Cool Hand Luke - Donn Pearce [72]
But already suspicious, the cop approached the car on the side opposite the driver’s seat. When he looked through the window he saw the stripe on Luke’s pant leg. Immediately he pulled his pistol, aimed it at Luke and began yelling for his partner to come over. Not until then did the traffic light change and the semi-trailer drove away.
So Luke was caught. It was as easy as that.
20
HE HOBBLED ALONG, DOING HIS TIME WITHOUT ever making a complaint, working as only he knew how to work. Every night they took him out of line and put him in the Gator. Every morning he was taken out and put back on the Road, never allowed to come into the Building to take a shower or shave or to change his clothes, the blood still there on the side of his head, matted in his hair above the raw cut left by the Captain’s blackjack. After a few days he looked like a bewhiskered animal; a shackled, limping, foul-smelling beast. We growled and muttered among ourselves. No one had ever been hard-timed like this before. But the Free Men had a very special hard-on for Luke and they were never going to let him up.
The Dog Boy was delighted by the whole situation. Every morning he would be in the line of trustees in the Messhall, ladling out the coffee, the grits, the fat back and our very own egg. He would wait with a big grin until Luke was brought in from the Box and put at the end of the chow line. Then he would loudtalk at Luke, making all sorts of wisecracks.
Hey, hogbelly. You ain’t got to eat so much no more. Your runnin‘ days are over. Ole Lawyer Bush said he couldn’t git you no parole no way. So hell, man. Take it easy. Look, ah’ll jes give you one cathead. Fer now. You can always come back a little later if you want another one.
The Silent System applies to everyone in the Messhall, the trustees obliged to keep their own talking down to a minimum of business only. But the Dog Boy had always enjoyed a special status with the Free Men and in this case they were greatly amused by his wit.
Luke never said a word. He just looked at the Dog Boy and held out his plate, standing there quietly until he was served. Until the day the Dog Boy snarled at him,
Well, hogbelly. It’s gittin‘ so’s you even smell like a gawd damn pig. The way you stink we sure wouldn’t have no trouble trackin’ you down the next time. Hell, I could even follow your trail myself.
Luke stood there in his filth, bearded, bleary eyed and exhausted. In a low, deep voice that filled the Messhall, the kitchen and the Guard’s Messhall next door, he growled,
Your nose has been out of joint for so damn long it wouldn’t surprise me none. Besides, for a natural-born son of a bitch like you, it oughtta be easy.
Everyone stopped what he was doing. The Dog Boy just stood there, his hands trembling, his eyes popping wide. No one had ever dared to talk in the Messhall that way. Yet we all knew that Luke was going to get away with it. His other sins were of such an awful magnitude that he had a kind of immunity for the breach of ordinary laws such as these.
But we weren’t fooled. One word out of any of us and it would have meant the Box.
One afternoon, in the middle of the second week of this routine, Luke had to go. He asked Boss Kean if he would take him off the road and into the bushes so he could dig a hole. At that moment Boss Godfrey came strolling by and overheard the request. Waving his Stick over his head, he called out to Rabbit to bring him his rifle from the truck. When he came up with it, Boss Godfrey took the bolt out of his pocket, inserted it into