JC2 The Raiders Read Online Free PDF

firm grip. "I
am pleased to meet you." He turned to Nevada. "Hello,
Nevada. It's good to see you again."
    "H'lo, Maurie," said Nevada.

2

    It was true that Nevada Smith and Morris Chandler went back a long
way, back in fact to September 21, 1900. They met in a state prison
camp just outside Plaquemine, Louisiana. Morris Chandler was then
Maurice Cohen. Nevada Smith was Max Sand.
    That day was the worst day of Chandler's whole
life. He had arrived from Baton Rouge on the back of a wagon —
chained to the back of the wagon. In the yard, in view of anyone
interested, he'd had to strip and put on a prison uniform:
black-and-white-striped pants and a shirt much too large for him.
Then he'd sat on a bench, put his legs on an anvil, and watched in
horror as a guard riveted shackles on his ankles: steel bands
joined by about a foot and a half of chain, with a large steel ring
in the middle. They gave him no shoes, and he was barefoot as he
lurched across the yard toward the warden's office.
    The warden was a big ruddy-faced man who wore round steel-rimmed
spectacles and now pulled them off as he squinted over a paper that
had been handed him by a deputy. He read what was on the paper and
looked up. His face was not unkind, not even stern. He shook his
head.
    "Boy," he said, "you gotta be some kind of dumb. Some
kind of dumb to get yourself a year in a place like this for no
more'n the petty racket you was runnin'." He shook his head
again. "Jew-boy from N'Yawk. That ain' gonna make it no easier
for you, boy."
    "He's a fancy dude." The deputy laughed. "Prettiest
little suit of clothes you ever see. Celluloid collar. Pink satin
necktie. High button shoes, with spats. An' he greased his hair down
with some kind of stickum that smelt like geraniums. Personally, I
like him better in what he's got on now. Th'other way kind of made a
man sick."
    The warden read from the sheet of paper. " 'Maurice Cohen. Grand
larceny by fraud.' Hell, boy, you shoulda robbed a bank. You'd had a
better chance of gettin' some real money, and you'd done better time
here. Ol' boys'd respect you if you was a bank robber. You gonna do
bad time, Maurice Cohen."
    Maurie trembled. He was on the verge of tears. He was afraid his legs
would fail him and he would fall on the floor.
    "Well, okay then," said the warden. "Mike, you take
him out and give him ten stripes. Then he can have his dinner."
    "Ten stripes!" Maurie shrieked. "Why? What have I done to get — Sir! Sir! Why?"
He wept, and his words blubbered out of him. "Oh, please ..."
    "Insurance," said the warden gently. "Seems like a man
that gets ten the first day behaves better and doesn't think about
tryin' to escape. Some way, they remember the feel of it, an' it
makes better men of 'em."
    Mike was a huge Negro. He was a trusty. As he led Maurie out across
the porch and toward the whipping post in the middle of the yard, he
spoke quietly. "Don' you worry none, boy," he said. "I'm
very good at what I do. It ain' gonna hurt like what you think."
    The big black man ordered him to strip off his uniform. He couldn't
of course get his pants all the way off; he could only drop them down
to his leg irons. When Mike lashed him to the post, Maurie was naked.
He had an hour to stand there, bound to the post, before the work
gangs came in and assembled in the yard to watch the whipping.
    The convicts found him a curious figure. He was a little man, short
and slight, and his skin was almost white. Many of them had never
seen a circumcised man before, and they walked around him, staring
and commenting —
    — "Jeez Chrass! Somebody's cut th' end
off him!"
    — "God, it must hurt like hell t' have
that done!"
    — "It's what the Jews do. Talks about
it in the Babble. Y' ever read the Babble, y'd find out where it
tells the Jews to cut their boy babies like that."
    — "Makes m' flesh crawl!"
    Hanging in his bonds, Maurie saw a man as bad off as he was: naked as
he was and locked inside a small cage in the middle of the