1968
On the morn scheduled, the curtain fell on Big Devil’s long reign over hell.
That evening the replacement warden from the “Ham” arrived. I recognized him from his photo in the prison administration’s annual directory. But, I had no idea the face in the book would be attached to a giant’s body, and I readily accepted the stories I’d heard about his prowess as a defensive lineman at Texas A&M University.
He walked into the warden’s office and sat down behind the mahogany desk, “I am sitting in the right seat, ain’t I?”
“Yes Sir,” I answered, but he sure didn’t look right sitting in it.
“How long have you been working in the office?”
“About four years, Warden.”
“How much time you doin?”
“Thirty years. I’ll pull my records if you want me to, Warden.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll take a look at it later.”
“Warden, do you need me to get anything out of your car?”
“Naw, I got a lot of junk in there, but I’ll take it on down to the house. The van will be here later tonight with the rest of my things. I’ll git somebody to unload it tomorrow. That’s a pretty long drive down here. That’ll be all.”
Within a few months after the new one’s arrival, he was baptized with a sit-down strike in the fields, an escape attempt, and a near riot in the messhall. Work slowed down in the fields for the first time in many moons. The squads no longer worked on Saturdays, and it didn’t look like we would finish our harvest first. The unit rapidly lost its manicured appearance as the weeds took over.
We were shown a laissez-faire style of “wardening.” Each evening after he had supper, the warden routinely returned to the office to catch up with his paperwork. Afterwards, he headed for the building and went in one of the lower line tanks to play dominos with the cons. With the door locked behind him, he stood at the domino table and waited his turn.
When he went in one of the eastside tanks, we could look down from the trusty tank and see him at the domino table. He seemed right at home and made as much noise as they did slamming the dominos and squabbling. At first the cons were leery of him, but after he passed around his ready rolls freely, they were glad to have him in the game.
Boss Wise-em-up didn’t dare holler, “Y’all betta git down on it. Suma you ol’ wild-ass’d nigguhs gonna hafta talk ta that warden in the mornin.” We had gotten used to his evening tank visits and on Saturdays he spent practically the entire day inside the line tanks. Even though there was always a domino game going over at the guards’ quarters, he preferred playing with the cons.
Sometimes while waiting his turn at the table and rocking on his heels, he’d lose his balance and reel backwards. The cons standing around would catch him before he fell. He’d thank them and they laughed and kidded him about it, going so far as to say, “Warden, I sho wish I felt good as you feels.” It was soon common knowledge that when he went in the tanks, he was smashed on his ass.
In the office the assistant warden and Boss Jack were discussing him. Boss Jack commented, “His breath smells like a distillery. He goes in those tanks higher than a Georgia pine.”
“Yeah, I know. How in the hell can I maintain building security while he keeps volunteering himself as a potential hostage.” A few days after their talk, the assistant warden made out a request for a transfer, which was granted. He was sent to the Darrington Unit and promoted to full warden.
The Walls administration got wind of the warden’s tank escapades. A few weeks after the assistant warden went to Darrington, a big sedan from the Walls kicked up gravel wheeling into the parking space. The three officials (one I recognized from the cane patch) walked briskly past the warden’s office and on through the front gate.
Once inside, they struck up a trot hurrying down the sidewalk and on into the building. It was Saturday. About ten minutes later, four were coming back. They had busted the warden red-handed in Number 3 tank playing dominos. Face flushed, he was high as a kite as he led the way into his office. They closed his door, and I got the message and left. After their sedan sped away, with his shoulders sagging he walked down the sidewalk headed to his house. The outside picket boss got a radio message about four hours later and hollered it down to me. “The movin van’ll be here Wednesday.”
Monday in the truck mail a letter came from the Walls Education Department. I had been selected to attend heavy equipment school at A&M, and was to be transferred to the Walls on Thursday for processing. I had no idea how they came up with my name; I hadn’t applied for anything.
Later that day it came in on the teletype that the warden from Central would be the next replacement and was scheduled to arrive on Thursday. We’d probably pass each other along the highway, I figured.
Wednesday afternoon I helped the warden put his trophies and other personals from the office into his car. That night I packed my little shit and was ready to vacate hell too.
After the heavy equipment school ended, I was assigned to a bulldozer sitting idle at the Darrington Unit. When the work was completed at Darrington, I was sent to work at Pre-Release, Ramsey, Ellis, Ferguson, and then on to Eastham.
Whatever cost factors were involved for the training I received, they were certainly getting their money’s worth out of me. When my mail finally caught up with me, I wasn’t surprised that I had gotten another year’s parole set off. The Board read their Hog Law book on me and determined that being back five more years wasn’t “near bouts enuff,” as Cap’n Smooth would say.
The truck-driver guard slowed the diesel transport to a stop in front of the Eastham Unit tractor shed. I unchained and quickly unloaded the machine. Finished, he took me to the backgate and had me put on the count, then checked me into the building.
The building officer told me to sit down in the hall against the wall, and he walked away down the long hallway. About half an hour later, another officer walked over and ordered, “Come with me.”
I walked slightly behind him for at least two city blocks down the main artery before we made a sharp left into a smaller hallway. When we reached the closed door with “Warden” written above it, he knocked lightly.
“Yeah, cum on in.” I recognized his voice immediately.
When we entered, the officer quickly removed his cap, placing it under his arm. “Is this him, Warden?” he asked.
“Yeah, thas him. That’ll be all.” The officer politely closed the door on his way out. “Ol’ Racehoss, Gotdam nigguh, been a long time since I seen you,” in a tone that sounded like he was glad to see me.
“Yessuh, sure has Warden. How you doin, Suh?”
The spark in his once fiery eyes had dwindled to a flickering ember. The lines of time threaded his face and his hair was white as snow. He looked tired and old, well past his prime.
“Aw, fair to middlin, I guess. Lotta difference in this farm an that other one though,” he added.
“Yessuh, I imagine it would be.”
“Almost four times as many heah an most uv ‘em young ones that ain’ learnt how to do time yet,” he commented. Taking a look at my record there on his desk, “Looks lak you been movin roun quite a bit.”
“Yessuh, I sure have.”
“You had a chance to go back down there yet?”
Jokingly, “Warden, I doubt if I’ll be sent back to Retrieve. We did all the heavy equipment work with our hoes and shovels befo you left.”
He smiled, “Set down,” motioning toward one of the office chairs and offering me all the courtesy he would a free world man, except the handshake. “Y’all run that other warden ‘way frum there in a hurry. Didn’ ya? Got ‘em busted to ‘sistant warden. Whut wuz th’ matta? Wuz he too hard on y’all?” he wisecracked.
“No suh, I don’t think that was it.”
“How cum they sunt you over heah?”
“They said you needed some work done with the dozer, Warden.”
“Yeah, well, I got a little drainage wek an sum clearin I want you ta do.”
He leaned back and began naming off the Retrieveites who had gotten out, come back in, and were here with him. “Ol’ Proud Walker, Ol’ Bay City, Ol’ Steeple Head, and Ol’ Cryin Shame.” Then, bragging, “Them ol’ bastards got word to me soon as they asses landed in them Walls, wantin to cum where I wuz. So I tole ‘em to send ‘em on. Ol’ Forty’s over heah too. Have you heard whut happen to Ol’ Pug?”
“No suh.”
“Well, that new face didn’ hep him much. That ignant bastard didn’ last a hot minute afta he got out. He went to Houston an got to big-assin wit sum ol’ woman an she stabbed him in th’ heart wit a ice pick an kilt him. An you’ll never guess whut Ol’ Bay City dun. He’s gotta be one uv th’ craziest nigguhs I ever seed. As good a damn mechanic as he is, he got busted in a cafe. The owner caught him drunk, settin down in front uv th’ jukebox takin th screws out uv it to steal the nickels an dimes. The owner held a gun on him til the police got there. I can unnerstand it when suma these nigguhs that ain’ got no talents cum back, but there ain’ no excuse fer a nigguh lak Ol’ Bay City to keep runnin in an out uv heah.
“An Ol’ Steeple Head shouldn’ a been sunt back at all fer whut he dun. That crazy sonuvabitch wuz runnin frum a nigguh who’d whupped his ass. ‘Thout even lookin back, Ol’ Steeple Head shot over his shoulder an hit that nigguh right betwix the eyes, kilt ‘em dead as a hammer.” Laughing, “That nigguh cried an begged th’ judge out uv a measly three years.
“Ol’ Cryin Shame robbed a man’s place, then set down on the steps an waited fur the police to cum take ‘em to jail. I always knowed that nigguh couldn’ make it in the free world.” Adding, “He don’t havta worry bout it no more. They filed the bitch [habitual criminal] on ‘em an give ‘em life ‘is time.”
After bringing me up to date on the old stomping ground cons, he put on his Stetson. “Cum on, I’ll show you roun the farm.”
He drove up and down turnrow after turnrow, pointing out all the agricultural improvements he’d made. “When I first cum heah, trees an underbrush wuz growin all up to there,” pointing over to some freshly plowed land. “I dun added more’n two thousand new acres uv farmland to this place. Tell you sump’n else, I put these sonsabitches to wek too. It wuz sum bastards up heah who’d been layin up on they asses in that buildin so long, they’d dun flat furgot how to wek!”
Boasting, “I put a stop to ‘at shit in a hurry. Ol’ Racehoss, when I cum up heah, they had bout three hunnert nigguhs an Meskins wekin in the fields. None uv them ol’ white thangs wuz wekin atall. Now, I got over forty squads.”
“Warden, do they work together in the same squads?”
“Well, not zackly. They wek in the same cut sumtimes, but I ain’ got roun to mixin ‘em up yet. Course when one uv them ol’ white thangs fucks up in his squad, I take him out an put his ass in a squad wit them nigguhs fer a couple uv weeks. Weks ever time. Don’t take much uv that to git his heart right an make him put his ass in high gear.”
When he reached the place where he wanted me to start working the dozer, he stopped the car and told me what he wanted done to prevent water from standing in the area after it rained. He said I’d be working under the farm manager, and would be coming out in the mornings with the tractor squad.
As we were driving away, he continued, “Tell you sump’n else too, most uv these bosses wuz doin jes lak they damn well pleased, which wuz nuthin. It took sum doin, but we got it straight that I weren’t gon put up wit they trifflin shit. They got the message afta I run off a batch uv ‘em.”
When he ended the tour, I was let out at the backgate, “Boss, put this nigguh on yore trusty count an let ‘em go on in the buildin.”
The trusty tank was empty except for the building tender, Ol’ Forty. The warden had given him the same job he’d had in the hell. As soon as I put my belongings away, we sat down and had a long chat. He told me he had filed a writ because he had served his forty-year sentence, explaining, “Hell, Race, it don’t take but twenny-fo calendars to do forty. I dun nine years befo I made prole an I been back over seventeen. Sumbody fucked up, man. I been heah two years too damn long! Dumb as I is, I kin figger dat out.”
He reaffirmed what the warden told me earlier. “Big Devil put dese muthafuckas to wek, an I mean everbody. Ain’ no mo uv dat layin-roun shit.”
When the call came for the tractor squad the following morning, I caught out with them and headed for the tractor/shop area. I was checking the fuel and oil in the dozer when an officer dressed in snappy western wear, who looked to be in his mid-forties, walked up, “I’m the farm manager. You gon be runnin ‘is thang?”
“Yessuh. The warden told me what y’all want done.”
His expression flashed anger, “Ain’t you the nigguh I seen ridin round wit the warden yestiddy?”
“Yessuh, he had me in the car with him.”
“Oh, I git it,” he said disdainfully, “yore anutha one uv the warden’s nigguhs.”
“No suh, I’m just a nigguh sent here to do some heavy equipment work for y’all.”
“Whut’s yore name?”
“They call me Racehoss.”
“Well, Mister Racehoss, when you git thru dilly-dallyin round wit ‘at machine, do you thank the warden would mind if I told you to go on an git started?”
I didn’t respond to his sarcasm, got on the machine, fired it up and walked it down the turnrow. After twenty days, I had the big drainage ditch cut and was ready to start clearing stumps.
Then, when the equipment service truck from the Walls arrived on its regular run, they brought along my trainee helper, a young white con. In the training program I had been instructed how to train new operators and knew this would be part of my duties. While two of my former A&M classmates who were assigned to the service truck were checking the machine, the service truck boss went over the trainee details with me.
“They want you to let him ride on the machine with you while you’re operatin it so you can tell an show ‘em what you’re doin. Then let ‘em run it with you ridin. When he gits to where he can handle it pretty good, let ‘em do it by himself as much as possible so he can git the feel of it. With you watchin, of course.
“I think he knows the front end frum the back. He told me when we were comin out here that he had run a front-end loader once. You don’t need filters or nuthin, do you?”
“No sir,” I said.
After he and his two helpers left, my new trainee told me he was twenty-four, that this was his first time in the pen, and that he was from some little town in northeast Texas, serving three years for burglary. None of this meant a hill of beans to me. What mattered was that I had somebody to help me so I could take a break from the dozer sometimes and give my back a rest.
The on-the-job training was paying off. Gene was getting better and better as the days went by and could run the machine alone, but wasn’t quite good enough yet to work it in close quarters. I was leaning against a tree no more than fifteen feet away watching him spread some backfill when the farm manager drove up.
He stopped and shouted to me, “Ol’ Racehoss, git over heah! Gitcha Gotdam ass on the back uv this pickup! I’m takin you to that buildin.”
Climbing onto the back, I asked, “What for?”
“Jes shut yore damn mouth an git on!”
He drove off, spinning the wheels. On the way he radioed ahead that he was bringing in one of the heavy equipment operators. Big Devil must have intercepted the message because he drove up at the same time the pickup stopped at the backgate. The farm manager got out of his truck and walked the few feet around to the driver’s side and leaned on the door.
“Whut’s th’ matta?”
“Warden, I wuz brangin this nigguh in to have ‘em put in the pisser.”
“Fer whut?”
“Fer one thang, when I drove up out there in the field a while ago, Ol’ Racehoss wuz standin off up under a shade tree makin ‘at white boy do all the work.”
The warden beckoned for me. I jumped off the truck bed and walked over to his window. “You hear whut th’ farm manager said?”
“Yessuh.”
“Is he tellin th’ truth?”
“Yessuh,” I answered, totally surprised that he’d ask. Never had I heard Big Devil question an officer’s word. “Warden, my helper had only been on the machine bout five minutes when the farm manager showed up. I was doin what I was told to do by the service truck boss who brought ‘em. He told me to let ‘em run the machine as much as possible. I’d dug the stumps up and he was spreadin some backfill when he drove up.”
Leaning on the steering wheel and never looking up, “Boss Dickie, you kin go on back to doin whutever you wuz a-doin, cawse I know you musta been mighty busy.” The farm manager’s face reddened more when Big Devil said, “Git in th’ car, Ol’ Racehoss,” and took me back to the machine.
The warden kept finding little projects, keeping the machine busy, overextending his allotted time limit. The farm manager started driving out almost daily, taking Gene off in the front seat of his pickup. Sometimes they’d be gone for over an hour. When he’d get back, he said the farm manager had him doing “sumthin.” And I left it at that.
At the hearing, the service truck boss testified that he did indeed find a new oil and air filter buried. The farm manager and my helper took him to the “exact spot.” My reason for burying the filters according to Gene was, “I didn’t feel like messin with ‘em.”
The warden questioned me. “Didja do that, Ol’ Racehoss?”
I looked him straight in the eyes, “No sir.” I turned and looked across the office into the face of my helper. “Warden, why don’t you ask him how they got there? He’s the one that’s been ridin aroun in the pickup with the farm manager, and they the ones who found ‘em.”
Big Devil smelled a rat. He mulled over the testimony a few seconds, then said, “Since yore the one,” pointing to the service truck boss, “that brung this ol’ thang over heah, you take ‘em back witcha you when you leave.” He yelled out of his office to his clerk to start processing transfer papers.
The service truck boss ventured to ask, “What do you want me to do with him when I git him back to the Walls? Warden, sir, I need to have some reason for bringin ‘em back.”
“Do th’ same thang wit him ya did befo you brung him over heah.”
The boss went a step further, “But Warden, no disrespect sir, what’s the reason?”
“Oh, I see. You havta have a reason to give ‘em, huh? Well, tell ‘em th’ reason is I don’t want th’ rotten-assed bastard on my farm, an if they have any problem wit that, tell ‘em to call me.”
After being caught in the middle of a power struggle, the day to leave Eastham couldn’t come quick enough. Orders finally came from the Walls to transfer me and the dozer to Coffield, the new unit under construction. As we turned onto the iron-ore-covered road, the compound of galvanized buildings loomed ahead. The truck driver followed the road around the buildings and stopped at the shop. Waiting at the loading dock was a truck from Wisconsin that had brought down a monstrous Number 9 Caterpillar to exchange for my smaller one.
The normal check-in procedure at all the other units I’d been on began at the backgate. This time the driver drove to the office. No one was in the outer office when we entered. He called out, “Is anybody in here?”
From inside the warden’s office, “Whutcha got?”
The driver handed him my records, then left. It was Silly Willy, the former Clemens warden. He was rotated in the first round too. He glanced through my papers briefly, then looked over his horn-rimmed glasses, “Ol’ Racehoss, kin ya still pick ‘at cotton?”
“No sir, not like I useta. That was a long time ago, Warden.”
“They tell me yore a pretty good ‘quipment operator. Well, you sho cum to the right place. Plenny uv work heah to keep ya busy. You kin plan on stayin heah awhile.” He asked what I thought of my new dozer, said there was enough work here for a regular heavy equipment squad, and assigned me to it. After our chat, he phoned inside and had an officer sent to his office.
I followed him through the long, barn-like galvanized building with chicken-wire-covered windows, surmising security wasn’t the long suit for this unit. With so much construction work, most of the five hundred cons were of trusty caliber, if not already trusties. The large majority were skilled construction workers, giving birth to another prison.
Each hanger-type building was divided into two tanks. A tin wall with an open doorway separated them. Only a barber was in the tank when I arrived. This was my first unit without building tenders. He walked with me down the rows, pointing out the vacant bunks. He said the white cons lived on the other side of the wall. Throughout our conversation, he talked about how different it was here compared to the Ferguson Unit from whence he came.
I read the tank’s bulletin board and saw that college classes would begin soon. I had been traveling around so much I was never at one unit long enough to take some courses. Silly Willy seemed certain I would be here awhile, so I decided to enroll.
He was right. There was plenty of work to do on the 23,000-acre unit clearing timber, plowing root stumps, building roads and bridges, getting the land ready for farming. Although I was putting in a lot of hours and worked seven days a week, this was the best unit I’d been on thus far. The food was as good as eating at a free world cafeteria, the guards didn’t hassle us, and most of them didn’t even wear guns. The warden worked out a schedule allowing me to come in at four o’clock on the afternoons I had classes. I continued the writings I started a few years earlier and had filled up ten composition tablets.
The much-traveled letter caught up with me, and was lying on my bunk when I came in from work. Besides the Christmas card the Salvation Army sent every year, this was the first mail I’d ever received. I opened it cautiously, the way they did those eyes and teeth boxes.
“Dear Bubba, I hope you doing fine. It took a long time for me to find where you was. It’s Mama. She just hanging on. She got gangreen in one of her legs from the fleabitis and she got kidney failure to. They got her hooked to a machine. I talked to a lawyer about getting you out to come see her. The doctor say he would personaly call the Board to request that you come. I hope and pray they let you. I want to see you so bad. Been a long time, hasn’t it. I love you, Bubba. Your sis, Pat.”
I was called out that evening. Letters containing news of illness, death, or other urgencies are viewed as motivations for escape attempts. Silly Willy told me to lay-in the building tomorrow, and he phoned inside to inform the building major.
Back on the tank, I got the letter from under my pillow and reread it. It had been so long since I’d seen Emma, I was unable to picture her clearly. My mind slowly drifted back over the years.
I was called out to the laundry the next morning and issued some free world khakis, shirt, and shoes. I’d been granted a five-day emergency reprieve. The deputy sheriff from Gregg County was waiting for me in the warden’s office. When he pulled the shackles out of his tote bag, Silly Willy said, “You don’t need them chains. Ol’ Racehoss is a state-approved trusty. He ain’t goin nowhere.”
“Just followin orders, Warden,” and continued putting me in irons. After being fettered for transport, he led me to his car. The trip from the Coffield Unit near Palestine to Longview took about an hour and a half.
In the Good Shepherd Hospital parking lot, he removed the leg and waist chains, but left the wrist cuffs. I got slightly nauseated by the strong hospital odors when we walked through the sliding glass doors. A brief stop at the admissions desk; the deputy got directions to her room. We were on the right floor and walked briskly down the wheel chair and gurney-lined hallway. Heads turned, and I was so ashamed I had to come in this condition.
Pat looked up the hall, saw us, and came running. After the kisses and hugs, she asked the deputy, “Do you have to keep the handcuffs on ‘em?”
“Ma’am, these are my orders. If you want to talk to the sheriff bout it, that’s alright with me.”
Pat told me that Emma had been in a coma for three days. Walking toward the room Pat said, “Befo we go in, I’m goin over here an phone the sheriff.”
While she was on the phone, I waited in the hall and exchanged greetings with her boyfriend Carl and Emma’s three sisters Pat had summoned from Dallas. I hadn’t seen Bama and Sally since I was a kid or Aunt El since that time I was hiding out under her bed.
Pat’s conversation with the sheriff’s department necessitated the deputy going to the phone. Before I entered Emma’s room, he removed the cuffs and left the hospital.
I was startled by how old and frail she looked, more like ninety than sixty-six. I reached over the railing and touched her. “It’s me.” Her eyes opened slowly. Barely able to move her fingers, she motioned for me to come nearer. I held her hand and leaned my face close to hers.
Struggling to speak, her lips trembled. In low, short whispers, “Mama knowed you wuz comin. I wuzn’ bout to go nowhere til you got here. Move back a little so Mama kin look atcha.”
Still holding her hand, I straightened my body. Opening her eyes wider, she looked me over through the flowing tears, “Is me an you still buddies?”
The life light in her eyes waned. Fighting back my own tears, “The best kind, Mama.”
A faint smile crossed her lips. With her eyes fixed on mine, she drifted off into death. Thank God! we got the chance to make our peace. My turning point had been five years ago in solitary. If I hadn’t changed, there’s no way I could have responded quickly enough. The feelings were there; I loved her. I only regretted she beat me asking.
I was on a bench warrant in Pat’s custody until the funeral was over. She bought a navy-blue suit and the accessories for me, and put some money in my pocket. It surprised me that the funeral was held in a church and not at the funeral home.
The pastor began the service by saying, “A member she may not have been, but I can say one thang for Emma Sample, she give mo to this church in dollars an cents over the last few years than fifty percent of the membership. So do she have a right to be in this church for her funeral? I just wanted to clear the air on that point.”
He said he had visited with her twice a week over a long period of time and had gotten to know her. “I can tell the bereaved I know in my heart Emma Sample is in Heaven. If there was ever anybody I been close to as they neared death that I felt been saved, it was her. In the last few months befo she passed, she got close to her God and was prepared to die. She was not afraid. As she put it, ‘I’m a big girl.’”
The small church was filled. I had no idea this many cared enough to attend. Even Mr. Milton, the liquor store man, closed up and came. The faces of the congregation were somber. Emma had told Pat that she didn’t want “no whoopin an hollerin,” just organ playing. She even picked the music the organist played throughout the service. I could almost hear her singing along.
As I stood at the casket for the last viewing, I pulled out TWO one-dollar bills, folded them neatly and slid them beneath her hand. I knew she wouldn’t want to run into Blue and not have any money to go “head to head.”
Pat offered to be my parole plan, but I felt living with her would be unacceptable to the Board because she had been busted a couple of times for gaming operations at her house. Besides, I didn’t want to put any heat on her by having a parole officer coming in and out. Instead, I submitted a plan to go to a halfway house in Houston.
It was December and the snowflakes were soft peddling their way to the ground. The heavy equipment boss came to the tank and called for me. Since it was Sunday I was on towing stand-by. When we got in the pickup, the boss took me to where I had parked the machine the evening before. Once I got to the bogged-down log truck, it only took a few minutes to hook on the cable and pull it out. I towed it far enough up the road so the driver could make it the rest of the way to the sawmill on his own.
The equipment boss said he had to drive to the other side of the unit and close some cattle gates, reminding me, “We’re tryin to git everthang closed up. Ain’ gon be many uv y’all wekin next week cawse most uv th’ bosses’ll be off fer Christmas. Why don’tcha go over in the woods an make yoreself a far. I’ll be back adder while an gitcha.”
It didn’t matter; I was in no hurry to get back. The tank was heavy laden with holiday melancholy and I felt better being outside. The woods had become a refuge. I pulled Big Bertha off the road and walked her through the sparse timberline of spruce and speckled ash. Deeper into the woods, I came upon a little stream and stopped.
I saw movement in front of the small brush pile on the other side, a brown cottontail. I shut the engine down to low idle and quickly got my three-foot rabbit stick from behind the seat. I eased out of the cab onto the dozer track. Just as it jumped, I threw my stick and turned it a flip. I was on it like a duck on a June bug. From the cache of tools in my toolbox, I soon had it skinned, gutted, and washed in the stream. Seasoned with the salt and pepper packets I stockpiled from my sack lunches, it was roasting on a tree-branch rotisserie in no time.
Leaving my fire, I crossed the stream and got on the dozer to walk it over. Pausing for a moment, I looked at the picturesque winter wonderland and felt like I was in the middle of a Christmas card. The crystallized flakes splashed off the naked branches and sparkled like Roman candles before joining their snowflake pals blanketing the forest floor. I didn’t want to disrupt the little stream’s serenity and decided to leave Big Bertha where she was and walked back.
Occasionally, one of the icy pellets found its way down my shirt collar, but for the most part the yellow slicker suit kept me dry. I squatted, turning my rabbit slowly over the flames. A break in the silence. Squinting, I saw a white man approaching on horseback.
He stopped his horse eight or ten feet from the fire and said amicably, “Hello there, how you doin? I could smell it cookin all over the woods.” Smiling, “All I had to do was follow my nose. Got enough to share?”
“Sure, come on an pull up a chair. It’s almost ready,” I answered, surprised that anyone was nearby but glad to have his company, even though I’d never seen him before. Noticing the long hair under his cowboy hat, I wondered how in the hell he managed to wear it that length when all the other cons at the unit had short GI haircuts like mine.
Finished with tying the reins around a spruce, he came over and squatted beside me, ungloved his hands and warmed them over the fire. “Merry Christmas to you, pardner,” he said.
“Same to ya.”
“Is that your dozer parked over yonder?”
“Yep. That’s Big Bertha.” He looked so familiar I had to ask, “You ever been to Longview?”
“A time or two.”
“How long you been down here?” I asked.
“Too long.”
We gazed into the flames and took turns picking off bits of the rabbit. “I thought everybody was in watchin the football game,” I said. “What’re you doin out here in the snow?”
“Roundin up some strays.”
“If you hadn’ smelled this rabbit, you might’ve missed one,” I joked.
I liked his easy-going style and got around to telling him about being out nine months earlier for my mother’s funeral, and “I talked to the parole man back in September but ain’t heard nothin yet. They get somebody all werewolfed up, then nothin. Nada. Zilch.”
He stopped chewing and said with an air of certainty, “Don’t worry bout a thang. You’ll make it.” We finished our rabbit feast. Putting his gloves back on, “I thank you for sharin with me. I guess I better be movin on. So long, pardner.”
“Yeah,” I said, “good luck with yo roundup.”
He mounted and headed back through the thicket. Stomping out the fire, I hollered out, “What’s yo name? What buildin you on?”
I guess he didn’t hear me, I thought, and resumed my fire stomping. It started snowing much harder so I climbed on Big Bertha waited until the boss came and took me in.
Monday evening when I got to the building, an inner-unit truck-mail envelope was on my bunk. When I opened it and saw the parole release slip inside, I got weak in the knees. The gift of gifts—I’d be out in less than a month.
Every morning when the trusties went out, I watched for my rabbit eating “pardner” to tell him the good news, but never did see him again. I finally gave up trying to find the ghost rider in the snow.
The day before my release I arrived at the Walls, and was ready for shakedown. The bunch of us who came in on Black Betty was quickly herded into the security station for the strip search, jammed inside the little room like cattle. Naked, we squirmed closer and closer to the doorway of a larger room where we would be searched. The guard stationed near the entry door hollered, “You bastards scrouge up in thar! I got sum more people waitin to git in heah.” Black Bettys were bringing them from other units to be released, transferred to a different unit, or assigned to this one.
Looking down the line while waiting my turn, I noticed those ahead inspected by the older guards moved through the line must faster. The younger bosses were more thorough. When my turn came, I stepped through and placed my belongings on the long counter in front of the young boss. As he watched I raised my arms, stuck out my tongue, turned around, bent over and spread my cheeks apart, and then turned back around to face him. He searched my clothes and shoved them aside, indicating it was okay to put them on. He banged my old brogans together and shoved them aside. I was almost finished buttoning my shirt and cramming my cigarettes and Zippo back in my pocket when he began to leaf through my composition tablets stacked on the counter.
“What’re these?” he asked.
“Just some tablets I’ve been keepin notes in, Boss.”
“How long you been here?”
“A long time, Boss, seventeen years altogether,” I answered on one foot, trying to hurry my other brogan on.
He read aloud from one of the tablets, “My life was spent in darkness. And then there was Light.” With a smart-ass smirk on his face, “Whut kinda shit is that?” he asked, and raked the tablets off the counter into the barrel with the rest of the things they’d confiscated. Then he tossed in the one he held in his hand. “You ought not have no trouble rememberin. Next!”
Five years of writing thrown in the trash. FUCK! But what could I do? I know what I wanted to do, leap across that table and kick his punk ass. With freedom only a day away, I sucked it up, shot him a “burnin hell” look and kept on stepping.