Slocum's Breakout by Jake Logan Page A

and if he had half a brain, he would leave when Murrieta and the others went to sleep that night. From everything he had seen, the village was less a farming community than an armed camp. Somehow he had left the company of bank robbers and thieves and now found himself amid rebels with Murrieta the leader of a peasant revolt. This wasn’t his fight, no matter what payment Maria so willingly offered.
    Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was gorgeous.
    â€œ. . . put into prison as a warning for us. Do not fight, that is the message.”
    â€œPrison?” Slocum’s attention snapped back to what the alcalde was saying.
    â€œAtencio is scheduled to be hanged. The banker railroaded him. Atencio is no more guilty than any of us, but Galworthy chose him as an example.”
    â€œGalworthy’s the banker,” Slocum said, piecing together the snippets he remembered hearing. He had to leave before he got himself involved to the point where he could never dig out. “What is Atencio supposed to have done?”
    â€œHorse stealing, robbery, many other things I do not understand.”
    â€œHe had a trial?”
    Murrieta threw up his hands, then slammed them palms down on the table.
    â€œIf you call it a trial. The judge refused to let Atencio’s lawyer say a word.”
    â€œSo he had a lawyer? How’d you pay for him?”
    â€œHe took the case for nothing. Por nada. And that is what came of it.”
    â€œNever heard of a lawyer doing such a thing,” Slocum said. His experience with lawyers showed them to be greedy bastards. Maybe this one was so inept he would take any case.
    â€œHe has political ambitions. He said so. He comes here to tell us how he fought for Atencio, how we need to change the laws and he is the one to do so if we vote for him.”
    Slocum wondered if the lawyer had tried very hard to free his client. Not only wasn’t there money on the table, but a loss set him up to garner votes from Murrieta’s village to remedy the outrage.
    â€œWhat do you want of me?” Slocum asked. He was tired of hearing all the details. He wanted to know what Murrieta had in mind. Twice the alcalde had saved him, and he felt he owed the man something. Just how much would depend on what Murrieta asked.
    â€œAtencio is to be hanged,” Murrieta said. “I want help in breaking him out before this happens. If we can get him here, we can be sure he returns to Mexico, where he would be safe.”
    Slocum looked out at Maria. She was anxious, shifting from one foot to the other and back.
    â€œThis Atencio is her cousin?”
    Murrieta’s eyebrows arched, and he looked over his shoulder at Maria.
    â€œYou have learned much while you have been in my village,” Murrieta said, turning back. “Does this matter?”
    â€œNo, not at all,” Slocum said. “I owe you my life, or if not my life, then my freedom. Twice you came to my aid when you didn’t have to. But I’m not pretending to be a convict to get back inside those walls.” Slocum closed his eyes and perfectly pictured the stone walls rising around the prison. It was imposing from the outside. Looking at those walls with the guard towers from inside suffocated hope and destroyed his soul. Better to die in a gunfight than to let them lock him up again.
    â€œI understand this. The escape through the wall is something to be done only once.”
    â€œBy now,” Slocum said, “they probably have it completely sealed off. No doorway, completely concreted and stoned.”
    â€œYou are a clever man, John Slocum. You can come up with another way to save Atencio. He is not to be hanged for another week.”
    Slocum inwardly groaned. A week was hardly time to come up with a rescue plan. They might need dynamite to blow open the gate or more firepower than all the peones in this village could provide, even if Murrieta risked his entire peasant army. San