When the roars died down, Fallon said to the two guards, his helpers, “If you two can start pulling me up . . .”
“Fallon,” Carver cried out again. “Just tell me what all do you want to know. Just . . .”
He stopped, and his head turned, looking up toward Fallon’s right. Fallon realized that the sound of walking boots had ceased, and that the catwalk no longer seemed to be shaking.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Captain Brandt said.
“Please, Captain,” said one of the guards. “Can you give us a hand?”
“Please, Captain,” said the other. “We can’t hold them much longer.”
The captain chuckled, but Fallon heard the man coming down to his knees, and then lying beside Fallon.
“Yeah,” Brandt said.
Fallon could not see the captain of the guards, but smelled his breath, and felt the pressure of his body next to Fallon’s. He could see the long black arm dangling to Fallon’s right, and the heavy line stick that the captain’s right hand held.
“Carver,” Captain Brandt said. “Grab hold of the stick and I’ll pull you up.”
“What the hell . . .” Fallon said tightly.
And then he watched as Brandt pulled his arm back and swung it forward, and Fallon felt the crushing blow of the leather-wrapped and brass-studded stick when it slammed into his wrist.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Kemp Carver’s mouth hung open, but the scream Fallon heard was his own. He bit it off quickly and despite intense pain in his right hand—Fallon wondered if the captain had broken his wrist—he tried again, in frantic desperation, to grab Carver’s arm. The blow to Fallon’s right wrist had slammed Fallon’s right arm hard against his left hand. The pain, the blow, and the slickness of Carver’s one arm were just too much. Fallon had instinctively let go. And his desperate grab for Kemp Carver’s arm, or his sleeve, or anything, snagged only the rank, foul air of A-Hall.
He fell in slow motion, or so it seemed. Eyes open. Mouth wide, but Kemp Carver did not scream. Or if he did, Fallon just blacked it out.
Beneath Fallon, a few of the guards turned away. Warden Underwood did not, Fallon noticed. Nor did Fowlson. But Fallon could not hold that against those two men. Fallon knew he could easily have closed his own eyes, but he just could not do it.
Carver’s legs hit the walkway that crossed the second floor, and for a brief moment—too short to even consider, actually—Fallon prayed that the man would somehow land there, on the catwalk. Wouldn’t that have made a fine story? Prisoners and guards would be talking about that for a hundred years.
But, naturally, it did not happen. It couldn’t have happened.
The legs caught the railing, and flipped Carver’s body over, twisting him so that now he was falling headfirst, and he spiraled out of control, picking up speed.
Only then, when Kemp Carver could see what was rushing up to stop him, did the one-armed convict scream.
It did not last long.
He landed headfirst on the solid stone, and Fallon could see the spray of blood, as the body cartwheeled, and rolled like a rag doll, just a few feet, and then lay still. Carver’s head was tilted at an unholy angle, and his legs and arms were splayed out in ghastly fashion.
The stone floor had ended Kemp Carver’s life and his screams, and a silence again descended upon the prison barracks.
“Damn,” Captain Brandt said as he pushed himself up. Fallon watched the lethal stick disappear above him. “That’s a shame.”
Fallon closed his eyes, hoping that when he opened them, he would see . . . anything . . . Rachel . . . Renee . . . Judge Parker . . . even the cell he had been tossed into at Joliet. Anything. But when they opened, all he saw was the mangled, crushed, bloodied body of Kemp Carver.
“What did you two see?” Captain Brandt was asking.
Fallon felt nauseated, but he could not throw up. He wasn’t even sure he could breathe. The words meant nothing to Fallon, but a moment later, what had been said hit him like a thunderbolt. He tensed.
“I saw,” said the guard who had been holding Fallon’s collar. “I saw the captain try to help pull the prisoner up to the bridge here.”
“And you?” Brandt’s tone was icy, cold, and calculated.
The guard straddling Fallon’s legs answered: “I couldn’t see all that happened, sir, as I was up here. But I saw the captain trying to save the prisoner.”
“That’s right,” Brandt said. “The poor bastard just slipped. Another couple of feet and we could have had him. Isn’t that right, Milton?”
Milton, the guard on Fallon’s legs, said, “Yes, Captain.”
“Anything else to add, King?”
The guard who had released Fallon’s shirt by now said in a low whisper. “Just that . . .” He swallowed. “All of us tried hard to save that man’s life. He just lost his hold.”
“Yeah,” Brandt said. “A pity. A damned shame.”
Fallon felt the weight coming off him, and he wondered if Captain Brandt would kick him over, send him down, down, down to land beside the crushed remains of what had once been Kemp Carver. Instead, Brandt said in a casual voice. “Haul him up.”
One grabbed Fallon’s left arm. Another pulled him from his waist, and Fallon came up, ragged, bruised, and bleeding again. He was likely still stunned by what he had just witnessed. He sat on the catwalk, wet his lips, and glanced up at Captain Brandt, who was casually sliding the line stick back into its place on his belt.
“Get up, Fallon,” the leader of the guards said.
The two others, Milton and King, were standing now themselves, and not offering to help. Fallon tested his legs, and slowly came to stand in front of Captain Brandt.
“And what did you see, fish?” The captain’s voice had a calm deadliness to it.
Fallon wet his lips. He knew what he saw. And he knew what he felt. Just minutes earlier he had told Captain Brandt that he had never killed a prison guard. But, damn, how he would like to do that very thing right now.
He did not get a chance to answer. The guards, King and Milton, had seen what had happened, but they knew they could never tell anyone the truth—not and stay alive. They knew they had just witnessed a cold, heartless, foul murder.
So did the prisoners across the way. And they wanted to let the whole world know.
“Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”
“You cold-hearted bastard. You killed him.”
“We saw it. Murder. Foul murder. Murder!”
Warden Underwood heard those shouts, too, and out of the corner of his eye, Fallon saw the warden ordering more men to rush upstairs. The only prisoners out of their cells, at least in A-Hall, were those across the way. Maybe fifteen. No more than twenty. But back in Joliet, the horrible riot that had gotten Fallon out of that hellish nightmare, had started, at first, with just three men.
“They’ll kill us all! They’ll kill us all!”
“UNLESS WE KILL THOSE BUTCHERS FIRST!!!!”
“Hell.” Captain Brandt sounded so casual about this, it made Fallon’s stomach turn again. “You two get over there. Get those convicts back in their cells. Now.”
It appeared that guards Milton and King would rather face rioting prisoners than Captain Brandt. They turned and hurried, but not too fast, across the catwalk.
“Let’s go, fish.” Brandt nodded.
Fallon swallowed down the bile in his throat and stepped past the big, brutal, cold-blooded killer in a black uniform. He walked what seemed like a thousand miles down the rickety path. His legs hurt. Most of his body ached. His calf muscles were starting to stiffen, and he had to grip the railing for support. At any moment, he expected Captain Brandt to either knock him across his skull with that studded, ugly line stick, or just shove him over the railing and watch him drop.
The roars of the inmates reached deafening proportions. Whistles screeched. Fallon’s head began to ring. He wasn’t sure he could breathe, even when he stepped gingerly off the catwalk
and onto the flooring that led to this side of the cells.
Numbly, Fallon turned, and walked to where Ford Wagner lay on the cold floor. One of the guards knelt beside him, and Fallon stopped there. The dark, cold, hard doors to the locked cells pounded from inmates kicking or throwing whatever they had inside against the door. The young guard attending Wagner glanced up, and Fallon read the terror in the boy’s eyes. He was almost as pale as Ford Wagner.
“Unconscious?” Fallon asked.
The guard only nodded.
Fallon watched Captain Brandt walk past him and stop before a circle of terrified guards. He began bellowing orders. Fallon looked across the building to the other side, where more guards were driving their bodies against the dozen or so inmates, trying to push the rioting prisoners into their cells. He could see the line sticks rising, falling, clubbing and clubbing and clubbing. All the while, on every floor, from every cell, the screams of men continued.
Could The Mole hear this from his cell in the basement? Fallon wondered, but then he looked back at the rail-thin person that was Ford Wagner.
“How long has he been out?” he asked the petrified young man in black beside him.
The guard tried to swallow. “A long time.”
“He didn’t see . . . ?” Fallon did not need to finish the question.
The guard’s head shook. “No. He was out long before . . . that . . . incident.”
Incident. Now there was a hell of a word for cold-blooded, senseless murder.
Fallon glanced at the one cell with an open door. The cell where he had been sent to room with Ford Wagner. Had Harold Underwood sent Fallon here, knowing that Wagner would do his damnedest to kill him? Or had he been sent here, as the prison’s brass had alleged, so no one could think that the supervisors of the state pen were giving Harry Fallon preferential treatment.
Fallon looked up and down the path without moving his head. He nodded at the young guard, said, “Excuse me,” and moved into his cell. It still stank. It remained empty. Fallon picked up his clothes and pushed them into a corner. He found the homemade knife the old geezer down on the first floor had given him, and he slipped that into the sock, down into his boot. He grabbed his jacket and put it on, and then he did the same for the hat that had been knocked off his head when the ruckus first started. Finally, he stepped out of the cell and returned to the unconscious form of Wagner.
The noise continued. Fallon saw another guard rushing down the path, screaming as he ran, “Captain Brandt! Captain Brandt!”
The murdering captain of the guards stepped toward the charging guard. “What is it?” he snapped.
“Warden Underwood, sir,” the kid said, his chest heaving. “He needs you and ten men to move to the shoe factory.”
“What in God’s name for?”
“They’re starting something there, too. The prisoners.”
“Like hell . . .”
This had to be Brandt’s first riot. He didn’t know how fast these things could spread. Like a grassfire on a windy day in August.
“Damn it all to hell.” Brandt turned, saw Fallon and the young guard, and must have known they would be no good.
“Get that carcass out of here, Ryan!” the captain shouted at the guard beside Wagner.
“But . . . sir . . . he ain’t dead.”
“Hell.” Captain Brandt turned around and ordered the men he had been bossing to fall in. Finally, he turned to the kid, Ryan, and said, “Take the fresh fish with you and get that lunger to Gripewater. Now. And stay there, Ryan, till we send for you. Make sure none of the damned patients in the hospital try to burn this whole damned place to the ground.”
Fallon held his breath. This was unbelievable. He watched Captain Brandt and the handful of men race toward the far stairs. He saw other guards crossing the catwalks to the side to help the guards push those outside into their cells. A handful remained here just in case, somehow, the prisoners pounding inside their cells managed to break down their doors.
How old was this cellblock? Fallon thought. Didn’t The Mole tell him it had been built back in ’68? The doors, though, looked mighty solid.
Fallon took Kemp’s shoulders and let Ryan grab the thin man’s feet. Fallon also backed up, until he realized the senselessness, the slowness, of it, and managed to turn around. They brought the man dying of tuberculosis to the stairs, down the stairs, and to the bottom floor. They were heading toward the door when Harold Underwood ran toward them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Just a damned minute!” Underwood shouted above the deafening din. “Where in hell do you think you’re going?”
Ryan stopped, and stuttered, “Captain Brandt told us to get him to the hospital.”
“He’s still alive?”
As if in reply, Ford Wagner turned his head and coughed up bloody flux, but did not open his eyes. He just moaned and let out a hoarse, ragged breath.
“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary,” the warden said and backed away from the consumptive. “All right, take him. But just you. Fallon stays . . .”
“But, warden,” Ryan said. “Look at his leg.”
The warden’s gaze went down, but Fallon just stared out the open door, at the daylight that shined into this dark, noisy hell. Fallon didn’t need to look at his leg. He could feel the blood sticking to his pants and leaking into his sock and boot. He could feel the pain.
“Damn it all to hell,” Underwood said. Someone else called his name from the third floor. The warden spun around and shouted up. Neither man could hear the other, so the warden hurried closer to the far wall. Ryan took that to mean that he was cleared to take Wagner to the hospital. Fallon put up no argument. They left the chaos and stepped out into the clean, refreshing air.
Yet as they walked, away from A-Hall, Fallon heard shouts and curses across the compound. He saw more men in black uniforms running this way and that. He saw guards in their towers aiming shotguns down into the prison yards. He saw prisoners on their knees, hands locked behind their heads, with line sticks pressing against the tops of their heads. He saw a few prisoners, and at least one guard, lying unconscious. He even saw the damned black cat, sitting on a box, contentedly watching the hell all around it. The cat’s tail waved.
Fallon and Ryan carried the dying lunger through all of this, out of hell, and into the prison hospital.
* * *
Thaddeus Gripewater dropped the jar when Fallon and Ryan brought Ford Wagner into the prison hospital. He cut loose with a string of curse words as the glass shattered on the floor at his feet. If he noticed the sick inmate the two were carrying, he did not appear to care. All he cared about was spreading across the floor.
“Do you damned fools know how much good gin costs?” he roared.
“You don’t, either,” said a big-boned woman with her hair in a bun. “That’s your own remedy, and it will likely leave you blind.”
Now, the doctor turned his rage onto the woman. “If I’m blind, I won’t have to look at your wretched face, you miserable ol’ biddy.” He pointed at the remnants of the jar. “Put yourself to use, woman. Clean up that mess.”
“Clean it up yourself.”
“The hell I will. I got a patient to tend to.” He moved from one table, and nodded to another, and when Fallon and Ryan just stood there, the doctor snapped: “If you want to hold that piece of dead meat while I examine him, fine. But you might find it more comfortable, and I probably can do a job just a wee bit more thorough if you put him on that table over yonder.”
Thaddeus Gripewater looked to be about sixty years old, and from his disheveled gunmetal gray hair that looked like an owl’s nest that had been rattled by a hurricane, the week’s growth of beard on his face, and the bloodshot of his eyes, he might be coming off a roaring ten-day drunk. Seeing how he had just dropped a glass of homemade brew, he was still drinking. He had big ears, long arms, thin lips, and dark brown eyes. His long coat might have once been white, but it now was smeared with stains of myriad colors. Like
wise, the black string tie was undone, hanging down a dirty blue shirt, the buttons missing, revealing a dingy, equally filthy linen undershirt. For all of that, though, the man’s hands with the long, long fingers and even his fingernails were spotlessly clean.
The woman with him frowned. She was taller than Fallon, and probably would be a match for most of the prisoners in Jefferson City. She glared at the doctor but found both broom and mop leaning against the wall and went to work.
The young guard and Fallon carefully laid Wagner on the narrow table. Fallon even lifted the consumptive’s head and pushed a small pillow under the man’s head.
“You mean to tell me this old boy isn’t dead yet?” Gripewater said, and he found his stethoscope.
The doctor came to the table and nodded at Fallon. When Fallon just stared, the doctor turned his head, spit on the floor, and gave Fallon a hard glare when his head came back to its original position.
“Unbutton his shirt, jackass.”
Fallon worked the buttons and watched as the doctor put the stethoscope over Wagner’s heart, then his lungs. The doctor frowned. He shook his head. He said in a hoarse whisper, probably to himself, “That gin was better than anything I could get at one of the saloons in this town.”
Frowning, the doctor removed his stethoscope and saw Wagner’s broken wrist. “What the hell happened to him?” he asked, turning to the young guard. “You boys beat the hell out of him again?”
Ryan nodded at Fallon. “He tried to kill this fresh fish.”
Gripewater looked at Fallon. “So you decided to kill him. Beating a lunger half to death. I reckon you deserve to be in this hell on earth.”
“No, Doc,” Ryan said. “He actually saved Wagner’s life.” The doctor was looking at the lunger’s broken wrist. “He helped pull him up after he almost fell from the third floor. And he even tried to save what’s his name, you know, this convict’s brother or cousin or something like that. The man with one arm.”
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