Forty Lashes Less One

10

The evening Junior and Joe Dean came for them they were sitting out in front of the cells with Tacha. It was after supper, just beginning to get dark. For a little while Tacha had been pretending to tell them their fortunes, using an old deck of cards and turning them up one at a time in the fading light. She told Harold she saw him sleeping under a banana tree with a big smile on his face. Sure, Cuba, Harold said. With the next card she saw him killing a lion with his spear and Harold was saying they didn’t have no lions in Cuba, when Junior came up to them. Joe Dean stood over a little way with his hands in his pockets, watching.

“Frank wants to see you,” Junior said. “Both of you.” He took time to look at Tacha while he waited for them to get up. When neither of them moved he said, “You hear me? Frank wants you.”

“What’s he want?” Harold said.

“He’s going to want me to kick your ass you don’t get moving.”

Raymond looked at Harold, and Harold looked at Raymond. Finally they got up and followed them across the yard, though they moved so goddamn slow Worley Lewis, Jr. had to keep waiting for them with his hands on his hips, telling them to come on, move. They looked back once and saw Joe Dean still over by the cells. He seemed to be waiting for them to leave.

Soonzy was in the passageway of the main cellblock, standing in the light that was coming from No. 14. He motioned them inside.

They went into the cell, then stopped short. Frank Shelby was sitting on his throne reading a newspaper, hunched over before his own shadow on the back wall. He didn’t look up; he made them wait several minutes before he finally rose, pulled up his pants and buckled his belt. Junior and Soonzy crowded the doorway behind them.

“Come closer to the light,” Shelby said. He waited for them to move into the space between the bunks, to where the electric overhead light, with its tin shield, was almost directly above them.

“I want to ask you two something. I want to know how come you got your faces painted up like that.”

They kept looking at him, but neither of them spoke.

“You going to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” Raymond said. “I guess it’s hard to explain.”

“Did anybody tell you to put it on?”

“No, we done it ourselves.”

“Has this Mr. Manly seen it?”

“Yeah, but he didn’t say nothing.”

“You just figured it would be a good idea, uh?”

“I don’t know,” Raymond said. “We just done it, I guess.”

“You want to look like a couple of circus clowns, is that it?”

“No, we didn’t think of that.”

“Maybe you want to look like a wild Indin,” Shelby said, “and him, he wants to look like some kind of boogey-man native. Maybe that’s it.”

Raymond shrugged. “Maybe something like that. It’s hard to explain.”

“What does Mr. Jackson say about it?”

“If you know why we put it on,” Harold said, “what are you asking us for?”

“Because it bothers me,” Shelby answered. “I can’t believe anybody would want to look like a nigger native. Even a nigger. Same as I can’t believe anybody would want to look like a Wild West Show Indin ’less he was paid to do it. Somebody paying you, Raymond?”

“Nobody’s paying us.”

“See, Raymond, what bothers me—how can we learn people like you to act like white men if you’re going to play you’re savages? You see what I mean? You want to move back in this cellblock, but who do you think would want to live with you?”

“We’re not white men,” Raymond said.

“Jesus Christ, I know that. I’m saying if you want to live with white men then you got to try to act like white men. You start playing you’re an Apache and a goddamn Zulu or something, that’s the same as saying you don’t want to be a white man, and that’s what bothers me something awful, when I see that going on.”

There was a little space of silence before Harold said, “What do you want us to do?”

“We’ll do it,” Shelby said. “We’re going to remind you how you’re supposed to act.”

Soonzy took Harold from behind with a fist in his hair and a forearm around his neck. He dragged Harold backward and as Raymond turned, Junior stepped in and hit Raymond with a belt wrapped around his fist. He had to hit Raymond again before he could get a good hold on him and pull him out of the cell. Joe Dean and a half-dozen convicts were waiting in the passageway. They got Raymond and Harold down on their backs on the cement. They sat on their legs and a convict stood on each of their outstretched hands and arms while another man got down and pulled their hair tight to keep them from moving their heads. Then Joe Dean took a brush and the can of enamel Tacha had got from the sick ward and painted both of their faces pure white.

When R. E. Baylis came through to lock up, Shelby told him to look at the goddamn mess out there, white paint all over the cement and dirty words painted on the wall. He said that nigger and his red nigger friend sneaked over and started messing up the place, but they caught the two and painted them as a lesson. Shelby said to R. E. Baylis goddamn-it, why didn’t he throw them in the snake den so they would quit bothering people. R. E. Baylis said he would tell Bob Fisher.

The next morning after breakfast, Shelby came out of the mess hall frowning in the sunlight and looking over the work details forming in the yard. He was walking toward the supply group when somebody called his name from behind. Bob Fisher was standing by the mess hall door: grim-looking tough old son of a bitch in his gray sack guard uniform. Shelby sure didn’t want to, but he walked back to where the turnkey was standing.

“They don’t know how to write even their names,” Fisher said.

“Well”—Shelby took a moment to think—“maybe they got the paint for somebody else do to it.”

“Joe Dean got the paint.”

“Joe did that?”

“Him and Soonzy and Junior are going to clean it up before they go to work.”

“Well, if they did it—”

“You’re going to help them.”

“Me? I’m on the supply detail. You know that.”

“Or you can go with the quarry gang,” Fisher said. “It don’t make any difference to me.”

“Quarry gang?” Shelby grinned to show Fisher he thought he was kidding. “I don’t believe I ever done that kind of work.”

“You’ll do it if I say so.”

“Listen, just because we painted those two boys up. We were teaching them a lesson, that’s all. Christ, they go around here thinking they’re something the way they fixed theirselves up—somebody had to teach them.”

“I do the teaching here,” Fisher said. “I’m teaching that to you right now.”

Dumb, stone-face guard son of a bitch. Shelby said, “Well,” half-turning to look off thoughtfully toward the work groups waiting in the yard. “I hope those people don’t get sore about this. You know how it is, how they listen to me and trust me. If they figure I’m getting treated unfair, they’re liable to sit right down and not move from the yard, every one of them.”

“If you believe that,” Fisher said, “you better tell them I’ll shoot the first man that sits down, and if they all sit down at once I’ll shoot you.”

Shelby waited. He didn’t look at Bob Fisher; he kept his gaze on the convicts. After a moment he said, “You’re kneeling on me for a reason, aren’t you? You’re waiting to see me make a terrible mistake.”

“I believe you’ve already made it,” Fisher said. He turned and went into the mess hall.

Scraping paint off cement was better than working in the quarry. It was hot in the passageway, but there was no sun beating down on them and they weren’t breathing chalk dust. Shelby sat in his cell and let Junior, Soonzy, and Joe Dean do the work, until Bob Fisher came by. Fisher didn’t say anything; he looked in at him and Shelby came out and picked up a trowel and started scraping. When Fisher was gone, Shelby sat back on his heels and said, “I’m going to bust me a guard, I’ll tell you, if that man’s anywhere near us when we leave.”

The scraping stopped as he spoke, as Junior and Soonzy and Joe Dean waited to hear whatever he had to say.

“There is something bothering him,” Shelby said. “He wants to nail me down. He could do it any time he feels like it, couldn’t he? He could put me in the quarry or the snake den—that man could chain me to the wall. But he’s waiting on something.”

Joe Dean said, “Waiting on what?”

“I don’t know. Unless he’s telling me he knows what’s going on. He could be saying, ‘I got my eye on you, buddy. I’m waiting for you to make the wrong move.’ ”

“What could he know?” Joe Dean said. “We don’t know anything ourselves.”

“He could know we’re thinking about it.”

“He could be guessing.”

“I mean,” Shelby said, “he could know. Norma could have told him. She’s the only other person who could.”

Junior was frowning. “What would Norma want to tell him for?”

“Jesus Christ,” Shelby said, “because she’s Norma. She don’t need a reason, she does what she feels like doing. Listen, she needs money she gets herself a forty-four and pours liquor into some crazy boy and they try and rob a goddamn bank. She’s seeing Bob Fisher, and she’s the only one could have told him anything.”

“I say he’s guessing,” Joe Dean said. “The time’s coming to move all these convicts, he’s nervous at the thought of it, and starts guessing we’re up to something.”

“That could be right,” Shelby said. “But the only way I can find out for sure is to talk to Norma.” He was silent a moment. “I don’t know. With old Bob watching every move I got to stay clear of the tailor shop.”

“Why don’t we bring her over here?” Junior said. “Right after supper everybody’s in the yard. Shoot, we can get her in here, anywhere you want, no trouble.”

“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 than 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.