Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [66]
Out of the bedlam of noises, the yelping and yapping, the shouts and curses of the guards, we could hear the angry and forlorn voice of the Dog Boy calling out after his favorite hound.
Here, you! Blue! Come back here! Come back here I said!
For the next few minutes the men wrestled with the rest of the pack, cursing and slapping the dogs into obedience, finally managing to get them collared and leashed. They gave them Luke’s bedsheet to sniff and dragged them over to the fence, to the spot where Luke’s footprints began. The dogs found the scent, their voices suddenly different, anxious and eager, dragging the Dog Boy behind them as the entire posse set off through the orange groves in pursuit.
The baying of the hounds grew dimmer in the distance. Carr paced up and down the floor. The Wicker Man clicked the safety catch of his gun on and off and on again. Blackie and Society Red still sat where they were.
A little later an unarmed guard came inside the Building with a tool box and a length of two-by-four. Carr hovered behind him as the guard sawed the two-by-four into short lengths, nailing them over the hole in the floor. When he was finished he took the broom handle and began tapping all over the floor and the walls, dragging it across the mesh of the windows.
It must have been at least a half hour before the Yard Man and Boss Shorty came inside carrying two sets of leg shackles, a ball-peen hammer and a ten-pound sledge. The Captain came in behind them. His false teeth shifting from one side of his mouth to the other, the Yard Man gruffly ordered the two escapees to their feet. They stood there limply, looking down at their ankles as one after the other Boss Shorty fitted a leg ring, closed it, put a short piece of twenty-penny nail through the holes and then riveted over the ends with the hammer, using the sledge as an anvil.
The Captain stood watching and smoking. Casually he pursed his lips and spit. Carr stood behind him, his arms akimbo, glaring at the bunks. But we lay perfectly still. The Captain came over to Blackie, poking at the shackles with the toe of his shoe, both hands deep in his pockets. He turned and looked around at the far recesses of the Building. In a low voice he murmured.
You sons of bitches are all gonna be sorry about this. You hear? You’re gonna be mighty sorry.
At a signal the Chute was opened and Blackie and Society Red were taken outside and led down to the Box. For awhile we could hear sounds—the lid of a chamber pot, a door, a snap and a click, a bar slid into place. Then it was quiet, Carr pacing back and forth on his silent, crepe soled shoes.
So we didn’t sleep that night. But we loved every minute of it, rolling from side to side to peep owlishly at the man in the next bunk, then burying our grins in the covers.
18
WE KNEW THE HEAT WAS GOING TO BE ON the whole camp when we went out on the Road the next day. We had all been in on it one way or the other and without our cooperation Luke’s escape would have been impossible.
When we got in that night we saw two night shirts draped over the screen in front of the Box. Blackie and Society Red were still locked inside but there was always room for two more. And then Four Eyed Joe and Coon were called out.
But we were far from daunted by a little thing like the Box, counting through the gate in the correct manner but our voices indicating our exuberance. The Building trembled beneath our feet as it was invaded. The different work squads milled together, everyone giving his own interpretations of the flimsy bits and pieces of information that were available. But there was no one to tell us for sure whether or not the dogs were still out, whether Luke had been seen or how large the search party had become.
While we were eating our supper the Yard Man came through the kitchen and stood beside the pistol guard sitting in a chair by the door. He stood there grinding his teeth together and glaring at us over his