By Layne and Jo

(Layne writing Ben, Jo writing Maximus)

PART 3:

The guard named Luke was bringing the food and that was fine with Ben.  The food brought around at Yuma Prison couldn't exactly be called fine cuisine.  More often than not, the bread was moldy and any hot grits or oatmeal mush had weevils in it.  But Ben knew that Luke was frightened enough of him to bring the best that there was available to his cell.  It would, therefore, be at least somewhat better than the other men were getting.

This evening's meal was soup, served in battered tin bowls, and bread.  Taking his bowl, Ben sniffed it cautiously.  "What the hell's in this, Luke?"

"Rabbit," the man told him nervously.

"Hmmm...," Ben said thoughtfully, still sniffing.  "Maximus here's gonna need hisself two helpin's of it."  He didn't know what had been going on here, but it was plain the man was just about starved.

"Two-!"  Luke's eyes went wide and he was about to protest, but the hard, cold look in Ben Wade's eyes silenced him.  He remembered how the knife the outlaw had wielded felt when it sliced into his chin and then his neck.  Sullenly, he brought another of the battered bowls.

His hands shaking slightly, Maximus took one of the bowls Ben handed to him. "You have my thanks," he said, looking from Ben to the guard. Setting the spoon aside, he lifted the bowl to

his lips, sipping the soup, not caring at all what it tasted like, what it was made from. After a

few mouthfuls, a wave of nausea washed over him and he went white. He set the bowl on the floor, then held his face in his hands. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he breathed, "It is

not the food. It is me. My belly has been empty so long it no longer remembers what to do

when it is fed."  He breathed in and out through his mouth, willing calmness into his body.

Ben's look at him was detached.  "Might wanna take it a little slow 'n easy eatin' the rest 'a that," he advised.

"I think that best, yes," Maximus replied. He lay back for a while, listening to the sounds of the other man as he ate his soup. By the time he felt well enough to try again, the soup was cold. Still, it was nourishment. Cautiously, he sipped some more and when he could tell it was going

to stay down, took larger sips. Breaking off a piece of bread, he wiped the bowl with it, though deciding to wait longer to consume the other bowl.  So Commodus evidently was not planning
on starving him to death. He would, doubtless, have something worse in mind. Setting the empty bowl down, he said, "I await your pleasure," not realizing he'd spoken aloud.

Ben had finished eating awhile ago and was once again lying back on his cot, pondering his escape plan.  He heard the clink as the empty tin bowl was set down on the stone floor. 

"What'd you say?" he asked Maximus, startled.

"A private thought regarding my enemy, not meant to be given voice.  Pay it no heed."

"Your enemy."  Ben's voice was lazily amused.  "Jus' who might that be?"

"A single man," Maximus replied, "with absolute power over life and death of countless peoples. He ordered the deaths of my wife, my son, murdered his own father, has sought my life ever since."  All this was already known. There was no need to keep it hidden longer. "He wishes, above all others, to take my life, has made many attempts." He sighed. "Even resorting to the tigers."

"Sounds like this fellow needs to be one dead man," Ben mused.  "How come you ain't killed

'im yet?"

"A boy...a boy I cared about...came between us. Since then there has been no opportunity. But he must die. He will die."

A boy he'd cared about...  There'd been no one who cared about Ben when he was a boy.  Not even his own mother.  Not in a million years would he have admitted it but, for a brief few seconds, Ben was jealous of that boy, whoever he was.  Then, the rest of the words Maximus

had spoken to him came back.

"He tried to kill you with tigers?"  His voice was cautiously amazed.

"Four. I had no knowledge they would be there until they suddenly appeared." He shrugged. "The man has no boundaries, you see. He wished to make sure I did not survive the fight with the former champion."

Ben still thought that Maximus was a crazy man, but he was beginning to see something that he could turn to his advantage here.  Measuring his words very carefully, being cautiously casual, he asked, "You want some help killin' 'im?"

"It is a thing I must do, ben Wade, though I thank you for your offer. Besides, you would have

to be in the arena and you have not said you have training in such things. Though I had others with me when the chariots were sent in, since then he has made sure I fight alone. Now I do not even know if he intends that I should fight again or if he will simply send assassins to accomplish his task quietly."

Ben thought for a moment and then said quietly, "For my, uh-weapon 'a choice, you don' need no arena."

"And what would that weapon be, ben Wade?  I once thought that had I ever the opportunity, drowning him in his bath would suffice, but, of course, I have no access to his personal quarters in the imperial palace."

"That'd be the Colt .45 I made mention of earlier," Ben said.  "You're better off not usin' one

in an arena.  Don' want no witnesses around if you can help it."

"This weapon, would it be something I might have seen among the barbarian tribes in Germania?"

"Not hardly."  Ben couldn't help his dry chuckle. "It don' get used by barbarians. Just civilized men in America.  God made man, but Sam Colt made him equal."

"Sam Colt, he is a General, then, among your people?"

"You might say that," Ben told him lazily. "But he's really more of a inventor. A 'man 'a ideas', you might call him."

More to himself than to Ben, Maximus murmured, "I wish I had some idea of what Commodus plans next for me."

" 'Zactly who is this Commodus," Ben wanted to know.  " 'Sides just your enemy."

"I presumed everyone knew of him," Maximus replied. "It takes some doing not to know the name of the single man who controls the destiny of most of the world. He is...I have known him since he was a boy.  He murdered my chief, my commander, my friend...his father. He did so

to prevent it being known that...that his father had...plans for me. He wanted for himself what his father had offered me. And he has it. That is who Commodus is, ben Wade. He is the
man who has taken everything of value and turned it into death, into corruption. He is without honor, without mercy, without care or thought for others. He took what I had believed was the light and made it darkness."

For a moment, Ben reflected on the words the other man had just spoken.

...'taken everything of value and turned it into death, into corruption. He is without honor, without mercy, without care or thought for others. He took what I had believed was the light and made it darkness...'

"Somebody did that to me, too, friend."  He paused, not sure if he should say it.  But, what the hell?  Once he was outta here, he'd never see this man again. 'Sides, he was so crazy, nobody'd believe him if he repeated it.

"It was my mama."

"Your mother?" Maximus was truly startled by the man's response, by the heart-felt, revealing way he'd said it. He remembered his youngest years in Spain, how his own mother cared for him, watched over him. He remembered her tears when he went off, still quite young, for special military training. All his memories of her were good. "I regret, ben Wade, hearing such. The trust we place in our mothers to be what the gods intend...it would be a hard thing were that to be betrayed."

Keeping his eyes closed, his soft drawl holding the merest hint of sadness and regret, Ben went on.  "It was my mama made me ever'thin' I am today."  His chuckle was completely devoid of mirth.  "You got any idea how many times I've heard men say that, Maximus?  Always got

pride in their voices when they say it, too."

The barest flicker of his eyelids and the movement of his throat as he swallowed were the only visible signs of Ben's emotion.

Maximus thought back again to his own mother, to how he had always been aware of how much she loved his father, how his father returned that to her. It was what he'd based his love for his dead wife on, what he'd wanted his dead son to see between his parents. "And your father, ben Wade? Was he not a part of that making?"

Another dry chuckle.  "Oh, yeah.  Guess you could say he was at that.  Taught me to hold my whiskey."  He paused for a moment and then went on quietly.  "An' it was him done made my mama what she was."

He thought about his mama again.  About how, when his daddy wasn't around, she would laugh and have fun.  How she would read to the young Ben and they would play together in the yard.  But then, his daddy would come home and she would go all quiet.  Except when she was crying or screaming because the drunken fool was hitting her.

Maximus had met men in the army, men whose growing up had been very much less than it should have been. They tended to be hard men, men centered into themselves, their own needs coming first because they'd never had anyone else care about those needs.  He looked at ben Wade, seeing that in him, beginning to understand the why of him.  They were generally good fighters, these men, even ruthless because life to them was cheap and, never having been valued, they did not value others.

He'd known men like this Maximus, Ben Wade thought to himself.  Men who'd been raised by mamas and daddys who pampered their sons.  Raised 'em up to be like royalty.  Give 'em ever'thin' they ever wanted or needed. Praised 'em to the skies and told 'em they could be anythin' they set out to be.

He'd known 'em and he'd hated 'em all his life.  In part, that hate was based on envy, but a man like Ben would never--could never--admit that to himself. 

Maximus, though, seemed to be a man who'd had some hard times, too.  Had had to live through some things that most men never did.  And, despite his disdain about all that talk of 'honor', Ben thought the man just might be useful in making an escape from this place.  Tomorrow, he'd talk to one of the guards about just who this man was and how he'd come to be here. 

For now, though...  " 'Bout bedtime aroun' here," he said to his cellmate.  Going to the far back corner of the little cell, he unzipped and used the rusty bucket that passed for a chamber pot.

Maximus could not help but hear as ben Wade's stream hit the metal bucket. A bucket. That

was more than he'd had in his cell before. When he, too, had relieved himself and the scent of fresh urine pierced the air in the small space to which they were confined, he lay back again on his cot, watching as the bit of sky he could see darkened as the sun went down.

Where? Where was he? He had no memory of being transferred to a different cell. It had been hot, humid summer before. Now there was a dryness to the air that reminded him of Zucchabar. But there was nothing now to do but wait and so he would wait.

Ben woke early the next morning, knowing exactly where he was.  The cots in Yuma prison

were unmistakable.  Harder than the stone on which they stood.  Sleeping on the stone would probably have been more comfortable, but the cells were so small there wasn't enough floor room left over for sleeping.

He heard slightly raspy breathing from the man lying in the other cot.  Maximus. The man had to be crazy, and yet everything he said, no matter how outlandish, had the ring of truth to it.  The man carried an air of nobility to him. 

They'd be taken out to the yard for an hour later this morning and he'd get a chance to ask about where Maximus had come from, and how long he'd been here.  He was looking forward

to that.  Ben grinned to himself, thinking that the only thing he'd ever looked forward to in Yuma before was escaping from the place.

Maximus began to wake, taking in the smells, the sounds around him before he opened his eyes. He let his lids rise slowly. He was in the same place he'd been last evening. That didn't seem to be a thing one could count on these days. What would the day bring? Would he be left here to rot or would some new, means of death await him?  How long had it been since a day had come that he genuinely anticipated with pleasure?

TO BE CONTINUED...

BACK TO THE CELL PART 2

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