Maximum security had three sets of barred doors before you got to the cells, as well as armed guards covering the block and the doors from wall stations. The halls were lit with oil lamps and the light was warm and yellow. We didn’t go beyond the first door. Sgt. Robards just pointed and told me what things were like.
“By this time next week, it will all be full in here,” he said sadly. “The Anti-Redemptionists be getting out of hand again and they be going to cool them off. Uh, don’t put that in your paper.”
“Oh, I won’t,” I said, crossing off what I was writing.
The ordinary cells on the second floor were a much simpler affair and I got a guided tour of them. I walked down the corridor between the ranks of cells right beside Sgt. Robards and looked at every prisoner. I stared right at Jimmy Dentremont’s face and he didn’t even seem to notice me. He’s a smart, lovely boy.
Sgt. Robards said, waving a hand at the cells, “These be all short-timers here. Just a week or a month or two to serve.” He jingled his keys. “I be letting them out soon enough.”
“Do they give you any trouble?” I asked.
“These? Not these. They don’t have long enough to serve. They all be on good behavior. Most of the time, anyway.”
When we finished, I thanked Sgt. Robards enthusiastically. “It sure has been swell, sir.”
He smiled. “Not at all son,” he said. “I enjoyed it myself. If you have time, drop by again when I have the duty. My schedule be on the bulletin board.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Maybe I will.”
I ran back home through the rain and when Mr. Kutsov got home about an hour later I was dry, dressed in proper clothes, and reading a book.
Chapter 17
BEFORE I SCOUTED THE JAIL, I had only vague notions of what I could do to get Jimmy free. I had, for instance, spent an hour or so toying with the idea of forcing the Territorial Governor at the point of a gun to release Jimmy. I spent that much time with it because the idea was fun to think about, but I dropped it because it was stupid.
I finally decided on a very simple course of action. It seemed quite possible that it might go wrong, but I didn’t have a great many days left and I had to bring this off by myself. Before I left the jail building, I looked very closely at the duty schedule, just as Sgt. Robards had recommended.
Mr. Kutsov left in the afternoon two days later, his wagon loaded.
“I be back in six days, Mia,” he said. “Now you know exactly what to do, don’t you?”
I reassured him, and I stood at the back door of the house as he drove off, dressed in pink because I knew he liked it, and waved goodbye. Then I went back into the house. I sat down and wrote a note to Mr. Kutsov. I didn’t tell him what I was going to do because I thought it might distress him, but I thanked him for all that he had done for me. I left the note in the library where he would be sure to find it. I was sorry to do it to him because I knew it would make him unhappy, but I couldn’t stay.
Then I went into the kitchen and started getting food together. I picked out things I thought we would need like matches, candles, a knife, and a hatchet, and I made up a package. Finally, I changed into my own clothes.
I set out just after dark. It was raining lightly in the night and the spray on my face felt surprisingly good. I carried paper and pencil in one pocket as before for protective coverage. In the other pocket of my coat I had a single sock, several stout pieces of line, and matches.
This is the way I had it figured. The jail was a strong place—bars, guards, dogs, guns, and spiked fences. These were primarily designed to keep in jail the people who were supposed to be in jail. They weren’t designed to keep people out.
In the Western-cowboy stories I used to read in the Ship, people were always breaking into jails to let somebody out. It was a common thing, an expected part of day-to-day life. But I couldn’t imagine that people here made any sort of practice of breaking into