Forty Lashes Less One

  Put me on an outside detail.

  We got a party building a wall over by the cemetery.

  Hauling the bricks?

  Bricks already there.

  That'll be all right, Shelby said. He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bunk. He was alone in the cell, in the upper of a double bunk. The triple bunk opposite him was stacked with cardboard boxes and a wooden crate and a few canvas sacks. A shelf and mirror hung from the back wall. There was also a chair by the wall with a hole cut out of the seat and a bucket underneath. A roll of toilet paper rested on one of the arms. The convicts called the chair Shelby's throne. Get somebody to empty the bucket, will you? Looking at the guard again, Shelby said, You need anything?

  R. E. Baylis touched his breast pocket. Well, I guess I could use some chew.

  Box right by your head, Shelby said. I got Mail Pouch and Red Man. Or I got some Copenhagen if you want.

  R. E. Baylis fished a hand in the box. I might as well take a couple case I don't see you again today.

  You know where to find me. Shelby dropped to the floor, pulled on half-boots, hopping a couple of times to keep his balance, then ran a hand through his dark hair as he straightened up, standing now in his boots and long underwear. I believe I was supposed to get a clean outfit today.

  Washing machine broke down yesterday.

  Tomorrow then for sure, uh? Shelby had an easy, unhurried way of talking. It was known that he never raised his voice or got excited. They said the way you told if he was mad or irritated, he would fool with his mustache; he would keep smoothing it down with two fingers until he decided what had to be done and either did it himself or had somebody else do it. Frank Shelby was serving forty-five years for armed robbery and second-degree murder and had brought three of his men with him to Yuma, each of them found guilty on the same counts and serving thirty years apiece.

  Junior was one of them. He banged through the cell door as Shelby was getting into his prison stripes, buttoning his coat. You got your mean go-to-hell look on this morning, Shelby said. Was that you yelling just now?

  They stuck a nigger in our cell last night while we was asleep. Junior turned to nail the guard with his look, putting the blame on him.

  It wasn't me, R. E. Baylis said. I just come on duty.

  You don't throw his black ass out, we will, Junior said. By Jesus, this was Worley Lewis, Jr. talking, nineteen-year-old convict going on forty-nine before he would ever see the outside of a penitentiary, but he was one of Frank Shelby's own and that said he could stand up to a guard and mouth him if he had a good enough reason. I'm telling you, Soonzy'll kill the son of a bitch.

  I'll find out why the guard began.

  It was a mistake, Shelby said. Put him in the wrong cell is all.

  He's in there now, great big buck. Joe Dean seen him first, woke me up, and I swear I couldn't believe my eyes.

  Shelby went over to the mirror and picked up a comb from the shelf. It's nothing to get upset about, he said, making a part and slanting the dark hair carefully across his forehead. Tonight they'll put him someplace else.

  Well, if we can, the guard said.

  Shelby was watching him in the mirror: the gray-looking man in the gray guard uniform, R. E. Baylis, who might have been a town constable or a deputy sheriff twenty years ago. What's the trouble? Shelby asked.

  I mean he might have been ordered put there, I don't know.

  Ordered by who?

  Bob Fisher. I say I don't know for sure.

  Shelby turned from the mirror. Bob don't want any trouble.

  Course not.

  Then why would he want to put Sambo in with my boys?

  I say, I don't know.

  Shelby came toward him now, noticing the activity out in the passageway, the convicts standing around and talking, moving slowly as the guards began to form them into two rows. Shelby put a hand on the guard's shoulder. Mr. Baylis, he said, don't worry about it. You don't want to ask Bob Fisher; we'll get Sambo out of there ourselves.

  We don't want nobody hurt or anything.

  The guard kept looking at him, but Shelby was finished. As far as he was concerned, it was done. He said to Junior, Give Soonzy the tobacco. You take the soap and stuff.

  It's my turn to keep the tally.

  Don't give me that look, boy.

  Junior dropped his tone. I lugged a box yesterday.

  All right, you handle the tally, Joe Dean carries the soap and stuff. Shelby paused, as if he was going to say something else, then looked at the guard. Why don't you have the colored boy empty my throne bucket?

  It don't matter to me, the guard said.

  So he pulled Harold Jackson out of line and told him to get down to No. 14 as Joe Dean, Soonzy, and Junior moved along the double row of convicts in the dim passageway and sold them tobacco and cigarette paper, four kinds of plug and scrap, and little tins of snuff, matches, sugar cubes, stick candy, soap bars, sewing needles and thread, playing cards, red bandana handkerchiefs, shoelaces, and combs. They didn't take money; it would waste too much time and they only had ten minutes to go down the double line of eighty-seven men. Junior put the purchase amount in the tally book and the customer had one week to pay. If he didn't pay in a week, he couldn't buy any more stuff until he did. If he didn't pay in two weeks Junior and Soonzy would get him in a cell alone and hit him a few times or stomp the man's ribs and kidneys. If a customer wanted tequila or mescal, or corn whiskey when they had it, he'd come around to No. 14 after supper, before the doors were shut for the night, and pay a dollar a half-pint, put up in medicine bottles from the sick ward that occupied the second floor of the cell block. Shelby only sold alcohol in the morning to three or four of the convicts who needed it first thing or would never get through the day. What most of them wanted was just a day's worth of tobacco and some paper to roll it in.

  When the figure appeared outside the iron lattice Shelby said, Come on in, and watched the big colored boy's reaction as he entered: his gaze shifting twice to take in the double bunk and the boxes and the throne, knowing right away this was a one-man cell.

  I'm Mr. Shelby.

  I'm Mr. Jackson, Harold said.

  Frank Shelby touched his mustache. He smoothed it to the sides once, then let his hand drop to the edge of his bunk. His eyes remained on the impassive dark face that did not move now and was looking directly at him.

  Where you from, Mr. Jackson?

  From Leavenworth.

  That was it. Big time con in a desert prison hole. This place doesn't look like much after the federal pen, uh? I been to some was worse, some better.

  What'd you get sent here for?

  I killed a man was bothering me.

  You get life?

  Fifteen years.

  Then you didn't kill a man. You must've killed another colored boy. Shelby waited.

  Harold Jackson said nothing. He could wait too. I'm right, ain't I? Shelby said.

  The man said for me to come in here.

  He told you, but it was me said for you to come in. Harold Jackson waited again. You saying you the man here?

  Ask any of them out there, Shelby said. The guards, anybody.

  You bring me in to tell me about yourself?

  No, I brought you in to empty my slop bucket. Who did it before I come?

  Anybody I told.

  If you got people willing, you better call one of them. Harold turned and had a hand on the door when Shelby stopped him.

  Hey, Sambo Harold came around enough to look at him. How'd you know that was my name?

  Boy, you are sure starting off wrong, Shelby said. I believe you need to be by yourself a while and think it over.

  Harold didn't have anything to say to that. He turned to the door again and left the man standing there playing with his mustache.

  As he fell in at the end of the prisoner line, guard named R. E. Baylis gave him a funny look and came over.

  Where's Shelby's bucket at?

  I guess it's stil
l in there, captain.

  How come he didn't have you take it?

  Harold Jackson stood at attention, looking past the man's face to the stone wall of the passageway. You'll have to ask him about that, captain.

  Here they come, Bob Fisher said. Look over there.

  Mr. Manly moved quickly from the side of the desk to the window to watch the double file of convicts coming this way. He was anxious to see everything this morning, especially the convicts.

  Is that all of them?

  In the main cell block. About ninety.

  I thought there'd be more. Mr. Manly studied the double file closely but wasn't able to single out Harold Jackson. All the convicts looked alike. No, that was wrong; they didn't all look alike.

  Since we're shutting down we haven't been getting as many.

  They're all different, aren't they?

  How's that? Bob Fisher said.

  Mr. Manly didn't answer, or didn't hear him. He stood at the window of the superintendent's office the largest of a row of offices over the mess hall and watched the convicts as they came across the yard, passed beyond the end of a low adobe, and came into view again almost directly below the window. The line reached the door of the mess hall and came to a stop.

  Their uniforms looked the same, all of them wearing prison stripes, all faded gray and white. It was the hats that were different, light-colored felt hats and a few straw hats, almost identical hats, but all worn at a different angle: straight, low over the eyes, to the side, cocked like a dandy would wear his hat, the brim funneled, the brim up in front, the brim down all around. The hats were as different as the men must be different. He should make a note of that. See if anything had been written on the subject: determining a man's character by the way he wore his hat. But there wasn't a note pad or any paper on the desk and he didn't want to ask Fisher for it right at the moment.

  He was looking down at all the hats. He couldn't see any of their faces clearly, and wouldn't unless a man looked up. Nobody was looking up.

  They were all looking back toward the yard. Most of them turning now so they wouldn't have to strain their necks. All those men suddenly interested in something and turning to look.

  The women convicts, Bob Fisher said.

  Mr. Manly saw them then. My God two women.

  Fisher pressed closer to him at the window. Mr. Manly could smell tobacco on the man's breath. They just come out of the latrine, that adobe there, Fisher said. Now watch them boys eyeing them.

  The two women walked down the line of convicts, keeping about ten feet away, seeming at ease and not in any hurry, but not looking at the men either.

  Taking their time and giving the boys sweet hell, aren't they? Don't hear a sound, they're so busy licking their lips.

  Mr. Manly glanced quickly at the convicts. The way they were looking, it was more likely their mouths were hanging open. It gave him a funny feeling, the men dead serious and no one making a sound.

  My, Fisher said, how they'd like to reach out and grab a handful of what them girls have got.

  Women Mr. Manly said almost as a question. Nobody had told him there were women at Yuma.

  A light-brown-haired one and a dark-haired one that looked to be Mexican. Lord God, two good-looking women walking past those men like they were strolling in the park. Mr. Manly couldn't believe they were convicts. They were women. The little dark-haired one wore a striped dress smaller stripes than the men's outfits that could be a dress she'd bought anywhere. The brown-haired one, taller and a little older, though she couldn't be thirty yet, wore a striped blouse with the top buttons undone, a white canvas belt and a gray skirt that clung to the movement of her hips as she walked and flared out as it reached to her ankles.

  Tacha Reyes, Fisher said Pardon me?

  The little chilipicker. She's been here six months of a ten-year sentence. I doubt she'll serve it all though. She behaves herself pretty good.

  What did she do? I mean to be here.

  Killed a man with a knife, she claimed was trying to make her do dirty things.

  Did the other one kill somebody?

  Norma Davis? Hell, no. Norma likes to do dirty things. She was a whore till she took up armed robbery and got caught holding up the Citizens' Bank of Prescott, Arizona. Man with her, her partner, was shot dead.

  A woman, Mr. Manly said. I can't believe a woman would do that.

  With a Colt forty-four, Fisher said. She shot a policeman during the hold-up but didn't kill him. Listen, you want to keep a pretty picture of women in your head don't get close to Norma. She's serving ten years for armed robbery and attempted murder.

  The women were inside the mess hall now. Mr. Manly wanted to ask more questions about them, but he was afraid of sounding too interested and Fisher might get the wrong idea. I notice some of the men are carrying buckets, he said.

  The latrine detail. Fisher pointed to the low adobe. They'll go in there and empty them. That's the toilet and wash house, everything sewered clear out to the river. There now the men are going into mess. They got fifteen minutes to eat, then ten minutes to go to the toilet before the work details form out in the exercise yard.

  Do you give them exercises to do?

  We give them enough work they don't need any exercise, Fisher answered.

  Mr. Manly raised his eyes to look out at the empty yard and was surprised to see a lone convict coming across from the cellblock.

  Why isn't that one with the others?

  Bob Fisher didn't answer right way. Finally he said, That's Frank Shelby.

  Is he a trusty?

  Not exactly. He's got some special jobs he does around here.

  Mr. Manly let it go. There were too many other things he wanted to know about. Like all the adobe buildings scattered around, a whole row of them over to the left, at the far end of the mess hall. He wondered where the women lived, but didn't ask that.

  Well, there was the cook shack over there and the tailor shop, where they made the uniforms. Bob Fisher pointed out the small one-story adobes. Some equipment sheds, a storehouse, the reception hut they were in last night. The mattress factory and the wagon works had been shut down six months ago. Over the main cell-block was the hospital, but the doctor had gone to Florence to set up a sick ward at the new prison. Anybody broke a leg now or crushed his hand working the rocks, they sent for a town doctor.

  And the chaplain, Mr. Manly asked casually. Was he still here?

  No, there wasn't any chaplain. The last one retired and they decided to wait till after the move to get another. There wasn't many of the convicts prayed anyway.

  How would you know that? Mr. Manly wanted to ask him. But he said, What are those doors way down there?

  At the far end of the yard he could make out several iron-grill doors, black oval shapes, doorways carved into the solid rock. The doors didn't lead outside, he could tell that, because the top of the east wall and two of the guard towers were still a good piece beyond.

  Starting over back of the main cellblock, you can't see it from here, Bob Fisher said, a gate leads into the TB cellblock and exercise yard.

  You've got consumptives here?

  Like any place else. I believe four right now. Fisher hurried on before Mr. Manly could interrupt again. The doors you can see one's the crazy hole. Anybody gets mean loco they go in there till they calm down. The next one they call the snake den's a punishment cell.

  Why is it called I don't know, I guess a snake come in through the air shaft one time. The last door there on the right goes into the women's cellblock. You seen them. We just got the two right now.

  There, he could ask about them again and it would sound natural. The one you said, Norma something, has she been here long?

  Norma Davis. I believe about a year and a half. Do the men ever I mean I guess you have to sort of watch over the women.

  Mister, we have to watch over everybody.

  But being women don't they have to have their own, you know, facilities and bath?

/>   Fisher looked right at Mr. Manly now. They take a bath in the cook shack three, four times a week.

  In the cook shack. Mr. Manly nodded, surprised. After the cooks are gone, of course.

  At night, Fisher said. He studied Mr. Manly's profile the soft pinkish face and gold-frame glasses pressed close to the windowpane little Bible teacher looking out over his prison and still thinking about Norma Davis, asking harmless sounding questions about the women.

  Fisher said quietly, You want to see them?

  Mr. Manly straightened, looking at Fisher now with a startled expression. What do you mean?

  I wondered if you wanted to go downstairs and have another look at Norma and Tacha.

  I want to see everything, Mr. Manly said. Everything you have here to show me.

  Chapter 3

  When Frank Shelby entered the mess hall he stepped in line ahead of Junior. In front of him, Soonzy and Joe Dean looked around.

  You take care of it? Junior asked him.

  He needs some time in the snake den, Shelby said. Soonzy was looking back down the line. Where's he at?

  Last one coming in.

  I'll handle him, Junior said.

  Shelby shook his head. I want somebody else to start it. You and Soonzy break it up and get in some licks.

  No problem, Junior said. The spook's already got leg-irons on.

  They picked up tin plates and cups and passed in front of the serving tables for their beans, salt-dried beef, bread, and coffee. Soonzy and Joe Dean waited, letting Shelby go ahead of them. He paused a moment, holding his food, looking out over the long twelve-man tables and benches that were not yet half filled. Joe Dean moved up next to him. I see plenty of people that owe us money.

  No, I see the one I want. The Indin, Shelby said, and started for his table.

  Raymond San Carlos was pushing his spoon into the beans that were pretty good but would be a lot better with some ketchup. He looked up as Frank Shelby and Junior put their plates down across from him. He hurried and took the spoonful of beans, then took another one more slowly. He knew they had picked him for something. He was sure of it when Soonzy sat down on one side of him and Joe Dean stepped in on the other. Joe Dean acted surprised at seeing him. Well, Raymond San Carlos, he said, how are you today?