Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [65]
Somebody got away! He’s out there in the groves!
Go git the dogs! Quick! And the Dog Boy!
Call up the Highway Patrol!
How about the Sheriff?
Who the hell was it?
Who the hell do you think it was? It’s that crazy son of a bitch from Alabama. Cool Hand Luke.
17
NOBODY GOT MUCH SLEEP THAT NIGHT. There were too many things going on. Everyone lay there, trying his best to appear innocent and yet craning his neck to catch every detail of the show.
Carr dragged Blackie back through the hole in the floor, twisted his arm behind his back and marched him over to the poker table where he forced him to sit down on the bench. Carr waited, looking down towards one end of the Building and then the other end, both fists balled up and placed on his hips, his face screwed up in a scowl that warned us all to stay where we were.
In a few seconds the Wicker Man unlocked the outside door and shoved Society Red inside the Chute. Out in the yard Boss Brown stood in his underwear, blinking his eyes and holding his shotgun with tense desperation. Society Red was brought inside and placed next to Blackie, the two of them sitting there with the hanging heads of naughty children.
Carr paced up and down, his expression ferocious. The Wicker Man was fondling his gun with nervous gestures, his enormous belly jiggling up and down as he panted, still trying to catch his breath. And yet right in the middle of it all, a man actually asked to get up. It was Cottontop.
Kin ah git up now, Carr?
Carr just stopped and looked at him.
Ah gotta take a leak, Carr.
Yes, Mister Cottontop. Yes sir. You can git up. Take your leak. But make it damn fast. And damn careful. Otherwise you’ll be leakin‘ like a lawn sprinkler.
We all watched as the white-headed, pink-skinned albino got out of bed, wrapped his towel around his waist and shuffled off to the toilets, his head tilted back, his puffy eyelids half closed, his face composed and unconcerned. He urinated in a bowl and flushed it, turning around and heading back, oblivious to all the eyes, the tension, unaware that every one of us was holding his breath, ready to roll out of bed and fall to the floor in an instant, knowing that if Cottontop were to make a sudden dive for the hole the room would be full of explosions, smoke and scattered shot.
Out in the darkness the dogs were going berserk. They knew that something was happening and they barked and bayed and howled, impatient to be set out on the trail. The Dog Boy was already dressed and putting on his shoes, sitting on the edge of his single bunk which was placed right next to the Wicker as a protection from the rest of us.
Arrogantly the Dog Boy got up from his bed without a word to Carr, heavily scraping his feet on the bare boards as he crossed the floor to the john. He began to brush his teeth under the spigot. Then he rinsed his face and went over to the broken fragment of mirror to comb his hair with lingering strokes. Returning to his bunk, he put on his jacket, lit a cigarette and went over and stood by the gate to the Chute, resting his weight on one leg, his arms folded over his chest. He looked around at all of us, a sly smile on his lips as Carr handed him a folded sheet taken from Luke’s bed.
A few minutes later, two guards came up on the porch, fully dressed and armed and ready for the chase. Carr covered the Dog Boy’s back as the Wicker Man unlocked the gate to the Chute, blocking the gate with his body until the Wicker Man locked it again. There were mutters and sounds on the porch. We knew the guards had just given the Dog Boy a pistol belt. Then there were footsteps and shadowed forms moving down the sidewalk.
In a few minutes the sounds of the dogs became hysterical, the voice of Big Blue louder and more mellow, distinctive from the rest of the pack. But when the Dog Boy opened the gate to the pens Big Blue must have made a sudden rush for it. Before he could be stopped he was out and gone, racing into the