Chapter 1

"LADY, YOU MUST BE CRAZY-WANTIN' LOCKED up in a place with four hundred men!"

The taxi driver twisted his head around and looked at me, squinting around his puffy nose, his mouth slack with a grin that alternated between concern for my safety and a kind of sensual enjoyment of the situation.

"I have my reasons," I said.

He whistled lightly through his teeth and shook his head again. We had been talking back and forth from the bus station all the way out on the narrow, deserted road that led to Mason Reformatory at the outskirts of the small town of Mason. We had been talking, and his conversational intimacy had gradually built up to a kind of fatherly, advice-giving stage.

"Look, kid," he mused, his meaty hands gnarled on the steering wheel, "take my advice. If you wanta be a nurse, go back and work in a nice hospital, or an old folks home. This ain't no picnic out here. These guys are criminals-and you'll understand I don't mean nothin' personal when I say this ... but they ain't seen a real woman, some of 'em, in a long time. They'll go ape when a pretty young thing like you comes wriggling her hips into...."

"I told you," I interrupted, quietly. "I've got a job there. I don't expect to entertain the men-just to help the doctor in the dispensary."

He shook his head once more, and a deep, abortive chuckle rumbled somewhere deep in his throat.

"Some help," he said, blandly. "Anyhow, any time you want out, just give me a call. I got the only cab in Mason. I'll come haul you out of the place...."

Then, suddenly, we were there.

My heart raced happily as the taxi pulled up to the high, iron gates. I had waited many long months for this moment; and now that it was here, I could hardly believe it. I suppose I am one of the few people in the world who ever wanted to be in jail-but then I wasn't exactly going to be a prisoner. My reason for wanting behind those forbidding walls was something I didn't dare reveal to strangers-and certainly not to an overly-inquisitive taxi driver.

My name is Mary Gray, and I'm a registered nurse. The long months of training and preparation which went into my becoming a nurse were over and this was my first assignment. But the important thing about it was that it was not a casual assignment. I didn't just close my eyes and say "eenie-meenie-minee-moe" the way we used to do as children when we had decisions to make. My decision was based on nothing more than my desire to be near the man I loved.

And he was in Mason Reformatory because he had to be.

I remember reading once in my high school English book a poem that had the line in it: stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. I always thought the man who wrote the poem must not ever have had the experience of being a prisoner himself. I couldn't imagine a worse thing than being locked up in a dull cell with nothing but the companionship of desperately lonely men, with nothing to feed on but regrets and twisted memories. I couldn't bear to think of Joe being left alone like that; and even though what he did to get into prison was bad and difficult to forgive-even for me-I still loved him.

"Far as I can go, miss," the taxi driver breathed, slowing down the car, and leaning his head back toward me. "I guess you got a pass or something to get in."

"Yes...."

"Hope so. Here comes the guard. Old Monk Adams. They say he's a mean bastard-mean as they come."

I looked up in time to see a very large man with massive shoulders walking toward us. He had a rifle slung by a strap over his arm. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of metal-rimmed dark glasses. He came around to the driver's side. He glanced back at me and then at the driver.

"You can't come in here without a pass," he snapped.

"Lady says she's got one."

The guard gave me a sullen look. "That right?"

I tried a smile, but the sullen face discouraged it. "I don't exactly have a pass." I confessed, feeling a little like a criminal myself. "But I do have a letter from Warden Baker. He's expecting me."

The guard waited a second. He didn't look at all friendly; and I could feel his eyes staring holes through me from behind the dark glasses.

"Nobody gets in here without a pass," he growled, finally. "Letters don't...."

"Oh, please," I begged. "Look, can't you make a phone call, or something, to the warden? I know he's expecting me. He wrote me that...."

"Wait here."

The guard swung back off and disappeared into the little brick office just a few feet inside the gate.

"Gives a guy the creeps," the taxi driver whistled, rubbing his jaw. "I don't never wanta get any nearer to this dump than right here."

I thought of Joe again-how he must have felt the first time he rode through these dreary gates; and how he must have resented the sullen look of that guard.

The reluctant driver and I sat for a moment longer in silence, and then the guard came back to the car. He peered in through the window at me again.

"Your name Gray?"

"Yes. Mary Gray."

"Nurse, eh?"

"Yes."

He tossed a scornful look at what he could see of my body, and husked, "Okay ... the warden says it's okay. Taxi can't come in, though. You gotta get out here."

I had never met Warden Baker myself, but I felt that I knew him. He seemed almost like an uncle to me because I had heard my father speak of him so many times, always in affectionate terms.

The man who stood up to greet me, however, was something of a surprise. For one thing, I had expected the warden to be a tall, impressive figure-a kind of heroic, oversized man with graying temples and a strong jaw. I supposed I had seen too many movies about how wardens were supposed to look.

Warden Baker didn't fit that description. He was a small man with a club foot. He was also almost bald, with little reddish-brown wisps of hair clinging above his ears. His smile was quick but somewhat slack and forced, and his eyes seemed tired.

"So you're Phil Gray's little girl, Mary," he said, putting out his hand to me casually.

"Yes...." I stammered, feeling foolish. "I've heard Daddy say so much about you, Warden Baker." I felt foolish because I had poured out my entire knowledge of him in the long letter I attached to the official application blank. I felt that I owed more than just a small amount of Daddy's friendship to this man for getting the job. There was no point in trying to act otherwise. The only thing I was sure he didn't know was why I had wanted to come to work here: I felt that to say I wanted to be near to one of the prisoners would be the worst thing possible.

"Sit down, Mary," the warden said, indicating a chair by his desk. I felt that his glance at me was a little troubled. He sat back down at his desk and folded his small hands together, smiling but still a bit artificially.

"You understand, Mary, that I gave you a great deal of thought before I agreed to letting you come here. Of course, it's my desire to do anything I can for an old friend like Phil-an able attorney like your father ... but...."

His voice trailed off, and I saw the troubled look again. I waited, wondering with a dull dread if he had reconsidered the whole thing, after all.

"Is there something wrong, Warden Baker?" I managed to say.

He looked down at the papers on his desk. I saw a little cloud of concern sailing into his brow. "Well ... to tell you the truth, Mary, I'm a little worried about your real reason for coming here."

I felt a catch in my throat. He knew, then. Somehow he had found out.

I decided the best thing I could do was to beat him to it. "I guess you mean Joe," I said, as casually as I could.

He looked up at me, his pale eyes wavering. "Yes ... Joe Phillips ... I understand you and Joe were once...."

"We were engaged to be married, Warden Baker. The only reason we aren't married now is because Joe decided it wouldn't be fair to me."

The warden was looking at the papers on his desk again. By this time I had realized that the papers were about Joe-undoubtedly his record.

"I suppose I would be insulting you if I asked just what you intend to ... ah ... make of this job?"

"I don't understand."

He looked at me with an official look. "Do you intend to establish contact again with Joe? Did you want a job here just to be near him?"

"Yes ... in a way I did. I'll admit it. But is there anything wrong with that?"

"Wrong?" Warden Baker's eyes shifted uncertainly back to the papers. He was thinking hard about the matter, I could tell.

He cleared his throat. "Well, I suppose it depends on what we mean by wrong, Mary. We can't ignore the fact that Joe Phillips is a prisoner in a state reformatory. And we can't ignore why he was sent here."

"He was convicted of statutory rape," I said quietly. "He was convicted, and he was sentenced. He's paying his debt to society, and I only want to be near him while he does." I leaned forward a little in my chair. The silence in the room was like a hammer inside my head. "I do want to make one thing very clear, Warden Baker," I said, firmly. "I have no intention of complicating Joe's life. And I have no intention of trying to be his wife here."

A small, troubled smile flickered at Warden Baker's mouth. "You think it will be easy for a man like Joe to see you here ... without...."

"Without wanting me?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"No ... not in some ways. On the other hand, I think it may help him remember that those on the outside of these walls haven't forgotten him. He's part of my life, Warden. I want it to remain that way." The line from the high-school-days poem came singing into my head again ... stone walls do not a prison make ... and I suddenly realized some of the truth of it. You can be in prison behind artificial, invisible walls, too. I was. I had been ever since Joe was taken out of my life.

Warden Baker was looking at me very carefully. I waited. At last he sighed and closed the folder on his desk. He scratched his sagging jaw slowly.

"You understand, Mary," he said, softly. "I can't know anything at all about this officially. All I note is that you have applied for a position in our dispensary here. We have a position open-and you qualify. Your relationship to Joe Phillips is your own business, and of course I expect you to honor your commitment to conduct yourself at all times as responsibly as possible. I know I don't have to say any more than that."

"Thank you, sir."

"As for Joe ... I've found him to be a model inmate. I suppose you knew we've made him a trusty."

"No, I didn't know that. Joe and I ... well ... we really haven't corresponded much."

"I see. Well, being a trusty means, of course, that he has some freedoms that are denied the majority of prisoners. He is not allowed off the prison grounds, of course-but he is more or less free to roam at will within the walls."

"I see."

"So you understand, Mary-your presence could easily put additional pressures on Joe. I mean, if you let it. But I see no reasons for it not being a beneficial thing for both you and Joe-if the decorum is maintained."

"It will be, I can assure you of that, Warden Baker."

He pushed a buzzer on his desk, and almost at once the guard came back into the room. It was the same guard, the one with the sullen face.

"Monk," the warden said. "This is Miss Mary-Gray, and she's our new nurse. I want you to take her over to meet Stella...." He turned to me and smiled. "Stella is my wife. You'll be staying with us, at least for the time being. Dr. Hawkins isn't here today, so you can meet him tomorrow. And I'll see you later this evening, Stella will show you where to put your things."

He smiled at me again, and I felt that the first Rubicon had been passed at last.

The guard named Monk took me the short distance from the main building to the warden's home. It was set off from the other buildings and nestled in a circle of silver spruces. It was an attractive house with a whitewashed flagstone path bordering the flowers around it. No doubt there was plenty of free labor to keep the place up.

I had already decided that I didn't care too much for Monk. His expression-surly and unfriendly-still had not changed. And once or twice I caught him staring hard at me out of the corners of his eyes, and a small, knowing grin cutting at the edges of his mouth. He didn't speak three words all the way over to the house.

He surprised me by ignoring the doorbell and pushing the door of the house open.

"Stella-Mrs. Baker-ain't here," he said, gruffly. "She took off this morning for town. But she'll be back."

He let me carry my own suitcase into the room near the back of the house. It was a pretty, if sparsely-decorated, bedroom. He lounged in the doorway, watching me as I put the suitcase on the small bed and unlocked the snaps. I turned at last.

"Thank you for showing me the room," I said.

He grinned a slack grin. "Anything else you need, Miss," he breathed, suggestively.

"No, thanks."

He remained there, hulking in the doorway, one meaty hand hooked into his wide, leather cartridge belt.

"Sure about that?" he insisted.

I stared him down. In a moment he grinned again and turned his back on me. I could hear him lumbering down the little hallway and out of the house. I shut the door to the bedroom and unpacked.

I wanted to take a bath, but I hesitated. After all, it wasn't my house-and I'd never met Warden Baker's wife. She could very well look askance at my moving in at all. I decided to rest a little bit instead. It had been a long bus trip getting here and I found that now that the ordeal of getting the job was over, I was more tired than I had thought.

I didn't bother to turn back the cover of the small bed. I Just lay down and shut my eyes.

I don't know how long I was asleep when the noises awakened me. It couldn't have been long, and yet I had been sound asleep, because the noises seemed to work themselves into my subconscious, like little pickaxes hammering away at the walls of my sleep.

There were voices-low and muffled and insistent; and mixed with them, the low chuckle of a woman's laugh.

I got up, intending to make my presence known. But when I got to the door of my room I froze in my tracks. I recognized one of the voices.

I stood just behind the door and-despite myself-found that I was eavesdropping.

"...hurry!" the woman's voice demanded.

"You really are hot today, baby!"

That was the voice I recognized.

It was Joe's voice. And the tone of it burned into my brain with a kind of harsh disbelief. There was no mistaking the meaning of his words, no masking the carnal intent.

"I've waited a damned week for you," the woman's voice wailed, ragged with an obvious need.

"It's better that way," Joe laughed. "I-like a woman to appreciate me. Makes it nicer for both of us."

"Shut up-shut up and hurry!"

They stopped talking then, and I could hear nothing but a muffled, straining sound of bodies moving together. They were very close, and I remembered the other door, the one just across the hall from the room I was in. The door had been open when I came into the house, and I wondered if now ...

I continued to listen, but now there was only silence.

I stood up and very quietly moved to the door of my room. I hated myself. I told myself that I shouldn't do it, that I would regret it a thousand times-and yet I was compelled, forced by my racing heart to discover the worst.

I knelt very quietly and put my eye to the keyhole. The room across the hall came into my vision, and what I saw made me suck in my breath with shock.

A buxom woman-half-naked--was sprawled on the bed. Her legs were thrown apart temptingly, revealing a flash of panties under the tight slip that rode high on her hips. Her breasts-swollen and taut-strained against the upper part of her slip. I could see the outline of her nipples, rounded and hard, pressing out like thumbs against the silken shimmer of cloth.

She had a slack, confident grin on her face and it was directed toward the man who stood in front of her, unbuttoning his trousers. He had his back to me, but there was something unmistakably familiar to me in the shape of his shoulders, the nape of his neck, the way he held his head.

Then he turned his profile toward me and my heart caught in my throat.

Joe!

I stared in disbelief at the man I loved-and at what he was about to do with a strange woman.