Slocum's Breakout Read online

  A half-dozen Mexicans huddled together but one stood apart. From the description Conchita had given him, that had to be her brother. As he got closer, he saw the pink half-circle scar on his cheek and knew this was José Valenzuela.

  A bell rang, and the convicts started moving toward the large central building where they were housed.

  “Wait up,” Slocum said. “I’ve got a message for you. From your sister.”

  “From . . . Teresa?”

  “Don’t know that sister. Conchita says your pa is mighty ill and won’t last much longer.”

  Slocum fell into step beside Valenzuela as they made their way slowly toward the cell block.

  “She sent you?”

  “We’re going to have to break out. She said your lawyer couldn’t get clemency from the governor so you could be with your pa.”

  “Durant is such a pendejo. How long?”

  “Conchita said he had a week or two at the outside.”

  “No, no, how long before we break out? You have a plan?”

  “Everybody tells me nobody gets out, yet I’m in here impersonating somebody and they never caught on. The security might be as lax as the way they bring in prisoners.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Call me . . .” Slocum’s voice trailed off as they neared the huge man who had pointed out Valenzuela to him. “Call me John. Don’t call me by the name I used to get inside.”

  “You took the place of another to free me? So I could escape and see my papa?” Valenzuela stared at Slocum, openmouthed. “You are not my amigo, yet you would do this for me, a stranger?” Then he burst out laughing. “You are the novio of my darling Conchita! You do this for loving her!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Slocum said.

  “Oh, this is bueno, muy bueno.”

  “Jarvis, you and him got off to a good start,” the huge prisoner said, scowling. “You know him from the outside?”

  “Jarvis, eh?” Valenzuela nodded sagely.

  “What’s goin’ on?” The prisoner stepped in front of them, blocking their way to the cells, blocking most of the sun as well. “I thought you was gonna have a cow when I said I wanted to beat Jasper Jarvis to a bloody pulp. You are a relative of his?”

  “Oh, no, Big Mike, he—”

  “Shut your trap, Meskin. I ain’t talkin’ to you.”

  “I’m not looking for a fight,” Slocum said. He rubbed his left hand over the spot where his cross-draw holster usually hung. He felt naked without his Colt Navy and how especially vulnerable he was now. They were drawing a small crowd. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention, and now he was the center of it.

  “You some lily-liver like Jasper Jarvis? He always run when it came to a fight.”

  “Fight! Fight!” The chant went up, and Slocum knew he couldn’t walk away.

  “Look, it’s this way . . .” He stepped a little closer, then launched a kick aimed at the big man’s crotch. Slocum’s aim was an inch off, and he caught a heavily muscled inner thigh. The impact hurt his knee and sent him stumbling back. And then he was engulfed in two hundred and fifty pounds of smelly, fighting convict.

  Slocum blocked a hard punch that would have taken off his head, then another intended to kill him. He danced back favoring his knee, sized up his opponent, faked another kick to the balls, then caught the man’s overreaction by driving his fist straight for his belly. Slocum felt the shock all the way up into his shoulder. Every part of this Goliath was oak-hard. Breath whooshed from the man’s lungs, then he took a step back and sat down hard, his face beet red as he gasped for air.

  Slocum had been in enough fights to know it wasn’t over. He judged distances again and launched another kick. The toe of his boot caught the man square on the chin and snapped his head back. This time when the convict flopped onto his back, he was out like a light.

  “You, get back, get back!” Guards pushed their way through the circle of prisoners and roughly grabbed Slocum by the arms. “No fightin’ allowed. You’re goin’ into the hole for a week.”

  Two guards half dragged Slocum away as the sergeant who had checked him into San Quentin came running up.

  “You got it under control? You dumb apes. Don’t let’em fight. You know better, and if I catch you bettin’ on’em again . . .”

  “Aw, Sarge, we stopped it.”

  “Let me enter this onto his record. Fighting. Jasper Jarvis, five days in the hole for fighting.”

  As Slocum was dragged away, he saw the man he had knocked out shaking his head, then become alert when he heard the name Jasper Jarvis. Slocum felt the beady eyes boring a hole into his back all the way into the cell block, then down stone stairs and into the dungeon.

  He had lied his way into San Quentin to rescue José Valenzuela, and now it looked as if he would spend the next two years serving the sentence of a man he didn’t even know.

  Slocum cursed himself and Conchita, her brother, and the man he had knocked out, then started all over again on himself.

  2

  Slocum shivered in the cold, dark cell. He could reach out and touch the stone walls—it didn’t matter where he sat in the cell. Worse, there was no light. The pitch-black robbed him of all sense of how long he had been imprisoned there. It might have been minutes, or it could have been hours. His belly growled from lack of food, and his tongue felt like a bale of cotton, all puffy and sticky from lack of water.

  But the cold was worst of all. He tried standing, but the ceiling was a few inches too low to allow him to stretch upright. He found the splintery wooden door and tried to pick away at the weakest part, hoping to see out. Too many others had tried and failed. Slocum reckoned they had been locked up here longer than he ever would be.

  He settled down with his back against the door since this promised him more warmth—or less cold—than any other position. His head dropped forward and rested on his upraised knees as he dozed. For an instant or an hour? He didn’t know, but there came a sharp rap at the door. He felt it in his spine as well as hearing it.

  “Get on back away from the door or you’ll get shot,” came a muffled voice that was strangely familiar.

  He did as he was told and the door creaked open to reveal the prisoner he had ridden into San Quentin with standing in the corridor outside, a tin plate and cup in hand.

  “Here’s yer vittles,” Doc said. “Won’t get more ’n this for another day, so don’t let the rats beat you to it.”

  Doc handed him the plate, only to be rebuked by the guard behind him.

  “None of that. No contact with him. None.”

  Doc was roughly yanked back and the door slammed shut, but Slocum sat for a moment, his finger holding firmly against the tin plate a slip of paper Doc had passed him. How he was ever going to read in the dark was a poser until he slid the paper away and found a lucifer glued to the bottom of the plate.

  He was torn between lighting the match and reading the note and eating. His hunger won out. He wolfed down the stale bread and almost gagged on the tough meat on the plate with it. He hoarded the water jealously in the cup, then couldn’t restrain himself. He downed it with a single long gulp that did nothing to soothe the thirst or the way his tongue had swelled.

  Still, the food and drops of water restored him and sparked his anger at the guards and San Quentin and . . .

  Who else? He tried to blame Conchita and her brother for his predicament, but he had volunteered. Over the years he had learned the lesson not to let nether regions of his anatomy think for him—and this time he had ignored that sage experience. That José might be busted out of this prison was one thing, but doing it was proving more difficult. Slocum didn’t know how long José and Conchita’s father had before he upped and died, but the lovely, dark-tressed, fiery woman had hinted that it wasn’t too long.

  Only when he had licked the plate and made certain not a drop of water remained did Slocum turn back to the scrap of paper and the solitary match. He would have to read quick. The match wouldn�
�t last more than a handful of seconds. Over and over in his mind he played through how he had to act, where to hold the paper, the match, how he would read. He finally decided to spread the note on the floor and use both hands to steady the match. The initial flare would blind him. He had to keep his eyes shut and only peer out a little.

  So many details. But Slocum had plenty of time. He pressed his ear against the door, listening hard for any hint of movement outside. It might be day or night, the guards might patrol or simply lock a door leading down into the dungeons. Being caught by a guard took on less urgency than the need to read the note now. What could Doc possibly have thought worth risking ending up down in solitary to pass to him?

  Another few minutes’ preparation allowed Slocum to press out the note on the stone floor, then clutch the lucifer. He closed his eyes, struck the match on stone, saw the dazzling flare through his eyelids, then opened his eyes fast before the match burned down.

  The note was upside down. He hastily spun it around and scanned it. Doc, for all his boasting of being educated, could hardly spell, but he had written a considerable amount on the small piece of yellow foolscap. Slocum yelped when the lucifer burned down to his callused fingers. He would have traded an inch of his thumb and index finger to keep the guttering light for even a minute longer.

  But the smell of burnt flesh and the blisters on his fingers were all he got.

  A smile crossed his lips. He had singed his fingers but had read through the note and now had something to bolster his spirits. He reached out, pressed his palm into the wooden door, then worked his way to his right, going to the wall. From the spot where the walls met the floor, he carefully searched until he found one stone that stuck out more than the others on either side. His strong fingers pried the stone free.

  “¿Quién está?” came the immediate question.

  Slocum flopped belly down on the cold floor and pressed his face close to the hole leading into the next cell.

  “My name’s . . . Jarvis,” he said, almost forgetting his alias.

  “Gringo.” The word came out as an insult, but the disgust and loss of hope along with it spoke volumes more.

  “I’m here to break out José Valenzuela,” Slocum said. He saw no reason to lie to whoever occupied the next cell. He needed allies and had to take the risk.

  “So? I am not this Valenzuela. I am Procipio Murrieta, the son of Joaquin Murrieta. For no reason other than my proud heritage have they imprisoned me.”

  “I’ve heard of Murrieta,” Slocum said. “A while back.”

  “He is dead. I seek only to live peaceably.”

  “This isn’t the place to do it,” Slocum pointed out. “Will you help in an escape?”

  There was a long silence.

  Then, “They will keep those who try and fail in these hellhole cells for years. I am only here for another day.”

  Slocum pulled back from the small tunnel through the wall and reflected on spending the rest of his life in this cell. Better to be dead. He wanted nothing more than to see the sun again—and hold his Colt in his hand.

  “Better to die than suffer them doing to you as they see fit. You said you were innocent. How can you be worse off?”

  Murrieta took a while responding.

  “I often have this thought. Another year or death? I would choose death.”

  “Who else is down here? In the dungeon?”

  “I do not know. I have tried to speak to whoever is in the cell on the other side, but no one answers. The one who was there might be gone.” Murrieta paused, then added, “Or dead.”

  “If he’s dead, can you get to his food and water?” Slocum wasn’t the kind to let an opportunity slip through his fingers, but the question brought a hearty laugh from Murrieta.

  “You have a sense of humor. I like that, gringo.”

  “How hard is it to get over the wall?”

  “Not possible, but there is another way. I worked on a repair of the wall and saw how badly a section was built. There might have been a doorway there at one time, but no longer. With a pick we can open the way through the wall to the outside.”

  “How hard will it be opening the way?” Slocum asked.

  “It will require many men for it and must be done quickly. The guards patrol constantly. We would have no longer than fifteen minutes.”

  “The guards would see the hole, wouldn’t they?”

  “No plan is without risk. San Quentin was not built to be so easily left.”

  “With Valenzuela and another, can four of us open the hole?”

  “Four, yes.”

  Slocum and Murrieta continued to hone their escape plans. Along with José Valenzuela, Slocum thought Doc would be willing to help. He had risked much to put the two prisoners in contact. The only reason Slocum could think of Doc doing that was a desire to escape himself.

  After a while Slocum found himself drifting off to sleep. Time was measured by Doc bringing food once a day, but he had no more notes. Slocum didn’t care. Being told where to find the hole and talking to Murrieta made the first effort on the other prisoner’s part worthwhile. Slocum felt he owed Doc for that. And since the man was willing to risk so much, Doc was the likeliest to be the fourth needed to escape through Murrieta’s wall breach.

  “Come on out. Yer time’s up.”

  Slocum shielded his eyes with his arm and peered at the guard in the corridor. The dim light was hardly enough for an owl to hunt by, but for him it was blinding. He got to his feet and staggered out. Going without exercise for almost a week had left him weak. It would take a spell to get his strength back for the escape.

  In the corridor he saw two guards waiting, hands on truncheons. The next cell over was already open. Procipio Murrieta had been released days earlier. Slocum tried to step lively but found himself half carried up the steps into real sunlight. He screwed his eyes closed and only slowly opened them to look around the yard, where dozens of inmates milled about. Exercise time was almost over.

  “Time to put you back into your cell.”

  Slocum recoiled from the guard. He wasn’t going back into that dungeon.

  The guard laughed harshly and said, “Not in the hole. Your cell. Your regular one.”

  “Jarvis hasn’t been assigned a regular cell. He got in trouble right away,” said the sergeant, who still carried his ledger. Slocum wanted to cram it down the man’s throat until he choked on it. “Put him in with Doc.”

  Slocum started to complain, then subsided. He let the guard lead him away, acting sullen, but inside he rejoiced. He wanted to learn more about the man who had been his only friend so far within San Quentin’s walls.

  The cell had two pallets on the floor, almost touching. The straw ticking spilled out of one. Doc sat on the other. He looked up when the guard shoved Slocum inside and slammed the iron-barred door shut behind him.

  “You got through solitary,” Doc said in a low voice. “You don’t look none the worse fer the stint.”

  Slocum dropped to the unoccupied pallet and leaned back against the stone wall. It was as cold above ground as it was in the subterranean cell. He glanced out the bars and waited to be sure the guard had moved on.

  “He’s got a bottle down in the office. He ain’t likely to be back ’til it’s time to let us out for dinner.”

  “How do you know your way around?” Slocum asked.

  Doc laughed harshly.

  “Been a regular here for years. Hardly get free and they send me back. I heard about the loose stone in the wall the last time I was in. My roommate worked it free on one of his vacations down below. I ain’t never been in the cellar myself, ’cept to carry food.”

  Slocum thanked him for the note and the match, then asked, “Why’d you do it?”

  “I seen right from the start you’re not the kind what stays locked up. You got a look about you, lean, nasty, not the type to put up with more ’n a week or two of conditions like these.”

  Slocum worked his way into telling Doc about
what Murrieta had said about the hole in the outer wall, finally getting him to agree to join the escape.

  “I been locked up too much of my life. I get away, I’m leaving San Francisco and goin’ east. Maybe lose myself in Indian Territory. I was born somewhere ’round there, though I don’t remember much of it. Might be my pa was a soldier at Fort Gibson.” Doc shrugged. “Then again, he mighta been locked up in the stockade and my ma was a Cherokee squaw. It was a long time back.”

  “We have to take Valenzuela with us.”

  “That gent you was talkin’ with when Mick picked the fight?”

  “Mick?”

  “Leon Mickleson. Ugly son of a bitch. Most folks inside the walls got more brains in their pinky than he does in his whole danged body, and that’s bein’ real unkind since most prisoners are dumb as rocks.” Doc looked hard at Slocum. “That’s something else I seen in you. You’re smart. Might not be book smart, but you’re always thinkin’ and ’less I miss my guess, you come out on top more often than not.”

  “I’m in here,” Slocum said with some disdain.

  “There’s a real big story ’bout that,” Doc said. “I’d bet on it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Jarvis ain’t yer name. When the guards call you that, it takes a second for you to remember that’s what you’re bein’ called now.” Doc snorted. “Fact is, like Mick, I knew Jarvis. Dumber even than Mick, he was. Now there might be two Jasper Jarvises in the world, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “How do I get in touch with José Valenzuela?”

  Doc laughed so hard Slocum wondered what was wrong. Doc wiped tears from his eyes and pointed at him. When he finally caught his breath from the laughter, he pointed at the wall behind Slocum.

  “Look for a loose stone. He’s in the next cell.”