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

“As soon as Morgan’s conscious long enough to talk,” Lee said. “As soon as he can tell us. I knew nothing until I saw him on the stretcher, headed for the infirmary. They wouldn’t let me near him.”

“As for what you did to Falon, ” Storm said, his gray eyes amused, “I don’t know anything about that.”

“While they search for the money,” Lee said, “will Falon’s transfer be postponed?”

“I’d guess it would. In the morning I’ll talk with Warden Iverson.” Rising, Storm picked up his briefcase.

“And you’ll call Becky?” Lee said, pushing back his chair. “Tell her Morgan’s hurt? You can break it to her more gently than when the prison calls. Tell her I’m . . .” He winced at the inadequacy of saying he was sorry. There were no words to undo what had happened. Lee had talked Morgan into this trip, into harassing Falon. He might have talked Morgan into his last trip. Sure as hell, Becky would see it that way.

Leaving the interviewing room, Lee shook Storm’s hand, mighty thankful for the day he’d flipped through the L.A. phone book and, with luck and the grace of God, had gotten through to Reginald Storm.

But, stepping out into the hall where the guard stood waiting, Lee wondered if he’d had other help as well. Wondered, as crazy as it seemed, if the yellow tomcat had guided his hand as he ran his finger down the page of that battered phone book and stopped at the name Storm.

Then he wondered if Sammie already knew about her daddy. Had she waked seeing Morgan on the stretcher, awakened from her dream crying out for him?

Returning to his cell, lying back listening to the foghorns, all he could do now was wait—wait until the bureau interrogated Falon, wait until the feds had found the money—hope to hell they’d find it. Wait until he could see Morgan. Wait, and try not to think how this would all end.

38

A SINGLE LIGHT BURNEDbehind the hospital bed, illuminating the white bandage that circled Morgan’s scalp. Light caught across his stubble of beard and picked out the IV tube that ran down his arm, draining through a needle into the vein of his wrist. Lee couldn’t see Morgan breathing, couldn’t see the blanket move, but each time he laid his fingers along Morgan’s free wrist he found a faint pulse. Morgan had been unconscious all night and it was now nearly noon, the high sun slanting down through the half-closed Venetian blinds of the small hospital room. Lee sat in a wooden chair beside the bed, his knees pressed against the metal rail, talking; he’d been talking most of the night. Except for a short break to eat the breakfast an orderly had brought him, and for a brief nap on the other bed. A few minutes’ sleep, then he’d risen to groggily feel Morgan’s pulse and to start talking again.

He had no idea if Morgan could hear him. The constant effort wearied him, but Dr. McClure had said to keep talking; he said the sound of Lee’s voice could be a lifeline for Morgan. Said the contact between Lee’s voice and whatever within Morgan was alert enough to listen might keep him from sinking deeper into an oblivion from which he could not return.

Lee had no idea if that was so. He had no idea how much the medical profession really knew, and how much they could only guess. Dr. McClure was a strange man. You’d think a prison doc would be hardened, that after the twenty years he said he’d spent at T.I., he wouldn’t give a damn who lived and who died. But McClure’s sad, dark eyes under those bushy brows had shown Lee a whole world of caring inside that middle-aged, pudgy man. “Talk to him, Fontana. If you’re his friend and you want to help him live, talk to him and keep talking.”

“But he can’t—”

“You don’t know what he can hear. There’s a lot in this world we don’t know, maybe a lot we’ll never know. I say he can hear you and that talking to him might keep him alive. Sit here and talk, as long as you can, no matter how foolish that seems.”

So Lee talked. McClure had gotten permission for him to stay with Morgan. The orderlies and male nurses moved around Lee doing their work, silently accepting his presence. Lee told Morgan over and over that Falon had spilled, had confessed where the money was hidden. He just hoped Falon wasn’t lying. He told Morgan that FBI and GBI agents were already on their way up Turkey Mountain Ridge to look for the evidence, for the proof that could clear Morgan—that could put Falon on trial for the robbery and murder. In between telling him about Falon, Lee talked about anything he could think of just to keep going; he dredged up memories that, after several hours, turned his voice rough and straining.

He told Morgan about life in South Dakota when he was a kid, how he broke his first colt when he was eight. How he’d hobbled the youngster, dragged an old jacket over his neck and back and legs until the colt no longer snorted and bolted, how the colt finally settled down to lead. He told Morgan about spring roundup, how the steers and cows would hide among the mesquite or down in a draw and you had to rout them out. How the ranchers all helped each other rounding up the cattle, separating out their own stock during branding. The scenes of roundup came back so clearly, he recalled scanning the far hills where you could barely pick out a few head of steers, watching them slip away among the brush as a rider or two eased after them. He could still hear the calves bawling during the sorting and branding, could still smell the burning hair and skin under the smoking iron, though it didn’t hurt them but for a minute or two.

Sometimes, as Lee talked, he was aware of another presence, a warmth between the comatose man and himself, the touch of rough fur against his hand, and he could hear soft purring as the ghost cat pressed against Morgan. It seemed to Lee then that he could see the faintest of color in Morgan’s white, cold cheeks. Lee knew as well when the ghost cat had gone and wondered if he was with Sammie. He remembered Morgan’s description of Sammie’s sickness when Morgan, after the bank robbery, had been left drugged and unconscious in the backseat of his car, and Sammie herself was unable to stay awake. Now, with Morgan in a coma, was the child again lost in darkness? As Lee kept talking, hoping to reach Morgan, was he reaching out to Sammie, too?

He told Morgan about his first train jobs, when he was barely seventeen, described how his chestnut mare would race alongside the engine keeping close to it as he dove off her back onto a moving car, how he’d taught her to follow the train, waiting for him. He tried to explain the fascination of the old steam trains, to describe his excitement when he, just a kid, was able to stop a whole train and haul away its riches. He told Morgan that was the life he’d always wanted, that he’d had no choice—but he knew that wasn’t true. No matter what you longed for, you always had a choice.

Late on the second afternoon as dusk crept into the hospital room, Morgan stirred. His free hand moved on the covers, but then went still again. His eyes slit open for an instant unfocused, but then closed. At the same moment the shadows grew heavy around them. Suddenly Lee’s rambling voice sounded hollow, sucked into emptiness. The walls had vanished into shadows, the floor had dissolved except for the one ragged section that held Morgan’s bed and Lee’s chair. They drifted in dark and shifting space.

And Morgan woke, staring at something behind Lee.

Lee turned to face the dark presence looming over them, its cold seeping into Lee’s bones. Morgan’s hand, then his whole body, grew so cold that Lee scrambled to reach for the call button.

“They won’t hear it,” said the dark spirit.