Free Slocum's Breakout by Jake Logan

years.” Bernard laughed and shook his head. “You’d have to see his wife to appreciate that. I swear, she’s uglier than a mud fence.”
    Bernard kept shaking his head and chuckling as he opened a drawer in his desk, took out a stack of wanted posters, and began leafing through them. Slocum considered distracting the sheriff but knew that wouldn’t work. Aching from so much walking, he dropped back on the cot and stretched out, staring at the ceiling. Bits of concrete had come loose, exposing iron bars. Some were rusty, but it would take hours to scrape through them, and he knew Bernard would never allow that much work.
    Slocum closed his eyes intending to only rest for a moment, he came awake with a start when he heard a loud argument getting more intense. He sat up and saw a blue-uniformed back between him and the sheriff. His heart almost exploded when the man turned slightly to expose sergeant’s stripes.
    â€œHe’s mine. He’s an escaped prisoner by the name of Jasper Jarvis.”
    â€œNow that may be, Sergeant Wilkinson, but he’s my prisoner right now. You can have him after the trial. I got him fair and square for bank robbery.”
    â€œHe’s a prisoner what belongs in San Quentin since that’s where he was when he busted out.”
    â€œDo tell,” Sheriff Bernard said dryly.
    â€œYou don’t believe me. I don’t like any man callin’ me a damn liar.”
    â€œNever said you were lying, Sergeant. Just saying he’s staying put until he stands trial. That might add on years to his sentence. What was he in for? You called him Jarvis?”
    â€œHe’ll be in for five more escapin’ the way he did. Him’n three others. We caught one of them right away. The other got away, prob’ly with Jarvis.”
    â€œMighty interesting and irrelevant,” Bernard said, his voice hardening. “He’s my prisoner right now.”
    Slocum had never wanted to be in a county lockup as badly as he did now. If Wilkinson prevailed, he would not only be back in San Quentin, he’d be in the hole again. The dark. The cold. The isolation.
    â€œI can git me a San Francisco judge to issue the order,” Wilkinson said.
    â€œBe my guest. That’ll take you a few days, if you can sober one up that fast to scribble his name. By then we’ll have this varmint indicted and on the docket to stand trial. The local justice of the peace is a man devoted to his community. That means he knows robbing the Miramar bank takes precedence over returning him to San Quentin.”
    Wilkinson pounded both quart-jar-sized fists on the sheriff’s desk so hard the desk jumped off the floor to crash back down.
    â€œYou ain’t listenin’ to me, Sheriff.”
    â€œCan’t help but listen, you talking so loud. Why don’t you get on out of here and find that other prisoner you lost? This here Jasper Jarvis isn’t going anywhere.”
    For a moment Slocum thought Wilkinson was going to hit the sheriff, then he saw how Bernard sat at his desk. If the prison guard had moved a muscle and tried to touch the lawman, he would have gotten a bullet to the belly. The sergeant grunted and left, growling like a grizzly as he went. Only then did Bernard stick his six-gun back into its holster.
    â€œYou know some mighty unpleasant people, Jarvis.”
    â€œName’s not Jarvis,” Slocum said.
    â€œDoesn’t matter. Sergeant Wilkinson there thinks it is.”
    â€œHe’s wrong. And you’re wrong about me robbing that bank.”
    â€œThat’s the beauty of the law. I don’t have to be right. If a jury convicts you, it doesn’t matter what I think. I might be wrong about you and Hez’s bank. Won’t be the first time I made a mistake, if I am. But I don’t think so. There was no reason for that pretty girl to put me on your trail the way she did unless she saw what she said she