Forty Lashes Less One

1

The train was late and didn’t get into Yuma until after dark. Then the ticket agent at the depot had to telephone the prison and tell them they had better get some transportation down here. He had three people waiting on a ride up the hill: a man he had never seen before who said he was the new prison superintendent, and another man he knew was a deputy sheriff from Pima County and he had a prisoner with him, handcuffed, a big colored boy.

Whoever it was on the phone up at the prison said they had sent a man two hours ago and if the train had been on time he would have met them. The ticket agent said well, they were here now and somebody better hurry with the transportation, because the Southern Pacific didn’t care for convicts hanging around the depot, even if the boy was handcuffed.

The Pima deputy said hell, it wasn’t anything new; every time he delivered a man he had to sit and wait on the prison people to get off their ass. He asked the big colored boy if he minded waiting, sitting in a nice warm train depot, or would he rather be up there in one of them carved-out cells with the wind whistling in across the river? The Pima deputy said something about sweating all day and freezing at night; but the colored boy, whose name was Harold Jackson, didn’t seem to be listening.

The new prison superintendent—the new, temporary superintendent—Mr. Everett Manly, heard him. He nodded, and adjusted his gold-frame glasses. He said yes, he was certainly familiar with Arizona winters, having spent seven years at the Chiricahua Apache Mission School. Mr. Manly heard himself speak and it sounded all right. It sounded natural.

On the train Mr. Manly had exchanged a few words with the deputy, but had not spoken to the colored boy. He could have asked him his name and where he was from; he could have asked him about his sentence and told him that if he behaved himself he would be treated fairly. He could have asked him if he wanted to pray. But with the Pima deputy sitting next to the colored boy—all afternoon and evening on the wicker seats, bumping and swaying, looking out at the sun haze on the desert and the distant, dark brown mountains—Mr. Manly had not been able to get the first words out, to start a conversation. He was not afraid of the colored boy, who could have been a cold-blooded killer for all he knew. It was the idea of the deputy sitting there listening that bothered him.

He thought about starting a friendly conversation with the ticket agent: ask him if he ever got up to the prison, or if he knew the superintendent, Mr. Rynning, who was in Florence at the present time seeing to the construction of the new penitentiary. He could say, “Well, it won’t be long now, there won’t be any more Yuma Territorial Prison,” and kidding, add, “I suppose you’ll be sorry to see it closed.” Except maybe he wasn’t supposed to talk about it in idle conversation. It had been mentioned in newspapers—“Hell-Hole on the Bluff to Open Its Doors Forever by the Spring of 1909”—pretty clever, saying opening its doors instead of closing them. And no doubt the station agent knew all about it. Living here he would have to. But a harmless conversation could start false rumors and speculation, and before you knew it somebody from the Bureau would write and ask how come he was going around telling everybody about official government business.

If the ticket agent brought up the subject that would be different. He could be noncommittal. “You heard the old prison’s closing, huh? Well, after thirty-three years I imagine you won’t be too sorry to see it happen.” But the ticket agent didn’t bring up the subject.

A little while later they heard the noise outside. The ticket agent looked at them through his barred window and said, “There’s a motor conveyance pulling into the yard I reckon is for you people.”

Mr. Manly had never ridden in an automobile before. He asked the driver what kind it was and the driver told him it was a twenty-horsepower Ford Touring Car, powerful and speedy, belonged to the superintendent, Mr. Rynning. It was comfortable, Mr. Manly said, but kind of noisy, wasn’t it? He wanted to ask how much a motor rig like this cost, but there was the prison above him: the walls and the guard towers against the night sky, the towers, like little houses with pointed roofs; dark houses, nobody home. When the gravel road turned and climbed close along the south wall, Mr. Manly had to look almost straight up, and he said to the guard driving the car, “I didn’t picture the walls so high.” And the guard answered, “Eighteen feet up and eight feet thick. A man can’t jump it and he can’t bore through neither.

“My last trip up this goddamn rock pile,” the Pima deputy said, sitting in the back seat with his prisoner. “I’m going to the railroad hotel and get me a bottle of whiskey and in the morning I’m taking the train home and ain’t never coming back here again.”

The rest of the way up the hill Mr. Manly said nothing. He would remember this night and the strange feeling of riding in a car up Prison Hill, up close to this great silent mound of adobe and granite. Yuma Territorial Prison, that he had heard stories about for years—that he could almost reach out and touch. But was it like a prison? More like a tomb of an ancient king, Mr. Manly was thinking. A pyramid. A ghostly monument. Or, if it was a prison, then one that was already deserted. Inside the walls there were more than a hundred men. Maybe a hundred and fifty counting the guards. But there was no sound or sign of life, only this motor car putt-putting up the hill, taking forever to reach the top.

What if it did take forever, Mr. Manly thought. What if they kept going and going and never reached the prison gate, but kept moving up into stoney darkness for all eternity—until the four of them realized this was God’s judgment upon them. (He could hear the Pima deputy cursing and saying, “Now, wait a minute, I’m just here to deliver a prisoner!”) It could happen this way, Mr. Manly thought. Who said you had to die first? Or, how did a person know when he was dead? Maybe he had died on the train. He had dozed off and opened his eyes as they were pulling into the depot—

A man sixty years old could die in his sleep. But—and here was the question—if he was dead and this was happening, why would he be condemned to darkness? What had he done wrong in his life?

Not even thinking about it very hard, he answered at once, though quietly: What have you done right? Sixty years of life, Mr. Manly thought. Thirty years as a preacher of the Holy Word, seven years as a missionary among pagan Indians. Half his life spent in God’s service, and he was not sure he had converted even one soul to the Light of Truth.

They reached the top of the bluff at the west end of the prison and, coming around the corner, Mr. Manly saw the buildings that were set back from the main gate, dim shapes and cold yellow lights that framed windows and reflected on the hard-packed yard. He was aware of the buildings and thought briefly of an army post, single- and two-story structures with peaked roofs and neatly painted verandas. He heard the driver point out the guard’s mess and recreation hall, the arsenal, the stable, the storehouses; he heard him say, “If you’re staying in the sup’rintendent’s cottage, it’s over yonder by the trees.”

Mr. Manly was familiar with government buildings in cleanswept areas. He had seen them at the San Carlos reservation and at Fort Huachuca and at the Indian School. He was staring at the prison wall where a single light showed the main gate as an oval cavern in the pale stone, a dark tunnel entrance crisscrossed with strips of iron.

The driver looked at Mr. Manly. After a moment he said, “The sally port. It’s the only way in and, I guarantee, the only way out.”

Bob Fisher, the turnkey, stood waiting back of the inner gate with two of his guards. He seemed either patient or half asleep, a solemn-looking man with a heavy, drooping mustache. He didn’t have them open the iron lattice door until Mr. Manly and the Pima deputy and his prisoner were within the dark enclosure of the sally port and the outer gate was bolted and locked behind them. Then he gave a sign to open up and waited for them to step into the yard light.

The Pima deputy was pulling a folded sheaf of papers out of his coat pocket, dragging along his handcuffed prisoner. “I got a boy name of Harold Jackson wants to live with you the next fifteen years.” He handed the papers to the turnkey and fished in his pants pocket for the keys to the handcuffs.

Bob Fisher unfolded the papers close to his stomach and glanced at the first sheet. “We’ll take care of him,” he said, and folded the papers again.

Mr. Manly stood by waiting, holding his suitcase.

“I’ll tell you what,” the Pima deputy said. “I’ll let you buy me a cup of coffee ’fore I head back.”

“We’ll see if we got any,” Fisher said.

The Pima deputy had removed the handcuffs from the prisoner and was slipping them into his coat pocket. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” he said. “Jesus, a nice friendly person like you.”

“You won’t put us to any trouble,” Fisher answered. His voice was low, and he seemed to put no effort or feeling into his words.

Mr. Manly kept waiting for the turnkey to notice him and greet him and have one of the guards take his suitcase; but the man stood at the edge of the yard light and didn’t seem to look at any of them directly, though maybe he was looking at the prisoner, telling him with the sound of his voice that he didn’t kid with anybody. What does he look like, Mr. Manly was thinking. He lowered his suitcase to the ground.

A streetcar motorman, that was it. With his gray guard uniform and gray uniform hat, the black shiny peak straight over his eyes. A tough old motorman with a sour stomach and a sour outlook from living within the confinement of a prison too many years. A man who never spoke if he didn’t have to and only smiled about twice a year. The way the man’s big mustache covered the sides of his mouth it would be hard to tell if he ever smiled at all.

Bob Fisher told one of the guards to take the Pima deputy over to the mess hall, then changed his mind and said no, take him outside to the guard’s mess. The Pima deputy shrugged; he didn’t care where he got his coffee. He took time to look at Mr. Manly and say, “Good luck, mister.” As Mr. Manly said, “Good luck to you too,” not looking at the turnkey now but feeling him there, the Pima deputy turned his back on them; he waited to get through the double gates and was gone.

“My name is Everett Manly,” Mr. Manly said. “I expect—”

But Fisher wasn’t ready for him yet. He motioned to the guards and watched as they led the prisoner off toward a low, one-room adobe. Mr. Manly waited, also watching them. He could see the shapes of buildings in the darkness of the yard, here and there a light fixed above a doorway. Past the corner of a two-story building, out across the yard, was the massive outline of a long, windowless adobe with a light above its crisscrossed iron door. Probably the main cellblock. But in the darkness he couldn’t tell about the other buildings, or make any sense of the prison’s layout. He had the feeling again that the place was deserted except for the turnkey and the two guards.

“I understand you’ve come here to take charge.”

All the waiting and the man had surprised him. But all was forgiven, because the man was looking at him now, acknowledging his presence.

“I’m Everett Manly. I expect Mr. Rynning wrote you I was coming. You’re—”

“Bob Fisher, turnkey.”

Mr. Manly smiled. “I guess you would be the man in charge of the keys.” Showing him he had a sense of humor.

“I’ve been in charge of the whole place since Mr. Rynning’s been gone.”

“Well, I’m anxious to see everything and get to work.” Mr. Manly was being sincere now, and humble. “I’m going to admit though, I haven’t had much experience.”

In his flat tone, Fisher said, “I understand you haven’t had any.”

Mr. Manly wished they weren’t standing here alone. “No prison experience, that’s true. But I’ve dealt with people all my life, Mr. Fisher, and nobody’s told me yet convicts aren’t people.” He smiled again, still humble and willing to learn.

“Nobody will have to tell you,” Fisher said. “You’ll find out yourself.”

He turned and walked off toward the one-room adobe. Mr. Manly had no choice but to pick up his suitcase and follow—Lord, with the awful feeling again and wishing he hadn’t put so many books in with his clothes; the suitcase weighed a ton and he probably looked like an idiot walking with quick little steps and the thing banging against his leg. And then he was grateful and felt good again, because Bob Fisher was holding the door open for him and let him go inside first, into the lighted room where the colored boy was jackknifed over a table without any clothes on and the two guards were standing on either side of him.

One of the guards pulled him up and turned him around by the arm as Fisher closed the door. “He’s clean,” the guard said. “Nothing hid away down him or up him.”

“He needs a hosing is all,” the other guard said.

Fisher came across the plank floor, his eyes on the prisoner. “He ain’t worked up a sweat yet.”

“Jesus,” the first guard said, “don’t get close to him. He stinks to high heaven.”

Mr. Manly put down his suitcase. “That’s a long dusty train ride, my friend.” Then, smiling a little, he added, “I wouldn’t mind a bath myself.”

The two guards looked over at him, then at Fisher, who was still facing the prisoner. “That’s your new boss,” Fisher said, “come to take Mr. Rynning’s place while he’s gone. See he gets all the bath water he wants. This boy here washes tomorrow with the others, after he’s put in a day’s work.”

Mr. Manly said, “I didn’t intend that to sound like I’m interfering with your customs or regulations—”

Fisher looked over at him now, waiting.

“I only meant it was sooty and dirty aboard the train.”

Fisher waited until he was sure Mr. Manly had nothing more to say. Then he turned his attention to the prisoner again. One of the guards was handing the man a folded uniform and a broad-brimmed sweat-stained hat. Fisher watched him as he put the clothes on the table, shook open the pants and stepped into them: faded, striped gray and white convict pants that were short and barely reached to the man’s high-top shoes. While he was buttoning up, Fisher opened the sheaf of papers the Pima deputy had given him, his gaze holding on the first sheet. “It says here you’re Harold Jackson.”

“Yes-suh, captain.”

The Negro came to attention as Fisher looked up, a hint of surprise in his solemn expression. He seemed to study the prisoner more closely now and took his time before saying, “You ain’t ever been here before, but you been somewhere. Where was it you served time, boy?”

“Fort Leavenworth, captain.”

“You were in the army?”

“Yes-suh, captain.”

“I never knew a nigger that was in the army. How long were you in it?”

“Over in Cuba eight months, captain. At Leavenworth four years hard labor.”

“Well, they learned you some manners,” Fisher said, “but they didn’t learn you how to stay out of prison, did they? These papers say you killed a man. Is that right?”

“Yes-suh, captain.”

“What’d you kill him with?”

“I hit him with a piece of pipe, captain.”

“You robbing him?”

“No-suh, captain, we jes’ fighting.”

Mr. Manly cleared his throat. The pause held, and he said quickly, “Coming here he never gave the deputy any trouble, not once.”

Fisher took his time as he looked around. He said, “I generally talk to a new man and find out who he is or who he believes he is, and we get a few things straightened out at the start.” He paused. “If it’s all right with you.”

“Please go ahead,” Mr. Manly said. “I just wanted to say he never acted smart on the trip, or was abusive. I doubt he said more than a couple words.”

“That’s fine.” Fisher nodded patiently before looking at Harold Jackson again. “You’re our last nigger,” he said to him. “You’re the only one we got now, and we want you to be a good boy and work hard and do whatever you’re told. Show you we mean it, we’re going to help you out at first, give you something to keep you out of trouble.”

There was a wooden box underneath the table. Mr. Manly didn’t notice it until one of the guards stooped down and, with the rattling sound of chains, brought out a pair of leg-irons and a ball-peen hammer.

Mr. Manly couldn’t hold back. “But he hasn’t done anything yet!”

“No, sir,” Bob Fisher said, “and he ain’t about to with chains on his legs.” He came over to Mr. Manly and, surprising him, picked up his suitcase and moved him through the door, closing it firmly behind them.

Outside, Fisher paused. “I’ll get somebody to tote your bag over to Mr. Rynning’s cottage. I expect you’ll be most comfortable there.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Take your bath if you want one, have something to eat and a night’s sleep—there’s no sense in showing you around now—all right?”

“What are you going to do to the colored boy?”

“We’re going to put him in a cell, if that’s all right.”

“But the leg-irons.”

“He’ll wear them a week. See what they feel like.”

“I guess I’m just not used to your ways,” Mr. Manly said. “I mean prison ways.” He could feel the silence again among the darkened stone buildings and high walls. The turnkey walked off toward the empty, lighted area by the main gate. Mr. Manly had to step quickly to catch up with him. “I mean I believe a man should have a chance to prove himself first,” he said, “before he’s judged.”

“They’re judged before they get here.”

“But putting leg-irons on them—”

“Not all of them. Just the ones I think need them, so they’ll know what irons feel like.”

Mr. Manly knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the right words. “I mean, don’t they hurt terrible?”

“I sure hope so,” Fisher answered.

As they came to the lighted area, a guard leaning against the iron grill of the gate straightened and adjusted his hat. Fisher let the guard know he had seen him, then stopped and put down the suitcase.

“This Harold Jackson,” Fisher said. “Maybe you didn’t hear him. He killed a man. He didn’t miss Sunday school. He beat a man to death with an iron pipe.”

“I know—I heard him.”

“That’s the kind of people we get here. Lot of them. They come in, we don’t know what’s on their minds. We don’t know if they’re going to behave or cause trouble or try and run or try and kill somebody else.”

“I understand that part all right.”

“Some of them we got to show right away who’s running this place.”

Mr. Manly was frowning. “But this boy Harold Jackson, he seemed all right. He was polite, said yes-sir to you. Why’d you put leg-irons on him?”

Now it was Fisher’s turn to look puzzled. “You saw him same as I did.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean he’s a nigger, ain’t he?”

Looking up at the turnkey, Mr. Manly’s gold-frame spectacles glistened in the overhead light. “You’re saying that’s the only reason you put leg-irons on him?”

“If I could tell all the bad ones,” Bob Fisher said, “as easy as I can tell a nigger, I believe I’d be sup’rintendent.”

Jesus Christ, the man was even dumber than he looked. He could have told him a few more things: sixteen years at Yuma, nine years as turnkey, and he hadn’t seen a nigger yet who didn’t need to wear irons or spend some time in the snake den. It was the way they were, either lazy or crazy; you had to beat ’em to make ’em work, or chain ’em to keep ’em in line. He would like to see just one good nigger. Or one good, hard-working Indian for that matter. Or a Mexican you could trust. Or a preacher who knew enough to keep his nose in church and out of other people’s business.

Bob Fisher had been told two weeks earlier, in a letter from Mr. Rynning, that an acting superintendent would soon be coming to Yuma.

Mr. Rynning’s letter had said: “Not an experienced penal administrator, by the way, but, of all things, a preacher, an ordained minister of the Holy Word Church who has been wrestling with devils in Indian schools for several years and evidently feels qualified to match his strength against convicts. This is not my doing. Mr. Manly’s name came to me through the Bureau as someone who, if not eminently qualified, is at least conveniently located and willing to take the job on a temporary basis. (The poor fellow must be desperate. Or, perhaps misplaced and the Bureau doesn’t know what else to do with him but send him to prison, out of harm’s way.) He has had some administrative experience and, having worked on an Apache reservation, must know something about inventory control and logistics. The bureau insists on an active administrator at Yuma while, in the same breath, they strongly suggest I remain in Florence during the new prison’s final stage of preparation. Hence, you will be meeting your new superintendent in the very near future. Knowing you will oblige him with your utmost cooperation I remain…”

Mr. Rynning remained in Florence while Bob Fisher remained in Yuma with a Holy Word Pentacostal preacher looking over his shoulder.

The clock on the wall of the superintendent’s office said ten after nine. Fisher, behind the big mahogany desk, folded Mr. Rynning’s letter and put it in his breast pocket. After seeing Mr. Manly through the gate, he had come up here to pick up his personal file. No sense in leaving anything here if the preacher was going to occupy the office. The little four-eyed son of a bitch, maybe a few days here would scare hell out of him and run him back to Sunday school. Turning in the swivel chair, Fisher could see the reflection of the room in the darkened window glass and could see himself sitting at the desk; with a thumb and first finger he smoothed his mustache and continued to fool with it as he looked at the clock again.

Still ten after nine. He was off duty; had been since six. Had waited two hours for the preacher.

It was too early to go home: his old lady would still be up and he’d have to look at her and listen to her talk for an hour or more. Too early to go home, and too late to watch the two women convicts take their bath in the cook shack. They always finished and were gone by eight-thirty, quarter to nine. He had been looking forward to watching them tonight, especially Norma Davis. Jesus, she had big ones, and a nice round white fanny. The Mexican girl was smaller, like all the Mexican girls he had ever seen; she was all right, though; especially with the soapy water on her brown skin. It was a shame; he hadn’t watched them in about four nights. If the train had been on time he could have met the preacher and still got over to the cook shack before eight-thirty. It was like the little son of a bitch’s train to be late. There was something about him, something that told Fisher the man couldn’t do anything right, and would mess up anything he took part in.

Tomorrow he’d show him around and answer all his dumb questions.

Tonight—he could stare at the clock for an hour and go home.

He could stare out at the empty yard and hope for something to happen. He could pull a surprise inspection of the guard posts, maybe catch somebody sleeping.

He could stop at a saloon on the way home. Or go down to Frank Shelby’s cell, No. 14, and buy a pint of tequila off him.

What Bob Fisher did, he pulled out the papers on the new prisoner, Harold Jackson, and started reading about him.

One of the guards asked Harold Jackson if he’d ever worn leg-irons before. Sitting tired, hunch-shouldered on the floor, he said yeah. They looked down at him and he looked up at them, coming full awake but not showing it, and said yes-suh, he believed it was two times. That’s all, if the captain didn’t count the prison farm. He’d wore irons there because they liked everybody working outside the jail to wear irons. It wasn’t on account he had done anything.

The guard said all right, that was enough. They give him a blanket and took him shuffling across the dark yard to the main cell block, then through the iron-cage gate where bare overhead lights showed the stone passageway and the cell doors on both sides. The guards didn’t say anything to him. They stopped at Cell No. 8, unlocked the door, pushed him inside, and clanged the ironwork shut behind him.

As their steps faded in the passageway, Harold Jackson could make out two tiers of bunks and feel the closeness of the walls and was aware of a man breathing in his sleep. He wasn’t sure how many were in this cell. He let his eyes get used to the darkness before he took a step, then another, the leg chains clinking in the silence. The back wall wasn’t three steps away. The bunks, three decks high on both sides of him, were close enough to touch. Which would make this a six-man room, he figured, about eight feet by nine feet. Blanket-covered shapes lay close to him in the middle bunks. He couldn’t make out the top ones and didn’t want to feel around; but he could see the bottom racks were empty. Harold Jackson squatted on the floor and ducked into the right-side bunk.

The three-tiered bunks and the smell of the place reminded him of the troopship, though it had been awful hot down in the hold. Ten days sweating down in that dark hold while the ship was tied up at Tampa and they wouldn’t let any of the Negro troops go ashore, not even to walk the dock and stretch their legs. He never did learn the name of that ship, and he didn’t care. When they landed at Siboney, Harold Jackson walked off through the jungle and up into the hills. For two weeks he stayed with a Cuban family and ate sugar cane and got a kick out of how they couldn’t speak any English, though they were Negro, same as he was. When he had rested and felt good he returned to the base and they threw him in the stockade. They said he was a deserter. He said he came back, didn’t he? They said he was still a deserter.

He had never been in a cell that was this cold. Not even at Leavenworth. Up there in the Kansas winter the cold times were in the exercise yard, stamping your feet and moving to keep warm; the cell was all right, maybe a little cold sometimes. That was a funny thing, most of the jails he remembered as being hot: the prison farm wagon that was like a circus cage and the city jails and the army stockade in Cuba. He’d be sitting on a bench sweating or laying in the rack sweating, slapping mosquitoes, scratching, or watching the cockroaches fooling around and running nowhere. Cockroaches never looked like they knew where they were going. No, the heat was all right. The heat, the bugs were like part of being in jail. The cold was something he would have to get used to. Pretend it was hot. Pretend he was in Cuba. If he had to pick a jail to be in, out of all the places—if somebody said, “You got to go to jail for ten years, but we let you pick the place”—he’d pick the stockade at Siboney. Not because it was a good jail, but because it was in Cuba, and Cuba was a nice-looking place, with the ocean and the trees and plenty of shade. That’s a long way away, Harold Jackson said to himself. You ain’t going to see it again.

There wasn’t any wind. The cold just lay over him and didn’t go away. His body was all right; it was his feet and his hands. Harold Jackson rolled to his side to reach down below the leg-irons that dug hard into his ankles and work his shoes off, then put his hands, palms together like he was praying, between the warmth of his legs. There was no use worrying about where he was. He would think of Cuba and go to sleep.

In the morning, in the moments before opening his eyes, he wasn’t sure where he was. He was confused because a minute ago he’d have sworn he’d been holding a piece of sugar cane, the purple peeled back in knife strips and he was sucking, chewing the pulp to draw out the sweet juice. But he wasn’t holding any cane now, and he wasn’t in Cuba.

The bunk jiggled, strained, and moved back in place as somebody got down from above him. There were sounds of movement in the small cell, at least two men.

“You don’t believe it, take a look.”

“Jesus Christ,” another voice said, a younger voice. “What’s he doing in here?”

Both of them white voices. Harold Jackson could feel them standing between the bunks. He opened his eyes a little bit at a time until he was looking at prison-striped legs. It wasn’t much lighter in the cell than before, when he’d gone to sleep, but he could see the stripes all right and he knew that outside it was morning.

A pair of legs swung down from the opposite bunk and hung there, wool socks and yellow toenails poking out of holes. “What’re you looking at?” this one said, his voice low and heavy with sleep.

“We got a coon in here with us,” the younger voice said.

The legs came down and the space was filled with faded, dirty convict stripes. Harold Jackson turned his head a little and raised his eyes. His gaze met theirs as they hunched over to look at him, studying him as if he was something they had never seen before. There was a heavy-boned, beard-stubbled face; a blond baby-boy face; and a skinny, slick-haired face with a big cavalry mustache that drooped over the corners of the man’s mouth.

“Somebody made a mistake,” the big man said. “In the dark.”

“Joe Dean seen him right away.”

“I smelled him,” the one with the cavalry mustache said.

“Jesus,” the younger one said now, “wait till Shelby finds out.”

Harold Jackson came out of the bunk, rising slowly, uncoiling and bringing up his shoulders to stand eye to eye with the biggest of the three. He stared at the man’s dead-looking deep-set eyes and at the hairs sticking out of a nose that was scarred and one time had been broken. “You gentlemen excuse me,” Harold Jackson said, moving past the young boy and the one who was called Joe Dean. He stood with his back to them and aimed at the slop bucket against the wall.

They didn’t say anything at first; just stared at him. But as Harold Jackson started to go the younger one murmured, “Jesus Christ—” as if awed, or saying a prayer. He stared at Harold as long as he could, then broke for the door and began yelling through the ironwork, “Guard! Guard! Goddamn it, there’s a nigger in here pissing in our toilet!”