Slocum's Breakout Read Online Free PDF

Slocum worried at the cuff of his canvas uniform, pulling a thread free and rolling it up into a ball. Part of the canvas had come away. He added this to the ball and smeared dirt and grease from his fingers on the thread.
    â€œInside, Jarvis,” a guard said, shoving him forward when he hesitated.
    â€œI can’t go in again. I can’t!”
    The guard shoved again. Slocum caught himself against the edge of the door and jammed the ball of thread into the latch, hiding what he did with his body. Before the guard could use his truncheon to move him inside, Slocum swung around and stepped into the cell on his own. The door slammed shut, iron ringing from the force used by the guard to close it.
    Slocum grabbed the bars and held on to keep the door from swinging back out. He had listened hard and knew what the guard didn’t. The thread had prevented the door from latching properly. The guard grunted and moved on to Valenzuela’s cell to be sure the door was secured. Slocum wrapped his arms around the bars and used his weight to hold the iron-barred door shut until the guards had left.
    Carefully releasing his death grip, fearing he might have caused the door to lock in spite of the way he had jammed it, Slocum watched the door swing open a few inches. He caught it but held tight until a dark form moved in front of his cell.
    â€œYou are free?” Valenzuela pressed close. “I cannot open the door for you.”
    Slocum let the cell door swing wide.
    â€œBueno,” Valenzuela said. “We are to meet Murrieta in the garden.”
    â€œYou sure the pickax is still there?”
    Valenzuela shrugged eloquently.
    â€œIf it is not, we use our fingernails to claw through.”
    â€œCan we do this with only three?”
    â€œWe must dig faster, perhaps not be so stealthy.” Valenzuela moved like a ghost past the cells. Slocum worried that a prisoner might see them and shout out an alarm. Two guards played cards at a table near the door leading out to the exercise yard. The guttering candle on the table between them hardly lit the table, much less the area where they slipped through shadows.
    Slocum grabbed Valenzuela by the arm and pointed. Valenzuela shook his head and pointed to a doorway some distance from the card-playing guards. They reached the door without either guard noticing. Valenzuela rattled the door handle a few times, then sprung the flimsy lock. He slipped inside, Slocum pressing close behind.
    â€œThere. We go down,” Valenzuela said. “I have seen storage cellars. From there we can get out of this building.”
    Slocum doubted it would be that easy, but to his surprise it was. They passed through the storage room, found a window leading up to ground level, and wiggled through it, coming out only a dozen yards from the inmates’ vegetable garden. The scent of growing things caused Slocum’s nostrils to flare. It had been too long since he’d had such earthy aroma in his nose. The musty, solitary cell had been suffocating in its closeness, and the larger cell with Doc had been hardly better.
    The wind fitfully caused waist-high plants to sway gently. Slocum considered how he might take cover in the vegetation if a guard came by. The rows were far enough apart that he might be seen, but the dark of the moon gave added benefit to anyone trying not to be seen.
    â€œThere, up on the wall,” Valenzuela said, pointing.
    Slocum saw a guard walking slowly by. His silhouette was indistinct, but he seemed to be carrying a rifle in the crook of his left arm. There was no way to tell what he was looking at, but he continued along the catwalk, turned a distant corner, and vanished from sight. Slocum let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding.
    â€œWhere’s the pick?”
    â€œAt the end of this row,” Valenzuela said. “Where is Murrieta?”
    â€œHere,” came the soft voice.
    Slocum jumped. He had not heard Procipio