A Knife in the Heart Read online

  “I think you boys have been on break long enough.” He nodded. “Back to work. And pick up those cigarette butts and put them in the trash. Now. We don’t want to start any fires, burn down the walls, see all your hard work reduced to ashes.”

  He watched them stoop, picking up the remnants of their smokes, and dump them into the bucket between Sean MacGregor and Aaron Holderman. One of the guards followed the four prisoners. The other two stepped back, well out of earshot, but close enough with their shotguns to take action if needed. Fallon knew that neither Holderman nor, especially, old Sean MacGregor would do anything stupid. Not here. Not now.

  “For your own edification, I thought you were sentenced to McNeil Island,” Fallon told them.

  Located in Puget Sound, southeast of Tacoma, Washington, McNeil Island had been a federal penitentiary since 1875, five years after the U.S. government bought the island.

  “You didn’t read the list of us convicts before you took the job, Fallon?” MacGregor asked in a hoarse whisper. Cigarettes, apparently, did not agree with him, but Fallon thought they sure smelled better than the filthy, cheap cigars he had smoked as president of the American Detective Agency.

  “I didn’t ask for the list. And with three hundred names on it, I thought I could find better things to read.”

  “You can always transfer us to the new joint in Atlanta, Georgia,” MacGregor suggested.

  “Or pardon us,” Holderman added.

  The two prisoners snickered, and even Fallon cracked a smile.

  “You’ve developed a sense of humor,” Fallon told them, and they turned quiet. “That’s a good thing to have in a federal penitentiary. Keep it up.”

  MacGregor stubbed out his cigarette against the heel of his right shoe and flicked the butt into the trash can. The thin old man wasn’t that active back when he ran the American Detective Agency, but those years behind bars had changed him—as Fallon knew, years behind the iron changed every man.

  “Just so we understand each other,” Fallon said. “The two of you are just like all the other three hundred-odd convicts housed here.” He waited till they looked up. “You,” he told MacGregor, “are Number Five-Zero-Nine-Eight.” His eyes moved to Holderman. “And you are Number Five-One-Oh-Four.” Another part of the Auburn Prison System. Inmates were numbers; they had no names. “Do your work. We get along. Raise trouble. You know what happens. I’d rather see you two men complete your sentence and get out of my sight.”

  MacGregor pushed himself to his feet. “Well, Warden Fallon, I’m not all that eager to see my sentence end. Since in all likelihood I’ll be dead before that term is over.”

  Holderman stood, too. “And, you know, Mr. Warden, that my sentence here ends when I’m dead. That’s what they call life, Mr. Warden. I’m here for life.”

  Slowly, Fallon exhaled. “We understand each other, then,” he said. “Now . . . do you have a complaint?”

  Holderman sniggered.

  MacGregor said, “Can we go back to work now, boss?”

  Fallon nodded and watched the two men walk to the brick pile, but Holderman stopped, turned around, and looked at Fallon.

  “Warden, boss, sir,” he said mockingly, but then he straightened and spoke in a normal voice. “If you are serious about a complaint, it would be nice if the boys in the kitchen didn’t piss in our soup.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Since the success of the New York prison at Auburn decades earlier, most states and territories had adopted what people in the business called “the Auburn Prison System.”

  Convicts were locked alone in cells at night, but worked—at hard labor—during the day. They were not allowed to speak to one another or a guard or prison official, either, unless given permission. Talk meant the whip, or, by this time in Leavenworth, Kansas, a wallop with a billy club. A prison would be devoid of human voices. Guards could signal which direction the prisoners were marching—always in lockstep—by tapping their canes. In the mess hall, lifting cups, spoon, fork, or plate would be the command for a refill of coffee or water, more meat—when there was meat—or bread or whatever. An inmate did not even make eye contact with another felon or a guard. Ten hours a day working hard and without conversation, in the winter. Twelve, maybe even fourteen hours in the summer.

  Yet things were beginning to change this late in the century. Over some eighty years, humanitarians had been heard. Back in 1846, the New York State Legislature put a stop to the whipping and beating of inmates, and other states followed suit. Of course, you didn’t have to beat prisoners with nightsticks, butts of shotguns, or gloved fists . . .

  * * *

  “Captain O’Connor.” Fallon’s boots slogged through the water in the wall-enclosed corral that housed the brick kiln. The city of Leavenworth had provided the new pump fire engine—in case a fire spread—but the guards had found another use for it.

  Big Tim O’Connor slowly lowered the dripping hose, handed it to another guard, wiped his soaking hands on his trousers, and offered a smart salute at Fallon. Ten yards away, arms strapped to two posts, slumped a naked man, shivering from the cold, hard blasts of water. His pale skin was reddened from the impact of the water.

  “Yes, sir?” O’Connor said.

  “Explain to me what is going on here,” Fallon ordered.

  O’Connor nodded. “Shower bath, sir.”

  “I see. I thought baths were given on Saturdays. In tubs.”

  “They are, sir. This is a special occasion.”

  “What’s so special about Wednesday, Captain?”

  “We heard it was his birthday.”

  Fallon nodded and moved through the cold water, past the fire engine, past O’Connor and the guard holding the hose, and stopped a few feet behind the shivering, pale, naked man with goose pimples all over his flesh. If he had been facing them when they cut loose with the water hose, the man would have drowned.

  After introducing himself as the warden, Fallon asked the prisoner’s name, and heard nothing.

  “You have my permission to speak,” Fallon said.

  “Your name.” And he added, “Please.”

  He did not look behind him, but could picture the faces as the guards, and especially Big Tim O’Connor, rolling their eyes.

  “Three-Nine-Seven-Two.”

  “Your name,” Fallon told him. “Not your number.” His teeth kept chattering. “Lawless,” he finally managed. “Ben Lawless.”

  Fallon moved closer, his feet already cold from the water. “The Ben Lawless?” This old man didn’t look like the killer Harry Fallon remembered from his days riding across the Indian Nations.

  “The only”—he still shivered and had trouble keeping his teeth from clattering—“only . . . Ben . . . Lawless. . . I know.”

  “The one who poisoned Indians?”

  “Just the . . . sons of . . . bitchin’ . . . Cherokees.”

  “They didn’t hang you?”

  “For riddin’ the . . . world . . . of . . . maggots?” He managed to laugh.

  Slowly, Ben Lawless, Number 3972, lifted his head, spit out water or saliva, and turned just enough to make eye contact with Fallon. One eye socket was empty, and the scars on his face ran deep as canyons. His hair was shorn, per prison regulations, but it was easy to see where the scalp had been lifted so many decades ago. The guards had stripped him naked, but even Big Tim O’Connor had left one item on the killer’s body. He wore a chain, and hanging from the chain was a cross. It was a miracle the hose had not blasted the small, hand-carved piece of cottonwood all the way to the Missouri River. Fallon saw something else in Ben Lawless. He saw the one good eye, a deep brown, and in that eye, he understood something about Ben Lawless.

  Fallon had seen that look in a few—but certainly not many—inmates during his tours behind bars. He looked over his shoulder at the guards, felt the anger rising, but managed to calm himself, and asked Ben Lawless another question.

  “What’s your date of birth, Lawless?”

 
The inmate managed to grin. “December twenty-fourth. . . warden. I was . . . a . . . Christmas gift . . . for my mommy.”

  He turned away and marched back to O’Connor.

  “Captain, today does not feel like Christmas Eve, does it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Apparently, your birthday bath was either months too late or months too early.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have this man dried off. Put his clothes back on. And have him escorted to my office at the old prison.”

  O’Connor saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  Fallon then pointed to four other inmates, lined up against the four-foot high wall, the wall that eventually would be part—if Fallon remembered the blueprint right—of the maintenance shop on the northeast corner of the prison grounds.

  “Is today also the birthday of those inmates?” Fallon demanded.

  “I would not know, sir.”

  Fallon looked at the men, standing in puddles of water in their bare feet, pants still on, but shirts off, and their wrists lashed to a beam that had been placed behind their necks. Back at Joliet, Fallon remembered, they called that a yoke. Fallon’s neck and shoulders hurt from the memory of it.

  “If they came with birthday gifts, Captain, I don’t see any.”

  “They probably forgot them, sir.”

  “I see. Maybe we should remove the yoke off those men, and have them returned to their work detail.”

  O’Connor’s eyes moved from staring straight ahead, to locking in on Fallon. That the warden knew what a “yoke” was impressed the big man. His eyes shot back ahead. “Very good, sir.”

  “Is there anything else you’d like to say, Tim?” Fallon let his voice drop to a whisper. “Speak freely.”

  O’Connor wet his lips, considered the suggestion for a moment, and at length cleared his throat. “Lawless is the king of the coop, Hank,” he said, testing the name. “We have to put him in his place. Let him know who’s the boss. He controls most of the prisoners, and there are too many of them compared to the fifty guards we have. You’ve never seen a riot . . .”

  “Oh,” Fallon interrupted. “I have seen many. Been in more than my share. You might want to do a little more research about me, Tim, before you make assumptions.” He then asked. “And why the witnesses?”

  “Newbies,” O’Connor said. “Fresh fish.”

  Fallon nodded. “Showing them how things are . . . rid them of any bad ideas.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll talk about this in my office, Tim. Bring Ben Lawless with you.”

  He walked out of the water, away from the kiln, and toward the old prison at the fort.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Fallon had never served in the military, and from his office at the United States Military Prison on the bluffs overlooking the Big Muddy, he was glad he had been spared. Prison cells were drab affairs, lacking personality, lacking light. The paint was whitewash. The arched window let in little light. The furniture was dull.

  After removing his hat and hanging it on the rack, Fallon settled behind his desk and felt like he was back in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in the federal courthouse, going through papers that needed his signatures. He signed his name, and took the forms to the clerk, but reread one of the documents at the top of the file and pulled it out. “Preston,” he told the clerk, “I’ll keep this one for a few minutes and bring it back later. That sound fine with you?”

  “Yes, sir,” the tiny man said.

  Fifty guards. An assistant warden. A doctor. A bookkeeper. A chaplain. Eventually, the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, would also hire a couple of superintendents, one in charge of industries and another in charge of transportation and the farm. Every one of them a government bureaucrat—except, he hoped, the minister. Harry sure missed Helen these days. Too bad he couldn’t have talked her into leaving wind-blown Cheyenne for even windier Kansas.

  He went back into his office, looked out the window, saw Big Tim O’Connor and Ben Lawless, flanked by two guards—Ben Lawless had to be a most desperate criminal—moving toward the high stone walls and ugly yellow-painted offices. Fallon picked up his empty cup, found his way to the kitchen, and returned with three steaming mugs of coffee. Army coffee, too. The kind that would put hair on your head—maybe even scalped Ben Lawless’s.

  Prisoner and chief guard removed their caps when they stepped into the open doorway. Fallon rose, waved them in, and motioned to the two chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat,” he told them, “and if you’d care for coffee . . .” He motioned at the tray, and both men accepted the offer before settling into their seats. The two guards stood at the doorway uncertain, and Harry smiled at them, before calling to the clerk, “Preston?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do me a favor. Take guards Raymond and Wilson”—he smiled at his former posse members, and held out his hand, shaking with each one, telling them (and feeling like a governmental and political appointee) that it was good to see them again—“down the hall to the commissary and show them the coffeepot.” He grinned at Raymond and Wilson. “There are cookies there, too. Preston’s wife is a great baker. I’ll bring Captain O’Connor and the prisoner to you when our meeting is over.”

  It sounded like a polite dismissal. The men started away, and Fallon turned back to his office but stepped back out and called out to the clerk.

  “Preston,” he said, “bring a few cookies back with you. For my guests.”

  He waited as the men stirred sugar into their coffee, sipped, sat, and crossed their legs. Finally, Preston returned with a plate of cookies. Ben Lawless eyed his with suspicion, and did not take a bite until Big Tim O’Connor started washing down his with his coffee.

  Once he bit into it, his eyes revealed enormous pleasure.

  Fallon told the clerk to close the door behind him.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Fallon said when both men stopped chewing. He looked at Lawless.

  “Captain O’Connor did you a favor this morning, Ben,” Fallon said. “Those fresh fish know you’re a big man in this pen.”

  The dark brown eye of Ben Lawless stared hard at Fallon, who tried not to stare back at the empty hole. “I am,” Lawless told him, “a big man.”

  “If you were that big, Ben, you wouldn’t need the captain to hose you down.”

  “Mister”—Lawless leaned forward in his chair, speaking in a dry whisper—“I’ve been here . . .”

  “Better than twenty years,” Fallon told him. “And you’re here till you die. You know that.”

  “Or I get out.”

  “You’ve tried that four times.” Fallon glanced at one of the sheets before him but did not pick it up. “In ’78, ’79, ’85, and ’91. Each time you got maybe as far away as Loder, Walburn, and Turner. And Loder, Walburn, and Turner are damned fools.”

  The one-eyed killer, poisoner of Cherokee men, women, children, babies, horses, and dogs, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Fallon looked at O’Connor.

  “Why was he given the bath, Tim?”

  “He dumped his soup for supper last night on the floor.”

  Fallon nodded, looked back at Lawless, then again at O’Connor. “Maybe if you didn’t piss in the soup . . .” He decided what Aaron Holderman had told him wasn’t so far-fetched. O’Connor’s reaction told Fallon that Holderman hadn’t been lying at all.

  “I ain’t no dog,” Ben Lawless said.

  “The hell you aren’t,” Big Tim O’Connor told him.

  Fallon interrupted. “And you’re not king of this pen much longer.” He stood, moved around the desk and came directly to Lawless, reached down, and brought the carved cross up in his hands. Lawless stiffened, but decades in stir taught him better than to react or touch the warden. “The Ben Lawless I remember back in the Indian Nations did not fear God.” The cross fell against the striped shirt, and Fallon turned back, sitting on the edge of his desk now. He reached over, grabbed his cup, sipped a moment, and lowered the
cup to his thigh.

  “But you’re an old man now, Ben. Scared of dying. Scared of what awaits you. Scared of letting someone take over your place.” He looked at O’Connor. “Who would that be, Captain?”

  “Bowen Hardin,” O’Connor said.

  Lawless laughed. “No.”

  Fallon smiled. “Why not?”

  “Hardin will be dead before I am,” the Indian murderer said.

  Fallon nodded in affirmation. “That could be. Hardin faces a firing squad in . . . July?”

  “Unless his lawyers get it postponed one more damned time,” O’Connor said.

  “They won’t.” Lawless’s grin looked like one of those clay masks of a dead man. “They can’t.”

  “The Supreme Court turned down the last appeal,” Fallon said. “Execution is scheduled for dawn on July thirtieth.”

  “Then it’s Indianola Anderson,” O’Connor said.

  Lawless guffawed and picked up his coffee cup. “He’s worthless.”

  “So were you,” Fallon told him. “It took you . . . ten years, twelve?”

  Lawless leaned back. “You seem to know a lot for a pencil-pushin’, yellow-livered warden.”

  “I know enough about prisons, Ben. I’ve seen you in your birthday suit, remember? And I know I have more scars on my body than you have on yours—and not those the Cherokees gave me.”

  “Watch it, buster.” The coffee cup rattled in Lawless’s hands. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose a wife and a kid so—”

  “You watch it, buster,” Fallon threw the words back at the killer. “You don’t want to go there. Not with me.”

  The tone, the eyes, the still quietness of Fallon made Lawless reconsider his adversary. He chewed on his lip and slid back into the chair, before relaunching his attack, but in a milder tone.

  “Well, you need to know one thing, Mister Warden, I don’t belong here. I never—”

  “Don’t preach that dung to me, Lawless,” Fallon said. “But, yeah, you don’t belong here. They should have strung you up years ago. Or Judge Parker should have let the Cherokees have you.”