This was the easy part of the job, as the vehicle seemed almost weightless in both its emptiness and the fact it was going down an incline. Ben had just rounded a curve that led into a huge chamber hewn out of the ground during the initial assaults on the earth’s coal deposits when several men grabbed him and dragged him off into an uncompleted shaft nearby.
The boy was deposited in front of a burly, tall convict who smiled at him in a kindly way. “What about it, kid?” he asked.
“Huh?” Ben asked. “What about what?”
“Oh, you’re a perty ’un, you are,” the man said. He reached out and stroked Ben’s cheek. “Now whattaya say?”
“About what?” Ben asked pulling back. There was something unnatural and alien about the situation that he couldn’t quite figure out.
“I want you to be my gal-boy, kid,” the man said. “My name’s Morley Jackson.” He walked up and put his arm around Ben’s waist. “Listen I can get you a soft job down here, like counting the cars. I can get smokes, extry chow, and even candy now and then. Now, c’mon, you want to be ol’ Morley’s gal-boy, don’t you?”
Ben, not at all comprehending the situation but still sensing something strange in the man’s tone, turned away. “I got a lotta work to do,” he said.
“Well, shit, kid! I’ll just let the boys here do what they want,” Jackson said. “Then you’ll want to be mine.”
Ben instinctively slapped at the hands that grabbed him. “You fellers let me be!”
“I can get just about anything anybody’d want here,” Jackson said. “Well, not a woman, but that’s why I like you. You’re so small and cute-like.”
One of the other convicts looked over at Jackson who was obviously their leader. “Can we have him now, Morley?”
“Sure,” Jackson said smiling. Then he looked at Ben and puckered his mouth in a kissing gesture. “You’ll be mine before long, perty li’l gal-boy.”
Ben, his mind unable to conceive what was happening, fought as best he could but there were too many. Tears of anger and embarrassment came to his eyes as he felt his pants pulled off.
Ben Cullen came out of the ordeal of his attack shamed, stunned, and almost unable to conceive the reality of the humiliating episode. For two days he ate nothing, simply staring down at his plate while his mental faculties moved along at a tortoise’s pace. His mind tried to forget what had happened but was unable to completely submerge the event into nothingness.
Two days later he was once again hauled before Morley Jackson. The older prisoner smiled and put his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “What do you say, li’l gal-boy? Ready to be mine now?”
Ben, trembling in rage and fear, said nothing as he tried to back away. But once again, Jackson’s henchmen grabbed him and waited impatiently to see what would happen.
“You didn’t answer me, perty ’un,” Jackson said in a soft voice.
“You let me be,” Ben said defiantly. Then he swallowed hard. “Please . . .”
“Hold him down, boys,” Jackson said coldly. “Looks like I’ll have to break him in my way.”
Again Ben was overpowered and forced into the act by the larger men. Then, finished, he was shoved away as he groped along the mine shaft for his clothing. He did his best to control his emotions, but now and then a sob escaped.
“Now you think things over, gal-boy,” Jackson said with a leer. “You’re either gonna belong to ever’body or to me, see? Wouldn’t it be nicer to just be one feller’s sweetheart, than a whore? Think about it, darling.”
By the time he was back in his cell that night, the fright and embarrassment began to subside and a genuine anger eased itself into his consciousness. Just like the uncontrollable loss of temper that had prompted the break-in of the Beardsley store, this new rage prompted him to act.
Ben had noticed the extra pick handles located in a convenient pile at the mine entrance. The constant slamming of the digging instruments against the hard surface of rock and coal caused the handles to split after a few weeks’ use. The new ones were kept handy for quick replacement.
Ben waited his opportunity and, at the first chance, slipped one of the brand-new handles onto the top of the push handle of his coal car. He quickly brushed coal dust on it with his hands until it was virtually unnoticeable on the equally filthy vehicle.
That same afternoon Jackson’s men were back to fetch him. The largest—and the meanest—of the six men stood grinning as the others blocked the track.
“C’mon, little gal-boy, Morley wants to see you again,” the convict said. “And he’s real anxious.”
“Don’t call me gal-boy,” Ben said coldly.
“Well, why not, honey, you’re the cutest little thing in here,” he man said rubbing his crotch.
Ben’s cry of rage echoed off the tunnel walls. Adrenaline pumped strength into his skinny arms and the pick handle in his hands was like a flying war club.
The big prisoner’s jaw gave way under the blow and one eye popped out of its socket. Ben, still screaming, whirled around in midair and caught the next man in the ribs. The cracking of the broken bones was drowned out by the following victim’s bellow as the wooden weapon smashed his testicles.
The others fled.
“I’m a man, goddamn you!” Ben screamed insanely. “You sonofabitches! I’m a man—a man!”
It took three guards to bring him under control and finally drag him, writhing under the kicks and pummeling, out of the mine and back into the prison. They dragged him down to the basement area of the solitary confinement wing and threw him, still shrieking and rampaging, into a bare stone room.
Ben continued the raging fit through convulsions until his voice grew hoarse and he collapsed from exhaustion.
The next day, subdued and quiet, he walked peacefully between two guards who marched him into the captain’s office. The senior jailer opened his eyes wide when he saw Ben. “This little feller did all that hisself?” he asked.
“Hell, you shoulda see him, Cap’n,” one of the guards said. “Clear outta his goddamned head.”
“Musta been,” the captain said. He looked at Ben. “How come you done that?”
“I don’t know,” Ben said.
“Musta been a reason,” the captain insisted.
Ben remained silent.
The captain laughed. “Hell, the doc could hardly get ol’ Latham’s eye back in his head. As it is, it’s prob’ly gonna jump out ever’time he sneezes!” The other guards laughed, and their chief continued, “Corwin can’t hardly breathe with his ribs stove in like that, and as far as poor ol’ Johnson goes—well, I hope to hell he wasn’t planning on having a family once he gets out of here.”
One of the guards chuckled. “He won’t be bothering no more young boys either, will he?”
“He won’t be bothering nobody about nothing,” the captain said. He looked straight at Ben. “I ain’t new to this life, boy. I know what they done, but I gotta hear it from you to make it official. How come you went crazy like that? What’d they do to you?”
Ben said nothing. He was too humiliated and ashamed to admit what Morley and his gang had done to him.
“Well, suit yourself,” the captain said. “I got no choice but to give you thirty days in the hole. That means nothing to eat but bread and water. Any comments?”
Ben stared straight ahead.
“Take him down there.”
Ben was once again marched away. They took him back to the cell he had occupied the previous twenty-four hours and ushered him in. The guard took a last look at him. “The captain feels pity for you, kid, and some respect too. Otherwise he’d have slapped you in there for six months for what you did.”
“I ain’t asking nothing from the cap’n,” Ben said. “So tell him to give me six months. I don’t give a shit.”
The guard shook his head. “Boy, you’re turning into a real convict at a mighty rapid pace. See you in thirty days.”
The cell door slammed shut.
Ben spent tho
se thirty days in silent thought. He lay back on his blanket on the floor—there were no bunks in the solitary cells—and let his mind drift over his short life. All the humiliations and scornful treatment given him by the townspeople of Pleasanton came into sharp, painful focus. The young convict decided then and there that he’d hadn’t deserved such scorn. True, his mother hadn’t been much and didn’t live a life most people approved of, but Ben personally had always tried to play by the rules. He went to school as often as he could and he worked hard at what jobs he had been able to obtain. He admitted to himself that breaking into the Beardsley store had been stupid, and the shame of the deed melted away under the realization that mistreatment and bullying by Oren Beardsley had caused him to do it. He really hadn’t bothered Maybelle, except to ask her to dance several times. On each occasion that she’d refused, he’d moved away and kept his distance.
When Ben walked out of the hole at the end of the month, he brought with him a new talent—the ability to hate.
He hated Oren Beardsley, Morley Jackson and his gang, the judge who had sentenced him to prison, the people of Pleasanton, his lawyer, the prosecutor—the world.
The convict population looked on the youngster in a new light now. His action at defending himself elevated him in their crude society. Jackson and his men kept their distance, while the only others to approach him in an attempt to satisfy their sexual urges were newcomers who suddenly had a raging lunatic on their hands. As usual, there would be another vicious attack and Ben Cullen, Convict 2139, would be marched down to the hole for longer and longer stints of solitude, bread, and water.
Ben also became belligerent for other reasons as well. He had frequent fights—most of which he lost—and became a sore spot for the guards. He seemed destined to pull “hard time,” making his ten-year term a period of continual conflict and punishments. By his twentieth year, Ben, with four years in the penitentiary, had spent a total of over seven hundred days in the hole.
Then he met Harmon Gilray.
Gilray, serving thirty years for bank and train robberies, had already been in the state prison for three years when Ben Cullen arrived. Several members of his outlaw gang were serving their time with the chief. They formed a hardcore, elite clique that had plenty of outside support and money. While lawyers worked on their cases, they bribed the guards in order to get preferential treatment. When Morley Jackson and his men first picked out Ben to be a girl, Gilray had watched with detached amusement, wondering how long it would be until the youngster would do like all the others and give in. After Ben’s first berserk attack and subsequent attitude, Gilray developed a casual interest in the boy. As additional trouble followed, he found out more about the youth. The gang leader, an intelligent and creative but unlettered man, developed an outright admiration for the feisty little prisoner who had seemed to declare a personal war on the Kansas state penal organization. Finally Gilray summoned Ben to his presence. And even a rebel like the slightly built youth knew better than to ignore an invitation from the all-powerful bandit chief.
Ben was ushered into Gilray’s spacious cell and stood there looking at the older convict. He saw a tall, rangy man with coal-black hair and dark piercing eyes. His mouth was harsh and thin under the hawkish nose, but Gilray’s eyes seemed to dance with a bright light of intelligence and perception.
Gilray smiled easily and offered his hand. “Howdy. My name is Harmon Gilray.”
Ben shook hands. “I’m Ben Cullen.”
“I called you here because I want to ask you a question,” Gilray said.
Ben was curious. “Sure.”
“When’re you gonna stop being so goddamned mad?”
Ben looked straight into Gilray’s eyes for several long seconds. “When hell freezes over.”
“Ain’t likely to do that,” Gilray said.
“And I ain’t likely to stop being mad,” Ben responded.
“Then, you’re gonna die in here, boy,” Gilray said. “One day you’re gonna run into some sonofabitch that’s maybe only half as crazy as you are, and he’s gonna knife you or brain you with one o’ them pick handles or maybe just pound your ass to a meaty sludge with his fists.”
“I reckon that’s what’ll happen, then,” Ben said unemotionally.
“There’s something better’n that,” Gilray, said. “Why don’t you take all that mad you got and channel it into something else?”
“Like what?” Ben asked.
“Like making things better for yourself instead of worse,” Gilray said.
“In here?” Ben asked incredulously.
“Hell, yes, in here!” Gilray said. “Or out there or even in hell itself. That’s the differ’nce between a smart feller and a stupid one. And I think you’re smart, Ben Cullen. I been watching you and I figger you could come a long way with a little help.”
“You just like being nice to folks, do you?” Ben sneered.
Gilray grinned. “Not unless I got a reason, and I got a reason where you’re concerned, Ben Cullen. Me and the boys can always use an extry hand. And one day all of us is gonna get outta here and back to our old ways. I’d like you join up with me on the outside too.”
“Yeah?” Ben was definitely interested. Harmon Gilray’s exploits were well known and he was a folk hero of sorts to the convict population.
“But I’m the boss and I make the rules,” Gilray said. “So if you want to ride with me, you do things my way. I don’t like rebels.”
Ben, after four years, had learned to be cagey and mistrustful. “I gotta think it over.”
“Sure,” Gilray said. “Take your time. I understand you got another six years.” He laughed. “That’s one thing we all got plenty of, ain’t it?”
“How long you in for?” Ben asked.
“Me and the boys got over thirty years on our sentences,” Gilray answered. “Which means we oughta be seeing the light o’ day around 1908. But, like all fellers that have learnt to be smart, we got things working for us, not against us, so we’ll probably walk out that front gate before you do. So you go on and give my proposition a little thought. When you decide, just drop by.” Gilray laughed. “You’ll know where to find me.”
“I guess I do,” Ben said grinning despite himself. He turned and walked out of the cell, deciding to sleep on the matter that night and get back to Gilray in the morning.
But it was actually two months later.
That evening in the chow hall, Ben became agitated with the man next to him at the table who, crowded like everyone else, accidentally nudged him several times with his elbows. Ben’s temper snapped, and once again he was embroiled in a senseless, instinctive attack that ended with another sentence of solitary confinement.
Ben actually felt sheepish when he went back to Gilray’s cell. Gilray grinned at him. “I heard you broke a couple of the rules.”
“I reckon I did,” Ben said with an embarrassed smile. “I’d like to join up with you if the offer’s still open.”
“It is,” Gilray said.
“You can count me in,” Ben said.
“You’re in, then.”
Ben’s world changed completely that moment. Within a few days orders were mysteriously issued that moved him into a cell on Gilray’s tier. And his job at the coal mine changed too. Instead of earning the $1.23-plus per day as a mine helper, he was reclassified on the payroll as a $1.71½ per day full-fledged miner.
Except he never had to go down into the dark pit and swing a heavy pick at the solid walls of black coal.
He spent his time with Gilray and his men in their own corner of the yard where future bank and railroad robberies, along with intense periods of discussion and instruction in the dangerous profession of banditry, were planned.
The chief amusement of the gang was the competition in knife throwing. As guards looked the other way, the group conducted target practice by throwing the specially honed weapons at boards with crude targets painted on them.
And here Ben Cullen found he had
a special talent. After several months, he began winning the games with such regularity that he couldn’t find anyone to bet against him unless he offered tremendous odds.
Ben’s attitude began to soften somewhat toward the prison life as he enjoyed the best accommodations and food available in the penitentiary as a member of the Gilray Gang. But the hatred still existed unabated in his soul and he now planned to direct that animosity toward society with all the fury he could muster.
Another criminal had been created.
Chapter Five
Ben spent three days outside of Hobart as part of his plan to rob the bank. It was well after midnight on the third night when he rode slowly through the town’s streets. Although the moon was bright, it was still difficult to see on the unlighted streets. Ben went to several houses and had to look carefully before he found the one that belonged to W. T. Abernathy, the president of the Kiowa County Bank.
Ben dismounted and went through the gate of the picket fence and up onto the porch. He knocked on the door. “Mr. Abernathy! Mr. Abernathy!”
Finally he could hear the sounds of stirring within the dwelling, and a sleepy but disturbed voice spoke to him through the door. “Uh, yeah, what is it?” Within moments the door opened slightly and Abernathy, his great moustache visible in the moonlight, peered cautiously out on the porch.
Ben, correctly figuring the man had come to the door armed, stood out where he could easily be seen. “Ned down at the bank asked me to fetch you up to him.”
There was immediate concern in Abernathy’s voice. “Oh, Lord! What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know for sure,” Ben replied. “He called out to me while I was walking past. He said he’d been waiting for somebody to come by so’s he could send him to fetch you.”
“He didn’t say anything about a robbery, did he?” Abernathy asked.
“He didn’t say nothing about nothing,” Ben answered. “He just asked me to come by and get you. So here I am.”
“I’ll let my wife know I’m going down there,” Abernathy said.
“You want me to go along with you?” Ben asked in an innocent voice. “Or should I just move on along.”
Desperado Run (An Indian Territory Western Book 2) Page 5