dangled uselessly. White didn’t mention one detail to Pyle: the girl
who had been taken hostage credited White with protecting her
and her brother. “I am sure they intended to kill all of us, and only
Warden White’s bravery saved us,” she said.
None of the convicts managed to get away. They believed that if
you touched a prison official, especially a warden, it was better, as
one of them remarked, never to “come back because if you do you
are going to have a hard, hard time.” And so when the authorities
caught up with Boxcar and the other escapees, Boxcar shot his two
companions, then put a bullet in his own forehead. The other
inmates prepared to kill themselves by detonating the dynamite,
but before they could light the fuse, they were apprehended. One
of them said, “The funny part is that when we got back to the
institution they never laid a hand on us. Warden White was a hell
of a man. He left strict orders, ‘No hands on these people, leave
them alone. Treat them just like the rest of the prisoners.’ ” He
added, “Otherwise we’d have got our heads broken in.”
White learned that Rudensky had been recruited to assist with
the escape but had refused. “He had begun to develop a sense of
responsibility,” White told another writer. “He realized that I had
been fair with him and was sincerely trying to help him establish
himself as a member of ‘legitimate’ society.” In 1944, Rudensky
was released on parole and had a successful career as an author
and a businessman.
When White had sufficiently recovered, he took over as warden
of La Tuna, a job that was less strenuous. Pyle wrote of the
shooting, “The experience affected Warden White, as it would
anyone. It didn’t make him afraid, but it made him jumpy, and
kind of haunted.” Pyle continued, “I don’t see how, after an
experience like that, you could look upon any convict with
anything but hatred. But Warden White isn’t that way. He is