Different Seasons by Stephen King Read Free Book Online Page B

it into his pail and walked over to where Mert and Hadley were sitting.
    We all tightened up, and I saw one of the other screws, Tim Youngblood, drag his hand down to where his pistol was holstered. One of the fellows in the sentry tower struck his partner on the arm and they both turned, too. For one moment I thought Andy was going to get shot, or clubbed, or both.
    Then he said, very softly, to Hadley: “Do you trust your wife?”
    Hadley just stared at him. He was starting to get red in the face, and I knew that was a bad sign. In about three seconds he was going to pull his billy and give Andy the butt end of it right in the solar plexus, where that big bundle of nerves is. A hard enough hit there can kill you, but they always go for it. If it doesn’t kill you it will paralyze you long enough to forget whatever cute move it was that you had planned.
    “Boy,” Hadley said, “I’ll give you just one chance to pick up that Padd. And then you’re goin off this roof on your head.”
    Andy just looked at him, very calm and still. His eyes were like ice. It was as if he hadn’t heard. And I found myself wanting to tell him how it was, to give him the crash course. The crash course is you never let on that you hear the guards talking, you never try to horn in on their conversation unless you’re asked (and then you always tell them just what they want to hear and shut up again). Black man, white man, red man, yellow man, in prison it doesn’t matter because we’ve got our own brand of equality. In prison every con’s a nigger and you have to get used to the idea if you intend to survive men like Hadley and Greg Stammas, who really would kill you just as soon as look at you. When you’re in stir you belong to the State and if you forget it, woe is you. I’ve known men who’ve lost eyes, men who’ve lost toes and fingers; I knew one man who lost the tip of his penis and counted himself lucky that was all he lost. I wanted to tell Andy that it was already too late. He could go back and pick up his brush and there would still be some big lug waiting for him in the showers that night, ready to charley-horse both of his legs and leave him writhing on the cement. You could buy a lug like that for a pack of cigarettes or three Baby Ruths. Most of all, I wanted to tell him not to make it any worse than it already was.
    What I did was to keep on running tar out onto the roof as if nothing at all was happening. Like everyone else, I look after my own ass first. I have to. It’s cracked already, and in Shawshank there have always been Hadleys willing to finish the job of breaking it.
    Andy said, “Maybe I put it wrong. Whether you trust her or not is immaterial. The problem is whether or not you believe she would ever go behind your back, try to hamstring you.”
    Hadley got up. Mert got up. Tim Youngblood got up. Hadley’s face was as red as the side of a firebarn. “Your only problem,” he said, “is going to be how many bones you still got unbroken. You can count them in the infirmary. Come on, Mert. We’re throwing this sucker over the side.”
    Tim Youngblood drew his gun. The rest of us kept tarring like mad. The sun beat down. They were going to do it; Hadley and Mert were simply going to pitch him over the side. Terrible accident. Dufresne, prisoner 81433-SHNK, was taking a couple of empties down and slipped on the ladder. Too bad.
    They laid hold of him, Mert on the right arm, Hadley on the left. Andy didn’t resist. His eyes never left Hadley’s red, horsey face.
    “If you’ve got your thumb on her, Mr. Hadley,” he said in that same calm, composed voice, “there’s not a reason why you shouldn’t have every cent of that money. Final score, Mr. Byron Hadley thirty-five thousand, Uncle Sam zip.”
    Mert started to drag him toward the edge. Hadley just stood there. For a moment Andy was like a rope between them in a tug-of-war game. Then Hadley said, “Hold on one second, Mert. What do you mean,