Short Stories & Tall Tales
No-Hugs Calhoun
Tom Sheehan
Calhoun, the road agent, brigand, robber, any of those obscene names you could throw at a man, and which often were publicly received by him, for starters wouldn’t hug anybody. As it turned out he wouldn’t hug his mother on her death bed. That aversion also went for the two sons he fathered and a daughter that could have been the light of his life, never mind the woman who brought those children into the world. She was no quitter on loves’ sake, just as her husband, No-Hugs Calhoun, carried on in his horrible life of not knowing a person close enough to hug.
If the subject of such disdain ever counted with anybody so as to think about it, they would be short of reasons for the blared calamity. No other man would have such a poor estimate, or poor esteem of fellow humans, as this man displayed. His odious stance was proclaimed without reservation by Calhoun wherever he went.
Thus it was that his shortcoming followed him right into the darkest part of Yuma Territorial Prison on the day after his 35th birthday, for a home invasion in a small town in the territory. The story of his capture also followed him. The victims in the matter was the family of a sheriff in the territory. The sheriff was on a posse chasing after a known killer when his home was invaded by Calhoun, who did not realize that an 11 year old son of the sheriff was in the loft of the barn when he entered the home. The boy did not bolt for the house, as the situation urged him, but thought of catching the man for his father, who would exercise proper punishment.
In the loft trying to think through things, gauging his chances and counting his options and the choice of his tools, the boy decided how he would attempt the capture.
He looped a lasso on the floor of the barn under hay strewn from the loft. Another length of rope he tied to the lasso, passed it over a beam, and tied the end of the line to a full bag of grain and put the bag at the edge of the loft. Then he made a ruckus to attract the home invader. When Calhoun stepped into the barn and into the circle of the loop, the boy, hidden in the loft, pushed the bag over the edge and the lasso looped about Calhoun’s legs and swept him into the air. His guns fell to the floor of the barn. The boy climbed down the ladder and hit Calhoun on the head with a board. When the sheriff came home, the boy told the father what happened, and they found Calhoun still hanging by his legs from a beam above the loft.
The sheriff hugged his son for a long time, thanking him profusely, hugging him again and again, as Calhoun, hanging upside down, looked on. The scene stayed with him, sickening him, all the way through his trial and the resultant sentencing. Even on the way to Yuma, with the sun beating upon the prison wagon made of steel, the endless bumping on the road, he remembered the sheriff hugging his son.
At night, when darkness completed the loneliness, when stillness entered the mind keen as a knife edge, No-Hugs Calhoun still abhorred any idea of hugging another person.
In his third week in Yuma, the guard approached the warden and told him that Calhoun was always moving about, making noise at night, possibly plotting an escape.
“He’s up to something, Warden, and I just don’t know what it is, but being alone seems to please him a lot. He’s so comfortable.”
“Well,” said the warden, “we can fix that. Who’s sociable, has been here a long while, talks to beat the band and really likes his sleep?”
The guard smiled and said, “That’d be Duncan, for my money, Warden. He’s just like you say he is.”
“That’s it then,” said the warden. “Move Calhoun in with him. That’ll take care of his night movement and noise.”
Duncan, in for life, welcomed his new cell mate. “Hi, Calhoun. The guard told me you’d be coming in with me. Welcome to the cell.”
“How long you been here?” Calhoun said.
“About 8 years.”
“How come you haven’t broken out yet? This place don’t look that hard to me.”
“Oh,” Duncan said, “I been thinking about that. Maybe some time down the line I’ll give it a go.” He chuckled at his answer.
Calhoun ignored the small attempt at humor. “I’m getting out of here in a year, one way or another.”
Duncan, of course, didn’t tell Calhoun what he’d been up to for almost six years. He’d spent many nights at his escape route, laying things in line, planning, listening to guards who talked about things just outside Yuma and down the road away. There was not much out there, besides desert and heat and no folks for miles and miles. It would be difficult, but it could be done. He was always saying, to himself, “I ain’t walking, I ain’t running, but I’m already on my way out of here.” He’d chuckle each time he said it. It all helped him pass the days and the nights.
As was his way, Calhoun, even with a cellmate, remained distant, shared no hopes, offered no spiritual support or commendations or good wishes of any kind. When Duncan would attempt a slap on the back as a complimentary sign, Calhoun not only shied away, but he put his hands and arms up as if in self-defense. Duncan, as one would suppose, retreated each time, finally realizing he’d never get near his cellmate.
The year was almost up and Calhoun had not made any move, but he said to Duncan, “It’s been about a year since you said you were going to give it a try, try to get out of here. What’s happening with that?”
“I’m working on it, “Duncan replied, still keeping his avowed distance, but, he thought, I’m still moving out of here. Coming back to him were all the nights that Calhoun slept like a drunken cowpoke while he prepared the way for escape. Never once did Calhoun hear him move out of the cell through a hole beneath his bunk that let him into a side corridor of the prison. It all said it should be a two-man job, but he had no intention of letting Calhoun in on it.
A few days later, feeling he’d give it one more try, Duncan said to Calhoun, “Can’t we at least be friendly to each other? Share a good word or a good thought?”
Oh, he’d like to mean that, but the look on Calhoun’s face said he was not budging from his ways, then Calhoun came back with one of his pat answers, “You and I are cellmates. That’s as far as it goes.”
Duncan reached to pat him on the back, say a good word, but Calhoun’s hands were already at the ready; he wanted no part of Duncan, or a pat on the back, or getting that close to a hug. He sat back on his bunk, then rolled over and tried to sleep, all the while thinking about Duncan without any energy or any desire to get out of the hell hole they lived in. Sleep came with some difficulty, but when it came it was sound and deep and full of dreams. He saw a fishing hole he knew as a boy and an old man who saved worms for him whenever he came by his little shack in the woods. The man would give him worms in an old peach can and ask for one fish any time he caught some fish. That old man was the only man he ever gave anything to, the fish he caught. He never took them home, but gave every one to the man who gave him the worms in the old can.
The dream was the most pleasant dream he ever had, for his whole body told him he had had a good solid rest, that his mind was clear, and he could remember the dream and the good feelings it left with him.
When Calhoun woke up in the morning, stretching his body with a sense of comfort, darkness still around him like a veil, he said, “You awake, Dunc?” It was the first time he had ever called Duncan by that short name. He said again, “You awake, Dunc? Last night I had the best dream I ever had in my whole life. It was all happy-like. Can you imagine that, Dunc?”
When there was no answer, the darkness still clutching the cell, Calhoun rolled over on his bunk and said to himself, “That’s the last time I’ll ever speak to him.” He went to sleep.
It was the loud banging on the cell bars that woke Calhoun from another deep and happy sleep. The guard was screaming at him, “What’s going on, Calhoun? Where the hell’s your cellmate? Where’s Duncan? What did you do with him?” The guard began screaming for help. “Call the warden. Duncan’s not in his cell. Duncan has escaped.”
When they pulled Duncan’s bunk away from the wall they found the hole he had made a long time ago and the fake stone front he used to cover it up.
The guard said to Calhoun, “Well, Calhoun, your pal is gone. Maybe he got away, all the way. The service wagon left here just after midnight. I bet he was hiding in it someplace. That wagon’s been coming here for a dozen years, same driver, same schedule all the time.” He was shaking his head, partly in wonder and partly in admiration for a quiet, friendly prisoner he had known for 8 long years.
Calhoun, sleepy Calhoun, did not realize for a second that the guard had his arm around his shoulder in a sign of sympathy that Calhoun had not got away too, from Yuma Territorial Prison in the middle of nowhere.
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