Yuma Prison Crashout by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2019-09-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The monsoon shower that afternoon cooled the desert off considerably. The thunderstorm had lasted only five or ten minutes, dumping water onto the sand that almost immediately was sucked below. Yet with the brief moisture, the desert seemed to turn alive, and prisoners caught outside in the storm looked up and let the cold, hard rain pound their faces. It felt cleansing and refreshing, and the fragrances of the cactus plants and the trees made Harry Fallon think that there was more to this country than just heat, sand, scorpions, and rattlesnakes.

Now he sat on a bench where he had a good view of the sally port. This time of day, too early for supper but with most of the work details over, was free time for the prisoners. Some tossed baseballs over toward the south wall. Most just dragged their tired, bedraggled bodies to their cells to wait until the bells began to sound for dinner.

Fallon kept his head bent and every few minutes turned a page of the book he held in his lap. The prison library, for the time being, consisted of a corner table in the mess hall. Ladies from Yuma’s few churches donated copies of books for prisoners. Fallon held a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. The front cover had been torn off, and pages two hundred and eleven to two hundred and fifty-six were missing, but he had always enjoyed Dumas, had never read this particular novel, and, in prison, The Count of Monte Cristo seemed like the best novel a convict could read. Too bad this version was in French. Fallon could not read French, but he wasn’t interested in reading. He watched what was going on near the prison’s main gate.

The gate was closed. Fallon could make out the wiry man in the building just outside the gate, the man with the Winchester .44-40 who made sure everyone who came in or left was supposed to be entering or leaving. Every now and then, he would lift his head, stretch his arms, yawn, and study the guard towers nearest him: the ones on the north corners, and the big one housed over the walled water reservoir outside the wall. Behind him, he knew that the Lowell battery gun was on the southeastern wall, but that seemed to be primed for prisoners racing across Prison Hill toward Yuma, or the Southern Pacific tracks. The sally port led to the barracks for the guards, the superintendent’s residence, and the Colorado River.

The gate opened, and Fallon returned to his lesson in French.

Into this den of thieves walked Superintendent Gruber. He carried no weapon, not even a nightstick or staff. The gate closed behind him, and Gruber began walking to the mess hall. He held a notebook in his hand, and stopped every once in a while to jot down something with a pencil in the pad, or speak for a few minutes to one of the inmates. Gruber did not stop to ask Fallon anything.

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