Daily Archives: August 19, 2011

Pulling into a dirt lot behind what must have been the penitentiary itself, I feel utterly disoriented.  Men move purposefully about, leading horses, hefting western saddles, cleaning corrals, moving bales of hay.  Horses whinny and the air is filled with dust from the pens where horses are being worked.  I search for a way to distinguish the prisoners from the cowboys around me, figuring I should look for men with shady glances wearing striped prison garb, for guards with rifles. I see neither.  It crosses my mind that, being prisoners outside of their cells, some of the men should have manacles on, but I discard that notion as movie-based. How could anyone work a horse with their hands shackled together.

At a loss for what to do, I head past a few scruffy little horses hitched to a rail, to a shabby wood shack with squinty windows and a narrow door standing open.  I peer inside.
(more…)