Yuma Prison Crashout Read online

  “I heard the same thing.”

  He knew the voice. Diego Valdez, who had spent twenty years in prison and would never get out of Joliet alive.

  “I hear you cut out Joe Martin’s heart and ate it raw.”

  “Joe Martin had no heart.”

  Valdez laughed. “Maybe so, but he was a friend of mine.”

  “No, he wasn’t. That’s why you’re still alive. If you liked Martin, you would have been with him. Then I would have killed you too. And I would have cut out your heart and eaten it raw. If I could have found the puny damned thing.”

  Valdez laughed again. “Well, maybe I will cut out your heart, lawdog.”

  “If you can find it.”

  Someone cursed both Valdez and Fallon from near the slop bucket, told them to shut up, that he wanted to sleep. Another man cursed the inmate sleeping next to him for kicking him in his sleep. Fallon tried to make himself more comfortable, at the same time attempting to make himself a smaller target for a rock or knife thrown in his direction.

  “Sleep well, gringo,” Valdez said.

  “Gracias,” said Fallon, and he knew he was safe. At least from Diego Valdez. Of the twelve hundred or thirteen hundred prisoners still in Joliet, Diego Valdez would be the happiest to have Joe Martin now outside the prison walls, lying beneath the sod in the cemetery. The death of Joe Martin made Diego Valdez king of the yard, or at least the leader of the Mexicans, Italians, and Spaniards in prison. The Irish had their own leader. So did the Germans. The Northern whites had a couple of leaders, and the few Southern whites had their own version of General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

  Fallon did not sleep though. The man by the slop bucket would be the reason Fallon kept awake, not Diego Valdez. Fallon had arrested that man, much younger then, for running liquor in the Indian Territory. His name, Fallon remembered, was Joey Kurth. That had gotten him a year or two, courtesy of Judge Parker, but Joey Kurth had not reformed. He had been arrested again, for running whiskey and resisting a federal officer, and was in Joliet for five more years. He had not forgotten Fallon.

  Fallon sighed. The Lord works in mysterious ways. That’s what the parson had said the Sunday before the riot. Fallon didn’t know what the Good Lord had planned for Harry “Hank” Fallon, but the ways were mysterious. He tried to figure out how the hell he came to be in the corner of a darkened cell he shared with five cutthroats.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Fifteen, twenty years ago, no one would have been surprised to hear that Harry Fallon was in prison. His mother always warned him, “The devil’s got his hand on you, boy—both hands, looks like—and he’s a-gonna lead you to ruin. Which is his purpose.” His pa never said much of anything, but when neighbors or the preacher mentioned Harry’s wild streak, Pa would say, “Jail, prison, been knowed to turn a body around.”

  “So has a hangman,” Fallon overheard that hard-shell sky pilot reply one time.

  Hell, Fallon figured it too. And once he left home at fifteen, he had spent a few nights in jails. Mostly for disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, or disturbing the peace. He was quite good at disturbing the peace. Then, down around Gonzales, Texas, he hired on with Old Bill Porter, who was herding twenty-two hundred head of longhorn cattle to Newton, Kansas. Fallon rode drag, ate about his weight and the weight of all the horses in his string in dust. Once the crew got paid off in Newton, the boys decided to cut loose.

  They must have done a right fine job of it, because Fallon woke up the next morning lying on the floor of the cell in his own vomit and with a knot on his head the size of a goose egg. Fallon couldn’t remember a thing after having a whiskey, and the trail crew’s segundo, Josh Ryker, suggesting that the streetlamps sure made inviting targets for their .45s.

  Thirty days and fifty dollars later, he and Ryker rode back to Texas. They rode the grub line that fall and winter, gambled some in Fort Worth, tried hunting buffalo up around Fort Griffin, and rounded up cattle down along the Frio River in the spring. A few months later, they drove another herd to Kansas, this one to Wichita.

  Another jail. Another headache. Another fine and sentence from a frowning judge, only this time he had to muck stalls and empty spittoons in the mornings and replace streetlamps in the afternoon, before returning to the damp, hard, hot, stinking cell at night.

  Once out, he joined another buffalo-hunting outfit and wound up at a place in the Texas Panhandle called Adobe Walls. The Comanche, Kiowa, and other Plains Indians just about set his sun that time—along with all the other hunters at the Walls, but Fallon learned something about himself during that hard fight.

  “You shoot steady, boy,” a mustachioed gunner named Bat Masterson told him. “With that Sharps Big Fifty and that .45 Colt. Who taught you?”

  “Nobody taught me a thing,” Fallon said.

  “Hank’s just a natural,” Billy Dixon said as he reloaded his Sharps. “Just like me and you, Bat.”

  Almost getting his hair lifted by Indians, and not cottoning to all the flies and the blood and guts of being around dead buffalo, Harry Fallon sold his Sharps in Dodge City. He ran into Josh Ryker at a faro layout, and the two had a run of luck. One of the losers mentioned that two cowhands that lucky ought to head to Fort Smith.

  “Where’s Fort Smith?” Fallon asked.

  “Arkansas. Just across the border from the Indian Territory.”

  “What’s in Fort Smith?” Ryker asked.

  “Well, for one thing, there’s a high-stakes poker game in the back room of the Cherokee Saloon.”

  The next morning, Ryker and Fallon rode east.

  Fort Smith, Arkansas, was a bit more civilized than Newton, Wichita, Adobe Walls, or Dodge City. For one thing, it was older. A bunch of the streets were cobblestone, while most of the buildings were brick. The river turned things humid, but the town had an icehouse, a bunch of factories, warehouses, eating places, gambling halls, dance halls, boardinghouses, saloons, and plenty of places where a young boy could find a lady, if you weren’t too particular on how you described a lady. They ranged from two bits to twenty dollars.

  Fort Smith also had a federal court, which the fellow back in the Varieties Saloon of Dodge City had failed to mention.

  At the Cherokee Saloon, in that fabled back room, Josh Ryker and Harry Fallon learned there was a big difference between playing faro in Dodge City and playing poker in Fort Smith. They lost their stake on the first night. They had to sell the pack mule they had bought for the trail to Arkansas. They moved out of the fancy hotel to sleep in a wagon yard. Then they did what seemed logical to a couple of kids with six dollars and fifteen cents between them.

  They got drunk.

  The streetlamps in Fort Smith made inviting targets, too, and they were making their way down Third Street when a man driving a buggy stopped and gave them a hard stare.

  “Demon rum will land you in front of me one day, lads,” he said.

  He wasn’t an old fellow. Kind of handsome, Fallon guessed, and dressed like a Baptist preacher, with black trousers, black vest, black frock coat, and black string tie over a white shirt of a fine silk. His hat, a derby, was likewise black. He sported a well-groomed mustache and beard, and his eyes were firm.

  “Wasn’t rum,” Fallon said as he shucked the empties from his .45 onto the boardwalk. “Rye . . .” He paused. “I think.”

  Ryker didn’t find the man in black’s intrusion humorous. “Who are you, mister? God?”

  Those eyes saddened. “Not God, lads. Just a concerned citizen.”

  Ryker had holstered his Colt, but now he drew it, thumbed back the hammer, and pointed the long barrel at the man in the buggy.

  “You’re interrupting our game, mister, and we might just change targets from streetlamps to preachers who stick their Bibles and their fat noses in where they don’t belong.”

  The rye whiskey no longer felt so warm in Fallon’s belly. He tried to swallow, but found no spit in his mouth. Eventually, he swallowed down the bile and found enough in him to say, “Jos
h.” He wanted to say more but didn’t have the strength, or spit. If he opened his mouth, he figured he’d probably just vomit.

  “What?” Josh Ryker turned, but at least he had lowered his .45. “You don’t think I got gumption enough to pull a trigger?”

  Fallon shook his head.

  “One thing I hate, Hank, is preachers who stick their noses in my business.” There was something else about Josh Ryker, Fallon, even in his drunkenness, noticed. The eyes were wild, crazy, and his face had turned ugly. He was a man, Fallon felt, who wanted to kill. Anyone. It didn’t matter if it was this man in black, or Harry Fallon.

  Fallon thought a little humor might ease things up. “He’s too close, Josh. Wouldn’t be fair. And he don’t flicker like the candle in a streetlamp.”

  “Our lamps are gas, boys,” the man in black said. Fallon wished that man would’ve kept his big mouth shut.

  They now looked at the man in the buggy. Fallon became aware of something else. The man in the buggy had no fear.

  Yet he smiled. “We are getting civilized in Fort Smith, lads.” He let out a little sigh. “If only such were the case across the river in the Indian Nations.”

  “Maybe then,” said Ryker, who still held his pistol but no longer pointed at the driver of the buggy, “we’ll just cross that river.”

  “There are some rivers,” the man said, “that you should not cross.” He was speaking to Fallon, though, for his hard eyes locked on Fallon’s until Fallon could not hold the cold stare. He looked at his boots.

  “You’re about to cross the Jordan, preacher,” Ryker said.

  Fallon felt his hand gripping his own Colt. He tried to think about what he could do. What he should do.

  He didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to do anything except raise his hands high over his head.

  Because a city policeman had managed to sneak up behind Josh Ryker. Fallon hadn’t even seen the lawman, but then he had been busy staring at the man in the buggy and his pard, Josh Ryker. The lawman carried a double-barreled shotgun, sawed off to the grip. He didn’t pull the triggers, though, just raised the Damascus barrels over Ryker’s head and brought down the steel like an ax. The Colt hit the ground before Ryker, but, though still cocked, at least it did not go off. Ryker landed hard. And just like that, the lawman pointed the twin barrels in Fallon’s direction.

  Once Fallon’s hands were raised, the lawman said, “With your left hand, unbuckle your rig and let it fall. Your hand comes close to that hogleg in the holster, you’ll be having double-ought buckshot for your midnight snack.”

  Fallon did as he was told. He found himself sweating.

  “Leave the piece,” the lawman said, “and come over here.”

  Fallon obeyed again.

  The lawman lowered the shotgun and looked at the man in the buggy.

  “What do you want me to do with these two skunks, Your Honor?”

  Fallon stared at the man in black. Your Honor? You mean this fellow wasn’t a sky pilot but a judge?

  “They aren’t a federal problem, Andy,” the man said as he released the brake and gathered the lines to the buggy. “At least for the time being. They are the city’s problem. But I’d recommend leniency, though it’s up to Judge Walker and a jury, if needed. I’ve often felt like shooting out these infernal streetlamps myself sometimes.”

  * * *

  Judge Walker was less inclined for mercy. They spent the night in the city jail, sleeping it off with about five or six other drunks, and appeared in court the following afternoon. The fine, once the arresting officer mentioned the presence of Judge Isaac Parker, was levied at fifty dollars. Ryker had to sell his saddle and his blue roan gelding to get them both out of jail. Fifty dollars. Or fifty days. They got seventy-five dollars for the horse and saddle. Ryker lost twenty of it shooting craps that night at the Arkansas Gambling Parlor. But at least the man gambling with them was free with his whiskey.

  This time, they did not try to shoot out any streetlamps. In fact, they might have made it all the way back, no matter how roostered they were on that gent’s whiskey, to the wagon yard to sleep it off there. But McAllister’s Saddle Shop happened to be on the way.

  Ryker stopped so short, Fallon almost ran into him. The tall Texan lunged toward the big plateglass window and looked with intense purpose at the saddle sitting on a sawhorse.

  “Look at that, Hank,” Ryker said. “Ain’t she a beaut?”

  Pretty drunk, very drunk, but Fallon could see the workmanship that went into the saddle. He also knew something else.

  “You ain’t gonna get that saddle for five bucks when this fellow opens up, Josh,” Fallon said. “And you ain’t got a horse to set it on even if you could afford it.”

  Ryker drew his revolver before Fallon could even think. Ryker turned the butt around and quickly smashed the glass.

  “Josh!” Fallon yelled. “What the hell are you doing?” Which was a stupid thing to ask. Fallon knew exactly what his pard was doing. More glass shards rained onto the inside of the shop and on the boardwalk as Ryker swung the Colt again.

  Holstering the .45, Ryker spun around, pushed Fallon aside, and stared down the darkened street.

  “Nothing,” Ryker said. “We got it. Help me get this thing out.”

  “I’m not doing any such thing.” Fallon had done a lot of things in his life, caused a lot of trouble, but he had never stolen anything. He didn’t even care to ride the grub line.

  Ryker didn’t hear. He was too busy reaching through the busted window and dragging the saddle out.

  Fallon moved toward him, trying to stop his pard. A saddle like that would cost a lot of money. If they got caught, they’d be looking at a bigger fine and sentence than anything they’d gotten for getting a little roostered and trying to sow their oats, raise a little hell, but all in fun.

  Fallon had a choice to make.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  He made it.

  Fallon grabbed Ryker’s shoulders, tried to pull him away from the busted window and the hand-tooled saddle. The saddle fell among the glass. Ryker turned, cutting the top of his left hand on sharp glass. He almost tripped on the saddle.

  “This ain’t right . . .” Fallon started.

  Ryker didn’t let him finish. His fist came up and landed in Fallon’s stomach. Air whooshed out of his lungs. He almost emptied his stomach of the free pretzels and whiskey he had consumed at the gambling hall. The next blow caught him just over the temple. He dropped to his knees on the boardwalk, feeling glass cutting through his threadbare trousers and into his knees. Then he felt himself being lifted, kicked, and hurled into the alley between the saddle shop and a millinery. He landed against a trash barrel, knocked it over, and rolled off into the dust. A cat screeched and ran. Ryker cursed.

  Fallon lay on his back. He blinked. He stared at the stars. A roach crawled across his face. He wondered if he should close his eyes. That’s what he wanted to do. But something told him, commanded him, to get up.

  Get up, damn you. Get the hell up.

  “Hold it!”

  Fallon groaned. He mouthed, “Hold what?”

  He made himself sit up, then leaned to his side and braced himself. Blood leaked from his nose and lips. He thought he would throw up, but somehow managed to avoid that. He shook his head to clear it. That didn’t help.

  “Step up. Hands up.”

  Fallon gripped the overturned trash barrel. He stared out of the alley at the street. A man stood there, dressed in brown pants, a tan vest, and a flat-crowned dun-colored hat. He held a short-barreled pistol.

  “You heard me, buster. Do what I say or I bust you good, boy.”

  It struck Fallon that the man with the pistol wasn’t talking to him. He certainly wasn’t looking in Fallon’s direction. Slowly, Fallon understood that the man was talking to Josh Ryker.

  The man walked out of Fallon’s line of vision.

  “You dumb waddie,” the voice said from the boardwalk in front of the saddle shop.

/>   It wasn’t the same policeman who had arrested Fallon and Ryker that night with the federal judge. That much Fallon could tell. Then this weird notion came to Fallon. The whiskey brought it on, he figured later. But there it was. Maybe I can explain? Later, he wondered, Explain what? Later, he thought, I should have just stayed where I was. I could’ve even slept here, even with the roaches and that cat.

  But this was a night of choices. He made another. He found his feet, shook his head, and weaved this way and that, somehow making his way to the street. It took all of his effort just to reach the edge of the alley. He leaned against the side of the millinery’s shop, tried to clear his head. He tried to remember what it was that he was supposed to be doing.

  The voices reminded him.

  “Attempted burglary. Destruction of private property. Drunkenness. Don’t touch the butt of that pistol, boy, or you’ll make everything a whole lot worse than what you’re looking at now.”

  Fallon hadn’t moved.

  “Gun him down, Hank!” Ryker yelled.

  The thing was, Fallon knew, Josh Ryker couldn’t see him. Nor could the lawman.

  “I’ve been lawing for a long time,” the man said. “You ain’t pulling the wool over my eyes.”

  Fallon wanted to explain. What, he didn’t exactly know. He stepped out of the alley and saw the lawman’s back. He was big, bigger than Fallon expected, with pants stuck inside tall, black, stovepipe boots. The tails of his frock coat had been pushed back, giving him an easy reach of the two revolvers he wore, one butt forward, the other, on his right hip, rear-facing. Of course, the shotgun was all he needed right now.

  In the weeks, months, and years to come, Harry Fallon would remember the first lesson he learned about being a deputy marshal—or being even just an innocent bystander: never, never, never step behind a man who has a cocked, double-barreled shotgun while he’s trying to make an arrest. And never, never, never clear your throat.

  That’s what he did though. He was just a fool kid, green behind the ears. And he was drunk.