Red was one of the last to stir. When he saw Tim sitting near him with a corncake in his hand he sat up straight. “Why didn’t you wake me?” he asked accusingly.
“There’s plenty of food, and I figured you needed your beauty sleep.”
“And so I did.”
When they had finished breakfast and settled themselves with tin cups filled with steaming bitter coffee Red leaned forward. “You and I are going to get away,” he said. “From this point forward we’ll bend ourselves to that one end.”
“This country is good,” Tim said. “I should think a man could live off the land.”
“We can’t depend on doing that. The more supplies we can take, the better off we’ll be.” Red laughed. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
“By tonight we’ll probably be in that jail,” Tim said, waving toward the gray roof that stood above the trees “We’ll have to make our break from there.”
Red looked along the tracks. “It would help if I could swim,” he said with a touch of bitterness.
“We’ll ask the guards to give you lessons in the river yonder.”
“And then in three or four months, when I’m good and ready, we can beg their leave,” Red said with a grin.