Slocum's Breakout Read Free Page A

pushed their way through the circle of prisoners and roughly grabbed Slocum by the arms. “No fightin’ allowed. You’re goin’ into the hole for a week.”
    Two guards half dragged Slocum away as the sergeant who had checked him into San Quentin came running up.
    â€œYou got it under control? You dumb apes. Don’t let’em fight. You know better, and if I catch you bettin’ on’em again . . .”
    â€œAw, Sarge, we stopped it.”
    â€œLet me enter this onto his record. Fighting. Jasper Jarvis, five days in the hole for fighting.”
    As Slocum was dragged away, he saw the man he had knocked out shaking his head, then become alert when he heard the name Jasper Jarvis . Slocum felt the beady eyes boring a hole into his back all the way into the cell block, then down stone stairs and into the dungeon.
    He had lied his way into San Quentin to rescue José Valenzuela, and now it looked as if he would spend the next two years serving the sentence of a man he didn’t even know.
    Slocum cursed himself and Conchita, her brother, and the man he had knocked out, then started all over again on himself.

2
    Slocum shivered in the cold, dark cell. He could reach out and touch the stone walls—it didn’t matter where he sat in the cell. Worse, there was no light. The pitch-black robbed him of all sense of how long he had been imprisoned there. It might have been minutes, or it could have been hours. His belly growled from lack of food, and his tongue felt like a bale of cotton, all puffy and sticky from lack of water.
    But the cold was worst of all. He tried standing, but the ceiling was a few inches too low to allow him to stretch upright. He found the splintery wooden door and tried to pick away at the weakest part, hoping to see out. Too many others had tried and failed. Slocum reckoned they had been locked up here longer than he ever would be.
    He settled down with his back against the door since this promised him more warmth—or less cold—than any other position. His head dropped forward and rested on his upraised knees as he dozed. For an instant or an hour? He didn’t know, but there came a sharp rap at the door. He felt it in his spine as well as hearing it.
    â€œGet on back away from the door or you’ll get shot,” came a muffled voice that was strangely familiar.
    He did as he was told and the door creaked open to reveal the prisoner he had ridden into San Quentin with standing in the corridor outside, a tin plate and cup in hand.
    â€œHere’s yer vittles,” Doc said. “Won’t get more ’n this for another day, so don’t let the rats beat you to it.”
    Doc handed him the plate, only to be rebuked by the guard behind him.
    â€œNone of that. No contact with him. None.”
    Doc was roughly yanked back and the door slammed shut, but Slocum sat for a moment, his finger holding firmly against the tin plate a slip of paper Doc had passed him. How he was ever going to read in the dark was a poser until he slid the paper away and found a lucifer glued to the bottom of the plate.
    He was torn between lighting the match and reading the note and eating. His hunger won out. He wolfed down the stale bread and almost gagged on the tough meat on the plate with it. He hoarded the water jealously in the cup, then couldn’t restrain himself. He downed it with a single long gulp that did nothing to soothe the thirst or the way his tongue had swelled.
    Still, the food and drops of water restored him and sparked his anger at the guards and San Quentin and . . .
    Who else? He tried to blame Conchita and her brother for his predicament, but he had volunteered. Over the years he had learned the lesson not to let nether regions of his anatomy think for him—and this time he had ignored that sage experience. That José might be busted out of this prison was one thing, but doing it was proving more difficult. Slocum didn’t know