Yuma Prison Crashout, page 18
“We’re getting out of this hellhole,” Fowler said. He smiled. “Trust me.”
The door opened, and Fallon stepped away as Pinky and Percy Marshall brought in the body of the pale man who had held the makeshift knife. They lugged the body toward the nearest coffin, but Fowler snapped, “Not there, you damned fools. In the icehouse.” He pointed.
They started for the back door.
“Someone will see you,” Fallon said, and shook his head at the incompetence of the drunken doctor. “Monk Quinn won’t like that.”
Morgan Maynard and Preacher Lang brought in the body of Lopez.
“In my room,” Doc Fowler said quickly. “In the armoire. Both of you. They’ll fit.”
Gloria Adler drew in a deep breath, slowly realizing what was going on.
Yaqui Mendoza arrived, hauling the body of the big Mexican over his shoulder. “Where does mi amigo get to rest his weary soul?”
“Storeroom.” Fowler pointed.
Monk Quinn came in dragging McMahon’s body, which left a grisly trail of blood and gore.
“Storeroom,” Fowler said, but this time he went to grab McMahon’s arms and lift the upper half of the dead man’s body off the floor.
That caused Quinn to laugh. “You want to keep the floor clean for your replacement, Doctor? That is a fine, fine thing to do.” Fowler strained, and Fallon sighed, and stopped the doctor and Quinn. He took McMahon’s arms and helped Quinn deposit the body, unceremoniously, on top of the corpse Yaqui Mendoza had left on the dust-covered floor.
When everyone was back in the main room, Fowler asked, “Where is Captain Allan?”
“Getting things in order,” Quinn said. He pressed the toe of his boot against one of the coffins, and turned to Fallon.
“Do you know what this is for?” Quinn said.
Fallon had his own question in mind. He asked, “Where’s Louis Roach?”
Monk Quinn laughed. “Poor Louis needs no coffin. He . . .” Then the man understood, and his face hardened as he whirled toward the doctor. “Where did you put the body of Roach?”
The doctor took a step back, his face paling, and pointed at a table. “He’s still there. I couldn’t get him to the icehouse by myself.”
“The icehouse? You fool. You would put a dead man who is supposed to be buried in the icehouse? In the middle of the summer? Do you not think guards and trusties come to that house to keep themselves cool?” He spun away from the cowering drunkard and saw the sheets covering the body of Louis Roach.
“And you leave him there. What if someone comes in and sees a corpse when all of the dead are supposed to be six feet under.” Quinn’s fingers snapped. “Yaqui, Lang, get that body out of sight. In the storeroom. Then lock the storeroom.”
While the two killers crossed the floor to retrieve the body, Quinn kicked the coffin again.
“Is that for me?” Fallon asked.
Quinn’s head shook. “Not yet, my friend. You have to bury us. Remember? But I would like to climb out of this coffin in a few hours.” He pulled up his shirt to reveal the butt of a revolver. “If I grow suspicious, I shall open up with this. I might not hit anyone, but the guards will be upon you immediately. And then, if you are still alive, you will wish you were dead long before your heart stops beating.”
“You are a trusting partner,” Fallon said.
Quinn laughed and climbed into the coffin. “I trust everyone,” he said.
“Like McMahon trusted you?”
The killer was beginning to squat in the coffin. He studied Fallon for a moment, and shrugged his shoulders. “McMahon was necessary. If he and his fools did not die, we would not have enough coffins for all of us to get out. I might have even had to kill you.”
“Your explanation is acceptable by me, and I applaud your generalship.”
Monk Quinn laughed deeply and stretched out his legs and lay down in the coffin. As he made himself comfortable, he told Fowler, “Make sure you have your death certificates all neat and in order for Allan to leave on the desk.”
“I’m working on them now,” the doctor said, and began scribbling on some papers.
Lang, Mendoza, Percy Marshall, and Morgan Maynard climbed into the other coffins.
“Ahhh,” Quinn said, his voice muffled by the pine box. “This is a comfortable place to rest.”
“I don’t like it,” Percy Marshall said. “Don’t like this at all.”
“Relax,” Mendoza said. “Your lid isn’t even nailed on yet.”
“How long do we have to wait in this thing?” asked Morgan Maynard.
“An hour,” Fowler said. “Maybe a little more. Get those lids nailed on, Fallon.”
“Wait a danged minute!” The kid sat up in his coffin. “There ain’t no call to have us nailed tighter than a fight girl’s corset.”
“Lie down, you fool,” Quinn said. “Fallon. Get all the lids on. We don’t want some guard or even a trusty coming in here and seeing the five of us in coffins and not the dead. Lids on, Fallon. Now. But don’t forget that I have a pistol.”
Fallon found the hammer on the floor and nailed down the lids, loosely. It wouldn’t take much for even slender Percy Marshall to bust out of this coffin, and there were enough gaps in the wood so that suffocation would not be a risk at all.
He tossed the hammer underneath one of the hospital beds and moved toward the coffeepot on the stove. Gloria Adler was already there, and when she saw Fallon, she set her cup down and found another. She poured.
“You can have more than three cups of this swill,” she said, and forced a smile.
He took the cup, nodded, but did not have enough in him to return the smile. He turned to watch Pinky drinking from Doc Fowler’s bottle while the prison’s doctor wrote death certificates for four inmates, two dumped into the doctor’s armoire in his quarters, two others lying in the floor of the storeroom. Killed, murdered, by Monk Quinn. Oh, Quinn had not pulled a trigger, but he had ordered their deaths. Just as he had ordered the death of Louis Roach, who also now rested in the storeroom.
Yet, Fallon had to concede, Quinn’s plan had a genius to it. Brilliant. But even more so, the plan was utterly . . . revolting.
Behind him, Gloria Adler sighed. Fallon turned. She was staring at Jerome Fowler as he slid the death certificates on the top of a desk and snatched the bottle of liquor from Pinky’s trembling hand.
“Like I said,” Gloria Adler whispered, “we can’t always choose who we fall in love with.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Once the sun had set, Gloria Adler turned the switch to the electrical lights. Nothing happened. She tried again, and Fowler told her to fire up the kerosene lamp and light a few candles. This part of the crashout, Fallon thought, had been well-planned, too, but there was something else he wanted to know. He turned to Pinky, who sat on Monk Quinn’s coffin while chewing tobacco and spitting into a lard can.
“What happens when a guard checks on our cell and finds it empty?”
Pinky spit without answering, but Monk Quinn laughed inside the coffin. “Do you think, my friend, that any yellow-livered guard would enter the prison at night, with the only light from torch, candle, or match? After all that happened today?”
Fallon shrugged.
“But there are bundles underneath the bedrolls. That should suffice until the head count at breakfast. And Captain Allan, if he does his job, will sign off that all prisoners are present and accounted for.”
“If he does his job,” Fallon said softly.
“If he does not, he will be dead. This I have sworn to him.”
A half-hour later, Captain Allan entered the hospital without knocking, flanked by a half-dozen guards. Sitting on the coffin that contained Preacher Lang, Fallon looked up without comment and sipped some more coffee.
It was dark outside, Fallon noticed, and the moon offered just a sliver of light. Torches lit a path toward the sally port, and lanterns glowed on the driver’s seat of the buckboard parked outside.
“Something wrong with that Dynamo generator?” Fallon asked.
“Yes. We’ll get it fixed though,” Allan answered, and searched with his eyes until he found Doctor Fowler. “Is all the paperwork in order?”
“Yes, indeed.” The doctor slurred the words.
“Take it to the warden’s office. The assistant superintendent will read over that when he arrives by train tomorrow evening. We will pick you up on our way to the cemetery.”
Fowler nodded, grabbed a grip, and started to walk out. A few guards studied the doctor and the large satchel he held. Captain Allan did not notice, but Fallon did.
“Hey, Doc?” he said, and set his coffee cup on the coffin lid.
The drunkard stopped. Fallon nodded at the bag. “What’s in the carpetbag? Going somewhere?”
The doc looked at the gaudy bag as if he had never seen it before. He recovered and sighed. “After we have buried the deceased, I am taking the train to San Diego. The prison owes me some time, and I aim to take it.”
“Before you take it,” Fallon said, and nodded at the countertop, “you might want to take those papers the captain wants you to put in the assistant warden’s office.”
“Oh yeah, thanks.”
Fallon grinned at the guards. They did not return the look.
“All right,” Allan said once Doc Fowler was out of the building with both his luggage and the fraudulent death certificates. He cleared his throat and pointed a thick finger at Pinky first, and then at Fallon.
“You two pigs are my gravediggers.”
“Captain,” said one of the guards, “we can help with that.”
“Not a chance, Scott,” Allan said. “You boys. All of you. You went through hell today. These pigs can dig the graves.”
“Sir,” the timid guard said softly, “that will take them till dawn.”
“Good.”
“But this one . . .” Scott nodded at Fallon. “He saved Superintendent Gruber’s life.”
“If Gruber lives.” Allan pointed. “Get off that box, you miserable cur dog, and you and Pinky get that box loaded on the back of the buckboard outside. Get all five coffins on that wagon. Now!”
Pinky strained to get Lang’s coffin into the wagon bed. He could barely handle Percy Marshall’s. Fallon had to do most of the work, and Gloria Adler came over to help with the second.
“Captain . . .” the guard named Scott pleaded.
“All right,” Allan said. “You keep an eye on these cur dogs. I’ll help these lazy convicts who ain’t good for nothin’.”
Fallon was glad to have Allan’s help. Even with Gloria Adler assisting Pinky, they never would have been able to lift the coffins of Yaqui Mendoza or Monk Quinn. He wasn’t even sure they could have managed the one holding Morgan Maynard.
When the coffins were loaded, next to the shovels, pickaxes and five wooden crosses that would not last in this harsh climate more than a season, Allan ordered Pinky to drive the wagon and Fallon to sit beside him.
“I’ll be right here,” he said as he crawled into the bed of the wagon and leaned his back against one of the coffins. “You try something, we’ll bury you too.”
“Captain,” the guard named Scott said again, “I think we should have more guards with you. Or at least wait till morning.”
“These swine ain’t fit to stay inside these walls no more. Don’t you fret no more, Scott. Just keep an eye on the walls. Inside the prison. Not enough lights so we’ll need to be extra careful. I’ll handle the buryin’.”
The guard said, “We can send some guards to do random checks throughout the night.”
“You’ll do no such thing, Scott. You want to risk putting us in another situation like the one we faced this afternoon?” Allan’s big head shook violently. “Not on my watch. And I have to think the prisoners are wetting their britches they’re so scared after they saw what we did to fish that try to swim out of the sally port. Get some rest. But when any guard is on the walls, he had damned well better keep his eyes open and looking inside. I hear about any fool caught sleeping on duty and he’ll find himself spread-eagled next to an ant hill.”
“Yes sir, Captain,” Scott said.
“I’ll see you boys at breakfast.” Allan grinned. “Oh, one more thing. Miss Adler. Why don’t you join us?”
Fallon turned around to see the woman prisoner stiffen.
“You’ve got a sweet voice. These fiends don’t deserve no sendoff from an angel like you but, well, I’ll never let anybody say that I lack a kind heart. Crawl up between them two bad boys on the wagon seat. We’ll pick up the doc on the way out the gate.”
Fallon waited until Gloria Adler sat down. He released the brake, grabbed the leather reins, and slapped them hard, grunting something. The mules moved forward, and Fallon kept them moving slowly, before he reined them in. The doctor tossed his grip over the side, and it rattled against the gravediggers’ tools. He smiled at Gloria and moved to the back of the wagon.
“Make sure the gate’s locked when we’re out of here. Good job, boys,” Allan called out. “Good luck tonight, and don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. Mitchell.”
Another guard ran from the office outside the gate. He handed the captain of the guards a repeating rifle and a belt that had two holstered revolvers.
“We’re ready, you thieves and killers. Let’s go bury some thieves and killers.”
* * *
The prison cemetery was about as ugly a place as Fallon had ever seen. No trees. Not even a lot of cactus. Almost all of the crosses had disappeared, so there was no way any next of kin could figure out who was buried where. Mounds of rocks covered the graves. Fallon figured he would be here more than one night, even with Pinky, Doc Fowler, and Gloria Adler helping, to get five graves filled. He didn’t think Allan would offer any help.
So, Fallon decided, that meant one thing. They would not be digging any graves.
“That’s far enough,” Allan called out from the back of the wagon. He had to yell louder than he wanted to because of the blowing wind. It blew like a gale on this open plain of miserable rocks.
Fallon stopped the mules, set the brake, and wrapped the reins around the lever. After climbing down, he helped Gloria to the ground. She smelled again like yucca soap and shampoo. The wind whipped her hair into his face.
“Thank you,” she said, her words just able to reach him, and moved around the wagon to be with Jerome Fowler, where she began asking him questions rapidly.
“Quiet,” Allan barked. “And start singing, wench.”
“Why did you bring her along?” the drunken doctor asked.
“To keep you in line.” Allan levered a round into the Winchester. “That goes for you, too, Marshal.” He laughed. “I mean it, Adler. Sing loud and long. ‘Rock of ages, cleft for me.’ You sing. That’ll give them fools back at the prison something to hear. And it’ll cover what us men have to talk about. Sing!”
The wind whistled between the spokes of the wagon wheels. Fallon’s hat blew off and into the darkness. He didn’t think he would miss it, even when the sun rose over the harsh desert heading toward Mexico.
If Allan or Monk Quinn had not already killed him by then.
“All right, Fallon. Get up in the back of the wagon and start prying the lids off these coffins. Pinky. Dig.”
“Dig?” the old man asked.
“Dig. Give the night a sound of graves bein’ dug. Sound travels far out in this country. I want the boys back on guard duty to think we’re workin’ hard. Just for a spell.”
“Why don’t you let me dig?” Fallon suggested. “Pinky can get the coffins opened.”
“No way, Marshal.” Allan laughed. “I ain’t trustin’ you with no pickax or shovel on a night as dark as midnight like this one is.”
The only light came from the lanterns on the side of the driver’s seat.
Fallon reached over the wagon’s side and found a pickax. He watched Allan train the rifle barrel in his direction, and he handed the tool to Pinky, who sighed and walked toward the graves. Fallon walked to the back of the wagon. Allan waved the rifle barrel at another tool, and brought his aim back onto Fallon’s middle.
“You trust me with a crowbar?” Fallon said.
“Use it wrong, and this is where you get buried.”
The lids came off easily. Like five men named Lazarus, the dead rose out of the coffins.
Almost immediately, as soon as they got out of their coffins, they rushed to the ugly carpetbag Doc Fowler had brought along.
The wind wailed. At least it was a cool wind.
Preacher Lang was first, and he pulled out one gunbelt and holster, tossed it aside, and found a derringer that must have been more to his liking. He hefted the hideaway Remington and grinned, but the grin died when he pushed the over-and-under barrels down.
“Bullets?” His eyes sought out Monk Quinn, who reached into the bag and pulled out a box of shells. “These are .44 caliber,” he said, and grinned. “Yours is a .41. Sorry, Preacher. Please forgive me.”
Gloria Adler began singing. Fallon could not tell what hymn because of the wind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Over the furious whipping of the wind, Quinn also withdrew a haversack from the grip, and he dropped the box of shells into it and walked away. Angrily, Preacher Lang moved back to the doctor’s luggage, only to be shoved away by Morgan Maynard, who buckled the gun rig the killing parson had shunned and withdrew the long-barreled Colt Peacemaker. He thumbed open the loading gate, pulled the hammer to half-cock, and rotated the cylinder. His eyes hardened. He looked across the wagon at Monk Quinn.
“And yours is a .45, Maynard. My bullets won’t work in your gun neither.”
Maynard spit, and reached into the bag, only to find Yaqui Mendoza’s strong hands had grabbed both of Maynard’s arms. The gunfighter showed intense pain.
“You have had your choice, my friend,” Mendoza said. “Now let me get my weapon.” He withdrew a machete, found the sheath and belt, and waved at Quinn. “I think my caliber is just right. Would you not agree?”
“You chose wisely,” Quinn said.
The wind suddenly died down. Gloria stopped singing.
