NO VOICE FROM THE PIT
It was a night of wakefulness and of tremors for Vaniman. His was the
acute expectancy of one who was about to set out on strange adventures,
but whose orders were sealed and whose destination was unknown. Wagg's
stolid appearance of knowing just what he was about had been a steadying
aid in helping the young man control his doubts; in issuing his final,
curt commands Wagg did not abate his confidence; Vaniman felt that he
was in no position to demand more candor.
He forced himself to eat his breakfast when it was pushed under his cell
door. The messes that were daily dabbed into the compartments of the tin
tray were never appetizing; that morning his emotions made everything
as tasteless as sawdust. But he ate for strength's sake; he did not know
what form of endurance would be demanded of him.
He put only a few of his letters into his pocket. Cells were inspected
every day after the convicts went forth to their toil. He did not
dare to excite suspicion by taking away any noticeable amount of his
possessions.
The forenoon work went on as usual. And Mr. Wagg gave no signs that this
was the day of days according to his plans. He constantly warned the
convicts not to meddle with any of the wires. He was even peremptorily
short with a deputy warden who came poking around. The warden asked if
there was any danger.
“There's always danger when a hill is full of wired-up, canned thunder,”
stated Mr. Wagg. “I maintain, as I always have maintained, that it's
notional stuff. You'll kindly remember that I told you so.”
The warden departed with an air that revealed how much he had been
impressed.
With the crisis so near, irritability pricked Vaniman's state of nervous
tension. He began to resent Wagg's contemptuous silence in regard to
details. That the guard's plans were concerned in some way with the
mined hillock was evident enough. But an explosion which merely would
create a diversion to assist in an escape was not a device that would
effectively solve his difficulties, Vaniman reflected. Wagg's general
stolidity made him seem rather stupid; the young man felt that his own
wits ought to be enlisted in the affair. In the stress of circumstances
he hankered to co-operate instead of being a sort of Ludlam's dog, dumb
and driven.
However, toward noon, Mr. Wagg was displaying a certain amount of
tension of his own and his demeanor did not invite complaints or
recrimination. The convict decided that there was nothing for it except
to let Mr. Wagg do the wagging.
When the noon bell clanged from the tower, the pit-job prisoners
filtered into groups from their occupation in the yard and others filed
from the doors of the shops. They shuffled their way in double lines
through the gaping door of the main building, received their tins of
food, and went to their cells.
As usual, Vaniman remained with Wagg.
The warders on the walls relaxed their vigilance when the heavy door was
closed behind the last men of the lines. The guards went into the sentry
boxes and set down the heavy rifles.
Wagg made a general survey of the scene. No person was moving in the
open area of the yard. The veteran of the guard was well acquainted with
the customary habits and movements of the noon hour. He knew that the
men in the main guardroom were reduced to a shift of two while the
others went to their dinners; the two men were in the habit of giving
the deserted yard only indifferent attention. But Mr. Wagg had provided
against even casual glances.
For purposes of his own, which a boss did not need to explain, he had
nailed boards together to form something like a door, six feet square.
The thing had been leaning against the dynamite shed for some days.
Quite casually, Mr. Wagg went and lifted away this square of boarding,
holding to the traverse braces on which the boards were nailed. He
trudged along, carrying it, and came to where Vaniman was standing,
observing and wondering.
“Scooch!” snapped Wagg. “Walk along. Don't show yourself past this
shield!”
It was a true shield. Wagg carried it straight up and down. Vaniman
obeyed instantly. He had a mental flash that Wagg did know exactly what
he was about in his tactics. Lacking all idea of the scheme, Vaniman
had not the heart to begin to ask for any details of the big plan at the
crucial moment. He allowed himself to be an automaton. It was easy to do
one thing at a time, as Wagg commanded; knowing nothing about what Wagg
intended to do. Vaniman was not in a position to delay matters by
doubts as to the best way of doing the thing. He walked behind the board
screen, conscious that his movements were hidden from the men in the
guardroom and, for that matter, from the eyes of anybody in the prison
building.
After a walk of a few rods Vaniman found himself close to a big chimney;
it served a shop which had been unused since the crew had been at work
on the job of filling the pit. Wagg set down the shield on its edge, as
if needing to rest for a moment.
“Open that chimney door and dodge in. Pull the door to behind you.”
At the base of the chimney Vaniman beheld the iron door provided for
the convenience of cleaners and repair men. The padlock of the door was
unhooked. He lifted the door from its latch, crawled into the chimney,
and pulled the door shut. A moment later, waiting in the stifling
darkness, he heard the rattle of metal against metal and the snap of the
padlock. There was the tramp of departing feet. Gradually he became
able to see about him in some degree. Away up above him was a square of
sunlit sky at the top of the shaft. He saw in one corner a large pail
with a cover; inside it were several bottles. Also, there was a bundle
of clothing.
Judging from the amount of food, it was rather evident that Mr. Wagg
expected prison-bird Two-Seven-Nine to play chimney swallow for some
little time!
Wagg had made a quick job of locking in Vaniman. The guard tipped the
upper edge of the shield inward till it rested against the chimney. He
reached around the end of the boarding and snapped the padlock. Then he
lifted his burden and went on.
About that time a lazy man in the guardroom rolled slow gaze upon the
yard. He saw Wagg moving with the burden and watched until Wagg laid it
down flat on the ground. He opined that it was a part of the
bomb-proof shelter that Wagg proposed to build in order to watch the
hillock-smashing at close range. The other guard confirmed that opinion,
having information straight from Wagg, himself.
“When does she bust?”
“Next week, so he cal'lates!”
But Mr. Wagg, returning slowly, keeping to the side of the pit farthest
from the hillock, was at that moment down to seconds in his figuring
how long it would be before the crawling fire on a fuse would reach and
sever a cord and trip a certain trigger.
“I reckon she's about due,” muttered Mr. Wagg. He stopped without easy
jumping distance of the corner of a shop and slowly lighted his pipe as
an excuse for stopping.
His reckoning was correct.
The hillock heaved. The mining had been skillfully done; the mass of
rocks and earth was hoisted from behind and slid toward the pit. There
was a tremor of the ground under the prison and its yard as if Thor
had thunked viciously with his heaviest hammer. When startled men shot
glances from the windows that were handiest for observation, the hill
was toppling into the pit. In the forefront was the dynamite shed,
splintering under the tons of moving rock. Instantly the last sliver
of the shed was swallowed up, and then other tons of dirt and rock went
piling into the pit, burying the shattered structure in crashing depths
from which lime-rock dust came puffing in clouds.
On the edge of the pit a man was dancing wildly in an aura of dust.
The man was Wagg. He came staggering away from the pit, his arms folded
across his eyes.
“I saw him!” he squalled, when officers met him in their race across the
yard from the prison. “He was in the shed. I told him to keep away from
them wires. I've been telling everybody to keep off'n them wires. But
everybody has been bound and determined to fool with 'em.” He pulled
down his arms and shot accusatory digit at the deputy warden whom he had
previously rebuked. “Only this day I had to warn you not to fool with
them wires. He must have done it. I saw him go under. It's Gawd-awful.
I'll never forget it--how he looked. Gimme water!”
He sucked from the edge of the tin dipper which a man brought, suffling
like a thirsty horse. He rolled up his eyes and surveyed the warden, who
had arrived.
“Number Two-Seven-Nine--you say he has gone?” The warden's countenance
registered honest horror; but Mr. Wagg's simulated horror was even more
convincing in its intensity.
“He's gone! He's under the whole of it!” Wagg dropped the dipper and
collapsed on the ground. “My nerve is all busted, Warden. I sha'n't ever
have any more grit to be a guard. I ask to be discharged. Here and now I
beg to be fired!”
“I'll arrange a furlough for you, Wagg,” said the warden, with
understanding sympathy. “You're entitled to a lay-off with pay. It was a
terrible thing to see!”
“And his mother!” mourned the guard. “Break it to her easy!”
“A dreadful--dreadful affair,” insisted the warden.
He started toward the edge of the pit. “And the prison commissioners,
the way state finances are, will never go to the expense of having all
that rock moved to dig him out.”
“Probably not, seeing that he's under the whole of it,” agreed Wagg.
“He was a likable chap, spite of what he had done to get in here. Poor
Two-Seven-Nine!”
One of the inside guards had arrived at the scene of mourning. He was
greatly excited. “And I guess it's poor Two-Eight-Two! He's missing from
the noon count-up, Mr. Warden!”
Wagg struggled upon his feet. He was not simulating the new phase of
his emotions. He looked distinctly frightened. “There's only one under
there. I saw him go. Who is Two-Eight-Two?”
“One of the pair sent down from Levant for breaking and entering in the
nighttime.”
“He wasn't in my crew--he wasn't on outdoor work,” shouted Wagg.
“What was his job?” demanded the warden.
“Harness shop,” reported an officer. He called to another guard and
started into the building indicated.
All those in the yard waited anxiously, their eyes on the door where
the guards had entered. Promptly the officers came out. One propelled
a convict, clutching the collar of the dingy prison coat; the other
carried a length of narrow ladder that was fashioned from strips of
leather. “I reckon he hid out to work on this,” said the guard.
“Didn't you know that you couldn't get away with anything of that sort?”
the warden demanded, angrily.
The convict looked past the warden, straight into the eyes of Wagg.
“You never can tell what you can get away with till you try it,”
Two-Eight-Two declared. There was a touch of insolence in his manner.
“Into the doghole with him!” the warden commanded.
Wagg surveyed the departure of the convict. The man contrived to twist
his head around and look behind him; and he disclosed a grin. But he was
hampered by the clutch on his collar and Wagg was not sure that the grin
was intended for him, though the consciousness that the convict might
have beheld what was on the inner side of that shield of boards was a
thought which troubled Mr. Wagg's complacent belief that a good job had
been well done.
He continued to watch the man until the narrow door which opened from
the yard, admitting to the doghole cells, swallowed up the convict and
his guard. All that time a sort of quivery feeling was inside Wagg. He
actually found himself in frantic mental search of some kind of a lie to
be used in case the convict whirled and pointed to the big chimney and
got over an accusation. But the man did not look around again.
“I can plainly see that you are in a bad way, Wagg,” affirmed the
warden. Fervently did Mr. Wagg agree in his heart. “Your leave of
absence dates from this moment, if you say so.”
“I may have to go on to stone work again if I don't get back my grit,
warden. I'd like to have the run of the yard for a day or so, in order
to look over just how that blast worked. Seeing that it cost a human
life, I'd like to get full value of experience out of it.”
“Come and go as you like, Wagg. I'll lend you a key to the small door
beside the wagon entrance in case you don't want to ring in through the
guardroom.”
Mr. Wagg expressed his gratitude in proper terms and allowed that he
would go and lie down for a time in order to calm himself. Again he
urged the warden to break the news gently to Vaniman's mother and
respectfully requested that Guard Wagg's sympathy be included in the
condolence in the official letter.
The newspapers of that afternoon contained an account of the tragic
happening at the state prison.
That night, too, Vona Harnden kept vigil, her door locked against her
mother, whose fatuous commonplaces of commiseration were like files
against the raw surface of the girl's agony.
The front parlor of the Harndens had been converted into a sleeping room
for Tasper Britt. Vona's room was over the parlor. She could hear the
rasping diapason of his snoring. He appeared to be sleeping with the
calm relaxation of a man who had been able to eliminate some especial
worries from his mind.
Furthermore, that night, the chairman of the prison commissioners had a
talk with the warden over the telephone. The warden made a guess as
to how many thousands of tons of rock were piled above the body of the
unfortunate victim.
“The taxpayers will never indorse the project of digging out that pit
to recover the body of a convict, no matter who he is,” declared the
commissioner. “I don't mean to sound brutal, but we must let it stand
as it is. Enter the reports of witnesses and declare the man officially
dead. Here is one case, at least, Mr. Warden, when there's no doubt
about a man being dead.”
However, shortly after twelve o'clock that night--and the night being
particularly black with an overcast sky--Bartley Wagg opened the iron
door of the big chimney and called forth Frank Vaniman and led him out
through the little door at the side of the carriage entrance.
There was a conveyance waiting there, a good-sized van, drawn by a
solid-looking horse. Mr. Wagg lifted the flap of the van's cover.
“Crawl in!” he commanded. “You'll find plenty of room along with the
rest of the camping kit. Roll yourself up in the tent and take it easy.
My nerves have been shocked by the terrible affair and I'm going into
the mountains to recuperate. Doctor's orders!” He was grimly serious.
He mounted the seat of the van and drove away with his passenger and the
outfit.