Slocum's Breakout (11 page)

“Horse stealing, robbery, many other things I do not understand.”

“He had a trial?”

Murrieta threw up his hands, then slammed them palms down on the table.

“If you call it a trial. The judge refused to let Atencio's lawyer say a word.”

“So he had a lawyer? How'd you pay for him?”

“He took the case for nothing.
Por nada.
And that is what came of it.”

“Never heard of a lawyer doing such a thing,” Slocum said. His experience with lawyers showed them to be greedy bastards. Maybe this one was so inept he would take any case.

“He has political ambitions. He said so. He comes here to tell us how he fought for Atencio, how we need to change the laws and he is the one to do so if we vote for him.”

Slocum wondered if the lawyer had tried very hard to free his client. Not only wasn't there money on the table, but a loss set him up to garner votes from Murrieta's village to remedy the outrage.

“What do you want of me?” Slocum asked. He was tired of hearing all the details. He wanted to know what Murrieta had in mind. Twice the
alcalde
had saved him, and he felt he owed the man something. Just how much would depend on what Murrieta asked.

“Atencio is to be hanged,” Murrieta said. “I want help in breaking him out before this happens. If we can get him here, we can be sure he returns to Mexico, where he would be safe.”

Slocum looked out at Maria. She was anxious, shifting from one foot to the other and back.

“This Atencio is her cousin?”

Murrieta's eyebrows arched, and he looked over his shoulder at Maria.

“You have learned much while you have been in my village,” Murrieta said, turning back. “Does this matter?”

“No, not at all,” Slocum said. “I owe you my life, or if not my life, then my freedom. Twice you came to my aid when you didn't have to. But I'm not pretending to be a convict to get back inside those walls.” Slocum closed his eyes and perfectly pictured the stone walls rising around the prison. It was imposing from the outside. Looking at those walls with the guard towers from inside suffocated hope and destroyed his soul. Better to die in a gunfight than to let them lock him up again.

“I understand this. The escape through the wall is something to be done only once.”

“By now,” Slocum said, “they probably have it completely sealed off. No doorway, completely concreted and stoned.”

“You are a clever man, John Slocum. You can come up with another way to save Atencio. He is not to be hanged for another week.”

Slocum inwardly groaned. A week was hardly time to come up with a rescue plan. They might need dynamite to blow open the gate or more firepower than all the
peones
in this village could provide, even if Murrieta risked his entire peasant army. San Quentin was a fortress designed not only to keep prisoners inside but to keep out those wanting to rescue them.

“Would there be any chance your lawyer could get a stay of execution?”

“Pah,” Murrieta said, waving his hand about in dismissal. “He would not bother.”

Slocum frowned in concentration then said, “What if the banker told the judge he made it all up?”

“Why should he? He wants our land. It is nothing to him if Atencio dies in prison, disgraced.”

“A man who desires money that much can be bought.”

“We cannot pay our mortgages. How can we bribe him?”

“The Valenzuelas robbed his bank,” Slocum said, thinking aloud. “They have money he'd want back.”

“So you would rob them?”

Slocum smiled. That thought had crossed his mind more than once. They owed him for the time he had spent in San Quentin, and the entire loot taken from Galworthy's bank would be a good start. He wanted more from them—and Conchita—but taking what they had stolen would be a beginning. If the money could free Atencio, it would relieve Slocum of a debt to Murrieta even if it wouldn't give him a pair of coins to rub together for his trouble.

“That might work, unless they have hightailed it out of town,” Slocum said. Somehow he thought Conchita would remain in the area. And why not? Sheriff Bernard thought he had robbed the bank because of her lying testimony. The Valenzuela family was free to do as they pleased, and somehow Slocum doubted they were finished yet even if José was sought as an escaped prisoner from San Quentin.

Before he could say another word, Maria hissed and caught Murrieta's attention. The man leaped to his feet, grabbed a rifle, and told Slocum, “Do not come out. We will take care of this.”

Slocum got to his feet and cautiously peered out. Into what served as a town square—the community water well was there—rode Sheriff Bernard and four deputies. All the men carried rifles or shotguns resting in the crooks of their left arms. They were ready for a fight. Slocum considered giving it to them. Getting rid of the tenacious sheriff might not solve all his problems, but it would cause enough confusion in Miramar and throughout the county that he could get the hell away.

“We're looking for an escaped prisoner,” Bernard called.

“We are poor farmers,” Murrieta said, not a hint of guilt in his voice. Slocum marveled at this since Murrieta might well fit the description of the lawman's quarry.

“I know all about that,” Bernard said. “Hez Galworthy tells me all the time I got to serve process on you people.”

“You are here, then, to steal our land?”

“I told you that I'm looking for a prisoner that escaped from my jail. I don't rightly care about other escapees.” Bernard made it obvious he hadn't come for Murrieta, though he had to know the man had escaped from San Quentin.

Slocum melted back into the small house, looked around for a way out, and realized there was only one door. The few windows were high and small, hardly wide enough for him to squeeze through. If the sheriff figured out he was inside, he was a goner.

He drew his six-shooter and waited.

“You know everyone here, Sheriff,” Murrieta said.

“Now, that's not true. I don't know you, and here you're acting as mouthpiece for everyone.”

“Maybe I am your escaped prisoner?”

Bernard cleared his throat, then winked broadly.

“Nope, never saw you in my town. The gent I'm looking for is named Jasper Jarvis, though I wonder about how true that is. Turn him over to me and I still won't know any of you next time I ride this way.” Bernard looked hard at Murrieta to make sure he understood the meaning. Cooperating with Wilkinson and the warden at San Quentin wasn't on his plate, then or ever, but capturing a man who had escaped from his jail was, especially if he was suspected of robbing the Miramar bank.

“Why do you come here?” Murrieta swung his rifle around to emphasize his point. He wanted the posse gone from his village. Slocum wished he would start shooting. Blood would be spilled but all the lawmen would be permanently removed from the hunt for him.

“We got a note to the effect that he's holed up in your town. Said Jarvis was responsible for a whole slew of crimes. Robbed Hez Galworthy's bank, maybe beat up a prison guard. Fact is, Jarvis is wanted by more people than you can shake a stick at. But he's mine first. Them varmints up at San Quentin can wait their turn.”

“He is not here.”

“Got to look.”

“You cannot do this without a search warrant!”

“Now aren't we the dirt farmer lawyer? This note says he's hiding out here, so I'm searching the entire village before he can get away.” Bernard studied Murrieta long and hard and finally said, “Might be I'm beginning to recognize you.”

Murrieta walked to the sheriff and took the note. He crumpled it up and tossed it to the ground.

“That is not a legal paper.”

“As legal as I need, Murrieta. You want to start shooting? You'll never win.”

Slocum saw the deputies already on the ground and moving to other houses. The sheriff eyed where Slocum hid in a way that betrayed the first house to be searched. Slocum looked for a trapdoor, hoping for a root cellar. Nothing but dirt rewarded his search. Even a prairie dog couldn't dig a tunnel out of there fast enough. Murrieta might shoot the sheriff in the back if he came in, but Slocum wanted to avoid that. Drawing attention to the town would bring federal marshals down on them. Murrieta was sure to be sent back to San Quentin if the investigation went far enough.

He stood on the table and rammed his fingers into the thatch of the roof. Working furiously, he opened a hole to the roof, then jumped, caught a viga, and pulled himself up and onto the flat roof. From his vantage he saw Bernard dismount and come to the door. A small scuffle ensued between the lawman and Murrieta, then Maria tried to stop Bernard. That ended the same way the one with Murrieta had.

Sheriff Bernard stepped into the small house, rifle ready to fire on Jasper Jarvis.

Slocum worked back the thatch as fast as he could. A small hole still remained, allowing him to stare down at the top of the sheriff's hat. Slocum stretched to block as much of the sunlight as he could so it wouldn't call attention to the gaping roof. He held his breath as Bernard rummaged about, doing everything that Slocum had looking for a hiding spot.

Maria came in and demanded, “Go! You have no right!”

Slocum saw his boot prints in the center of the table. If the sheriff saw them, he would know in a flash where his escaped prisoner had gone.

“I want that son of a bitch back in the lockup. Excuse my language, ma'am.”

Maria moved and perched on the edge of the table to keep Bernard from seeing the betraying footprints.

“You must do your duty. But you will not find this man in our village,” she said hotly. “We are honest people.”

Bernard pursed his lips and nodded, turned, and left. He joined his posse searching the other houses. When he was finished, he mounted. Slocum had to press himself flat since the low roof was almost at the sheriff's eye level.

“If you see any suspicious strangers, you let me know, you hear?”

“The only suspicious ones are in front of me now,” Murrieta said.

“Don't get too cocky. Might just be Sergeant Wilkinson can find himself an escapee or two if
he
pokes around here.”

With that threat, Bernard led his posse from the town. Slocum waited until the sun sank lower and he wouldn't be so obvious, then went to the edge of the roof and jumped to the ground. He landed hard and stayed in a crouch. At the far side of the bean field he caught sight of someone astride a horse, watching.

“It is nothing,” Murrieta said. “I do not know who that is. Some woman. Not one of the posse.”

As Slocum stood, the rider vanished. For a brief moment, she was caught in the dying sunlight. Conchita Valenzuela.

He picked up the crumpled sheet Murrieta had discarded, unwrinkled it the best he could, and read the carefully written words. He had seen such handwriting before. It was Conchita's.

“If we're going to free Atencio, we have to do it fast,” Slocum said. The longer he remained in this village, the more time Conchita and José had to think of ways to bring the law down on his head. Eventually Wilkinson or others from San Quentin would arrive. When that happened, Murrieta would be at risk, too.

Slocum looked down the road where Bernard had ridden off and shook his head. Bernard knew Murrieta was an escaped prisoner from San Quentin. But he cared only for the one man who had gotten away from his own jail in Miramar. How long this disregard for other lawmen could go on, Slocum didn't know.

“We have to get Atencio out real fast.”

“He will rob us. He is that kind of man,” Procipio Murrieta said in disgust.

Slocum had no other plan.

“If the banker doesn't drop the charges and fess up how he lied, Atencio doesn't have much of a chance,” Slocum pointed out. “We ransom him. The banker is greedy, if you've read him a'right.”

“I have. Nothing makes his eyes glow more than the sight of gold. Bars, coins, he does not care. Even worthless paper money makes him pant like a rabid dog.”

Slocum had to laugh at that. It could have been the description of any banker. He sobered as he considered how he had to get the money stolen from the Miramar bank. He had to rob José, Conchita, and their father. For all he knew, they had spent the money quickly rather than hiding it, but somehow he didn't think Conchita was the kind to let her brother or any other man squander a stack of coins.

“We might have to use the lawyer as a go-between. The banker is mighty intent on seeing me arrested for the theft, and he might think I'd had a change of heart.”

“It does not seem fair, stealing this money and then giving it back to a man like Galworthy,” Murrieta said. “But if it is the only way to free Atencio before his execution, then this is what we must do.”

Slocum understood the situation fully. Giving up money, if he recovered it from the Valenzuelas, rankled him as much as it did Murrieta. Maybe for a different reason. He would keep it for his trouble, for all Conchita and her family had put him through. The time in San Quentin had to be paid for somehow. But Murrieta undoubtedly thought it was a shame returning money to a man he loathed. Galworthy would foreclose on their farms in a heartbeat and cared little for how he got the stolen money back.

“What's your lawyer's name? I'd like to avoid using him if we can, but someone who's on the right side of the law might come in handy as our negotiator.”

“Michael Durant,” Murrieta said as if the name burned his tongue. “I do not know what more he could have done to keep Atencio from the gallows, but there must have been something. A law, a loophole as they say. Durant did not try hard enough.”