breeze.

“Stop here,” Jaco said. “If we ride all the way up to the jail, we'll more 'n likely be heard.”

They tied the horses off in front of the feed store. Jaco pulled the double-barreled gun from the saddle holster, broke it open to check the loads, then snapped it shut. He and Putt moved quietly, staying in the shadows until they reached the jail. A soft golden glow shined through the window. Creeping up to the window, they looked inside and saw a deputy leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, his arms folded across his chest, and a hat tipped down over his eyes.

Opening the front door of the jail, they stepped in quietly. Holding the shotgun so as to be able to use it in a butt stroke, Jaco walked toward the deputy.

Something awakened him and he pushed his hat back and looked up just in time for his eyes to register fear. Jaco slammed the butt of the shotgun between his eyes before the deputy could make a sound.

Rifling quickly through the desk, Jaco found a pistol and holster and handed it to Putt. With that one and the one Jaco took off the dead deputy, they were now armed.

They went into the apartment attached to the back of the jail where Sheriff Baxter lived with his wife and his elderly mother-in-law. Loud snoring was coming from one of the two bedrooms.

“Go in there and kill whoever you find,” Jaco ordered, pointing to one of the rooms. “I'll take this one.” He indicated the room from which the loud snoring was coming.

Jaco had chosen the right room for his personal wish for vengeance. Sheriff Baxter was lying on his back, his mouth open, snoring loudly. Jaco held the end of the pistol one inch from the sheriff's forehead and pulled the trigger.

The sheriff's wife sat up with a start, but Jaco killed her before she could make a sound. He heard a gunshot coming from the other room.

“Let's get out of here,” Putt said, meeting Jaco in the living room.

“Not until we let the prisoners go,” Jaco said.

“Why should we let the prisoners go? What the hell do we care about them?”

“We don't care,” Jaco said. “But, if the deputy and the sheriff are both dead, and the prisoners escaped, who are people going to blame for the killing?”

Putt laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, that's a great idea!”

A minute later, Jaco and Putt hurried back into the jail, where they unlocked the cell doors to let out the two prisoners.

“What's happening?” one of the prisoners asked.

“You're free,” Jaco said. “But you'd better get out of here fast.”

“Gee, thanks, mister!”

“I'd go down the alley if I was you,” Jaco said.

The two men ran out back as Jaco and Putt went out front, then moved quickly back to their horses. Dogs were barking and they could hear some shouting.

“What is it?” a man carrying a shotgun asked. “What was the shooting?”

“Jailbreak,” Jaco said. “They killed the deputy, the sheriff, and his entire family. They're runnin' north down the alley.”

“Tom!” the man shouted down the street toward another man. “Jailbreak! They killed the sheriff and his family. In the alley!”

Other armed men had appeared outside, and they started running toward the north end of town. Jaco and Putt mounted their horses as they heard shooting.

“There they are!” someone shouted. “They've run into the stable!”

“Don't let 'em get away!” another voice called. “Good Lord, they just kilt the sheriff 'n his whole family!”

“They ain't goin' to get away. I know exactly where they are.”

As Jaco and Putt rode out of town, they heard shouts and more shooting.

“We got 'em, by God!” someone yelled. “We kilt both of 'em!”

“I got to hand it to you, Jaco,” Putt said. “That was real smart, what you done.”