Dark Passage Read Free

moments in
Madge Rapf's life was when the foreman stood up and said that he
was guilty.
    It was getting awful in the barrel. Parry
pushed the hate aside and replaced it with energy. He pushed at the
side of the barrel. He made an inch. He made another inch and he
had air again. The truck was traveling very fast and he wondered
where it was going. He kept pushing at the side of the barrel. The
truck hit another bump, hit a second bump, hit a third and a
fourth. Parry figured there might be a fifth bump and he advised
himself to be ready for it. The four bumps had pushed the two
barrels back the way he wanted them to go back. He had about five
inches up there. When the fifth bump came he was prepared for it
and he heaved hard, going along with the bump, getting the two
barrels over to the side, increasing the gap to what he measured as
nine inches. He thrust his arms up, pushed at the two barrels, made
four more inches. And that was plenty.
    Parry pulled himself out of the barrel. He
saw the road going away from him, a dark grey stream sliding back
between level pale green meadow, sliding toward the yellow horizon.
On the left, bordering the pale green, he could see shaggy hills,
not too high. He decided to make the hills.
    Keeping his head low he weaved his way
through the barrels. Then he was at the edge of the truck, figuring
its speed at about fifty. It was going to be a rough fall and
probably he would get hurt. But if he fell facing the truck,
running with the truck, he would be playing along with the momentum
and that would be something of a benefit.
    He did it that way. He was running before
he reached the road. He made a few yards and then went down flat on
his face. Knowing he was hurt but not knowing where and not caring,
he picked himself up quickly and raced for the side of the road.
The pale green grass was fairly high and he threw himself at it and
rested there, breathing hard, too frightened to look at the road.
But he could hear the truck motor going away from him and he knew
that he was all right as far as the truck was concerned. When he
raised his head from the grass he saw an automobile passing by. He
saw the people in the automobile and their faces were turned toward
him and he waited for the automobile to stop.
    The automobile didn’t stop. Parry stayed
there another minute. Before he stood up he took off the grey
shirt, the white undershirt. Stripped to the waist he felt the heat
of the sun, the thick moisture of deep summer. It felt good. But
something else felt bad and it was the pain in both arms, in the
elbows. He had fallen on his elbows and the skin was ripped and
there was considerable blood. He pulled at grass, kept digging at
earth until there was something of a hole, a semblance of mud. He
rubbed mud on his elbows and that stopped the blood and formed a
protective cake. Then he put the shirt and the undershirt in the
hole. He replaced the clods of grass, covering the hole
smoothly.
    The sun was high, and Parry watched it as
he started toward the hills. He guessed the time as somewhere
around eleven, and it meant he had been on the truck for almost an
hour. It also meant San Quentin had taken a long time to discover
his exit. Again he was telling himself it had been too easy and it
couldn’t last and then he heard the sound of
motorcycles.
    He threw himself at the grass, tried to
insert himself in the ground. As yet he couldn’t see the
motorcycles, although his eyes made a wide sweep of the road. That
was all right. Probably they couldn't see him either. They were
coming around a gradual bend in the road. They made a lot of noise,
a raging noise as they came nearer. Then he could see them,
whizzing past. Two and three and five of them. Just as they passed
him they began using sirens and he knew they were going after the
truck.
    He could picture it. The truck was say
three miles down the road. Give them five minutes to search the
barrels, to question the driver and helper. Give them another