Jailbreak Read Online Free Page B

being a horse thief. I’m damned if I don’t half believe it.”
    “Wasn’t horses,” he said. “Was cattle.”
    I was glad to see him having a good day for a change.
    We got a break that evening for supper. Buttercup had drunk himself senseless and was sprawled out on his bunk just off the kitchen snoring like a bawling calf. As a consequence the Mexican women served us a good meal of roast beef and gravy and pinto beans and sliced tomatoes. Even as irritated as I was at Norris, I was able to enjoy it.
    Ben said, “Oh, Justa, you are always worrying. You reckon if you’re not leading the whole bunch of us around by the hand we’re liable to fall over dead. My Gawd, you are worse than a mother hen.”
    Dad had felt well enough to join us at table. He said, “Now, now, Ben. Your brother has got considerable on his mind, what with the wedding and all. I fear he reckons his bossing days are coming to an end and he wants to get his licks in while he can.”
    “Very funny, Howard,” I said. But I was glad to see him teasing. It showed his strength was rallying. Though how anyone could have had much strength in the heat wave we were having was beyond me. I said, “Oh, I’m not really worried about Norris. I’m just mad he didn’t follow orders. But, other than getting robbed, I can’t see how he can get in much trouble in Mexico.”
    “Whosh in trubble in Mesico?”
    It was Buttercup. He’d woke up and come staggering into the dining room carrying a cup of what was supposed to be coffee, but what I suspected was about half whiskey. I said, “Buttercup, get the hell out of here and go sleep it off.”
    He said, “You tell me whosh in trubble in Mesico. By Gawd, Ah’ll take my Sharps ’n’ go down ’ere an fis they wagon.”
    Ben said, “Hell, old man, you can’t even talk. How you going to fix anyone’s wagon?”
    Buttercup wagged a finger at Ben. “You jus’ watch you mouth, young feller. An’ quit ’at Buttercup stuff.”
    His real name was Butterfield, Charlie Butterfield, but we’d started calling him Buttercup as soon as we’d found out it irritated him. He had taught every one of us to shoot and he was, without a doubt, the best long-distance shot I’d ever seen. He had an old .50 caliber buffalo gun that, as he said, “killed at both ends.” It would kill whatever you hit with it, be it a cat or a railroad locomotive. It would also make you think you’d been hit in the shoulder by a stump. The few times I’d fired it I’d brushed my teeth left-handed the next morning. How an old, dried-up, scrawny scarecrow like Charlie could still shoot it and make shots of up to four hundred yards was a mystery none of us could solve.
    Dad said, “Charlie, why don’t you go on back to bed. Get a little rest.”
    Buttercup got up, but he said, “Naw, nearly suppertime. I got to go cook for you boys.”
    Then he lurched out of the dining room and into the kitchen.
    I got up quickly. I said, “I’m getting the hell out of here before he does manage to cook something.”
    Dad said, “Somebody ought to go in the kitchen and get him to bed. That stove would still be hot and he could burn himself.”
    I said, “Ben, you do that.”
    I left the room before he could say a word.
    That evening I sat on the porch in the cool of the night. I was drinking a little whiskey and smoking a cigarillo. Far off in the distance I could hear the nine o’clock passenger train blowing for the crossing outside of Blessing. Between the whiskey and the cool night air I was feeling more than a little bit peaceful. If I could just get those damn roof tiles and get that damn contractor back to work I wouldn’t have a care in the world.
    Two days later I got another telegram. Only this one was from Jack Cole. It said:

    BETTER COME QUICK STOP NORRIS IN JAIL IN MONTERREY STOP FIND ME IN LAREDO STOP

    I looked at it a long time and then I started cussing. Norris had managed to get himself in jail in Mexico. About the worse