Forty Lashes Less One

9

The guard, R. E. Baylis, was instructed to move the Mexican girl to the TB area after work, right before supper. It sounded easy enough.

But when he told Tacha she held back and didn’t want to go. What for? Look at her. Did she look like she had TB? She wasn’t even sick. R. E. Baylis told her to get her things, she was going over there and that’s all there was to it. She asked him if Mr. Fisher had given the order, and when he said sure, Tacha said she thought so; she should have known he would do something like this. Goddamn-it, R. E. Baylis thought, he didn’t have to explain anything to her. He did though. He said it must be they were sending her over there to help out—bring the lungers their food, get them their medicine. He said there were two boys in there supposed to be looking after the lungers, but nobody had seen much of them the past couple of months or so, what with all the running they were doing. They would go out early in the morning, just about the time it was getting light, and generally not get back until the afternoon. He said some of the guards were talking about them, how they had changed; but he hadn’t seen them in a while. Tacha only half listened to him. She wasn’t interested in the two convicts, she was thinking about the TB cellblock and wondering what it would be like to live there. She remembered the two he was talking about; she knew them by sight. Though when she walked into the TB yard and saw them again, she did not recognize them immediately as the same two men.

R. E. Baylis got a close look at them and went to find Bob Fisher.

“She give you any trouble?” Fisher asked.

He sat at a table in the empty mess hall with a cup of coffee in front of him. The cooks were bringing in the serving pans and setting up for supper.

“No trouble once I got her there,” R. E. Baylis said. “What I want to know is what the Indin and the nigger are doing?”

“I don’t know anything about them and don’t want to know. They’re Mr. Manly’s private convicts.” Fisher held his cup close to his face and would lean in to sip at it.

“Haven’t you seen them lately?”

“I see them go by once in a while, going out the gate.”

“But you haven’t been over there? You haven’t seen them close?”

“Whatever he’s got them doing isn’t any of my business. I told him I don’t want no part of it.”

“You don’t care what they’re doing?”

“I got an inventory of equipment and stores have to be tallied before we ship out of here and that ain’t very long away.”

“You don’t care if they made spears,” R. E. Baylis said, “and they’re throwing them at a board stuck in the ground?”

Bob Fisher started coughing and spilled some of his coffee down the front of his uniform.

Mr. Manly said, “Yes, I know they got spears. Made of bamboo fishing poles and brick-laying trowels stuck into one end for the point. If a man can use a trowel to work with all day, why can’t he use one for exercise?”

“Because a spear is a weapon,” Fisher said. “You can kill a man with it.”

“Bob, you got some kind of stain there on your uniform.”

“What I mean is you don’t let convicts make spears.”

“Why not, if they’re for a good purpose?”

No, Bob Fisher said to himself—with R. E. Baylis standing next to him, listening to it all—this time, goddamn-it, don’t let him mix you up. He said, “Mr. Manly, for some reason I seem to have trouble understanding you.”

“What is it you don’t understand, Bob?”

“Every time I come up here, it’s like you and me are talking about two different things. I come in, I know what the rules are here and I know what I want to say. Then you begin talking and it’s like we get onto something else.”

“We look at a question from different points of view,” Mr. Manly said. “That’s all it is.”

“All right, R. E. Baylis here says they got spears. I haven’t been over to see for myself. We was downstairs—I don’t know, something told me I should see you about it first.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“How long have they had ’em?”

“About two weeks. Bob, they run fourteen miles yesterday. Only stopped three times to rest.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with the spears.”

“Well, you said you wanted it to show in the record you’re not having anything to do with this business. Isn’t that right?”

“I want it to show I’m against their being taken outside.”

“I haven’t told you anything what’s going on, have I?”

“I haven’t asked neither.”

“That’s right. This is the first time you’ve mentioned those boys in over two months. You don’t know what I’m teaching them, but you come in here and tell me they can’t have spears.”

“It’s in the rules.”

“It says in the rules they can’t have spears for any purpose whatsoever?”

“It say a man found with a weapon is to be put under maximum security for no less than ten days.”

“You mean put in the snake den.”

“I sure do.”

“You believe those two boys have been found with weapons?”

“When you make a spear out of a trowel, it becomes a weapon.”

“But what if I was the one told them to make the spears?”

“I was afraid you might say that.”

“As a matter of fact, I got them the fishing poles myself. Bought them in town.”

“Bought them in town,” Bob Fisher said. His head seemed to nod a little as he stared at Mr. Manly. “This here is what I meant before about not understanding some things. I would sure like to know why you want them to have spears?”

“Bob,” Mr. Manly said, “that’s the only way to learn, isn’t it? Ask questions.” He looked up past Fisher then, at the wall clock. “Say, it’s about supper time already.”

“Mr. Manly, I’ll wait on supper if you’ll explain them spears to me.”

“I’ll do better than that,” Mr. Manly said, “I’ll show you. First though we got to get us a pitcher of ice water.”

“I’ll even pass on that,” Fisher said. “I’m not thirsty or hungry.”

Mr. Manly gave him a patient, understanding grin. “The ice water isn’t for us, Bob.”

“No sir,” Fisher said. He was nodding again, very slowly, solemnly. “I should’ve known better, shouldn’t I?”

Tacha remembered them from months before wearing leg-irons and pushing the wheelbarrows. She remembered the Negro working without a shirt on and remembered thinking the other one tall for an Indian. She had never spoken to them or watched them for a definite reason. She had probably not been closer than fifty feet to either of them. But she was aware now of the striking change in their appearance and at first it gave her a strange, tense feeling. She was afraid of them.

The guard had looked as if he was afraid of them too, and maybe that was part of the strange feeling. He didn’t tell her which cell was to be hers. He stared at the Indian and the Negro, who were across the sixty-foot yard by the wall, and then hurried away, leaving her here.

As soon as he was gone the tubercular convicts began talking to her. One of them asked if she had come to live with them. When she nodded he said she could bunk with him if she wanted. They laughed and another one said no, come on in his cell, he would show her a fine old time. She didn’t like the way they stared at her. They sat in front of their cells on stools and a wooden bunk frame and looked as if they had been there a long time and seldom shaved or washed themselves.

She wasn’t sure if the Indian and the Negro were watching her. The Indian was holding something that looked like a fishing pole. The Negro was standing by an upright board that was as tall as he was and seemed to be nailed to a post. Another of the poles was sticking out of the board. Neither of them was wearing a shirt; that was the first thing she noticed about them from across the yard.

They came over when she turned to look at the cells and one of the tubercular convicts told her again to come on, put her blanket and stuff in with his. Now, when she looked around, not knowing what to do, she saw them approaching.

She saw the Indian’s hair, how long it was, covering his ears, and the striped red and black cloth he wore as a headband. She saw the Negro’s mustache that curved around his mouth into a short beard and the cuts on his face, like knife scars, that slanted down from both of his cheekbones. This was when she was afraid of them, as they walked up to her.

“The cell on the end,” Raymond said. “Why don’t you take that one?”

She made herself hold his gaze. “Who else is in there, you?”

“Nobody else.”

Harold said, “You got the TB?”

“I don’t have it yet.”

“You do something to Frank Shelby?”

“Maybe I did,” she said, “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t have the TB,” Harold said, “you did something to somebody.”

She began to feel less afraid already, talking to them, and yet she knew there was something different about their faces and the way they looked at her. “I think the turnkey, Mr. Fisher, did it,” Tacha said, “so I wouldn’t see him going in with Norma.”

“I guess there are all kinds of things going on,” Harold said. “They put you in here, it’s not so bad. It was cold at night when we first come, colder than the big cellblock, but now it’s all right.” He glanced toward the tubercular convicts. “Don’t worry about the scarecrows. They won’t hurt you.”

“They lock everybody in at night,” Raymond said. “During the day one of them tries something, you can run.”

That was a strange thing too: being afraid of them at first because of the way they looked, then hearing them say not to worry and feeling at ease with them, believing them.

Raymond said, “We fixed up that cell for you. It’s like a new one.”

She was inside unrolling her bedding when the guard returned with the superintendent and the turnkey, Mr. Fisher. She heard one of them say, “Harold, come out here,” and she looked up to see them through the open doorway: the little man in the dark suit and two in guard uniforms, one of them, R. E. Baylis, holding a dented tin pitcher. The Indian was still in the yard, not far from them, but she didn’t see the Negro. The superintendent was looking toward her cell now, squinting into the dim interior.

Mr. Manly wanted to keep an eye on Bob Fisher and watch his reactions, but seeing the woman distracted him.

“Who’s that in there, Norma Davis?”

“The other one,” Fisher said, “the Mexican.”

“I didn’t see any report on her being sick.”

“She’s working here. Your two boys run off, there’s nobody to fetch things for the lungers.”

Mr. Manly didn’t like to look at the tubercular convicts; they gave him a creepy feeling, the way they sat there all day like lizzards and never seemed to move. He gave them a glance and called again, “Harold, come on out here.”

The Negro was buttoning a prison shirt as he appeared in the doorway. “You want me, captain?”

“Come over here, will you?”

Mr. Manly was watching Fisher now. The man’s flat open-eyed expression tickled him: old Bob Fisher staring at Harold, then looking over at Raymond, then back at Harold again, trying to figure out the change that had come over them. The change was something more than just their appearance. It was something Mr. Manly felt, and he was pretty sure now Bob Fisher was feeling it too.

“What’s the matter, Bob, ain’t you ever seen an Apache or a Zulu before?”

“I seen Apaches.”

“Then what’re you staring at?”

Fisher looked over at Harold again. “What’re them cuts on his face?”

“Tell him, Harold.”

“They tribal marks, captain.”

Fisher said, “What the hell tribe’s a field nigger belong to?”

Harold touched his face, feeling the welts of scar tissue that were not yet completely healed. He said, “My tribe, captain.”

“He cut his own face like that?”

Fisher kept staring at the Negro as Mr. Manly said, “He saw it in a Africa book I got—picture of a native with these marks like tattoos on his face. I didn’t tell him to do it, you understand. He just figured it would be all right, I guess. Isn’t that so, Harold?”

“Yes-suh, captain.”

“Same with Raymond. He figured if he’s a full-blooded Apache Indian then he should let his hair grow and wear one of them bands.”

“We come over here to look at spears,” Fisher said.

Mr. Manly frowned, shaking his head. “Don’t you see the connection yet? A spear is part of a warrior’s get-up, like a tool is to a working man. Listen, I told you, didn’t I, these boys can run fifteen miles in a day now and only stop a couple of times to rest.”

“I thought it was fourteen miles,” Fisher said.

“Fourteen, fifteen—here’s the thing. They can run that far and go from morning to supper time without a drink of water, any time they want.”

“A man will do that in the snake den if I make him.” Bob Fisher wasn’t backing off this time.

Mr. Manly wasn’t letting go. “Inside,” he said, “is different than running out in the hot sun. Listen, they each pour theirselves a cup of water in the morning and you know what they do? They see who can go all day without taking a drink or more than a couple of sips.” He held his hand out to R. E. Baylis and said, “Let me have the pitcher.” Then he looked at Raymond and Harold again. “Which of you won today?”

“I did,” Raymond said.

“Let’s see your cups.”

Raymond went into his cell and was back in a moment with a tin cup in each hand. “He drank his. See, I got some left.”

“Then you get the pitcher of ice water,” Mr. Manly said. “And, Harold, you get to watch him drink it.”

Raymond raised the pitcher and drank out of the side of it, not taking very much before lowering it again and holding it in front of him.

“See that?” Mr. Manly said. “He knows better than to gulp it down. One day Raymond wins, the next day Harold gets the ice water. I mean they can both do it any time they want.”

“I would sure like to see them spears,” Fisher said.

Mr. Manly asked Harold where they were and he said, “Over yonder by the wall, captain.”

Tacha watched them cross the yard. The Negro waited for the Indian to put the pitcher on the ground and she noticed they gave each other a look as they fell in behind the little man in the dark suit and the two guards. They were over by the wall a few minutes talking while Mr. Fisher hefted one of the bamboo spears and felt the point of it with his finger. Then the superintendent took the spear from him and gave it to the Indian. The Negro picked up the other spear from against the wall and they came back this way, toward the cells, at least a dozen paces before turning around. Beyond them, the group moved away from the upright board. The Indian and the Negro faced the target for a moment, then stepped back several more feet, noticing Tacha now in the doorway of her cell.

She said, “You’re going to hit that, way down there?”

“Not today,” Raymond answered.

Everyone in the yard was watching them now. They raised the spears shoulder high, took aim with their outstretched left arms pointing, and threw them hard in a low arc, almost at the same moment. Both spears fell short and skidded along the ground past the board to stop at the base of the wall.

Raymond and Harold waited. In the group across the yard Mr. Manly seemed to be doing the talking, gesturing with his hands. He was facing Bob Fisher and did not look over this way. After a few minutes they left the yard, and now Mr. Manly, as he went through the gate last, looked over and waved.

“Well,” Raymond said—he stooped to pick up the tin pitcher—“who wants some ice water?”

Within a few days Tacha realized that, since moving to the TB cellblock, she felt better—whether it made sense or not. Maybe part of the feeling was being outside most of the day and not bent over a sewing machine listening to Norma or trying to talk to the old man. Already that seemed like a long time ago. She was happier now. She even enjoyed being with the tubercular convicts and didn’t mind the way they talked to her sometimes, saying she was a pretty good nurse though they would sure rather have her be something else. They needed to talk like men so she smiled and didn’t take anything they said as an offense.

In the afternoon the Apache and the Zulu would come in through the gate, walking slowly, carrying their shirts. One of the tubercular convicts would yell over, asking how far they had run and one or the other would tell them twelve, fifteen, sixteen miles. They would drink the water in their cups. One of the convicts would fill the cups again from the bucket they kept in the shade. After drinking the second cup they would decide who the winner would be that day and pour just a little more water into his cup, leaving the other one empty. The TB convicts got a kick out of this and always laughed. Every day it was the same. They drank the water and then went into the cell to lie on their bunks. In less than an hour the TB convicts would be yelling for them to come out and start throwing their spears. They would get out their money or rolled cigarettes when the Apache and the Zulu appeared and, after letting them warm up a few minutes, at least two of the convicts would bet on every throw. Later on, after the work crews were in for the day, there would be convicts over from the main yard watching through the gate. None of them ever came into the TB yard. They were betting too and would yell at the Apache and the Zulu—calling them by those names—to hit the board, cut the son of a bitch dead center. Frank Shelby appeared at the gate only once. After that the convicts had to pay to watch and make bets. Soonzy, Junior, and Joe Dean were at the grillwork every day during free time.

Harold Jackson, the Zulu, walked over to the gate one time. He said, “How come we do all the work, you make all the money?”

Junior told him to get back over there and start throwing his goddamn spear or whatever it was.

Harold let the convicts get a good look at his face scars before he walked away. After the next throw, when he and Raymond were pulling their spears out of the board, Harold said, “Somebody always telling you what to do, huh?”

“Every place you go,” Raymond said.

They were good with the spears. Though when the convicts from the outside yard were at the gate watching they never threw from farther than thirty-five feet away, or tried to place the spears in a particular part of the board. If they wanted to, they could hit the board high or low at the same time.

It was Tacha who noticed their work shoes coming apart from the running and made moccasins for them, sewing them by hand—calf-high Apache moccasins she fashioned out of old leather water bags and feed sacks.

And it was Tacha who told Raymond he should put war paint on his face. He wasn’t scarey enough looking.

“Where do you get war paint?” Raymond asked her. “At the store?”

“I think from berries.”

“Well, I don’t see no berries around here.”

The next day she got iodine and a can of white enamel from the sick ward and, after supper, sat Raymond on a stool and painted a white streak across the bridge of his nose from cheekbone to cheekbone, and orange-red iodine stripes along the jawline to his chin.

Harold Jackson liked it, so Tacha painted a white stripe across his forehead and another one down between his eyes to the tip of his nose.

“Hey, we waryers now,” Raymond said.

They looked at themselves in Tacha’s hand mirror and both of them grinned. They were pretty mean-looking boys. Harold said, “Lady, what else do these waryers put on?”

Tacha said she guessed anything they wanted. She opened a little sack and gave Raymond two strands of turquoise beads, a string for around his neck and another string, doubled, for around his right arm, up high.

She asked Harold if he wanted a ring for his nose. He said no, thank you, lady, but remembered Mr. Manly talking about the Zulus putting chunks of sugar cane in their ear lobes and he let Tacha pierce one of his ears and attach a single gold earring. It looked good with the tribal scars and the mustache that curved into a short beard. “All I need me is a lion to spear,” Harold said. He was Harold Jackson the Zulu, and he could feel it without looking in the mirror.

He didn’t talk to Raymond about the feeling because he knew Raymond, in a way of his own, Raymond the Apache, had the same feeling. In front of the convicts who watched them throw spears or in front of the two guards who took them out to run, Harold could look at Raymond, their eyes would meet for a moment and each knew what the other was thinking. They didn’t talk very much, even to each other. They walked slowly and seemed to expend no extra effort in their movements. They knew they could do something no other men in the prison could do—they could run all day and go without water—and it was part of the good feeling.

They began to put fresh paint on their faces almost every day, in the afternoon before they threw the spears.