“Any relation to Hobar Davidow?” he asked.
“No, sir,” I said.
“That be good. Do you know who Hobar Davidow be?”
I shook my head.
“No, I guess you wouldn’t. That would be a little before you. We executed him six, no, seven years ago. Mixed in the wrong politics.” Then he said, “Well, I be sorry, son. We be pretty caught up today. Could you come back some afternoon later in the week, or maybe some evening?”
I said slowly, “I have to hand the paper in this week.” Then I waited.
After a minute he said, “All right. I’ll take you around. But I can’t spare you much time. It will have to be a quick tour.”
The offices were on the first floor, with a few more on the third. The arsenal and target range were in the basement. Most of the cells were on the second, and the very rough people were celled on the third.
“If the judge says maximum security, they go on the third, everybody else on the second unless we have an overflow. We have one boy up there now.”
My heart sank.
“A real bad actor. He has already killed one man.”
My heart came back to normal. That, for certain, wasn’t Jimmy and his trespassing.
Maximum security had three sets of barred doors before you got to the cells, as well as armed guards covering the block and the doors from wall stations. The halls were lit with oil lamps and the light was warm and yellow. We didn’t go beyond the first door. Sgt. Robards just pointed and told me what things were like.
“By this time next week, it will all be full in here,” he said sadly. “The Anti-Redemptionists be getting out of hand again and they be going to cool them off. Uh, don’t put that in your paper.”
“Oh, I won’t,” I said, crossing off what I was writing.
The ordinary cells on the second floor were a much simpler affair and I got a guided tour of them. I walked down the corridor between the ranks of cells right beside Sgt. Robards and looked at every prisoner. I stared right at Jimmy Dentremont’s face and he didn’t even seem to notice me. He’s a smart, lovely boy.
Sgt. Robards said, waving a hand at the cells, “These be all short-timers here. Just a week or a month or two to serve.” He jingled his keys. “I be letting them out soon enough.”
“Do they give you any trouble?” I asked.
“These? Not these. They don’t have long enough to serve. They all be on good behavior. Most of the time, anyway.”
When we finished, I thanked Sgt. Robards enthusiastically. “It sure has been swell, sir.”
He smiled. “Not at all, son,” he said. “I enjoyed it myself. If you have time, drop by again when I have the duty. My schedule be on the bulletin board.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Maybe I will.”
I ran back home through the rain and when Mr. Kutsov got home about an hour later I was dry, dressed in proper clothes and reading a book.
17
Before I scouted the jail, I had only vague notions of what I could do to get Jimmy free. I had, for instance, spent an hour or so toying with the idea of forcing the Territorial Governor at the point of a gun to release Jimmy. I spent that much time with it because the idea was fun to think about, but I dropped it because it was stupid.
I finally decided on a very simple course of action. It seemed quite possible that it might go wrong, but I didn’t have a great many days left and I had to bring this off by myself. Before I left the jail building, I looked very closely at the duty schedule, just as Sgt. Robards had recommended.
Mr. Kutsov left in the afternoon two days later, his wagon loaded.
“I be back in six days, Mia,” he said. “Now you know exactly what to do, don’t you?”
I reassured him, and I stood at the back door of the house as he drove off, dressed in pink because I knew he liked it, and waved goodbye. Then I went back into the house. I sat down and wrote a note to Mr. Kutsov. I didn’t tell him what I was going to do because I thought it might distress him, but I thanked him for all that he had done for me. I left the note in the library where he would be sure to find it. I was sorry to do it to him because I knew it would make him unhappy, but I couldn’t stay.
Then I went into the kitchen and started getting food together. I picked out things I thought we would need like matches, candles, a knife and a hatchet, and I made up a package. Finally, I changed into my own clothes.
I set out just after dark. It was raining lightly in the night and the spray on my face felt surprisingly good. I carried paper and pencil in one pocket as before for protective coverage. In the other pocket of my coat I had a single sock and several stout pieces of line, and matches.
This is the way I had it figured. The jail was a strong place — bars, guards, dogs, guns and spiked fences. These were primarily designed to keep in jail the people who were supposed to be in jail. They weren’t designed to keep people out.
In the Western-cowboy stories I used to read in the Ship, people were always breaking into jails to let somebody out. It was a common thing, an expected part of day-to-day life. But I couldn’t imagine that people here made any sort of practice of breaking into jails. It wouldn’t be expected, and that was one advantage I had. I knew whom I was up against. I knew the layout of the jail. And when I walked into the jail, nobody was going to see a desperate character intent on busting a prisoner out — they were going to see a little eager schoolboy. I think that was the biggest advantage. People do see what they expect to see.
On the other hand, all I had was me, a not-always-effective hell on wheels. If I didn’t do things exactly right, if I weren’t lucky, I would be in jail right beside Jimmy, probably on the third floor.
Just before I got to the jail, I stopped and knelt on the wet ground. I took out the sock and I filled it with sand until it was about half full.
I didn’t hesitate then. I went right into the jail. There were warm oil lights in only two of the main floor offices. I looked in the first and Sgt. Robards was there.
“Hello, Sgt. Robards,” I said, going in. “How be you tonight?”
“Hello, Billy,” he said. “It be pretty slow tonight down here. Won’t be later, though.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. They pick up the Anti-Redemptionists tonight. The boys just went out. You won’t be able to stay long.”
“Oh,” I said.
“How did your paper go?”
I had to backtrack for a moment. Then I said, “I finished it this afternoon. I’ll turn it in tomorrow.”
“Found out everything you want to know?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I just came by to visit tonight. You know when you showed me the target range? That been neat. I thought if you had time you might shoot for me like you said.”
He looked at the clock. Then he said, “Sure. I be local champion, you know.”
“Gee,” I said. Just like some of the fatuous boys I know.
We went downstairs, Sgt. Robards leading the way with a lamp. He was picking out the key to the target range when I pulled out my sock. I hesitated for a moment because it isn’t easy to deliberately set out to hurt somebody, but then he started to turn his head to say something. So I swung as hard as I could and the sand hit him wetly across the back of the neck. He crumpled. He was too heavy for me to catch, but I pushed him against the door and then managed to get him to the floor without dropping him on his face. I left the lamp on the floor where he had set it.
The weapons room was across the hail. I took the keys from the floor by Sgt. Robard’s hand and tried the ones on either side of the one he had picked out for the target room door. The door opened on the second try. I left it open and went back to Sgt. Robards, lying on the floor. I grabbed his collar and his coat and heaved him, then heaved him again, and eventually got his dead weight across the floor and into the weapons room. I got out my line and tied his elbows and knees. I emptied the sand out of the sock onto the floor, and then shoved the sock into his mouth. My heart was pounding and my breath was coming fast as I went back for the lamp.