Warday

I was the first to appear before the magistrate. He was a cheerful young man in a blue Palm Beach suit and one of the raffish gray panamas that California’s affluent class wear nowadays.

They are gray because they are dusted with lead.

He was perhaps thirty. “Let’s see, you’re one of the ones dressed as a priest. Funny. This is funny too: By the power vested in me by the state of California, I sentence you to two years at hard labor, to be followed by transportation out of state.” He banged a gavel. “Next case,” he said, absently shuffling papers.

My mouth was dry. I was too shocked to make a sound. Two years in prison, just like that. No jury, not even a chance to ask a question. And where was my lawyer? What the hell happened to my side?

I didn’t hear Jim’s sentencing, but I could see by his expression when we entered the prison bus, which was waiting at the far end of the main building, that he had been hit too. I held up my hand, indicating the number two. He nodded and held up first one finger and then another, then another.

Jim had done worse than I had; he was in for three years. Why the stiffer sentence? I found out later that he had asked the judge for a jury trial.

The bus was an old model with cyclone fencing welded into the windows. It rattled and shook along. There were ten of us, men as well as women, all handcuffed, seated on narrow steel benches.

When I realized that no guards were back here in the un-air-conditioned part of the bus, I began to talk.

“Maybe we can get word to someone in the federal government,” I said. “Perhaps they can help.”

Jim stared at me as if I had gone completely mad. “Look,” he said, “I’ve still got my recorder and my disks. Once we get to the prison, they’re going to be locked in a property room. Maybe stolen or erased.”

Obviously there was no time to fool around with government officials. “So we break out of the bus. How?”

“Not too hard, it isn’t very secure. I think they expect illegals to be passive. You remember how to fall?”

My mind went back to basic training. I had fallen then, often enough. “I guess so.”

“We’re gonna jump and hope for the best.”

“Jim, we’re wearing handcuffs.”

“That’s not much more of a problem than that door.”

The rear door of the bus, once the fire exit, was welded closed.

“How can we possibly jump?”

With an angelic expression, Jim raised his eyes.

Right above us was a ventilator. It was pushed open. Jim passed the word that he and I were going out on the roof if we got the chance, and we’d pull anybody up who cared to follow.

We waited, then, for the bus to leave San Francisco proper. We had no idea of our destination, but we were soon across the Bay Bridge and going through Oakland on Route 80, heading toward Richmond.

We passed Richmond, moving at about forty miles an hour. The bus slowed as we reached the Hercules exit. We turned off and took a right beneath the railroad tracks onto a two-lane blacktop called Crow Canyon Road. It was 9:15 A.M. The Zephyr would be leaving San Francisco at noon.

I prayed that I would see Anne again.

We passed the Crow Canyon golf course and a big truck depot, then began climbing a hill. Soon our speed was dropping and the gears were making a lovely racket. Jim wasted no time. He raised his cuffed hands above his head and grabbed the edge of the ventilator. In a moment he had pulled himself up and hooked one arm over the edge. With his free hand he unsnapped the plastic armature that held the vent in place. It began to bang against his arm and I heard him stifle a scream. Then his legs were up to his chest and he had rolled out onto the roof. A second later he opened the vent for me.

Now we were passing an abandoned kennel. People don’t keep many dogs these days, not even in California. The road cut the edge of the hill, which rose steeply to our right. On the left was a horse farm and open countryside and a chance to get to Richmond and intercept the Zephyr.

We jumped and rolled into the grass at the roadside.

All up the hill, that bus leaked prisoners. By the time it got to the top, I don’t think there were three left inside!

“Maybe we can find something to cut these cuffs at that truck depot back down the road,” Jim said. “If we don’t get them off, we might as well forget the train.”

We moved quickly. A lot of people were going to be trying to break into that depot today, all wearing handcuffs, all looking for shears. The place was open, so after the first ones came, the workers there would be on their guard.

The depot stood on the roadside in the heat, a broken semi blocking one driveway. In the other driveway, a new Mercedes truck was parked, getting diesel fuel. Behind it, an ancient eighteen-wheeler awaited its tern.