Shirley Murphy - The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

A T THE MOMENTLee fell, the cat appeared in the guard tower, solid and real. His sudden yowl startled the two guards; they swung around, rifles pointed. Misto, on the table, glared at them. Both men backed away, but then the short, stocky guard paused, grinning. “How did you get in here?”

The tall guard still fingered his rifle. “How could a cat get up here? Get it out of here, Willy. I don’t like cats. Where the hell did it come from?”

“It sure didn’t climb the wall,” Willy said. “Maybe followed us up the stairs when we came on shift. But there ain’t no cat in the prison,” he said, frowning. “I’ve never seen a cat around here.”

“Wild ones, outside the wall,” his tall companion said. “Why would one come in here? They run from people. What’s it want in here?”

Willy reached to stroke the golden cat. “It’s tame enough, Sam. Maybe it’s hungry. Hand me a sandwich.”

“No. That’s our supper, damn it.”

Willy laughed and stroked the cat’s ragged ears. “Tomcat. Been fighting.” His partner looked at Misto with distaste, their combined attention distracting both from the windows.

Misto held their attention, rolling over, hamming for Willy. He knew that Lee still lay sprawled on the blacktop, he knew when Morgan turned back to Lee. The tomcat, buying the few seconds the escapees needed, flirted with Willy, purring for him with all the charm he could muster. Sam watched them, disgusted.

G O ON ,” L EEhissed at Morgan. “Get the hell on, do it alone.” As the light swept back at him, probing like a giant beast, he buried his face in his jacket and tucked his hands under. In that short moment before the light hit him, he felt Morgan’s hand grab his. He stumbled up, Morgan pulling him into the dark.

They crouched against the wall, Lee hacking up phlegm, trying to stifle the sound. Damned lungs, everything he did, they screwed him up. Pressed tight into the wall’s curve, he could only pray the sweeping blaze would miss them. “You okay?” Morgan whispered.

“I need a minute. Find the holes.” He crouched trying to get his breath. The light was coming back. Quickly he wrapped his handkerchief around his hand to stop the bleeding. He couldn’t climb the rods with a blood-slick hand. By the time he got his hand bound, Morgan had set the first two pins. Lee patted the coil of rope tied to his belt, grabbed the top pin, and stepped up on the lower one. He took a third pin from Morgan and set it into the third hole. Clinging to the face of the wall, he climbed. He was soon eight feet up, then ten, Morgan, with his own three pins, pressing up behind him. The light swept by never touching them. They moved up and up, the lights racing behind not inches from their backs. They were more than halfway up when Lee reached down for a pin and felt it slip from his hand. He made a grab. It bounced in his hand and fell. He saw Morgan lean out and catch it. Morgan handed it up to him.

“Christ,” Lee breathed. “Lucky.”

“I didn’t make any spares,” Morgan whispered, and Lee hoped he was lying. Soon the top of the wall was some six feet above him. His leg muscles had begun to quiver, and as he positioned the next pin to push it in the hole, it resisted. He could feel the paint break away but the rod wouldn’t go in. He tried again, thrusting so hard he nearly unbalanced himself. Tried again, but the damn thing wouldn’t go. He slipped it back under his belt and felt the hole with his finger. It felt too small, as if maybe the cement had sagged when the original pin was pulled away with the form. His holding hand was numb, his hold precarious. Switching hands, the wrapped hand slick again with blood, he looked down at Morgan. “I can’t get the damn thing in.”

“Try again. Maybe there’s something in the mouth of the hole. Break it away.”

Again he switched hands, lined up the pin, drew it back and hit the opening. It bounced off. He lined up again, spit on the wall, hit the hole with all the force in him.

The pin drove in and wedged tight.

No way he could get it out, but they were nearly over, they wouldn’t need it now. With the last step set in place, Lee eased up onto the two-foot-wide concrete. Lying on his belly staring down at the prison yard and the sweeping lights, he unfastened the rope from his belt, slipped the looped end over the top peg, and dropped the free end down the outside. His wrapped hand wet with blood, he grabbed the rope with both hands and slid off, his feet against the wall, dropped hand over hand down the outside. He thought he’d never reach the bottom but at last his feet touched the ground. Above him Morgan was halfway down.

Morgan landed beside him, they lay hidden in the weeds among rusted cans, catching their breath, listening.

The night was still, no alarm blared. The diffused spill of light above the wall continued back and forth but softer now, unthreatening. To their right the automobile plant was bright, big spotlights mounted on poles inside its tall wire fence, gleaming off rows of new cars that awaited shipment. As their eyes adjusted to the dark they could see woods beyond and, nearer, just across the weedy field, what looked like the signal pole beside the shine of railroad tracks. Beyond ran an empty street, no cars, no headlights moving in either direction. Crouching, slipping through the weeds, stumbling among unidentifiable trash, they headed for the lone pole.

Lee kept watch as Morgan searched, watched him pull a muddy gunnysack out of the weeds, haul out a canvas bag with a drawstring top. Morgan had started to open it when Lee heard the faint sound of the train, quickly growing louder, approaching fast.

“We won’t have time to change clothes.” Lee grabbed the bundle from Morgan, tied it to his waist as the rocking sound of iron wheels came at them. “Drop,” Lee snapped, and the engine broke out of the woods.

They lay belly down, the single headlight sweeping the weeds above them. The whistle screamed, screamed again, and as the engine passed the signal pole, the train reduced speed, boxcars bucking against each other. “Come on,” Lee said, “follow me. Do what I do. Be quick, don’t hesitate. We’re headed up on top.” He broke into a fast trot as the train continued to slow. He picked a car, grabbed a rung on the steel ladder and jumped, landed safe on the bottom rung.

He climbed fast, glancing down to see that Morgan had made it, then sprawled on his belly atop the boxcar. Morgan slid up beside him. They lay flat, faces hidden as the train crept past the automobile plant, past the high prison wall and guard towers and then through a dark industrial area that smelled of gas fumes. Lee shoved the bundle at Morgan, then wriggled to the edge of the boxcar to look down.

Below him the door was ajar some two inches. “Hang tight until I get down, then hand me the bundle.”

He reached down, grabbed the rail that ran along the top of the sliding door, and swung over the side. Raising his legs, he pushed the door open with his feet, swallowing back the cough in his lungs. Before he swung inside, Morgan handed the bundle down and then followed him.

They changed clothes inside the boxcar, checking first behind half a dozen big crates, but there was no one else aboard. They rolled their prison blues into a ball and threw them into the weeds along the track. The soft, worn jeans and dark wool shirts felt good. Becky had put in heavy, lined jackets, thick gloves, and wool socks. The worn boots she had found fit just fine. They kept their prison shoes for spares, shoving them in the bag. The money was in their left-hand jeans pockets, she had split it half and half, three hundred dollars each and change. A little over six hundred dollars to get them across the country and pay the lawyer—if some slime didn’t catch them off guard and take them down. The train rolled around the edge of the city past office buildings with softly lit windows, past a church spire whose bell tolled nine o’clock, striking counterpoint to the slow clacking of the train. “Evening count’s been taken,” Lee said. “They know we’re gone.”