Damnation Road Read Online Free PDF

eh?”
    â€œMilton wasn’t what I had in mind,” Gamble said. “It has something more to do with freedom.”
    â€œYou picked a peculiar occupation, then.”
    â€œI didn’t pick it,” Gamble said. “It picked me.”
    Smith smiled.
    â€œWell, you have a rest from it,” he said. “Take your ease. I’ll be back to check on you every few days, to make sure you are mending.”
    â€œSo as not to cheat the hangman,” Gamble said.
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    The next afternoon, the horse thief came slinking over and sat down with his back against the bars of Gamble’s cell.
    â€œFiddler,” he said. “It’s me, Mickey Dray.”
    â€œWhat?” Gamble asked tiredly.
    â€œYou and me are going to bust out of here.”
    â€œHow do you reckon that?”
    â€œBecause we’re the only two with dash enough to try it,” the boy said. “From what I read about you in the papers, you are the original blue-eyed demon from Missouri, the genuine article, the real deal.”
    â€œYeah, that’s me all right. Just to figure the odds, has anybody ever broken out of here?”
    â€œYou bet,” Dray said. “Bill Doolin did it.”
    â€œI have a picture postcard of what became of him after. He looked well ventilated.”
    â€œShame about Bill all right,” Dray said. “But he was just too nice of a guy. Do you know he never actually killed anybody in all his robbing and thieving? Actually took pride in that fact. What kind of an outlaw is that?”
    â€œAnd how many men have you killed, Mickey Dray?”
    â€œI told you, I’m a horse thief,” he said. “You’re the man killer. That’s why we make such a great team. Hell, most of the humanity locked up with us are in for charges that require not an ounce of courage—bringing liquor into the nations, for instance, or forgery and counterfeiting. How much guts does it take to pass a forged check?”
    Dray lowered his voice.
    â€œAnd there’s this other thing,” he said. “Horse stealing and killing bounty hunters carry the same penalty in Oklahoma Territory. It comes at the end of a rope.”
    â€œThen why steal horses?”
    â€œHell, fiddler. It’s the only thing I’m good at.”
    Gamble took a deep breath.
    â€œAll right. How did Doolin bust out?”
    â€œI wasn’t here then, but I’ve studied enough about it to be an authority, I reckon,” he said. “You see, there is one jailer—that is Comley, whom you’ve already heard about—and he is on duty from six in the morning to six at night. He has four guards, two on the day shift and two at night.
    â€œIt was a Sunday evening in July, and the guards on duty were Joe Miller and J. T. Tull. It was along about nine o’clock and the inmates were getting cups of water for the night from the bucket over there by the door. There was this one inmate called George Lane, half Cherokee and half black, and he reached through like he was going to cut himself a cup of water, but instead he grabbed one of the jailers, Tull, and pinned him against the bars.
    â€œThe other guard, Joe Miller, was unarmed and inside the bullpen, keys in hand, attending to some business or other. When he saw that Tull was in trouble, he made a dash for the open door of the bull pen—but Doolin beat him to the door and slammed it in his face. Then he got Miller’s gun, a pearl-handled .45 Colt, from the box in receiving and trained it on Tull and made him work the combination locks in the boxes, opening all the cell block doors.”
    â€œAll of the cells can be unlocked by removing the combination locks in the steel boxes?”
    â€œRight,” Dray said. “And Doolin had the key to the big front doors from Miller. The only problem Doolin encountered was a trustee by the name of Dean sitting at the desk in the receiving area. Dean moved to help