Nighthawk

by F. M. Parker

  Crazy forced away the sad memories and lifted his head. He breathed deeply of the familiar aromas of the stable and felt as if he were already half free. Within a very short time he would be completely free. Or dead.

  He threw harness upon the backs of the two horses, backed them into position in front of the wagon and hooked up the traces. He clucked the reluctant team of animals out into the bright sunlight and reined them in the direction of the south gate.

  * * *

  A slight puff of air drifted in through the open window of the guard tower and stirred the superheated air. The guard twisted about to face toward the breeze and pulled his sweaty shirt open to allow the air to cool him. He shaded his eyes and scanned the shimmering, heat-distorted plain stretching away mile after mile to the west and the distant Colorado River, and Yuma, and the women. The wind d away to nothing and the man cursed.

  The crunch of approaching iron wagon wheels on the rock and grit of the prison yard drew the guard’s attention. As he swung around, he picked up the .44-40 Winchester from where it leaned against the wall and held it ready.

  “Guard Tom, I need another load of stone to finish the wall of the new guardhouse,” Crazy called up from below. “Guard A1 said I could go get it if you thought it was all right.” Caloon grinned his silly grin, stretching his lips thin as paper across his teeth.

  “You’re a dumb son of a bitch, you know that, Crazy? Why in hell do you keep bothering people when it’s so goddamn hot?” Tom leaned out the window, shifted a great quid of tobacco, and spat brown juice down toward the prisoner.

  Crazy felt the spray of spittle on his face and his gray eyes hardened into icy marbles. The foolish grin remained on his lips and he laughed his short squirrel chatter, high and jerky, as he played the lamebrain.

  “Just trying to earn my keep, Guard Tom,” he said.

  “Go get your load of stone. But you had better remember the ‘dead wire.’ One step beyond it and I’ll blow your head off.”

  The guard lifted a long iron bar, sliding it vertically upward until it was free of a series of iron rings that extended up the full height of the gate. The two half portals began to swing slowly apart. Only from the guard tower could the gate be unlocked.

  Crazy shoved the gates completely open and slapped the horses through. The animals, glad to be outside, broke into a trot along the dusty road, the empty wagon bouncing and rattling behind.

  After giving the horses a quick look to measure their speed, Crazy pulled the gate shut and held it in alignment while the guard plunged the rod back down through the metal loops.

  Crazy sprinted to catch the horses. His cowhide moccasins splattered and splashed the inch-deep dust, staining his pumping legs halfway to his knees with chocolate dirt.

  He ran lightly, his shirt billowing in the breeze created by his own speed. His stride was long and effortless, his breathing slow and deep. The time was growing short. He could feel escape in the air—in every cell of his body.

  As Crazy overhauled the wagon he scanned the wide expanse of land before him. The convicts had built their prison in a location selected by the sergeant on the north end of Castle Dome Plain where a small spring trickled out of the flint-like lava. That was the only source of water for twenty miles in any direction, the nearest being the Gila River, due south, and on the far side of a chain of mountain peaks barely visible in the distance.

  Castle Dome Plain was the nearly flat, lower slopes of Castle Dome Mountain. The mountain’s massive ramparts had been formed by molten rock pouring from great vents in the earth and spreading more than forty miles across the land. Then as the outer reaches of the flows hardened into solid rock, the lava had piled upward nearly three quarters of a mile thick, crowding the sky for space.

  For many miles in all directions from the prison, the land was barren except for a scattering of tall saguaro cactus standing like giant sentinels and patches of stunted creosote and greasewood bushes. The terrain, scarred by numerous shallow washes, slanted downward at a low angle to the southeast until it was cut by the west-flowing Gila River.

  Crazy caught up with the wagon and then moved ahead to run beside the team. The dust he and the horses roiled into the dead still air hung like a pall for several seconds before it settled back to the ground.

  In the tower, the guard leaned the Winchester against the wall and picked up a .56 Spencer, his long-distance killer gun. He worked the action of the breech open until the brass shell slid into view, then rammed the lever back into place ready to fire. Maybe this time Crazy Caloon would make a mistake and cross the wire.

  The “dead wire,” a single strand of barbed wire hanging from rock mounds spaced two rods apart completely encircled the prison. The wire, new and glinting in the sunlight, sagged in deep drooping arcs between the piles of stone.

  The guard knew the range to the wire, exactly three hundred yards. He had practiced with the gun at that distance. It was a moderately difficult shot, just far enough to make the placing of a bullet into a man’s chest a sporting proposition.

  Crazy reached out and caught the closer horse by its bridle, slowing it and its mate to a walk, and guided them off to the right. Two or three acres of flat black slabs of lava rock like the flaking skin of some giant reptile lay thickly on the surface of the ground.

  The wagon gradually filled with rock as he worked farther and farther into the southwest corner of the fenced area. As he tossed another stone into the wagon, he surveyed the prison, its high walls framed against the hot yellow sky. He located the guard standing looking toward the wagon, the heavy Spencer hanging in the crook of his arm. He must be careful and not provoke the guard, for he had seen the man shoot.

  Crazy was at the spot to which he had been working and he called a low command for the horses to stop. He must act now and hope the guard could not detect what was really being done.

  He moved forward on the far side of the wagon opposite to the guard. Quickly he bent down and lifted four, thin flat rocks, three or so feet on a side, and flopped them out of the way. A shallow trench nearly large enough to hold a man’s body lay exposed.

  With a broken leaf of a wagon spring he had used previously in excavating the hole, Crazy dug furiously, ripping and gouging at the ground. He scooped out the loosened dirt with his hands, tossing the dry soil away, hiding it among the rocks so there was no evidence of his labor.

  A few minutes later he stopped digging. The hole was big enough now, six feet long and more than a foot deep. Crazy picked up a rock and made a show of loading it in the bed of the wagon. As he deposited it, he grabbed the canteen and, holding it pressed to his side, returned to the excavation. He placed it with a smaller canteen already there.

  Swiftly he laid the four rocks back into position, bridging and concealing the result of his labor. He felt good; he had done it. He cackled his shrill laugh.

  The guard heard Crazy’s laughter floating across the distance. It sounded happy. How could anyone in his right mind be happy working as a prisoner under such a scorching sun? But then Crazy Caloon was not sane.

  * * *

  In the cell behind the iron-barred door there was a stirring and rustling like a den of snakes as the thirty prisoners tossed restlessly on their straw ticks lying on the dirt floor. Now and then one of the men babbled a few words, mostly unintelligible, in his sleep.

  It was after midnight, yet the rock walls of the cell still radiated heat. Not a breath of air had found entry through the small, barred windows to sweep away the heat from the burning day not long ended.

  Crazy Caloon lay motionless, silent, too charged with the excitement of his escape to sleep. Sweat pooled in the hollows below his eyes as he waited, staring upward at the ceiling, invisible in the pitch-black darkness.

  Hours later, impatience prodding him, Crazy climbed silently to his feet and slipped to the window on the north side of the cell. He looked out between the bars at the Big Dipper, measuring its position in relation to the polestar. He judged the ti
me to be one o’clock in the morning. Time to make his try for his long anticipated freedom.

  He moved toward the end of the cell containing the door, passing the two empty beds that had once been used by the Mexicans, Ortego and Bastamente. They were dead now, buried outside the prison.

  The two Mexicans had seized upon the last day before the tall perimeter was completed, locking them inside, to make their bid for escape. While they were gathering stone outside prison, a dust storm had whipped in from the west. Under cover of the blowing dust, they had quickly unhooked the wagon from the horses, jumped astride the animals, and raced for Mexico, fifty miles south.

  When the dust had blown itself away to the east and the guard gave the alarm, the Mexicans had had an hour’s head start. The Quechans gave chase, running effortlessly, trailing their short-barreled Winchesters and reading the signs of their quarry with ease.

  Three days later Crazy saw the Quechans reappear at the prison, riding double on one horse with the dead Mexicans tied across the second like sides of beef. The bounty hunters dismounted and without a word stalked away to their crude shelter and fell into their blankets. The next day they collected their gold coins from the sergeant.

  Feeling the side of the cell carefully with his fingers as he slipped through the darkness, Crazy found the long slab of rock in the wall ten feet from the iron-barred door. He had laid that very stone more than five months before. The score or more of smaller rocks below it bore no weight of the wall and only dry dirt, instead of mud mortar, filled the joints between them.

  Noiselessly he pulled and pried at the stone directly below the larger slab. The rock pulled free in his hands. Silently he laid it on the floor and removed several others, the long slab continuing to bridge the growing opening.

  “Kill the damn guard,” muttered a prisoner from the darkness.

  Crazy snapped a look down the length of the cell. The other prisoners must not awaken, for surely some of them would demand to try to escape with him. That would destroy any chance for success.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to get out of this damn hellhole?” asked the same voice. Then the man began to mumble incomprehensibly, his voice guided by a tormented, dreaming brain.

  Crazy breathed again with relief. Quickly he took two more stories out of the wall. The hole was large enough. He squatted down and shoved his head through to the outside.

  The prison yard lay quiet. Weakly lighted by a half-moon, the partially finished walls of the new guardhouse were faintly visible a stone’s throw away.

  A horse stamped the ground in the stable. Off to the left, a red spot glowed in the tower as the guard sucked on a cigarette.

  Crazy eased his shoulders into the opening. They stuck in the tight fit. He applied a little pressure and slid through with a slight rattle of falling fragments of rock.

  For several minutes he squatted on the ground, pressed tightly to the wall of the building, listening. With all the prisoners securely locked inside the cell, the guard in the tower should be the only man on duty. But Caloon’s eyes searched every foot, every murky outline, for danger.

  Then he moved, a dark shadow among other dark shadows, gliding in a crouch to the northwest corner of the tall barrier that caged him away from freedom.

  In the roughly constructed stone wall, Crazy’s searching fingertips found a hold and he began to hoist himself up the wall. At the top, he slid across on his stomach so as not to be silhouetted against the moonlit sky. Then he dropped to the ground outside.

  He was free. He was outside and no guard with a large caliber rifle watched his every move. His heart thudded and an overpowering impulse to race away into the night assailed him. His muscles tensed in readiness for the first lunge.

  With all his will, he fought the urge. His original plan must be followed. Though he felt strong, he was no match for the Quechans. Even with the three hours until daylight as a head start, they would easily overhaul him. They had been known to run two hundred miles and pull a prisoner down. And to be caught by them meant death.

  Crazy moved away slowly, carefully stepping on the stones lying on the ground. They were barely discernible. Sometimes he squatted down to reach out and feel the dim outlines to make certain they were indeed rock. For there was an excellent chance the eagle-eyed Indians would find the imprint if his moccasins touched the dirt.

  As he searched for rocks to walk upon, he deliberately made a large arc, circling far out and away from the prison to keep a great distance between himself and the guard. He stopped often to examine the tower, but there was no movement there.

  Crazy came at last to the trench he had dug in the ground. The first stone, then the second, were lifted aside. As he took hold of the last, the deadly warning rattle of a snake exploded in his face.

  He jerked back and almost cried out. Catching his startled reflex, lie held himself rigid. The damn snake must have crawled into the excavation to get out of the hot sun and now was warning him to find another place.

  He scooped up a handful of dirt and pebbles and hurled it into the blackness beneath the stone. The rattle instantly stopped as the snake struck. The serpent coiled for the next strike. Then the rattle began again, quickly increasing in rapidity until it was one whirring buzz of sound.

  At the second blow of thrown dirt, the snake slithered up out of the hole. With its sensuous body, a wiggling shadow barely visible among the rocks, the snake speedily retreated into the gloom.

  The last stone was slid aside. Crazy scrutinized the trench, looking for any form that would identify a second intruder. There was nothing but the dark outlines of the canteens.

  * * *

  Crazy sat in the darkness and watched the moon and stars arc through the heavens. A pack of coyotes yapped a high, clear chorus on the high ridges of the mountain above the prison. A large ghostly night flyer, spotting Crazy’s dark bulk on the ground, dropped down from the black velvet sky to investigate. Crazy heard the swish of the air past the diving body, heard the rustle of feathers as the bird altered the set of its wings and tail to maintain its course. He caught one glimpse of the hurtling body as it bottomed its fall and swept upward, not to reappear.

  The wild flight of the bird caused a bright flame of happiness to spring to life in Crazy’s heart. For the first time he thought he might really make good his escape.

  The Big Dipper wheeled around the North Star, marking off the remaining hours of the night. Before dawn showed first light, Crazy crept into the shallow hole. Reaching out, he brushed away the tracks on the ground and then carefully placed the stones to bridge the excavation.

  He lay on his back and breathed deeply of the smell of the rock and the dry dirt. He hoped the pit would not end up being his grave. At the irony of the thought, he started his weird laugh but choked it off. There was no need for that. The game of playing the crazy was ended.

  CHAPTER 4

  The alarm bell within the tall stone walls of the prison began to ring frantically. The clang of the heavy iron bell swept through the cool morning air and jolted Caloon awake. He smiled to himself in the dim light of his hiding place and listened to the guards calling excitedly to each other. The first count of the prisoners for the day had been made and had come up one short. Crazy Caloon had escaped.

  Slowly he raised the rock that hung close above his face and peered toward the source of the commotion. In the tower, the guard on duty scanned the brush and rock of the desert. His scrutiny missed the narrow crack under the up-tilted rock and the alert foxy eyes staring out.

  The two Quechan man hunters loped in at a fast pace and were quickly admitted through the iron-barred gate. Five minutes later they reemerged stripped down to buckskin loincloths, moccasins, knives in their belts, and trailing their short Winchester carbines.

  Like a pair of hunting dogs, the Indians began a circle of the prison, inside the wire and about a hundred yards out from the walls. They moved swiftly and effortlessly, sniffing at the ground with their wise, experi
enced eyes.

  Caloon lowered the stone into place above his face and pressed his ear against the ground. He remained perfectly silent and waited. Once he thought, just for a moment, he heard the muffled tread of feet striking the ground, but he was not sure.

  The Indians found nothing in the first encirclement of the prison except sign from old work details. They expanded their search pattern, moving beyond the wire.

  Caloon heard the thud of their running feet striking the ground and rapidly approaching his hiding place. This was the time of greatest peril. Had he left any tracks, any sign that would betray him? They must not discover him or he would .

  The footfalls passed close, too damn close, just outside the wire. Then they faded away.

  Caloon let his breath out in a sigh and pried up the stone to look. He spotted the Indians, their rope-like muscles rippling beneath dark copper skin, race away, dodging through the saguaro and brush. They dropped down into a gully and disappeared.

  The Quechans made a third turn of the prison and then began to course back and forth in wide sweeps on the south and west. Caloon could see them now and then and he knew their strategy. The nearest water, other than the spring inside the prison walls, was the Gila River lying to the south or the Colorado River at a slightly greater distance to the west. An escaping prisoner would almost certainly have to take one of those directions.

  Caloon completely lost sight of the Indians as they worked farther away. He propped the stone up with a small rock, made himself as comfortable as possible, and lay watching for them to return.

  About mid-morning the bounty hunters came running in from the desert and entered the prison. They left almost immediately to the west, mounted on horseback and with small packs tied behind the saddles. Caloon nodded his understanding. They had found no sign and now would ride rapidly to the Colorado. Once there, they would stake out their tired horses in some hidden canyon and patrol the river on foot until they found him. Or decided he had gone to the Gila River and transferred their search to that water source.