Read The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 1 for Free Online Page B

hesitation now. “How … how much would it take?” he asked.
    â€œA hundred,” Otteson suggested, “not more than two. If we had that much we could be free.”
    Free … no walls, no guards, no stinking food. No sweating one’s life out with backbreaking labor under the blazing sun. Free … women, whiskey, money to spend … the click of poker chips, the whir of the wheel, a gun’s weight on the hip again. No beatings, no solitary, no lukewarm, brackish drinking water. Free to come and go … a horse between the knees … women …
    He said it finally, words they had waited to hear. “There’s the army payroll. We could get that.”
    The taut minds of Otteson, Rodelo, and Isager relaxed slowly, easing the tension, and within the mind of each was a thought unshared.
    Gold … fifteen thousand in gold coins for the taking! A little money split four ways, but a lot of money for one!
    Otteson leaned his bullet head nearer. “Tomorrow night”—his thick lips barely moved as he whispered—“tomorrow night we’ll go out. If we wait longer they’ll have the wall repaired.”
    â€œThere’s been guards posted ever since the quake,” Rodelo protested.
    Otteson laughed. “We’ll take care of them!” From under the straw mattress he drew a crude, prison-made knife. “Rydberg can take care of the other with his belt.”
    Cunningly fashioned of braided leather thongs, it concealed a length of piano wire. When the belt was removed and held in the hands it could be bent so the loop of the steel wire projected itself, a loop large enough to encircle a man’s head … then it could be jerked tight and the man would die.
    Rodelo leaned closer. “How far to the gold?”
    â€œTwenty miles east. We’ll need horses.”
    â€œGood!” Otteson smashed a fist into a palm. “East is good! They’ll expect us to go west into California. East after the gold, then south into the desert. They’d never dream we’d try that! It’s hot as sin and dry as Hades, but I know where the water holes are!”
    Their heads together, glistening with sweat in the hot, sticky confines of their cells, they plotted every move, and within the mind of three of the men was another plot: to kill the others and have the gold for himself.
    â€œWe’ll need guns.” Rydberg expressed their greatest worry. “They’ll send Indians after us.”
    The Indians were paid fifty dollars for each convict returned alive—but they had been paid for dead convicts, too. The Yaquis knew the water holes, and fifty dollars was twice what most of them could make in a month if they could find work at all.
    â€œWe’ll have the guns of the two guards. When we get to Rocky Bay, we’ll hire a fisherman to carry us south to Guaymas.”
    Â 
    The following day their work seemed easy. The sun was broiling and the guards unusually brutal. Rydberg was knocked down by a hulking giant named Johnson. Rydberg just brushed himself off and smiled. It worried Johnson more than a threat. “What’s got into him?” he demanded of the other guards. “Has he gone crazy?”
    Perryman shrugged. “Why worry about it? He’s poison mean, an’ those others are a bad lot, too. Otteson’s worst of all.”
    â€œHe’s the one I aim to get,” Johnson said grimly, “but did you ever watch the way he lifts those rocks? Rocks two of us couldn’t budge he lifts like they were so many sacks of spuds!”
    It was sullen dark that night; no stars. There was thunder in the north and they could hear the river. The heat lingered and the guards were restless from the impending storm. At the gap where the quake had wrecked the wall were Perryman and Johnson. They would be relieved in two hours by other guards.
    They had been an