A Knife in the Heart Read online

  “Baker, sir. Roy Baker. I work for Eames and Young.”

  Those were the architects from St. Louis.

  “Yes, Mr. Baker. Yes, I know all about solitary.” His finger slid across the blueprint.

  “That’s the hospital.” The man took charge, showing Fallon the planned powerhouse, the quarantine unit, a maintenance shop, laundry, a proposed shoe factory—Fallon knew all about those, too—and something Mr. Roy Baker of Eames & Young called “Industries.” Fallon really didn’t know what Industries would be, unless another place for slave labor.

  “That’s all there is, sir. That’s all a prison needs.” He grinned at his own joke.

  “Very good, Mr. Baker,” Fallon said, and looked at the young man. “What do you suppose we’re missing?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Roy Baker blinked repeatedly, looked at the blueprint, frowned, adjusted his eyeglasses, leaned closer, ran his finger all across the design, and finally, lifted his gaze, then the rest of his body, and cleared his throat.

  “I don’t see anything missing, sir.”

  Fallon nodded. “How about . . . guard towers?”

  The man pushed back his bowler and looked at the blue print.

  “Ummm . . .” he started.

  Fallon used his finger for effect. He had always been a pretty good jabber. “Corners, obviously. There. There. There. And here. You’ll want another here, in front of this gate. Not on top of the gate. About”—his finger moved—“here.”

  The architect, construction supervisor, foreman, whatever Roy Baker called himself, swallowed, and looked at the blueprint.

  “Mr. Baker,” Fallon said, authority in his voice now, not the bemused tone of an attorney ridiculing a witness. “Don’t you think you’d better mark these down?”

  The young man’s face paled. “Without . . . without sending a telegraph to Mr. Eames or Mr. Young?”

  “Mr. Eames and Mr. Young aren’t the wardens of this United States Penitentiary, young man. I am.” Now the man’s face revealed complete fear. “But when we are done, after you have put in the guard towers, you might want to send a telegraph to whoever is doing your job at the prison being built in Atlanta, Georgia. I don’t know how the warden there wants to run his prison, but I suspect he’d like guard towers in Atlanta, too.”

  Fallon made one final stab with his finger. “And a guard tower here, at the front gate. But far enough from the wall.” Fallon waited until Mr. Baker made the necessary adjustments—improvements—to the plan. Then he saw someone he was looking for and excused himself.

  * * *

  “Captain O’Connor,” Fallon called out, and the big man stopped, turned, and glared. Fallon could have kept walking, but he stopped, crooked his elbow, and beckoned the big man toward him.

  They had met when Fallon first arrived. Captain O’Connor, the mayor, the colonel at the fort, and the deputy warden had been in the welcoming committee at the train depot.

  Fallon waited. The big brute saluted and asked in a raw voice, “What?”

  “How many guards do you have?”

  “Total?”

  Fallon nodded.

  “Fifty.”

  “How do you divide them up? How does the schedule work?”

  “There ain’t no division, sir,” the man croaked.

  “Fifty guards. Every day. Ten get to stay at the prison. Five of them can sleep. But those five have to pull night duty. We march these fish out at dawn from the prison to here. They work twelve hours, then we march ’em back. Once they’s all locked up, we rotate the men off. The five who slept get to guard the prison at night. So we move them around that way. Five sleeping. Five at the prison. The rest watching these fish.”

  Fallon frowned. “Days off?”

  “They’ll get their days off when this prison is finished.”

  “Captain O’Connor,” Fallon said sternly. “At the rate this prison is being built, this place won’t be finished for twenty or thirty years. And what are your guards making a day?”

  O’Connor told him.

  “We do have a budget, you understand.”

  “Arithmetic ain’t my concern.”

  “It is now.”

  The big man tensed. His ears started turning a bright crimson.

  “We’re going to come up with a system, Captain, that makes it fiscally responsible.” Golly, he thought, he had learned quite a lot pushing numbers and figures and pencils and erasers during that spell as U.S. marshal in Wyoming. “I’d like our men to be able to have time with their families, or at least sleep uninterrupted. And I’d like you to have time off, too.”

  “I don’t sleep, Warden. And I ain’t got no family.”

  “Do you drink?”

  The man chuckled. “I been known to. A good porter. A better brand of rye whiskey.”

  “Well, Captain, since you don’t have a day off, that means you’re drinking ardent spirits on the job. And that’s grounds for firing.”

  “Warden.” The big man closed the gap. “You look around here, and you’ll find a bunch of pettifogging gelded roosters who come here because of stupid, ignorant crimes that ought to have gotten a slap on the wrists. But you’ll also find the most rotten-headed, mean, evil sons of strumpets that ever was born. Who’ll slit your throat if you turn your back on them for this.” His finger snapped. “I need all forty of them guards.” He gestured. “Look around here, Boss Man. What do you see? Nothing but a thousand acres of Kansas prairie and prisoners just itching to light out to freedom. There ain’t nothin’ holdin’ these boys in—except me and my men.”

  “I think we can fix that somewhat, Captain,” Fallon said.

  “How?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  The man found a plug of tobacco and bit off a giant mouthful. As his yellowed and browned teeth went to work, his face continued to redden.

  Fallon waited for Big Tim O’Connor to either explode or start the attack. Instead, two other guards came loping up on horses.

  “Capt’n!” one cried. “Capt’n!” They reined up hard in front of Fallon and O’Connor.

  “What is it?” the giant roared.

  “Three flew the coop, Capt’n. Took off thataway.”

  Fallon expected O’Connor to blow up, but this news seemed to calm him down. The redness turned pink then ivory, and finally his true color. He even smiled.

  “Who?”

  “Loder,” the first guard said.

  Which widened O’Connor’s grin.

  “Walburn and Turner,” the other guard said.

  “Just now?” O’Connor asked.

  “No, Captain,” the first guard said. “Benson just reported to us.”

  “Did he know how long those three dirty curs have been gone?”

  “No,” the second guard said. “Last seen them two hours ago.”

  “Two hours,” Fallon snapped. “Good God!”

  O’Connor chuckled. “Boys, y’all ain’t met our new warden. This here is Harry Fallon. Warden, I’d like you to meet Wilson and Raymond.”

  Fallon nodded at the horseback-mounted guards.

  O’Connor turned toward the east. “Loder . . . Walburn. . . and . . . ?” He looked at Raymond.

  “Turner,” Raymond said.

  “Right. Turner. Good. With maybe a two-hour jump on us?”

  “That’s our best guess.”

  O’Connor spit a pint of tobacco juice into the grass, wiped his mouth with a worn handkerchief he fished out of his pocket. “You said Benson’s saddling a horse for me?”

  “That’s right,” Wilson said.

  “Well, Wilson, go make sure he does a good job. You know how particular I am about my horses, and my saddle. I’ll meet you at the horse pen.”

  “Yes, Capt’n.”

  Fallon cleared his throat. “What about bloodhounds?” he asked.

  The three guards stared at him.

  “You mean . . .” Raymond said, “Dogs?”

  “That’s right.”


  “We ain’t got no dogs, Warden Fallon,” O’Connor explained. “Us being fiscally minded and all.” He grinned.

  Raymond and Wilson did not know, most likely, the meaning of “fiscally.”

  Fallon blinked. But now he remembered that when Roy Baker showed him all the structures, the outer buildings, every thing drawn onto the blueprint, there were no kennels for dogs, no corrals or barns for horses—but that made sense. You didn’t want prisoners to have easy access to horses if they ever got out of the pen. But dogs? Prisons liked to have bloodhounds handy. Indians were better, especially Tonkawas in Texas and Navajos in Arizona—now that most of the Apaches had been shipped out of that territory. But dogs were good. Real good.

  “You don’t use dogs, bloodhounds, to run down escapees?” Fallon asked.

  Big Tim O’Connor guffawed. “Warden, we don’t need no dawgs. What we got’s better than some ground-sniffin’ dawg. We got ol’ Buffalo Bones.”

  Fallon didn’t press, did not show any curiosity about this Buffalo Bones. He spun sharply, and called out for Wilson, the young guard riding away, to stop.

  “Saddle a horse for me,” Fallon said. “I’ll be riding out with you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Wardens don’t go after escapees,” Big Tim O’Connor snarled, and let a half-pint of tobacco juice spray the Kansas grass.

  “This warden does,” Fallon told him.

  The chief guard’s head was already shaking. “Unh-unh,” he said. “I pick the men who ride with me, and I ain’t gonna be the fellow who has to answer to this idiot newspaperman”—he gestured absently toward the Post reporter—“when I bring your bullet-riddled corpse to the undertaking parlor.”

  “As far as I know, the prisoners aren’t armed,” Fallon told him.

  “Warden, they will be, if they ain’t already. That you can bank on. I know them sons of strumpets better than I know you.”

  “You don’t know me at all. But you’re going to get to know me.”

  “Here’s one thing I do know, Warden Fallon. I know what ’em sons of strumpets are capable of.”

  “I’m going.” He turned to the journalist. “You’re the witness here. O’Connor tried to talk me out of going. I pulled rank on him, so if this turns out badly, for me, no one can hold Captain Timothy Horatio O’Connor responsible.”

  The big man tensed, and he stepped just inches from Fallon, whispering with heated breath. “Nobody knows my middle name, Fallon. Nobody mentions my middle name.”

  “You forget,” Fallon said with a grin, “who authorizes your paycheck, and who has personnel records on everyone who works for the federal pen, not just everyone who happens to be incarcerated here. Everything.” He let his voice drop even softer. “Including that little sixteen-year-old in Franklin, Tennessee. And that other little thing in Shreveport, Louisiana.”

  The well-gnarled chaw of tobacco came out of O’Connor’s mouth and landed in the grass.

  “The hell you say,” he whispered.

  “I’m going.”

  “You can’t blackmail me.”

  “I don’t blackmail, O’Connor. I don’t bluff. And if we don’t start moving after those three men, they’ll be across the Missouri River.”

  “They won’t go across the Big Muddy,” O’Connor said. “They’ll head south. Try to make it to the Nations.”

  “How’s that?”

  Now O’Connor grinned, though not too wide, not after he realized how much the new warden knew about his own nefarious background. “I know these men, Fallon. Walburn can’t swim. Too scared to take a bath. He won’t go near the Missouri. Loder has a gal in the Cherokee Nation. Turner’s from Texas.”

  “Then let’s go bring them back.”

  The smile on the big man’s face widened. “All right. Saddle up the black for our boss,” he told the old trusty, and found Fallon again with his murderous eyes. “I’m afraid we ain’t got no sidesaddle, Mister Warden, suh.”

  “That’s all right,” Fallon said. “I have every confidence that you’ll be able to sit in a slick fork even at a gallop.”

  * * *

  The old buffalo soldier scouted ahead. Two guards, Raymond and Wilson, armed with bolt-action rifles and double-action revolvers, trailed Fallon and O’Connor. They had turned south before nearing the river, cleared most of the farms, and now followed up and down the rolling hills. Two miles out of Leavenworth, O’Connor reined in his big gray. Fallon stopped the black, and once Wilson and Raymond caught up, O’Connor tore off another huge chaw of tobacco and began chewing it to shreds.

  “You two ride along ahead. Till Buffalo Bones picks up their trail. If they split up, fire two shots. Otherwise, just keep houndin’ ’em, but don’t make no move until I catch up with you.” Still holding the Greener shotgun, he swung out of the saddle, wrapping the reins around the double barrels, and laying the ten-gauge on the grass—sort of a tether for the gray. “Warden and me is gonna have us a little parley.”

  Both men frowned, looking at Fallon for help, and Fallon swung out of his saddle. “Go ahead. Tell Buffalo Bones we’ll be along directly.” He kept the reins to the black in his left hand.

  They watched the guards trot off toward the old prisoner, and when the tall grass and gentle slopes had swallowed both guards, O’Connor spit tobacco juice and unbuckled his belted gun. “Drop the reins, Warden. You’ll need both hands to defend yourself.”

  Fallon did not obey, but stepped closer, bringing the horse with him. “No, Tom, I don’t think so. If my horse ran away, that would give you all the excuse you needed.”

  “You’re goin’ back one way or the other,” O’Connor said as he stepped toward Fallon. “You can ride out, or I can throw you over the saddle, or if the horse spooks, you can walk back to town when you regain consciousness. But one thing’s for certain. You ain’t goin’ no damn furth—”

  O’Connor went down hard, taking the right punch Fallon threw without warning, so fast O’Connor never even saw the fist before it flattened his ear and left him rolling over Kansas sod. Fallon stepped forward quickly, reins to the black still clenched in his left fist. The horse snorted, but offered no resistance as Fallon kicked just as O’Connor tried to push himself to his feet.

  This time Big Tim O’Connor grunted as the square toe of Fallon’s boot caught him in the soft spot between his jaw and throat. Again, he hit the ground, this time gagging. He rolled over, coughed, and spit out the chaw of tobacco, tried to breathe, shake some sort of sense back into his fighting mind.

  Fallon was over him again. The black walked along behind him. It was O’Connor’s gray horse that seemed spooked by it all, snorting and dragging the heavy shotgun a few feet in the grass.

  Rolling over, O’Connor tried to kick Fallon but caught only air. But he sprang to his feet, somehow, and was spinning around, cursing vilely, then roaring. Fallon had to turn, too, and as the tough captain of guards charged, Fallon simply dropped, still getting a firm hold on the reins, and let O’Connor trip over his body. The man yelled as the grass broke his fall, and Fallon sprang up, stepped forward, and when O’Connor sat up, tried to raise his fists, Fallon kicked him hard in the center of his chest.

  O’Connor lay spread-eagled on his back, fighting for breath, bleeding from split lips and a few scratches from the falls. The black followed as meekly and as mildly as Rachel Renee might walk behind her mother, obedient, and maybe a little or a lot afraid of making someone angry.

  Fallon’s boot lay against O’Connor’s neck, not too hard, but letting the guard know what could happen, possibly would happen. Fallon spoke just to make everything clear.

  “So here’s the way this hand plays out, Tim.” Fallon spoke slowly, enunciating every word, not sounding angry or showing even the slightest concern. “I crush your throat, and you suffocate in a matter of seconds, maybe a minute, but probably not that long. During the coroner’s inquest, I will commit perjury, tell everyone for the record that that big gray of yours had you tasting gravel, and
then just happened to step on your throat. It was over before I could do anything, but, certainly, the horse was not to blame. He’s a good horse. He just had a rider who probably should have been in a sidesaddle, and not a slick fork.”

  Just in case Big Tim O’Connor figured he might want to fight to the death, Fallon brought the foot up, and let the opening between heel and sole rest against the guard’s Adam’s apple.

  “The other way this ends, Tim, is that I step away from you, I mount my horse, and I watch you pick up your hat, buckle on your gun rig, get your shotgun, and mount your horse. And nobody knows anything about what just transpired. We ride out of here, catch up with the others, and we finish what we set out to do.”

  He made himself yawn. Nodding at his own originality, and put just a wee bit of pressure on O’Connor’s throat. “Tom. I need an answer. All you have to do is blink twice for yes. So, do you want to do the job we set out to do?”

  The eyelids shut, long and hard, opened, and shut tightly. When they opened, Fallon put his boot back on the ground.

  “Good decision, Tim.” Fallon turned and pulled himself into his own slick fork. “Let’s catch up with, as you call them, those sons of strumpets.”

  Fallon rested his right hand on the butt of the revolver, and he made sure to turn his horse so that O’Connor could see his hand as the captain took the shotgun, gathered his reins, and eased into the saddle on the black. Slowly, he slid the scattergun into the scabbard and massaged his throat.

  His eyes locked with Fallon’s. He spit, wiped his face, and the lips moved about as he tried to figure out what to say.

  “I ain’t never met a warden like you,” O’Connor finally said.

  “I told you earlier, Tim, you don’t know me at all.”

  O’Connor turned his horse, kicked it into a walk. Fallon caught up with him quickly, and they rode side by side.

  “You ain’t like most wardens,” O’Connor said.

  Fallon nodded. “Most wardens never spent ten years behind the iron in Joliet, Illinois,” Fallon told him. “Most wardens, if any, never rode in the Nations with a federal marshal’s badge pinned to the lapel of his vest. And I doubt if any warden or guard even went undercover for a detective agency, posing as a hardened inmate, in Yuma, Jefferson City, and Huntsville.”