Read Online Jailbreak by Giles Tippette - Free Book Online

grateful if Norris received special treatment.
    While Ben and Hays were visiting I looked around the double line of cells. There were five on each side and they were smaller than the Texas variety, being only about six foot wide and eight foot long. On Norris’s side the first two cells were occupied by two Mexicans each. Both of them appeared to be peons. They were asleep, it being proper siesta time. The cell across from Norris was vacant, but the other four on that side were filled, two with two prisoners and two with one prisoner each. The men in the individual cells were much better dressed and looked much more genteel than any of the hombres enjoying double occupancy. I figured you had to pay to get a room to yourself. I looked at the two caballeros, one of whom was standing at his cell front watching us, wondering what they were in for. They looked well born and well dressed enough that they ought to have been able to buy themselves out.
    About that time one of the guards was unlocking the cell door and passing the goods into the cell to Norris. Ben said, “Goddammit, if I had a gun right now we’d have you out of there before these two jefes knew what happened.”
    Of course we’d left our gun belts back at the hotel, knowing full well we’d of just had to surrender them as soon as we’d got to the jail. Better safe back at the hotel than lost somewhere in some policeman’s pocket.
    Pretty soon the guards said we had to leave. Norris shook with Ben and Hays and thanked Jack for getting word out about his predicament. But when it came my turn he just looked at me defiantly and said, “Well, why don’t you go on and do what you think is right. Give in to these bastards. Pay ’em off. See if I care.”
    I said, disgustedly, “You sound about ten years old, Norris. I’ll do what I have to to get you out, but when I get you home you’re gonna work about twenty hours a day because you’d better plan on bringing in two dollars for every dollar I have to spend to make up for your dumbass play. And God help you if this interferes with my wedding.”
    His face suddenly fell and he once again looked like my brother. He groaned. “Oh, hell, Justa, I completely forgot about that. Oh, my God! Listen, you forget about me. Get back to Blessing. How far off is it? A week? Ten days?”
    “Eight days,” I said grimly. “And my house ain’t completed.”
    “Oh, damn!” he said. He left the bars and went back to his cot and sat down. With his head in his hands he said, “I’ll get out of here somehow. Leave Jack here with some money. You go back and tend to your business.”
    I said, “I ought to. But it does my heart so much good to see you sitting there feeling sorry for yourself that I got to stick around and watch.”
    He looked up. “Oh, go to blazes.”
    The guard was tugging at my sleeve. I turned. “I’ll see you as quick as I can. Just don’t make it any harder on you or me than you feel you righteously have to.”
    Walking down the line of cells the well-dressed man who’d been watching us said, “Señor.”
    I stopped. He was wearing well fitting charro britches with silver conchos down each side and a leather jacket. He was obviously a well-to-do rancher. I said, “Yeah? I don’t speak Spanish.”
    He said, in good English, “Your brother talk too much. He make trouble with a policeman here.”
    “Davilla?”
    “Sí. Capitán Davilla. A very bad man. Your brother should be quiet.”
    “Thanks,” I said. “I told him so already.”
    He was smoking and he took a second to drop his cigarillo on the floor and grind it out with his boot before he said, casually, “ Mi nombre —my name is Elizandro. Miguel Elizandro. I have a hacienda some thirty kilometers south of here in the little village of Zapata. I have about ten good men working for me. Very good men.” He looked at me.
    I studied him in return. He was a well-set-up young man of about my age though not up to my size. But he had the