Escape from Five Shadows (1956) by Elmore Leonard Read Free Book Online Page B

wouldn't be a delay in the trial.
    Bowen remembered that first night in a jail cell clearly watching Manring lying on his bunk smoking and for a long time neither of them spoke. But there were some things Bowen wanted to say and finally
    If you'd vented McLaughlin's brand at the time of the sale we wouldn't be in jail. He was sorry as soon as he'd said it. That if-talking was like closing the barn after everything had run out. But Manring drew on his cigarette, not bothering to answer, and Bowen could feel his anger begin to rise.
    Why didn't you vent his brand when you closed the deal?
    Manring's head turned on the mattress. I told you.
    Earl'athis McLaughlin said you worked for him once, about three years ago. Took you on for a Kansas drive.
    I heard him.
    You claimed that wasn't so.
    Manring stubbed out the cigarette. You going to do the hearing all over again?
    Earl he remembered that his voice was calm and that he wasn't yet really angry did you buy those cattle or did you steal them?
    Manring was on his back, staring at the ceiling. I don't want to hear any more about it.
    Earl, they're going to try me tomorrow for something I don't know anything about!
    Have a good cry, Manring muttered.
    Bowen rose. I asked you a question. I want to know if you really bought that stock!
    So does the judge, Manring said. He started to roll over, turning his back to Bowen, but suddenly Bowen was dragging him up by the arm and as he came off the bunk Bowen hit him. He hit Manring four times before the sheriff's deputy came in to separate them.
    The trial began at ten o'clock the next morning. At noon they recessed for dinner and for the jury to reach a decision. Then at two o'clock that afternoon the judge passed sentence. Seven years in the Territorial Prison at Yuma. There had been no time wasted. It was McLaughlin's word against Manring's and as far as both the judge and the jury were concerned, this was not a two-sided question. In sentencing them, the judge admitted being lenient, since to his knowledge neither of the accused had a previous criminal record.
    That night Bowen and Manring were placed in separate cells to await transportation to Yuma.
    For the next nine months, on Prison Hill, Bowen saw Manring every day, but they seldom spoke. He made himself believe that Manring was also innocent. That made it easier to live with him. Still, they had little in common and there was no reason for a friendship to exist between them. Gradually, then, he ceased to even think about Manring and the trial and he began to consider him nothing more than another Yuma convict. Being in different cells though both were in the main cell block made it that much easier.
    From the first day he entered Yuma, Bowen thought of escape. He had made up his mind that he was not going to pay with seven years for something he didn't do. But thinking of escaping from Yuma you had to consider the Gatling gun over the main gate, the hundreds of miles of desert surrounding the prison, the Pima trackers who would bring you back for a bounty and, finally, the Snake den cell in the dungeon block where you would live for a month or more, chained to the stone floor, if the escape failed.
    During the time they were at Yuma, construction of the cell block for incorrigibles was still in progress a project planned to carve a dungeon of twelve cells out of solid granite. Bowen was assigned to the dynamite crew; and it was the experience gained in this work that was primarily responsible for his leaving Yuma some months later.
    Their transfer came unexpectedly. Bowen, Manring and four other convicts one of them Pryde were taken from their cells one evening soon after supper. Nineteen days later, a wagon rolled through the barbed wire gate of the convict camp at Five Shadows as Frank Renda stood by to greet them.
    In their three months here, Bowen had talked to Manring more often; and only a few days before the supply trip to Pinale n o, Manring had hinted at a plan of