The Choiring of the Trees - Donald Harington [98]
Fat Gabe not only kept feeding Nail all he could eat, he also began to let him outside the building. The warm weather made it necessary to open the windows and get as much air as possible into the barracks, and to get as many men as possible out into the Yard. The Yard was only a yard: merely all of the empty space between the brick buildings and the brick walls, a few acres of what had once been grass but was now mostly mud and sand, with just a smear of green here and there. Fifty men at a time, guarded by a shotgun trusty, would be allowed to go out into the Yard for an hour and walk, jump, run, waddle, or crawl—anything except stand and congregate and talk. Nail took advantage of being let out into the Yard to study the walls very carefully, to memorize the length and height and even the brick patterns of every section. He observed that the brick building of the engine room, which also contained Old Sparky and the death cells, was much closer to the wall than the main barracks. He noticed that at one place along the wall a corner of the engine building’s roof obscured the view from the tower. Why, he asked himself, was he making all these observations if Viridis and Rindy were going to make the governor let him go? The answer, he told himself, was that week by week his chance of a pardon appeared slimmer and slimmer.
The month of March was marching on and he hadn’t had his March trip to the visit room. Surely Viridis had at least tried to visit him. Once when Fat Gabe and Short Leg were making their rounds, Nail forgot that he was never supposed to question them. “Short Leg,” he asked, “you don’t reckon anybody came to see me at the visit room that you didn’t tell me about, did they?”
Short Leg exchanged glances with Fat Gabe, the two of them astounded that an experienced convict would violate the cardinal rule against asking them questions. Short Leg didn’t know whether to hit Nail or not, but when he raised his hand, Fat Gabe said, “He aint ready yet,” and then he even smiled almost friendly-like at Nail and said, “We’ll let that one go, Chism. Just watch it.”
After the two sergeant-guards had moved on, Timbo Red exclaimed to Nail, “I tole ye, didn’t I? They’re jist a-waitin till ye git to lookin real peart afore they light into ye.”
But just a day later, as if Nail’s question had produced some result, he was summoned by Short Leg for a trip to the visit room.
It wasn’t Viridis. It was Farrell Cobb. Nail complained, “I thought you generally came into the barracks to see me. Now you’re using up my visit room time.”
Cobb whispered, “They’re shaking down everyone they admit to the compound.” He patted his breast. “I didn’t want them to find what I’m carrying.”
“A gun?” Nail said.
Cobb laughed. Nail had never heard him laugh, nor suspected that he was capable of it. “No. A very thick letter. Pages and pages.”
Nail felt stifling frustration. He swore. He glanced all over the edges of the screen separating him from Cobb, as if there might be some opening the letter could be slipped through. He studied the trusty, Bird, who was just standing there looking bored and blank. He inclined his head toward Bird and whispered to Cobb, “I don’t suppose you could bribe him to let me have it.”
Cobb shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to try.”
“Well,