Read Online Swan Peak by James Lee Burke - Free Book Online Page A

When Jimmy Dale didn’t reply, Beeville said, “What you aiming to do?”
    “I don’t rightly know.”
    Beeville stood up and began buttoning his shirt. His toothless mouth was ringed with deep creases where the flesh had collapsed. “I’ll see if I can sneak you a banana back,” he said.
    “I told you, I ain’t hungry, Bee.”
    “Better eat up. It ain’t over with Nix. He takes it out on the guy he’s got the yen for. I feel sorry for you.”
    Jimmy Dale closed his eyes and swallowed.
    The full-court press started Monday after lunch.
    “Cap’n Rankin says he come in for some center cutters on the ditching machine. He says you sassed him,” Troyce Nix said.
    Jimmy Dale set down his acetylene torch and pulled his goggles up on his forehead with his thumb. The motes of dust were as bright as grains of sand in the shafts of sunlight shining through the windows. “I don’t think I done that, boss,” he replied. “I just want to stack my time and not bother nobody. I don’t want nobody bothering me, either, boss.”
    “You calling Cap’n Rankin a liar?”
    “No sir.”
    “Then why’d you sass him?”
    “I guess it’s just been one of them kind of days, boss.”
    Nix pulled his gloves from his back pocket and flipped them idly on his palm. “You’re either the dumbest breed I ever met or the slowest learner. Which is it?”
    “Probably both, boss.”
    Nix shook his head as he walked out of the shop. Through the window, Jimmy Dale saw him talking to two other screws. While Nix talked, the other two men stared in Jimmy Dale’s direction, their expressions opaque in the shadow of their cowboy hats.
    That afternoon at quitting time, Jimmy Dale was told he wouldn’t be showering or heading for the chow hall. Instead, he was escorted to what was called “the barrel,” an empty upended fifty-gallon oil drum that sat on a stretch of green grass in an alcove between two lockdown units. A flood lamp shone down on the barrel, bathing the inmate who stood on the barrel in a white light from evening until sunrise. Throughout the night, while he tried to keep his balance, the inmate could see the gunbulls in the roofed towers on the fence corners, their cigars or cigarettes glowing in the dark. Before an inmate climbed onto the barrel, he was allowed to relieve himself and to drink one glass of water. If the inmate fell from the barrel during the night, he not only had to climb back on it, he had to spend another night on it. If he relieved himself in his pants, he spent another night on it. If he called out to the hacks, he spent another night on it. An inmate who was sent to the barrel learned that his relationship to the barrel was open-ended.
    Early Tuesday morning Jimmy Dale was escorted back to his tier, his knees like rubber, the backs of his thighs still tingling, his body crawling with stink. He was allowed to shower and dress in clean state blues and eat breakfast in the chow hall. Then he reported for work on time, at eight A.M., in the shop.
    “You gonna give me a good day, Jimmy Dale?” Nix said to him.
    “Yes sir, boss.”
    “You already eat?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “Think I was too hard on you?”
    “Stuff happens. I don’t study on it.”
    “Stick this Hershey bar in your pocket.”
    “I’m all right, boss.”
    “A workingman gets hungry by midmorning. I’m going out to my camp Friday afternoon and put them fence posts in. You reckon you can screw a posthole digger into hardpan? It ain’t a skill every man’s got.”
    Jimmy Dale tried to look Nix in the face but couldn’t do it. He wet his lips and tried to keep his eyes focused. His legs seemed to be buckling under him, a fetid odor rising from his armpits, even though he had showered that morning. For just a moment he thought he was going to be sick again. A grin tugged at the corner of Nix’s mouth.
    “Whatever you say, boss. I don’t want no more trouble,” Jimmy Dale said.
    “Let me ask you something. That woman you was