On the Yard Read Online Free PDF Page A

cents on cigarettes, candy bars, and a bottle of Royal Crown Cola.
    A key sounded, and Stick looked up from his drawing to watch a mild-looking deputy standing in the open courtroom door. The hands holding a clipboard were slender and well kept. Stick’s eyes narrowed scornfully. He stared at the black gloss of the deputy’s boots.
    â€œHenry Jackson?” the deputy called from a typewritten list.
    â€œYessir, tha’s me.”
    â€œYou’re first at bat, Henry. Take off your cap and come along.”
    Jackson snatched off his paint-stained golfer’s cap and stuck it in his back pocket. “Yessir,” he said again, this time with a hint of derisive broadness. He winked a yellowish eye and grinned over his shoulder at the men behind him. “Here we goes,” he said.
    â€œPlay it Tom,” Nunn advised.
    â€œOh, yes, I plays it Tom.”
    When the door closed behind the deputy and Henry Jackson, Stick turned back to his drawing and began to trace a hairline mustache on the Vampire like the one he wore himself, although his own was as much burnt match as it was whisker.
    The youngest General leaned over to whisper, “What you think they’re gunna do to us?” He looked at the door. “Out there?”
    â€œI told you not to worry about that.”
    â€œYeah, I know, but I keep wondering—”
    Stick regarded his Generals calmly. “Does it matter?” he asked softly, his ear appreciatively tuned to the coolness of his voice. “Does it matter what they do?”
    â€œNo, but I can’t help—”
    â€œThat’s right,” Stick broke in. “It doesn’t matter. They get their licks in now. We get ours later.” He nodded with confident emphasis, and hooked his thumb at the door leading to the courtroom. “And these crud, and all the crud like them, will get scraped up in the street and shoved into the sewers.”
    The Generals nodded in hopeful agreement. For a moment they appeared as pleased as children who have been promised a favorite treat.
    Again the door opened. Henry Jackson stepped through, still smiling, though now his smile seemed numb.
    â€œWhat’d you get?” Nunn asked.
    â€œWell, I got enough,” Henry Jackson said, pulling a crushed and broken cigarette butt from his shirt pocket. He looked at the butt, saw it couldn’t be lit, and dropped it to the floor. “But not so much I cain’t hack it,” he continued. “Iffen the man figures he’s got it coming I guess I can do it.”
    â€œI guess you will do it,” Nunn said.
    â€œAin’t no guessin to that, is there, pops? When the man sticks time to your ass you better be able to do it.”
    â€œYou can hack it. You’ve worn out beefs before.”
    â€œThat’s the troof.”
    Again the key sounded, and this time Stick heard the deputy calling their names. He stood up briskly and motioned the Generals into line behind him. They marched into the courtroom, but the martial and menacing effect Stick had planned failed when the youngest General was unable to keep in step. They lined up beneath the bench at attention, largely ignoring their parents seated in the first row beyond the rail. The lawyer hired by their parents made a brief speech, but Stick didn’t listen. He concentrated on the judge’s eyes. He wanted this judge to remember him as he intended to remember the judge. He knew his own eyes were charged with power, a cold power, and he drilled his icy strength into the judge’s brain until he could send his thoughts like commands ...
    â€”Let the Vampire go, he willed the judge to say.
    Then he heard the judge sentencing them to the state prison. His head jerked back as if the judge had hit him, and the youngest General was crying openly. Stick heard his mother calling his name in that same tearful whine he hated so much, and he ignored her now as he had so often before.
    Then the