Slocum's Breakout Read Online Free PDF Page A

he had to do with them, the better chance he had to stay out of solitary.
    Then he saw the problem rising up in front of him and tried to veer away. Mick wasn’t having any of it.
    â€œYou!” the huge man bellowed. “I got a bone to pick with you!”
    Slocum knew any confrontation with the enraged inmate would land them both in solitary again. He doubted Valenzuela and Murrieta would wait another month to escape now that he had gotten them together, matching the tool with a plugged way out through the wall.
    A quick look around showed he was in big trouble. Three guards, including the sergeant with his ledger book tucked under his arm, were all homing in on him, hawks with the pigeon reflected in their eyes. Slocum saw no way of avoiding the angry inmate. He wasn’t afraid of Mick but was of being tossed into solitary again.
    â€œI don’t want to fight,” Slocum said, but he would if it came to that. Better to knock this stupid son of a bitch down again and end up in solitary than to crawl. There’d be another chance for him to escape from San Quentin, though he had no idea when or what it would be.
    There would be plenty of time to think up something if he had to waste away for a week or two in the dark, cold subterranean cell.
    Slocum balled his fists, judged the distance as the bull of a man charged toward him, and then simply stared when Mick fell facedown in the dirt. His feet kicked feebly, and he tried to get to his hands and knees. He didn’t make it because Doc swung a rock he clutched in his hand again and caught Mick behind his ear a second time. Blood gushed from the double cuts.
    â€œTake that! You can’t say a thing like that. You can’t insult me no way, no how!” Doc turned and held up the bloody rock as the guards swerved from circling Slocum and went to him.
    â€œYou know better ’n to hit a man from behind, Doc,” the sergeant said, flipping open the book. The guard scanned the pages, turning them quickly. He finally looked up. “It was last time you were in that you got into trouble. But it was for gambling. What happened, Doc? You want to spend the rest of your life behind these walls?”
    â€œHe cheated me, Sergeant Wilkinson,” Doc said, trying to kick a still unconscious Mick. The guards pulled him away. He began cursing and kicking, trying to get free to continue his assault on a man three times his weight and half again his height. As the guards took him away, Doc craned around, stared squarely at Slocum, and winked broadly.
    â€œYou old fool,” Slocum muttered under his breath. But he wasn’t going to pass up the chance Doc had given him.
    Only he was in almost as big a mess as if he had been dragged off to solitary. Valenzuela had told him that Doc would help get him free that night so the four of them could escape. That there were three now wasn’t the problem. Doc’s knowledge of how to get free of the cell when the time came was.
    Four guards picked up Mick and lugged him to solitary. Slocum heaved a sigh of relief at that. The ornery hunk of gristle would be out of his hair for a spell. With any kind of luck, Slocum would be on the other side of the towering prison walls by the time Mick got free.
    He felt a touch of admiration for Doc, then knew the old geezer’s life would be shortened. Mick wasn’t the kind to let a sneak attack go unanswered.
    The bell rang, warning him that exercise time was over. He walked deliberately toward the cell block, his mind racing. There had to be something he could do to get free that night. What skills did Doc have that he didn’t? What knowledge of the prison and its system? As he pushed through a door, scraping against another inmate whose sleeve had caught on a nail head protruding from the doorjamb, an idea came to him. He wasn’t sure that this was what Doc would have done, but it was all he could think of.
    Every step of the way to his cell,