“A gutless wonder,” Fallon said, and swore bitterly.
“Be that as it may, but don’t think this was some conspiracy. That’s the first thing I thought, too, but M. C. Jackson is a fool but not an idiot. He wouldn’t do anything that would hurt his chances of getting out of Wyoming and landing that federal job at Leavenworth.”
Fallon sighed. “How do you figure it?”
“Diego was Mexican,” French said. “You know what prisons are like, federal or state. Even that hellhole at Fort Smith, the jail, was no different. You got your Mexicans. You got your whites. You got the Negroes. And the Chinese. And none of them mix. By all accounts, Diego had made an enemy of a white convict, Easy Emmett Tanner, murderer and cattle thief. Tanner swore he would kill Diego, and he did. Two men witnessed the affair. The guards rushed in, but it was too late. They threw Tanner in the sweatbox. But they did not check him for any other weapons. He had another homemade knife, and he used that to cut his own throat.”
“God.” Fallon moved to the basket and spit out the bitterness. He ran his hands through his hair, tried to control his breathing, and spit again. “What the hell did Diego do to make Tanner so mad?”
“He prayed too loudly in his cell.”
Fallon cursed softly.
“I’m truly sorry, Hank,” French said.
Fallon sighed, shook his head, moved to the book cases. “Diego never should have been in that prison.”
“I know.”
“I should have moved quicker. Gotten him out of there.”
“Hank, even if you had presented all the evidence to the governor, to me, to a judge, it would have taken us two weeks, maybe longer, before we could have overturned the court actions, the sentence. Maybe . . . just maybe . . . we could have gotten Diego to a safer place, maybe out of the Big House and into a county jail. But that wasn’t going to happen in a hurry. The law doesn’t move that fast. Prisons don’t operate that quickly. We did all we could do.”
Fallon nodded. “Yeah. But it’s a waste.”
“Yeah.”
Their eyes met, held.
“Does his son know?” Fallon asked. “His wife?”
“I don’t think so,” French said. “I thought I’d find a priest, take him over to the shack or the school, break the news to them.”
“I’ll do it,” Fallon said.
“Hank, that’s not your job.”
“Yes,” Fallon said. “It is.”
* * *
Christina seldom cried, but that night she did, but only after Rachel Renee had fallen asleep. Fallon hugged his wife tightly, told her none of this was her fault, that life sometimes didn’t go the way it was supposed to. He laid Christina in the bed, kissed her forehead, and pulled the sheet and blanket over her.
Then he moved out of the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Christina asked.
“I’d better sleep in the parlor tonight,” he said. He did not look back at her, merely slipped out, closed the door, and walked to the chaise. He knew the nightmares would return. He knew a raven’s kaw, or the rustling of the wind in the trees, anything like that would have him leaping out of bed, ready to kill some imagined inmate or guard coming after him—frightening Fallon’s wife and baby girl.
The only way that wouldn’t happen would be if he stayed awake all night.
He didn’t. The meeting with the Diego family had exhausted him. And he was right. He woke up from the first dream a little after midnight. Two hours later, he fell back asleep, and the nightmares resumed.
When Fallon sat bolt upright on the chaise around four in the morning, he wiped his brow, swallowed, and said, “Welcome back to hell.” At least he wasn’t screaming. At least he had not awakened his wife and daughter. There was no use in trying to sleep anymore. Fallon moved to the winter kitchen, found the coffee grinder and the can of beans, and busied himself.
Two days later, the coffin carrying the remains of Carlos Pablo Diego IV arrived at the Cheyenne depot, and the funeral mass was held that afternoon. Fallon was there, hat in hand, along with Mrs. Diego, young Carlos, his two sisters and brother, and the headmaster of the Abraham Lincoln Academy. Young Carlos shook Fallon’s hand, thanked him for all he had tried to do for his late papa, and helped his sobbing mother away. Two aunts and an uncle assisted with the children. Fallon paid the priest, nodded at the headmaster, and walked back to work.
Two weeks passed. Two weeks of nightmares and anxiety.
Hector French entered Fallon’s office on a Thursday afternoon, and he brought company.
“Governor.” Fallon rose from his desk and shook the hands of his two visitors.
“Hank,” the governor said. “Hector tells me that you already know about the job opening for the new federal prison being built in Leavenworth, Kansas.”
Fallon nodded. “And I hear that Warden Jackson down in Laramie has his eye on that job.” He made himself smile.
“It’s not Jackson they want,” the governor said. “It’s you.”
Fallon stared, realized he had not misheard, understood that the governor and French were serious. He felt like sitting down, but instead he said, “I’ve seen enough walls and bars in my day.”
The governor pulled out a newspaper, slid it onto Fallon’s desk. “You heard about the execution of Slim Boris.”
Fallon had heard. Everyone in Wyoming had heard. The professional hanging of a condemned killer had been botched. Hell, even the hangman at Fort Smith had left men kicking at the end of a rope, but this one had ripped off Boris’s head. But that had been in Rawlings. And it had been a state matter, not federal, so Fallon had not been obligated to attend the execution.
“And did you see this?” The governor tapped another headline.
Fallon nodded. “Helen says I never read the paper, just look over the headlines, but I can read. And I do read.” That article had been picked up by the Cheyenne editor from the telegraphs. In Denver, a young man named McKee had been gunned down by lawmen because he could not stand to return to prison.
“Like I said,” Fallon reminded his guests, “I’ve spent enough time behind the iron.”
“Hank,” Hector French said. “The way the governor and I figure it, Leavenworth needs you. The prisoners need you. Justice needs you.”
Fallon laughed without humor. “You boys are crazy. And I don’t think you do the hiring for the Leavenworth pen.”
“No,” the governor said. “But we know who does. And those boys have been asking about you. That Carlos Diego story made Harper’s Illustrated and the New York Herald. People are starting to think something might be wrong with a prison here and there.
