Slocum's Breakout - Jake Logan [7]
“How hard will it be opening the way?” Slocum asked.
“It will require many men for it and must be done quickly. The guards patrol constantly. We would have no longer than fifteen minutes.”
“The guards would see the hole, wouldn’t they?”
“No plan is without risk. San Quentin was not built to be so easily left.”
“With Valenzuela and another, can four of us open the hole?”
“Four, yes.”
Slocum and Murrieta continued to hone their escape plans. Along with José Valenzuela, Slocum thought Doc would be willing to help. He had risked much to put the two prisoners in contact. The only reason Slocum could think of Doc doing that was a desire to escape himself.
After a while Slocum found himself drifting off to sleep. Time was measured by Doc bringing food once a day, but he had no more notes. Slocum didn’t care. Being told where to find the hole and talking to Murrieta made the first effort on the other prisoner’s part worthwhile. Slocum felt he owed Doc for that. And since the man was willing to risk so much, Doc was the likeliest to be the fourth needed to escape through Murrieta’s wall breach.
“Come on out. Yer time’s up.”
Slocum shielded his eyes with his arm and peered at the guard in the corridor. The dim light was hardly enough for an owl to hunt by, but for him it was blinding. He got to his feet and staggered out. Going without exercise for almost a week had left him weak. It would take a spell to get his strength back for the escape.
In the corridor he saw two guards waiting, hands on truncheons. The next cell over was already open. Procipio Murrieta had been released days earlier. Slocum tried to step lively but found himself half carried up the steps into real sunlight. He screwed his eyes closed and only slowly opened them to look around the yard, where dozens of inmates milled about. Exercise time was almost over.
“Time to put you back into your cell.”
Slocum recoiled from the guard. He wasn’t going back into that dungeon.
The guard laughed harshly and said, “Not in the hole. Your cell. Your regular one.”
“Jarvis hasn’t been assigned a regular cell. He got in trouble right away,” said the sergeant, who still carried his ledger. Slocum wanted to cram it down the man’s throat until he choked on it. “Put him in with Doc.”
Slocum started to complain, then subsided. He let the guard lead him away, acting sullen, but inside he rejoiced. He wanted to learn more about the man who had been his only friend so far within San Quentin’s walls.
The cell had two pallets on the floor, almost touching. The straw ticking spilled out of one. Doc sat on the other. He looked up when the guard shoved Slocum inside and slammed the iron-barred door shut behind him.
“You got through solitary,” Doc said in a low voice. “You don’t look none the worse fer the stint.”
Slocum dropped to the unoccupied pallet and leaned back against the stone wall. It was as cold above ground as it was in the subterranean cell. He glanced out the bars and waited to be sure the guard had moved on.
“He’s got a bottle down in the office. He ain’t likely to be back ’til it’s time to let us out for dinner.”
“How do you know your way around?” Slocum asked.
Doc laughed harshly.
“Been a regular here for years. Hardly get free and they send me back. I heard about the loose stone in the wall the last time I was in. My roommate worked it free on one of his vacations down below. I ain’t never been in the cellar myself, ’cept to carry food.”
Slocum thanked him for the note and the match, then asked, “Why’d you do it?”
“I seen right from the start you’re not the kind what stays locked up. You got a look about you, lean, nasty, not the type to put up with more ’n a week or two of conditions like these.”
Slocum worked his way into telling Doc about what Murrieta had said about the hole in the outer wall, finally getting him to agree to join the escape.
“I been locked up too much of my life. I get away,