Red Grass River (13 page)

“Your daddy’d skin you alive he knew what you’re up to,” Claude Calder said. He fingered his mutilated right ear, a nervous habit he’d developed of late.

“Hell, bubba,” Bob Ashley said, “tomorrow night Johnny’ll be a free man and Daddy wont be doin nothing but pattin me on the back for it, you’ll see.”

“He damn sure will,” Kid Lowe said. “Old Joe’s a smart fella and smart fellas dont care about nothin but results. I’m proud to be in on this with you, Bob.”

“Well I’m proud to have you in on it, Kid.”

They raised their cups in a toast to their success. A whistle shrilled and a locomotive heaved a huge gasp and a train began its huffing, clanking departure and the smells of smoke and hot cinders carried into the restaurant.

They left for Miami before sunup, clattering along in a Model T touring car with the top down, the headlamps casting weak yellow light over the sandy road ahead. They’d stayed up late the night before, repeatedly toasting themselves for the boldness of their plan, and every man of them had walked at a list when they at last headed for the hotel and to bed. They’d directed the night manager to awaken them at five o’clock sharp and so had the man tried to do, but his pounding on the doors had failed to rouse them and he’d had to go in the rooms and shake each of them in turn to grumbling consciousness. Now they were all of them red-eyed and surly and their spirits did not lift until Bob Ashley reached under the front seat and withdrew a sealed bottle of true Kentucky bourbon.

“Was savin this for after we got Johnny in the car,” he said, “but bedamn if I aint in bad need of a little bite of it right now.” He unsealed the bottle and turned it up and bubbled it with a huge swal-
low. He blew a hard breath and said in a strictured voice, “Whoo! That oughta chase some of them snakes out of my head.”

They passed the bottle around and they all quickly came to feel much better. By the time they went through the hamlet of Lemon City just a couple of miles north of Miami the bottle was empty. Kid Lowe threw it arcing from the car and it shattered against the trunk of an oak where several small Negro children were playing and the kids scattered like spooked grackles. The men’s hard laughter trailed out of the car.

They stopped at a Little River gasoline station and alighted and removed the from seat to expose the fuel tank. Bob unscrewed the cap and poked the sounding stick into the tank and determined that it was more than half-full but went ahead and filled it anyway.

A pair of greasy dogs suddenly came together in a snarling snap-ping tangle alongside the garage and as quickly broke apart and one of them slunk away as the other stood growling after it. The day was brightly blue but uncommonly cool and dry for June in South Florida: a thermometer on the front wall registered but seventy-seven degrees. A sweetly briny breeze came off the ocean and rustled the palms. Despite the fair weather the three were avidly thirsty from the previous night’s drinking and the morning’s bourbon and they bought two bottles of cold beer each from the station proprietor’s secret cache in the rear room and the beer did appease their dry tongues. Then they drove on into Miami.

They passed the Florida East Coast Railroad depot and all of them glanced down the adjoining road that led west to a fish camp at the edge of the Everglades and was their alternate escape route. They drove slowly down the boulevard and admired the beautiful schooners anchored offshore and the yachts moored in the bay and tied up at the docks. They pointed out to each other every pretty woman they saw strolling on the sidewalks and even some who were not so pretty.

They marveled aloud at the rate the town was growing and only Bob lamented this steady rise in population, predicting that the day would come when there’d be so damn many people in Miami they’d probably have to drain the Everglades all the way up to the river rapids. The more people came the more they’d have to drain just to make room for them—and then what would happen to all the good hunting, he wanted to know. Kid Lowe and Claude Calder snorted at this.

Kid Lowe said he sounded like some old fart who wanted everything to stay exactly the same forever. “This is progress, brother,” Kid Lowe said. “It’s what makes the world go round. Get in its way and it’ll run right over your young ass.”

“If this is progress, you all can have it,” Bob Ashley said.

A couple of blocks above Flagler Street Claude turned off the bay boulevard and navigated the inner streets and they came now to the hotel where they’d stayed and went past it and then slowly past the Dade County Jail. Since John Ashley’s incarceration within, the jail’s outer doors were secured at sundown with double lengths of heavy-link chain and heavy padlocks, but during the day the chains were let off. A pair of policemen stood guard at the front door.

They went another block and parked at the curb on the other side of the street and from there had a clear view of the jail. A garage stood directly opposite the jailhouse and cars came and went through its wide front doors. To this side of the jail building and adjoining it was the small residence of the chief jailer Wilber Hendrickson. Bob Ashley checked his pocket watch. “Plenty of time,” he said. “It aint but twenty after twelve.” They had studied Hendrickson’s routine and knew he came home for dinner every day at one o’clock.

The time passed slowly. No one talked. They checked their weapons and then checked them again. They affected to read the newspapers and magazines they’d brought along. None would have admitted it to the others but all were now feeling the pain of the morning’s alcohol and every man of them was dry of mouth from hangover and apprehension. Few people passed by on this street and those who did paid them no mind. At five minutes to one the jail’s front doors swung inward and out stepped Wilbur Hendrickson, a tall sandyhaired policeman with a heavy paunch. Hendrickson chatted with the cops at the door a moment before coming down the steps and turning toward the house next door.

“Let’s do it,” Bob Ashley said. He and Kid Lowe got out of the car.

“Be ready, Claude,” Bob Ashley said. He started across the street toward the jailer’s house and Kid Lowe followed directly behind. They carried their pistols in their waistbands under their untucked shirts. Hendrickson was going through the fence gate and a smiling matronly woman waited for him at the top of the porch steps.

Bob Ashley believed that the more complex a plan, the more that could go wrong with it, and thus the best plan was the simplest. His plan was to get the cell keys from Hendrickson, get the drop on the jail guards and get into the building, get John out of his cell, and get away quick to the safety of the Everglades. Clean and simple. Should complexities arise he would deal with them when they did.

Claude Calder’s job was to get the car in position and wait with
the motor running, ready to pull up fast in front of the jail when he saw them bring Johnny out. He now went around to the front of the Ford to crank up the engine. The motor was a good one and usually started on the first good spin of the crank. Not this time. Nor did it fire up on the second spin, nor on the third. Claude Calder’s face was suddenly dripping sweat, his shirt sopped. Kid Lowe and Bob Ashley were almost to the house and seemed not to hear the trouble he was having cops at the jailhouse door. He hurried to the driver’s side and reset the spark lever and then tried the crank again. No luck. Once more he adjusted the spark and this time reset the throttle too and then again spun the crank. Nothing. He felt like shooting the car for a traitor.

Bob and the Kid passed through the fence gate in front of the little house and went up the walk and up onto the porch which was shaded by a lush umbrella tree and Claude Calder could no longer see them. A car came out of the garage across the street from the jail and drove off in the other direction and it occurred to him that the place was full of cars for the taking. He restrained himself from running as he headed for the garage, affecting an air of casual passerby, lips pursed as if whistling, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. As he drew even with the jailer’s house he looked across the street and saw Bob at the screen door and holding his .38 behind him. The Kid stood off to the side and held his own revolver low against his leg. Just then the Kid looked over and spied Claude Calder and he stepped into the sunlight at the edge of the porch and his aspect was perplexed. Claude was now at the garage entry and wanted to somehow let the Kid know what he was up to but the cops at the jail door were idly looking his way and there was nothing to do but go into the garage.

Kid Lowe said, “Hey Bob, you better—” but then a raspy voice said, “Who’s there? Can I help you?” He turned and saw the large figure of the jailer filling the space behind the door, a bib napkin tucked into his collar.

“I’m Bob Ashley, you son of a bitch,” Bob said, and brought the .38 around to brandish it in Hendrickson’s face. “I’ll have those jail keys and I mean right now. Your pistol too. Hand it over easy.”

Hendrickson looked down at the ring of keys attached to his belt as if he was surprised to find them there. His gun was holstered on his other hip. Bob Ashley cocked the revolver and said, “
Now
, Goddamn you. Keys and gun.”

Hendrickson’s eyes widened as if he’d only just now realized what
was happening. “All right, son—you bet—all right,” he said, fumbled at the key ring.

A woman’s voice called from the shadows within: “Will?
Will
, who is it?”

“Tell her get out here,” Bob Ashley said. He leaned to the side to peer past the jailer into the dim living room.

“No!” Hendrickson said. “You leave her be!” And went for the gun on his hip.

Bob Ashley cursed and fired through the screen and the pistolblast was huge and all in an instant the round passed through Hendrickson’s heart and broke through his shoulderblade and burst out his back and struck the wall behind him in a dark spray of blood. Hendrickson fell as if his legs had gone to water. The woman screamed. Bob Ashley yanked the door off its latch and was squatting to remove the keys from the dead man’s belt when she came rushing from the hallway with a double-barreled shotgun. He dove out to the porch and went tumbling down the steps as she discharged both loads like a thunder-clap and the screen door came apart and portions of the door-jamb sprayed over him into the yard.

Then he was up and running out the fence gate with his pistol still in hand and he caught a glimpse of policemen coming quick from the jail. He ran down the sidewalk ahead of the woman’s screams and the shouting of the cops and saw the Model T still at the curb and Claude Calder nowhere in sight—only a spotted dog trotting away and glancing back at him fearfully. Came a gunshot and the dog bolted and Bob Ashley felt his innards constrict and his pounding heart surged higher into his throat. He ran past the car and around the corner and wondered whatever became of Kid Lowe.

He was on a glaring white street of boarding houses and small store. People stool outside their doors and pointed him out to each other as he ran past and some of them up ahead ducked back indoors on seeing the gun in his hand and some simply crouched as though they might dodge any bullet he sent their way. Some behind him now yelling “Over there! Yonder he goes!” and he knew they were advising pursuers. His chest felt stretched to bursting and every breath seared and he saw at the corner ahead an idling bread truck parked before a grocery store and the driver just then getting into the cab.

He ran to the truck and opened the passenger-side door and clambered onto the seat and thrust the pistol into the driver’s open-mouthed face and yelled, “Go!
GO! GO!
” The driver was young and freckled and his eyes were big as eggs and for a moment it seemed he would
remain immobilized with fright—and then he worked the shift lever with a grinding of gears and the truck lurched into motion.

Behind them came policemen on the run and the lead cop stopped and aimed and fired twice, one round thunking into a bread case, the other ricocheting off the rear fender. Bob Ashley hunkered down on the seat and was glad of the protection of the bread cases back of him. He hollered, “Head for the train station!
Go!
” His thought was to get to the county road branching off the Dixie Highway at the FEC depot and take that short road to the edge of the Everglades and go it on foot from there. If he could make it to the Devil’s Garden he’d be safe.

He looked back around the bread cases and saw a cop halting an oncoming Dodge and hustling into the car on the passenger side and now the car began to give chase. There sounded another gunshot and he heard the bullet hum past and he jerked back into the truck. The driver was bent low and peering at the road ahead from under the top of the steering wheel, eyes wild and knuckles white. “Oh sweet baby Jesus,” he breathed.

A woman started to run across the street in front of them and then froze like a jacklit doe directly ahead of the truck. The driver stepped hard on the brake and the truck slewed to the right and bounced up over the curb and sideswiped the front of a hardware store in an explosive burst of window glass and veered left again and cases of bread tumbled off the truckbed and broke apart in the street and sent loaves scattering and the truck crashed into the rear of a parked Buick and both the driver and Bob Ashley hit the windshield with their heads and reduced it to shards.

For a moment he was addled and thought he’d been blinded and then realized his vision was but hampered by blood streaming from his forehead. Beside him the driver was slumped unconscious with his head on the door sill and blood running from his pulped nose. He heard an excited babbling and became aware of a crowd gathering at the truck, saw people gaping and pointing—men mostly, some women, some children, some of the faces awed, some horrified, some clenched in outrage. And then a portion of the crowd jumped back as a car braked squealing to a stop beside the steam-hissing truck and the passenger door flew open and a policeman spilled out and loomed over the unconscious driver and pointed a gun at Bob Ashley and said, “Deliver, you son of a bitch! Deliver or—”