Hour of Death by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Dinner was served—a stew that was mostly fat, gristle, and greasy gravy, along with a big slab of stale bread laid across it like a roofing tile. A tin cup filled with rusty-tasting water also sat on the metal tray.

Sixkiller was unsure which was more dangerous, the stew or the water. He sat on the edge of his bunk, feet on the floor, picking and pecking at the meal.

He was not usually an overly fastidious feeder. Quite the reverse, considering some of the scraps and slops he’d eaten as a kid growing up in the Nations, the questionable rations when he was a soldier fighting in the War, and the more recent privations on the manhunt trail.

Bull reached into his stew with thumb and index finger, plucking out a cockroach whose body was the size of a .45 cartridge. He held it up for Sixkiller to see. “Looky what I found,” he said, with a certain grim cheerfulness in hardship.

“At least you got some meat in yours,” Sixkiller said.

“It’s dead. I think the stew killed it.”

“Stew? Is that what this is?”

Bull squashed the roach between his fingers, wiping them clean on the underside of the bunk.

Later, Porrock came to collect the trays. “How’d you boys like your chow?” He grinned, needling them.

“The bug in my stew liked it better than I did and he’s dead. The food was lousy and such small portions, too.”

“You should have thought of that before you started fighting,” Porrock said. “Ringgold ain’t rolling in money, you know. The town pays us a certain stipend per day to feed the prisoners and you got to make do with what we got.”

“How about letting us use our own money to get some food sent in from the café?” Sixkiller asked.

“And some drink,” Bull chimed in.

“What money?” Porrock asked.

“The money you took from us when we were locked up,” Sixkiller said.

“That ain’t your money. Not till the court says so. It’s being held against your fines and damages.”

“So you’re saying my money ain’t my money.”

“That’s right. You got it. That is, you don’t got it.” Porrock stacked the trays the prisoners had slid through the rectangular slot at the base of the cell door, readying to leave.

“When Wheeler comes to relieve me for dinner break, I’m gonna go over to the Bon Ton café and have me a thick, juicy steak, some of them fried potatoes, and a quart of ale. Mmm!” Porrock exited, juicily smacking his lips.

“I’d like to tie that scrawny pencil neck of his into knots,” Bull said feelingly.

Time passed, the window in the wall of Sixkiller’s cell becoming a rectangle of blackness dully lit by the glow of unseen lamps and lanterns.

Porrock went off duty, replaced by Chet Wheeler who stuck his head into the holding area. “Still with us, are you boys? Don’t go away.”

The night hours dragged on. Sometimes the prisoners talked, others times passages of silence hung between them. The talk grew less and the silences longer.

The bunk was too small for Sixkiller, of course.

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