Prisoner 88 Read online

  To Kerrily and Angie D. and Shel

  Text copyright © 2013 by Leah Pileggi

  Jacket illustrations copyright © 2013 by Daniel Miyares

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Charlesbridge and colophon are registered trademarks of Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc.

  Published by Charlesbridge

  85 Main Street

  Watertown, MA 02472

  (617) 926-0329

  www.charlesbridge.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pileggi, Leah.

  Prisoner 88 / Leah Pileggi.

  p. cm.

  A fictional story based on a real incident as reported in a newspaper in Idaho Territory in 1885.

  Summary: In 1885, ten-year-old Jake is sent to prison for killing a man who threatened his father, and struggles to survive the harsh realities of prison life in the Idaho Territory.

  ISBN 978-1-58089-560-6 (reinforced for library use)

  ISBN 978-1-60734-534-3 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-60734-611-1 (ebook pdf)

  1. Prisoners—Idaho Territory—Juvenile fiction. 2. Prisons—Idaho Territory—Juvenile fiction. 3. Idaho Territory—History—19th century—Juvenile fiction. [1. Prisoners—Idaho Territory—Fiction. 2. Prisons—Idaho Territory—Fiction. 3. Idaho Territory—History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title. II. Title: Prisoner Eighty-eight.

  PZ7.P62849Pri 2013

  813.6—dc23 2012024443

  Printed in the United States of America

  (hc) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Display type set in Wausau by Yellow Design Studio

  Text type set in Adobe Caslon Pro

  Letter type set in P22 Monet Regular

  Printed and bound February 2013 by Worzalla Publishing Company in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA

  Production supervision by Brian G. Walker

  Designed by Whitney Leader-Picone

  ONE

  May 31, 1885 – The Idaho Territory

  Back before I shot Mr. Bennett, most every day was ‘bout the same. Do what Pa said, work when I had to, eat when I could, sleep somewheres, start again when the sun come up. But after I got arrested, I didn’t have Pa to listen to no more. He wasn’t going to prison. Just me. Being that I was already ten and some, I figured I could pretty much take care of myself.

  I hadn’t never been on a train before. I stretched my neck tall to see out that train window. What I really wanted was to get on my knees and look out on the whole big world going by. But it was hard to move around wearing them big old rusty handcuffs, and one of the guards woulda smacked me. Alls I could see anyways was black smoke blowing back from that loud coal engine.

  There was four of us criminals. Me and two old guys and one Chinaman. The Chinaman wore black pants, a black shirt, and a long tail braid down his back. The old guy with the beard wore a white shirt, jacket, and tie, but the ugly old guy weren’t wearing much more than rags.

  We didn’t say nothing on that train ride ‘cause we woulda got smacked for that, too. Right at the start the tall guard with the long mustache said, “Set down and shut up,” and I wasn’t taking no chances ‘cause I believed him and his rifle. The other guard, the fat one with the red face, him and his Winchester didn’t say not one word the whole way.

  We got off the train in Boise, me and them three other men and them two guards. People stared at us shuffling along, our chains clanking and us looking all tough and mean.

  Some train men lifted our belongings on top of a stagecoach. The beard man and the Chinaman had trunks. Not the ugly man and not me. I just had a old canvas bag, and he didn’t have nothing. The red-face guard set inside, right between me and the window. The mustache guard set up front with the driver. I hadn’t never been in a stage before either. Even with the windows open, it was rough riding and hot and smelly like to choke us all. I couldn’t see nothing but the nasty rotten teeth on the ugly man setting across from me.

  When the stage stopped, Mustache and Red Face pulled us out. We was all met by a couple more guards, both holding rifles in their two hands. We was facing a big old round-top wood gate set in a high white stone wall. On one side of the gate, that stone wall kept going. But on the other side, the stones met up tight with a high wood fence. One of them new guards, a young guy with a bunch of orange hair, seen me looking.

  “The whole fence used to be wood,” he said. “They’re bringing in stone to finish it out.”

  I looked out beyond the wood section. Patches of scrub grass led up to the top of a steep hill where a cross pointed to the sky. I turned in a slow circle. Hills rolled up around us on most sides, like we was stew dregs in the bottom of a giant bowl.

  The Mustache unlocked the gate. “Move it,” he said. The guards pushed us through and locked the gate behind us.

  We was led across a stretch of dirt toward a stone building. Bars covered the windows, and a long wire run from one of them windows across to what I figured out was the cellblock. We four men and four guards moved all clumped together into the building and down a hallway, and then we packed tight near the doorway of some special room. I knew it was special ‘cause after our footsteps stopped making noise, it was so quiet I could hear my own heart beating in my ears.

  A voice boomed, “Welcome to the Idaho Penitentiary, gentlemen.”

  Made me jump. Some hand come down on my shoulder to keep me in place. I couldn’t see who was talking ‘cause I was tight up against the Chinaman’s black shirt.

  “I am Mr. Norton, assistant warden,” said the big voice. “The door behind me leads to Warden Johnson’s office. It’s up to me to see to it that you do not end up in there during your incarceration.” He grunted. “You will answer a list of questions for me before you’re taken away. Otherwise, you will not talk, you will not move, you will not make a sound.” I heard a thump and then papers flapping, like a big book flopped open. Then he barked, “You.”

  The first man shuffled on into the room.

  “Prisoner number 85. Name?”

  “Albert Meecham.”

  Sounded like he had a old dried-up frog in his throat. Had to be the ugly man.

  “Age?”

  I sorta drifted off about then, being kinda tired from the trip. I didn’t listen again ‘til Mr. Norton shouted, “Speak up, Mr. Meecham.”

  “Murder in the first degree” is what he said.

  Then Mr. Norton’s voice got kinda quiet and real deep. “Those handcuffs and Leininger shackles will become your close friends, Mr. Meecham. When you are out of your cell—if you are out of your cell—they will be with you every second.”

  Mr. Meecham didn’t have nothing to say to that.

  Mr. Norton kept on talking. “If at any time the warden or I feel that you are a threat to the guards or to the other inmates, you will be placed in the Hole. That’s solitary confinement, sir.”

  I heard Mr. Norton cough up a wad of spit and let it go into some kinda container. Then he went right on talking. “The Hole’s an unpleasant place to pass the time, Mr. Meecham. Do you understand?”

  I heard, “Yeah.”

  “What did you say?”

  Mr. Meecham’s gravelly voice growled, “Yes, sir.”

  There was some scuffling, and then here come the ugly man with two guards holding him under his armpits. He grinned at me with them dead teeth as they took him out. Last thing I seen was his boot toes dragging behind him.

  “Next,” said Mr. Norton.

  I could hear the beard man’s arm irons clanking as he stepped ahead.

  “Prisoner number 86,” said Mr. Norton. “Name?”

  “Joshua Nance.”

  “Age?”

  “Sixty-two.”

&nbs
p; “Height?”

  I heard some boots moving around, and one of them guards said, “He’s round about six feet.”

  “Skin color?”

  “Well, sir, if I could remove the travel dirt from my face and neck, you’d see that I’m a white man.”

  Mr. Norton said, “Did I ask for a story, Mr. Nance?”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s ‘light’ for complexion. Occupation?”

  Mr. Nance cleared his throat real quiet. “Rancher.”

  “The crime of which you were convicted, Mr. Nance?”

  “Unlawful cohabitation.”

  “One of those Mormon cohabs, is that right, Mr. Nance?

  How many wives you got, sir?”

  Mr. Nance didn’t say nothing.

  “Looks like you know how to keep your mouth shut,” said Mr. Norton. “I expect you’ll conduct yourself well here, Mr. Nance, seeing as you’re not a violent criminal.”

  “I will,” said Mr. Nance.

  A guard pulled him by the arm past me. The two of them turned the corner and was gone. A couple more guards come in and pushed by.

  Next was the Chinaman, who was standing right in front of me. He just stayed right where he was.

  “Prisoner number 87. Name?” said Mr. Norton. He didn’t get no answer. He shouted, “Name?”

  The man’s answer sounded like “Shin Han.”

  “Yes, well,” said Mr. Norton. “So you’ve learned some English. Isn’t that an amazing feat.” He grunted again. “Age?”

  “Twent-four.”

  “Height? I’ll say five foot six.”

  I leaned just a little bit around Mr. Han and looked with ‘bout one eyeball, and I could sorta see Mr. Norton by that time. He was a mountain of a man, and he was setting behind a desk and writing in a big old book.

  “Complexion is olive,” said Mr. Norton out loud to hisself while scribbling in his record book. “And no occupation.”

  But Shin Han said, “Merchant and muse.”

  Mr. Norton snapped, “‘Merchant’ I get. What’s ‘muse’?”

  Even with his hands chained up together, and me still looking at his back, I could tell Shin Han was showing he could play a instrument with strings.

  “Musician,” said Mr. Norton. “Not ‘muse.’ Musician.”

  “Yes,” said Shin Han. “Musician.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Norton. “We’ll expect you to entertain us, Mr. Han. You just better be telling the truth.”

  Shin Han nodded. “Yes. I tell truth. I play musician.”

  Grunt. “You were convicted of assault, Mr. Han. You step out of line and you’ll end up in the Hole. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A guard turned him around and pushed him by me just when Mr. Norton said, “Next!”

  Being the only one left, I kinda lurched forward into the room. Even though Mr. Norton was setting, he still had to look down at me. “You’re Mr. Jake Oliver Evans.”

  How did he know? I said, “Yes, sir.”

  He was writing in his big book. “You are now officially prisoner 88 of the Idaho Territorial Penitentiary.”

  Was I a number now instead of a name? I opened my mouth to ask him, but Mr. Norton, with arms like logs, leaned forward. “Says you’re in here for manslaughter. Is that so.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, that’s what they said… .”

  “I thought this was a mistake,” said Mr. Norton, “sending us a kid out here.” He picked through some papers and then held one up. “You got five years?”

  I lifted my hands with them cuffs on, trying to scratch at my head. I told him, “Ain’t no mistake, mister. It’s me.”

  He kinda squinched up his eyes like he didn’t much like me.

  “Height?”

  A guard, the one with the orange hair, measured me, using a tall piece of wood. “Four foot six,” he said.

  Mr. Norton wrote it down. A fly buzzed across the room, and he swatted at it. Then he crossed his arms and looked me clean in the face. “Well, now, where are we supposed to put you?”

  “In one of them cells,” I said. “Ain’t that right?”

  “You got a quick mouth, don’t you, son?”

  I looked at the floor. Pa used to say that, and then he’d knock me good.

  Mr. Norton shook his head. “Well, looks like you’ve got it all figured out, Mr. Jake Oliver Evans.”

  I told him, “I reckon.”

  Mr. Norton snorted. “You better hope so.” He turned to the orange-haired guard. “For now he’s got a fancy room all to himself. On the top, Henry. First cell.”

  Henry nodded, a bunch of that orange hair flopping around.

  I was gonna be on the highest-up place in the building. That was great. I liked looking out and down on things, like when I climbed a barn where Pa and me was supposed to be tending pigs. I fell off the roof and broke this left arm. That’s why it don’t hang straight. But I seen a long way off from that roof.

  Mr. Norton kept on talking. “This place was built for one inmate in a cell. But we have too much lawlessness since the gold rush. We’ve got twice the bad men we’re supposed to have. So you just feel real lucky that you have a cell all to yourself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But don’t count on that lasting.”

  “No, sir.”

  Henry led me by my crooked arm around the corner to a heavy door. He unlocked it and then locked it back up behind us. His ring of keys clinked and my handcuffs clunked when we crossed the dirt yard. It was baked hard as rock from the sun. We walked up three stone steps to a all-white stone building. Then Henry unlocked the door to the cell block and walked me into my new home.

  TWO

  I smelled some stinky places in my life, like that old pig farm where I fell off the barn roof. But my first whiff of that cellblock like ‘bout choked the life outta me. I couldn’t see one thing at first, coming in outta the bright sunshine to the black dark. After a couple seconds, though, I could see enough. It weren’t much to look at.

  A whole big wall of nothing set on one side. Across from it, three rows of cells, one on top of the other. There was thirteen cells in each row. Supposed to hold thirteen and thirteen and thirteen men. That’s a whole bunch already, but there was ‘bout two times that bunch of stinky bodies in there.

  It was hot inside, and it weren’t even dead summer yet. But it weren’t dry like outside. It felt like a cave, sweaty and sticky, like where me and Pa lived for some days way back when I was little and we didn’t have no place else.

  There was two cleaning-up cells with tubs and water to wash. But there was a honey bucket cell, too. Nothing you can do to stop that smell when a building’s all closed up tight.

  The men, they was all wound up, seeing as we was a bunch of new inmates. They was yelling and scraping metal things against the bars and whistling. But when Henry and me walked across toward the steps, all that noise flew away. I felt everybody looking at me. And then one guy yelled, “Look, it’s a midget.” A couple of ‘em laughed, and the noise started right up again.

  Henry led me up two sets of steps to my cell on the top. But damn, there was no window looking out. There weren’t enough light to hardly see nothing. Alls I coulda looked at anyways was that wall looking right back at me. Couldn’t even see much through them flat bars cause they was so tight together. I could barely fit my finger through a hole. A couple windows at the ends of the building let in some sun but showed off a whole lotta nothing else.

  “Jake, you’re gonna hear the dinner whistle blow soon,” said Henry. “Two o’clock every day. No matter where you are, you’ll be brought back to your cell to eat.”

  My stomach let out a roar, and both me and Henry laughed.

  “They feed us every day?” I couldn’t hardly believe that.

  “Every day.”

  Henry took off my cuffs. My wrists was kinda scraped up, so I rubbed ‘em and licked at the dried-up blood while I watched Henry walk away after locking me i
n. Before I barely had a chance to take a look around, the dinner whistle blew. The block got quiet. And not a minute later, the block door opened. I could sorta see a lady and a couple of men carrying in metal trays just heaped up with food. They started at the bottom floor, and I knew they was sliding them trays right through slits in the cell doors, just like the one in mine.

  I was drooling on myself and ‘bout to die when finally the lady come up the steps with a tray. She stood there and stared at me, holding that tray so close I ‘bout stuck my tongue through one of them tiny holes. She said, “So you’re the young man everybody’s talking about.”

  “Is that my food?”

  She smiled and said, “Well, Jake, yes it is. Looks like you could use it.”

  She slipped the metal tray through the slit in the door, and I stood holding it with both of my hands. I thought for sure I was dreaming. Hunks of beef, little round potatoes, green and white and red beans, cabbage, and two slices of good bread. I set down on the floor and shoved handfuls of food into my mouth, not even bothering with the spoon. I gulped half a tin cup of strong, hot coffee, burped real big, and then used the second piece of bread and scraped up every last scrap on my plate.

  “When’s the last time you had a nice big meal like that, Jake?” The lady had stood there watching the whole thing.

  I licked the metal tray, burped one more time, and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. Then I told her the truth. “I ain’t never ate like that before. No, ma’am. Never seen that much food all together under my nose at one time.”

  She shook her head and then took my tray down the stairs. She come back up the steps a few minutes later and walked by, and I was hoping maybe she forgot she already give me a tray and I’d get another one. No luck.

  I reckon all that food kinda knocked me out anyways. I woke up and I was all twisted up in a scratchy old blanket on the bottom metal bunk. I stood up and stretched my arms out and near ‘bout touched the two walls in my cell.

  A voice I heard before come around the corner at me from the cell next door. “Jake?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “It’s Joshua Nance, Jake. If you’d like to talk, I’ll be right here.”