Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [68]
Eventually the two guards from our camp just couldn’t run any more. In spite of all the stimulations of a manhunt, they had simply outdone themselves. They found a filling station and called up the Captain and the local barracks of the Highway Patrol, giving them their location and asking for relief.
But the Dog Boy refused to be relieved. He asked to be given a hot meal and allowed to stretch out on the ground and sleep for an hour. But he wouldn’t let anyone else take over the dogs.
For the second night in a row we couldn’t sleep, laying there thinking and dreaming and imagining the whole scene. We knew the real issues that were at stake, the emotions and challenges that were involved. If it hadn’t been for Big Blue it might have been different. But as long as his favorite hound was on the loose, the Dog Boy would never allow himself to rest.
The next morning the four men were let out of the Box. But as we lined up for breakfast someone let the screen door to the Messhall slam behind him. There was a sharp intake of breath from everyone in the line. Ears was directly in front of me. When he reached the door he looked all around for the Free Men, grabbed the spring and bent down low with a whispered curse, stretching the spring all the way down to the ground. When I got to the door the spring hung limp in a sagging loop.
That day was long and anxious, the hours dragging at a slow and monotonous pace. All we could think of was getting back to Camp and finding out what was happening. Then we got the command and loaded up, Sleepy chainsmoking all the way in, unbuttoning his shirt and untying his shoe laces, knowing he was going to the Box for letting the door slam. But to everyone’s surprise, no less than four men were called out and taken down to the Box, two men put in each side.
When we got inside the Building we were again amazed. Because there was the Dog Boy, sprawled out on top of his bunk, asleep and fully dressed in his muddy, torn and disheveled clothes. We stared at each other and began to grin.
We grinned even more when we found the brand new spring on the Messhall door, an extra-large, heavy duty model with two overhand knots tied in the middle. It was all you could do to open the door and if you let it slip it would slam like a gunshot. But at that point we didn’t much care. The whole thing had become a game and somehow we were convinced that we were winning.
After supper we found out what had happened. Late in the afternoon a county sheriff’s car had pulled up to the Captain’s Office. A deputy got out and opened the back door, shaking the Dog Boy who was curled up asleep on the back seat. Stiffly he got out, limping as he shuffled around to the rear of the car, his head hanging as he watched the deputy open the trunk.
The Captain and the Yard Man came out of the Office and stood waiting on the porch. The Dog Boy came up the sidewalk, staggering with fatigue and hunger and the weight of Big Blue’s dead body which he carried in his outstretched arms, the hound’s foaming, blood-flecked tongue protruding out of his jaws.
The Dog Boy came stumbling up to the Captain with tears in his eyes.
That Mother Fucker! Ah’ll git that Cool Hand bastard! You wait Cap’n. Ah’ll git even with him! Look what he done! What he done to Blue! He’s dead, Cap’n! Dead! Run hisself plumb to death tryin‘ to catch that stinkin’ son of a bitch. He run so hard it just busted his heart.
The Dog Boy had finally given up when the posse had come upon Blue’s body lying in the trail. Dazed and grieving, he allowed himself to be relieved. That evening he lay there unconscious, his mouth sagging open as he slept, bearded and dirty, his arms and legs spread-eagled on the bed.
The rest of us were barely able to swallow our grins, humming in a low, indistinct murmur the melody of the song “Red River Valley” as we shuffled barefooted back and forth to the johns, the shower,