by Sean Black
What must it have been like for Romero, who had fought so hard for what he believed in, and for longer? Perhaps the beating, or the humiliation of it and what it demonstrated about human nature, had taken the fight from him.
‘This wasn’t my idea,’ Byron said to Romero.
‘I know that, Davis, not that it matters.’
‘It matters to me.’
Romero nodded. ‘I understand. So this is goodbye?’
He put his working hand out. Byron shook it. He was still trying to think of some way out for Romero. ‘When you were arrested, what did you have with you?’ he asked. Any personal property he’d had that had been confiscated should be returned to him upon release.
The question seemed to puzzle Romero. ‘My wallet, bank cards, some cash, family pictures. My clothes. My phone. I switched that off when I gave it to them so the battery wouldn’t run down. Nothing, really. I was traveling light.’
‘Make sure you get it all back before you go. Especially the phone. Don’t leave without it,’ said Byron. He looked around to make sure they weren’t being watched, plucked a pen from a nearby desk, grabbed Romero’s good hand, and scribbled a number on it. ‘Her name is Thea Martinez. She’s an attorney here. Tell the deputy you need to take a leak. Insist on using a gas station so you have some privacy. When you’re alone call her. Explain who you are and what your situation is. Tell her your life is in danger and ask her to come meet you. Once you’ve done that, sit tight. If the deputy tells you to move, you tell him about the call you just made. Tell him that she’s contacted the US Justice Department and the FBI field office in San Antonio.’
‘You really think that will stop them killing me or dropping me out in the desert with no water and a broken arm?’ Romero asked.
‘I don’t know. But it’ll give them something to think about. A man going missing is one thing. A man who goes missing after he tells an attorney that he’s about to be snuffed by the county sheriff is something else.’
Romero glanced down at Thea’s number on the palm of his hand. ‘I can trust her?’
‘More than you can trust anyone else around here,’ said Byron. ‘All I know is that the judge, the sheriff and the warden all seem to hate her.’
‘An excellent set of recommendations.’
One of the guards walked into the outer office where they were standing. ‘Hey, Davis, you ain’t going anywhere. I want you back on the mainline. We have to finish processing Romero.’
‘Good luck,’ Byron said.
‘The same to you,’ said Romero.
58
He didn’t know how it had happened, but by the time Byron walked back into the bunkhouse, word had already got round that Romero was gone. From the fallen faces and stooped shoulders, it looked like his release was already having the desired effect. They were only a few days into the strike, but removing Romero, so soon after his triumphant return, had sent morale plummeting.
No matter the righteousness of the cause, Byron had no plans to rally the troops. The sooner they were back to work and out on those trucks, the sooner he could get out of there.
A couple of the Mexican prisoners walked over to him. They wanted to know if he’d seen Romero. He told them some of what he knew. There was no point in mentioning the ride they had planned for Romero to the border. It would only make an already tense situation even worse. If they killed Romero the inmates would hear about it eventually and the whole place would go up. Byron didn’t plan on being there when that happened.
As he reached his bunk, Red sidled up to him. ‘We need to talk.’
Byron doubted they did, but he humored Red and walked with him to a quiet corner of the bunkhouse. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘Me and some of the other guys are going back to work tomorrow,’ said Red.
Byron shrugged. ‘Okay.’
‘If you’re smart you’ll do the same.’
‘I’ll be happy to,’ Byron told him. ‘What’s with the change of heart?’
Red shot Byron a smile that suggested he was holding on to some special secret. It was the kind of look that made Byron want to punch him in the face. ‘Mills is telling us that those who go back tomorrow are going to get some goodies.’
‘Goodies?’ Byron asked.
‘Whores. Hookers. Women,’ said Red.
‘And where are these women going to come from? I sure as hell didn’t see anything that even looked like it might be a bordello in town.’
Red’s smirk grew broader. ‘The women’s prison.’
Byron folded his arms across his chest. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Those women aren’t hookers.’
‘Sure they are,’ said Red.
Byron reached out and clapped a huge hand on Red’s shoulder. ‘You or your peckerwoods lay a finger on any of those women, regardless of whether you think they’re hookers or not, and I’ll kill you. Do you understand me?’
Red tried to push Byron away. ‘What’s it to you?’
Byron squeezed a little harder. Red winced. ‘You heard me. Touch any of them and you’re a dead man.’
* * *
The first punch was thrown in the mess hall. Red and a couple of his white peckerwood buddies had made a passing comment to a table of Mexicans. Byron didn’t catch what was said, but he didn’t have to. He could make an educated guess about its nature from the reaction it garnered.
A Mexican prisoner with full sleeves and a chest like the front of a Mac truck stood up and popped Red in the face with a looping right hand that seemed to start in the next county.
Red fell back, blood gushing from a broken nose. His two buddies double-teamed the Mexican, tackling him to the floor and laying in with a flurry of kicks and punches. The inmate’s buddies got to their feet, metal trays flying, and waded in.
It was one of those fights in which someone could have been badly hurt, if the participants had been focused on inflicting damage rather than flailing wildly at whoever was within their immediate reach. If it had been set to music, the score from an old Buster Keaton movie would have been the most appropriate accompaniment.
The three guards on mess-hall duty stood back and watched. When the dozen or so participants had tired themselves out, they stepped in. They pulled Red and his buddies clear, saving their batons for the Mexicans who’d been involved, and a few who hadn’t.
What little solidarity that had existed was well and truly ruptured. It seemed like the promise of a woman was a pretty good motivator for men like Red, who didn’t care whether the person they wished to have sex with was willing or not.
If this fight was the product of an incendiary comment, Byron could only imagine the shit show that would go down if Red and his pals were let loose inside the prison’s sister facility. The women they were talking about were mostly the wives and girlfriends of the men in here. More likely it was a power play by those in charge. If you don’t get back to work then we won’t punish you: instead we’ll punish your loved ones. In the worst way imaginable. The threat of such a thing was usually enough to get someone to buckle under. It was so horrific that very few men would risk such a thing happening, even if the chance was remote. Usually threats had to be credible. If a man told you he was going to stomp you into dust, he’d better look like he was capable of doing so.
Byron’s first thought was that the idea had been floated to get some leverage over the striking Mexicans. Then he had started to think about it a little more deeply. Rape as punishment, or the threat of it, had gained traction in places like sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Before that it had been deployed in places like Bosnia. But in America? No way. Another force was at work here. A much darker one. And he had a fairly good idea what, or who, it might be.
59
The prisoners from Byron’s bunkhouse filed into the mess hall for breakfast. Mills and about four other guards were waiting for them. They stood in front of the serving area where the inmates usually picked up their trays. Byron was about ten back in the line
.
‘Okay. You men who are working today, pick up your tray and go ahead. The food’s so good that even I ate it this morning. There’s plenty of it too.’
Mills looked at the inmates who were shuffling towards the back of the line: the men who planned on continuing with the strike. He tilted his head back theatrically and sniffed the air. ‘Mm, damn, that smells good. Might have some more.’
The prisoners exchanged looks as Red and his buddies pushed through to the front of the line. ‘Make way for the workers,’ said Red, as subtle as a house brick. He grabbed a tray and started to move down the line. Byron had to admit the food did look good. Real eggs. Crispy bacon cooked to the sizzle. Biscuits. Gravy. Hot coffee that might have seen a coffee bean somewhere along the line.
‘Slap that shit on,’ said Red to the server. ‘I got a long day ahead of me and an even longer night.’ He nudged the man next to him. ‘Know what I’m saying? A man needs his protein if he’s going to be doing a lot of fucking.’
For a second Byron thought the scrap might kick off again. A couple of the Mexicans were glaring at Red and his buddies. It took Mills drawing his baton and slapping it into his open palm to settle them down.
‘Going to get me some sweet brown sugar,’ Red continued on.
Mills had heard enough. ‘Shut your pie hole,’ he bellowed at Red. ‘Keep moving along the line. Workers only.’
Byron found himself hesitating. He was going to join the work detail. His freedom required it. But this display turned his stomach.
One of the Mexicans pushed past the others in line and picked up a tray. Others muttered at him. Mills lowered his baton across the man’s chest. ‘You eat, you work. You take this food and don’t work, it’s all kinds of bad news for you.’
The man lowered his head and gave a little nod that he understood. Behind him the muttering grew louder and moved down an octave. The Mexicans were growling. The man took his tray and moved on. He kept his gaze focused on the food and took a table across from Red and the others.
Byron could feel eyes on him as he moved back towards the stack of trays. A couple of inmates’ shoulders checked him as he made the short journey but he shrugged them off. He had gone above and beyond what he’d ever intended. He had his own war to wage, and he couldn’t fight it while he was here, never mind if he was caught by his pursuers.
The server looked up at him. ‘What you want?’
‘Everything,’ said Byron.
His plate heaped with food, Byron took an empty table. It was better that he ate alone. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to eat his breakfast and get out on the truck, pick his moment and not look back.
Not look back?
He wasn’t sure that would hold true. He was already worried about Romero. Had he managed to contact Thea? Or was he lying dead somewhere? Had the warden actually returned him to the border? Maybe he would find out what had happened to him once he was out of there.
He ate slowly and methodically. The lone Mexican breaking the strike was joined by a couple of others. They sat together, and ate, not looking at each other, not speaking.
The food was good. Mills hadn’t exaggerated. It was the best meal Byron had eaten since he’d been arrested. He always enjoyed breakfast, not that he had had time to eat it on the road.
At the serving hatch, the metal containers filled with eggs, bacon and biscuits were being removed. They were replaced with others. Mills waved the striking men forward with a grin. ‘Chow time, muchachos.’
The men took their trays and filed along. They looked with disgust at the watery porridge, but didn’t complain.
Mills was enjoying every second of this. ‘Hey, don’t bitch at me. You had a choice. Work and a good meal, or lay on your ass and eat this shit. I wasn’t twisting anyone’s arm. Oh, and sit on the other side. Don’t want you disturbing men who want to earn their keep.’
Mills was as dumb as Byron had figured. The more he tried to humiliate the men who were striking, the harder their resolve. If he’d simply laid out the options, Byron was fairly sure that more would have come over to the work detail. It would have suited Byron too. The more men to supervise, the busier the guards would be, and the easier for him to make his move.
Apart from Red, the men sitting near Byron ate in silence. The other, larger, group spooned their porridge and stared over, eyes filled with hatred. The oldest trick in the book: divide and rule.
Breakfast finished, the first group filed over to deposit their trays. Mills was waiting for them. ‘This way, gents. Don’t worry, we don’t have anything too strenuous for you today seeing as you’re on your own. No ladders.’
* * *
Men from the other units joined them at the trucks. They were mostly white, but with a few of the Mexican and Hispanic inmates. Byron was on the truck before he noticed that, while they were all handcuffed, the guards had dispensed with leg shackles. The only explanation was that Mills or whoever made the call didn’t figure strike-breakers as flight risks. Byron smiled to himself as he climbed onto the back of the truck.
The guards were also light in number. Two guards per truck with no advance or rearguard security. Mills was riding in the cab of Byron’s truck.
60
They drove into town, along the trash-free sidewalks, past the McMansions, the upscale shopping mall and new office buildings. They turned, finally, through a rear access gate of Kelsen Country Club. A sign informed them that it had been established in the late nineties. Byron wondered if that was around the time the prison had opened and business started to boom.
The trucks pulled up to next to a long, low building filled with green and white canopied electric golf buggies. Through some trees Byron could see a fairway and four middle-aged white men in slacks and polo shirts hacking their way towards a perfectly manicured green. His fellow inmates had the look of men who might have landed on Mars. Byron doubted any of them had ever been so close to a place like this.
Mills seemed fairly uptight. Byron wondered if maybe he was up for membership and wanted to impress the committee. He thought about asking him, but decided against it. Better to let the man think he’d fallen into line and was playing along.
The inmates were divided into three work parties of eight men each. Byron was paired with one of Red’s toothless buddies and six Mexicans. They followed Mills and another guard over to a practice area where the members could hit some balls or refine their swing, in relative privacy, before going out to play.
Byron watched Mills and the other guard, the truck’s driver, carefully. He had seen Mills tuck the keys into the front pocket of his pants.
Each prisoner was set to work raking leaves. Byron made sure he was standing next to the other white inmate when the rakes were handed out. ‘Going to be pretty tough to work with our hands cuffed,’ he said to him.
It took the man all of five seconds to pass the complaint on up the chain. ‘Hey, guard, how we expected to rake this shit with cuffs?’
The guard looked to Mills for a ruling. Mills raised his mirrored sunglasses and looked at the eight prisoners. ‘Sure. Take their cuffs off.’
The inmates held out their hands and the guard moved along the line using his key to unlock them. They were ordered to place the cuffs in a neat pile and step away. They did so, rubbing their wrists and smiling. A day raking leaves on a golf course? Easy work, with trees for shade. It didn’t get much better.
Byron picked up his rake and went to his spot underneath a large beech tree. He set to work, paying no attention to either the other prisoners or, more crucially, the guards. The compliance of the work details must have softened the brains of Mills and the other guards in one other way. It was often harder to note something that wasn’t there as opposed to something that was, and it was only when he glanced up at Mills after a half-hour of raking that he realized Mills and the guard with him had no shotguns, only their sidearm. The shotguns must have been in the truck.
Not that this helped Byron. As long as you g
ot in close, it was usually safer to take a shotgun or rifle from someone than a handgun.
* * *
Mills lay in the shade, his back to an oak tree, and watched the workers. He had pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one. He’d wait twenty minutes, then light another. He didn’t move.
Byron could simply have slipped out of sight and started to run, but that seemed like a great strategy for being caught quickly. The two most important elements of a successful escape and evasion were time and distance. Running from a standing start offered neither of those advantages.
The morning wore on. Byron kept watching Mills and the other guard, but they stayed where they were. If an opportunity wasn’t going to present itself, there was only one thing for it.
‘Officer Mills,’ Byron called.
Mills turned to him, clearly irritated that his smoking and lazing about had been interrupted. ‘I swear, Davis, you’re worse than my ex-wife,’ Mills growled.
Byron bit back the wisecrack that was on the tip of his tongue. ‘I think my rake’s busted. Do we have any more in the truck?’
Mills scowled, slowly getting to his feet. ‘How the hell do you break a rake? All I asked you to do was rake leaves.’
Byron wasn’t going to share his method, but he knew exactly how he’d done it. A minute before, he he’d propped the rake against a tree at a forty-five-degree angle and stood on it, snapping it clean in half. ‘Guess I don’t know my own strength.’
‘You ain’t that strong, Davis. I kicked your ass, remember?’ said Mills, strolling over to inspect the damage.
The male ego was a wonderful thing, thought Byron. The possibility that he’d been allowed to win hadn’t occurred to Mills. That was just how Byron wanted it. ‘Must have been cracked already then,’ he said.