Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [12]
Murrieta hissed, and Slocum heard the other two men rushing for cover in the garden. He turned and saw a guard round the far corner of the building holding most of the cells and head toward him. From the rhythmic sound of wood against flesh, he knew the guard slapped his truncheon against his palm the way he had seen San Francisco Specials do it as they patrolled the worst section of the Barbary Coast.
Slocum gripped the handle of the pickax and considered fighting the guard, then discarded the idea immediately. Any ruckus within the walls would draw attention. He took a step to follow Murrieta and Valenzuela into the dubious refuge provided by the garden plants, then stopped. He could never make it without being seen.
He pressed himself back into the cavity he had carved in the wooden door and felt it yield behind him. He dug his heels in and pushed as hard as he could. The hinges yielded although the door didn’t give way. He sucked in his gut and held his breath as the guard came closer. The man stopped, looked around, then worked to build himself a smoke. His face was momentarily illuminated in the flare of the lucifer lighting the tip of the cigarette. Slocum recognized the guard as the one who had peered into the cell when he had first talked with Valenzuela. He wasn’t as sharp as a whip, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t send Slocum and his two partners to the hell of solitary if he saw anything amiss.
The guard puffed contentedly on his cigarette, not moving.
Slocum continued to push hard against the door, hoping to get it open so he could reach the other side of the wall. The guard wasn’t armed so he couldn’t shoot Slocum if he had to run, but sounding the alarm would bring a swarm of guards Slocum wanted to avoid.
The guard finished his smoke, then walked toward Slocum. The guard stopped, shuffled his feet in the dirt as if noticing a hunk of concrete or something else out of the ordinary. He gave a slight shrug, as if realizing he couldn’t figure out what he had seen, then continued his patrol. Slocum remained flattened in the cavity in the wall. The moonless night worked in his favor and hid him enough so that the guard walked past.
It took another interminable minute before the guard reached the far end of the building, then turned and disappeared. Slocum wasted no time spinning around and hammering the pick against the hinges. They popped open within seconds. A swift kick sent the door tumbling away.
Both Valenzuela and Murrieta joined him.
“Well done, novio,” Valenzuela congratulated him. He laughed in a way that irrationally irritated Slocum. He didn’t like being reminded that Conchita considered him her lover, although it was true. “She will reward you well.”
“Silencio,” Murrieta said. He pushed them through the open doorway. “We must not betray ourselves now.”
Slocum agreed with the son of Joaquin Murrieta. The less said now, the better.
They had come out on the west side of the prison. San Francisco Bay lapped on the shoreline to their left, giving them a constant beacon so they wouldn’t be distracted from their escape and walk in circles. In the darkness Slocum knew this was a distinct possibility. The last thing he wanted was to end up where they had started. The only way off the outjut of land into the Bay was westward. Then they might swing around and get down to Tiburon and take the ferry across to Oakland. Better to go farther south still and find a way across the Golden Gate to San Francisco, if that ferry wasn’t running at night.
He stopped and stared at their striped canvas prison garb and knew that wouldn’t happen until they changed clothes. The wooded area thinned as they ran farther west.
“I need to get my bearings,” Slocum said.
“What for? We can go only this way. In any other we would have to swim,” said Murrieta.
“I cached some clothes and guns,” he said.
“What?” Murrieta stopped and stared at Slocum.
“Why would you do such a thing unless . . .”
“Unless he got into prison to break me out,” José Valenzuela said proudly. “Conchita did not find a fool for