That was what someone had told Kid Curry more than once.

He couldn't remember now where and when he'd been told it. Could remember the voice, though, clear as a mountain stream, and it seemed to be missing.

"Shouldn't we feed him?"

The question was asked over the top of Kid Curry's head. It was a woman's voice and he didn't know it, didn't like it.

"What fer? He ain't gonna want to swaller. He wakes up, give him more water."

That voice was even worse. A scratchy, fake sort of a voice that had no embodiment.

"He just hacked it all up, Emmett."

"'S'OK. He's driftin' off again."

"Why don't you go get the Sheriff?"

"He's out of town again. Deputy Cotton won't want the trouble, you know what he's like. 'Sides, our messed-up gunslinger here ain't exactly dangerous. I want to make sure Heyes comes right back here for him. 'M in the mood for a double bounty, Lydie. And so should you be."

"Well shall we tie him up?"

Footsteps getting nearer. Breath, sweet and sour with onions and liquor, drifting near his face. "You hear me, Curry?"

A hand slapping at his swollen cheek, none too gentle.

"See there, Lydie? See there, feller? Your gun-toting days are over, boy. You're gonna make Dr and Mrs Pike rich enough to get out of Marionsville."

A little tinkling laugh in the background.

Footsteps walking away. A door shutting. Silence.

No, not silence. The ancient bellows, wheezing in and out, sending a dust-cloud into the back of his throat each time.

Water over the next hill. That's right, Heyes, keep me going. You keep me putting one foot in front of the other.

Robert Chandler was relieved when Smith rode back into camp, some hour or so after Phillips had got back with the wagon. He felt like he had done more than enough now to show he was a good boss. Letting them take Jones off to Marionsville, leaving him three guns down, that was altruism alright. They could have no complaints now. Smith looked like a thundercloud, mind.

"Day and a half more to Lycett's Plain, Joshua," he said. "And the prettiest mess of land you will ever have seen in your life. Tobias Lycett will be waiting. And that's when you'll get what's due you."

"Any sign of the Websters?" Heyes growled.

"Nope. Looks like Thaddeus threw them right off the scent. Good plan of mine to send that message. How'd he look when you got him into town?"

Like each breath's going to be his last, Heyes thought. "Bad enough," was what he said. He still felt like punching Chandler in his self-satisfied teeth.

"He's being looked after right?"

Heyes could have gagged on his own bitter laughter. "There's a doctor," he said, "but I'm not sure he'll stay sober enough to do much good."

Chandler tutted. "You know, Joshua," he said chidingly, "You are the darndest ... you really ought to learn to trust people more."

Now why would I want to do that, Heyes thought, and didn't like the way that thought made him feel. Like he'd just discovered some sick joke about mankind that he'd never heard before.

The attack from the Websters never came. Without help from the Chandlers' messenger they never did manage to get back on the right trail, and in any case Carl Webster was rightly nervous about what his boys had done. He'd seen the beating and kicking and felt a little bad that he hadn't intervened. Still, the tight-lipped cowboy had been dumped back on his horse and sent on his way -- he'd been in the saddle as he disappeared into the dark. Webster wouldn't have him followed because he was afraid they'd be bushwhacked themselves. There would be other ways, at other times, to get back at them.

Chandler was increasingly ecstatic. All his plans were coming to fruition.

"When things have settled down, Joshua," he said, "when you've gone back to Marionsville and found Thaddeus sitting down eating a steak large as life ... well, if you like, I'll come in with you to see the Sheriff there about what the Websters did to him. Common assault I'd say. He may want to pursue it."

Heyes indulged in a brief vision of the Kid chewing healthily on a piece of beefsteak, and then shook his head firmly.

"No thank you, Mr Chandler. Going to the Sheriff won't be necessary."

"No? Why not? Thought you'd want to see justice done."

"What I want .... what we want ... is just to collect our money and be gone."

"And Thaddeus?"

"Oh he'll feel the same."

"Well I don't agree with you," Chandler stated in his maddening, cocksure way. "Thaddeus seems like the kinda feller that wouldn't let something like that go. He's got the marks to prove what happened. He coulda died."

Still mighta done, Heyes thought.

"Believe me," he said, "Thaddeus is the most peace-loving man you could meet. He'll just want to forgive and forget."

Chandler made a face as if this was anathema to him. He shrugged. "As you like," he said.

The money was put into Heyes' hands some forty-eight hours after he first left Marionsville. The feel of it gave him a little lift, even though he realized he should know better by now than to think that money could solve your problems.

When he rode back into Marionsville it was mid-afternoon, and there was still hardly a body to be seen on the street. The door was shut on the general store, and there was no-one going either in or out of the saloon opposite. This time round Heyes noted that the Bank was boarded up and something had been painted over the sign that once said "Hotel". Four kids with their mangy dog were sitting outside it throwing stones into a steel bucket.

Shitty little windblown hole, he thought, tying up his own horse and the Kid's outside the doctor's. He felt deeply pessimistic about what he was going to find. Most days since they had turned up at Lom's and put it to him that they might try for amnesty, Heyes had felt he might never again believe, as he had done for years and years, that things would somehow always turn out for the best. The dilution of such concentrated optimism made him feel like he'd aged. His gloved hand rapped on the door and he strained his ears to hear something inside. A second knock brought a woman to answer. She was flushed and slightly breathless, the long white apron she wore streaked with unpleasant-looking stains and the odd blot of blood. Heyes stomach turned over painfully. He was light-headed with sudden fear.

"Mrs Baines?" he managed to get out. Although he didn't know it, with his trail-worn black pants and hat, his two-day beard and strained face he looked for all the world like a dangerous outlaw who might do something unexpected and violent at any moment.

"Well!" she exclaimed, clutching a hand to her throat and taking a large step backwards, "it's .... it's ... you!" Immediately she turned her head and bellowed into the dim interior, "Emmett! He's back! That .... he's back!"

Scuffling footsteps preceded Dr Pike, lurching slightly out of the gloom to the doorway. He was wreathed in smiles, however, and Heyes dared to presume that the Kid wasn't dead.

Without being asked he stepped inside, trying not to notice the sour smells that assailed him. "Dr Pike," he said, "How's my friend?"

"Oh he's fine, fine," Dr Pike said, "Doing very well. Wouldn't you say, Lydie, dear?"

"Oh very well," she trilled, shutting the door behind them and keeping her distance. "Fast asleep right at the moment. But doing very well. Such a good patient. So quiet."

The doctor and Mrs Baines looked at each other, smiling pleasantly. A small chill ran up the back of Heyes' neck, making his hair stand on end.

"I'd like to see him, right away," he said in a dry voice.

"You wouldn't want to wake him," Mrs Baines said. "He needs the sleep."

"No really ... I'd like to see him."

"Well, well, come in here first," Dr Pike blustered, opening a door to the side and motioning Heyes inside. It was a square, book-lined room, full of dark wood furniture, much of it rather dusty. There were certificates hung on the dingy walls and a glass-fronted cabinet by the window that was mostly empty but did seem to contain one or two bottles of medicine and a few surgical implements.

"I've got your money," Heyes said, more than a little disturbed now. And he pulled a handful of notes out of his back pocket.

Pike put out his hand and closed his bony fingers around the proffered wad. He flicked through the notes carefully and then rolled them and put them in the top pocket of his shirt under a black pinstripe vest, shiny with wear. Heyes glanced at the far wall of the room where there was a connecting door. He was pretty sure that the back room must lie behind that door.

"Can I ....?" he asked making a move towards it.

Pike responded with raised brows. His air of befuddlement seemed to evaporate, and he reached into his vest at the waistband of his trousers and swiftly drew out a pistol, which he pointed, and then cocked, a tremor jiggling his hand slightly, just enough to make Heyes even twitchier. "No, Mr Heyes," he said, his teeth showing in a little grin, "No, you can't. Take his gun, Lydie, if you would, please, my dear. Raise your hands, Mr Heyes."

Heyes lifted his hands slowly. "Why are you calling me Mr Heyes?" he asked at once, eyes on the shaky pistol, not prepared to accept anything was a done deal here.

"Cause it's your name, honey," said Mrs Baines, plucking the gun from his belt and taking it over to a desk where she laid it down.

"Well I don't know who says so."

"I say so," Pike stated. "And I know so. I was a passenger on the 4.52 to Roaming Falls, Mr Heyes, and I saw your face as clearly as I am seeing it now. And I heard you identified, positively. And, I never forget a face. Especially one that's turned out so valuable."

"Roaming Falls?" echoed Heyes. He had no memory of it. A large blank had just settled in his mind.

"Told him we'd never bin there," whispered a voice behind him, "but he wouldn't believe me." Heyes heard a very familiar gunlock being drawn off, an action that Kid Curry had always managed to imbue with meaning. He turned and only just managed to stop a sharp intake of breath.

Kid Curry stood in the doorway from the hall. He was leaning up against the door-frame and holding his gun with both hands, something Heyes had never seen in his life before. Despite the state of him, he was holding it firm, although drooping slightly into his right side, pushing against the wood to keep his feet. The swelling on his face had gone down a bit, but the bruising and angry, open wound to the forehead remained, and beneath all that his complexion was gray. To Heyes' disgust it looked like someone in a blindfold had shaved him with a blunt razor, and cut off some of his hair. Red-rimmed, murky eyes squinted into the room while he took short, uneven breaths.

"Emmett," Lydia Blaine squeaked. "Didn't I tell you we should tie him up? Didn't I tell you we should take his gun away and hock it?"

"Ssssh!" Pike snapped at her. "Just hush. You ain't gonna shoot me, boy. You can barely keep your eyes open."

Curry waved the gun at the doctor's chest, pitching a little, and then regaining his stance. He looked frail alright, but dangerous. Heyes galvanized himself, snatching out a hand to wrestle Pike's pistol out of a liver-spotted hand, emptying it out on the floor. He retrieved his own gun and leveled it, the action clearing his head.

"I've got it covered," he said in a commanding tone, but the Kid continued to point his gun at Dr Pike, acting like he hadn't heard.

Mrs Baines made a little whimpering sound, darting fearful looks between them. Heyes could tell that she expected to be murdered there and then. He felt murderous enough towards her but was sucking it in. Bandaging was hanging off Curry's ribs. He was wearing a pair of pants Heyes didn't recognize. His lips were cracked and there was a feverish glint behind the sludgy tin-color of his eyes.

"You haven't looked after him at all," Heyes said, his voice low, and shaking with a fury he felt would throttle him.

Dr Pike looked up at the ceiling.

Heyes swung his gaze around quickly. He saw a shelf of heavy medical textbooks.

Anatomy. Physiology. Surgery. The words swam around before his eyes.

"Sit down," he said. "Both of you."

"You gonna kill us?" Dr Pike asked.

Heyes ignored him. He'd seen keys. Swiftly he locked the connecting door, pocketed that key, and then came over to Curry's side.

"Let me take that," he said quietly, sliding the Kid's gun carefully from his hand.

Curry didn't say anything, just wheezed at him. Relinquishing his hold of the precious Colt seemed to daze him further.

"You know," said the doctor, "he won't survive out there. 'sgot something stickin' in his lungs, I reckon. See how he can't breathe right. He'll suffocate on you eventually, if'n you don't ease it somehow."

Curry laid the side of his head against the doorframe. "'d rather suffocate with him," he said, watching with indifference while Heyes picked up a roll of bandage and let it unloop. He would have liked to point out that the two prisoners would break their way out of that in no time at all, but that didn't seem helpful. Heyes was buying them what time he could. He was almost cheered by the fact that, once they were trussed, Heyes stuck his fingers behind Pike's shiny waistcoat and pulled out the wad of money.

"Don't think you've earned it, do you?" Heyes said. "And if I can find a way of getting your goddamned medical license revoked, Pike, then so help me that's what I'm going to do."

Talk of licenses made Kid Curry shut his eyes. He felt Heyes ducking under one of his shoulders to pull him out of the door. He heard the door being shut with a push of one foot, the key turning in the lock.

In the back room Heyes made the Kid sit down on the bed. There was nothing to show that any care had been taken of him at all in the last three days and Heyes could feel the blood drumming inside his skull. Curry couldn't sit upright, sinking instead into a slump against Heyes' shirtfront.

"Can you help me out here?" Heyes asked. He got the Kid's shirt on, then his sheepskin, both still on the floor where they had been dropped. Somehow he levered him to two feet to buckle on his belt and then slotted his gun inside. Whatever condition Curry was in, Heyes knew that having his gun would make him feel better.

"You need water?" he asked. Curry's head lifted. All he wanted was for Heyes to get him out of this house.

"Well I don't know, Kid, but somehow you gotta sit a horse without dying on me. You think you can do that?"

A banging came on the door across the hall, and Dr Pike's reedy whine a second after. "There'll be a posse on your tail quicker'n you can say knife, Heyes!"

"Maybe," Heyes replied through the panels, "but I'm not so worried. I've seen how many people are left in this town." Shuffling towards the front door he muttered to Curry, "I should kill them. I wish I could. I want to."

"Easy, Heyes," Kid Curry soothed, finding his voice at that. "You ain't killing nobody."

There was silence in the house behind them as they staggered down the steps into a gathering gloom. At any second Heyes expected the tinkle of glass as Pike smashed the window to make his escape, but, like he had predicted, there was no-one out on the street to hear. Even the kids and their dog had gone.

Shitty little windblown hole, he thought grimly.

Barely two miles out of town Heyes could tell Curry was out of resistance. They'd been going at a slow enough pace, Heyes up front, able to keep that up while it seemed no-one was on their tail, but it was all too much. Heyes knew he was still breathing because the harsh sound was all he could hear behind him, but now he was listing ever further over the saddle-horn, and Heyes realized that if he fell it would likely finish him off.

He reined them in, looking around. It was quiet out here. Plenty of trees. Some rocky outcrops looming out of the dark. A wind rustled through the leaves overhead.

Hannibal Heyes slid to the ground and walked back to Kid Curry's horse. He laid a hand on the Kid's leg and said, "Gotta get you down now."

Curry looked at him but Heyes couldn't see the eyes. Very slowly Curry hoisted himself out of the saddle, letting his partner snag his weight again. He felt somehow lighter than before, like his strength and bulk had been sucked out of him in just three days. Heyes moved him along a few steps, fear tightening in his belly. How long could a man survive breathing in what sounded like half a lungful of air? Not long, he surmised. A rough and drawn-out way to go. Still, at least he couldn't be bleeding in his belly, else he'd be dead by now.

"OK," he said in Curry's ear, "We gotta get you up now."

This time he did catch the look in Curry's eyes. It was replete with disgust and momentarily made Heyes feel better. He'd seen that look many times.

Sitting behind he held on for dear life, knowing the tight grip he had to have was agonizing. Curry's horse was sent galloping madly into the night, and then Heyes turned his own mount up into the rocks. "I'm going to find us a nice cave, Kid," he said. "We'll bed down for a bit, think what to do."

In answer, nothing but wheezing.

All the while, climbing up between the rocks, and then finding a good enough spot, setting up a makeshift camp and getting a fire going, Heyes was thinking. He got the Kid settled down in the corner of what he could hardly call a cave, but it was enough to provide cover, took on water and food, got some down his partner, and then sat back on his heels looking down on the sight before him.

"This is getting to be a habit," he said eventually.

"What?" croaked Curry from his propped up position against a mound of saddle-blankets.

"Me leaving you."

A wet cough rattled out. It seemed to be a substitute for a laugh. "Where you going this time?"

"To get you a proper doctor."

Curry just shook his head fatalistically. He watched as Heyes leaned over him and extracted his gun, tucking it down inside the blanket that was drawn up to his neck.

"Fire's good for a while. Water's here. Gun's here. Now all you gotta do ..." His words caught a little in his throat. "All you gotta do, is to keep breathing."

Curry opened his mouth as if to reply but could get nothing out. Heyes kneaded a handful of shoulder. He unfurled himself and pulled on his gloves, turning his back as he did so, unwilling to spend longer looking at the Kid's drawn features. "Be back in no time," he said, businesslike.

As the clopping hooves faded away, Kid Curry stared hard into the fire. He did not want to close his eyes, because he was afraid if he did he would never open them again.

Dark drew in gradually.

He could only fight it for so long. It came down like a black mist, settling into his senses and coiling down his throat. All the while a solid weight had been pressing down on his chest from above somewhere, squeezing out what remained of his breath.

Through the black mist came visitations. People he hardly expected to see. His mother, looking cross like she nearly always seemed to. His sister shaking her head at him. His brothers reaching a hand down to help him up. Only they didn't help him.

The fire seemed to have gone out, but he felt no cold. He had ceased to feel his legs or arms. All he could focus on was the weight and how he could force some little bits of air in around it. It felt like he had been doing it for hours, sucking in something each time.

Dawn trickled up through the dimness, but he did not see it.

When Hannibal Heyes hailed him from a distance he supposed it was a new visitation.

"I'm here, Kid," said the unreal voice. "Lie still now. You just lie still."

Kid Curry fought his way through the mist and saw a vision. Hannibal Heyes, streaked in dust, kneeling by his side in the pale morning light with a long needle in his shaking hands.

Can I stop breathing now? he thought.

And a sharp point slid into him and split him right in two.

A voice full of coaxing. Getting him to put one foot in front of the other.

Kid Curry frowned and opened up his eyes.

"You gotta drink, Kid," said Heyes' voice, and he felt a dribble of liquid going in the side of his mouth. It ran down his throat, making a little river in the dry basin.

Immediately, a band of steel tightened around his ribcage. More water dribbled in, and he was so busy taking it down that he almost didn't realize that, despite the band, he was breathing in and out, full lungfuls of air that made his mouth taste strange. He shut his eyes tight, expecting the weight, but it didn't come.

So he opened up his eyes again.

"Good morning," said Hannibal Heyes, who was squatting close to him with the water bottle. Then he held up his hand. "I don't think you should talk. You need to get used to breathing again."

Kid Curry just blinked at him.

"I got you right where I want you. You can't move and you can't talk."

Heyes moved away and busied himself around the fire. When he turned back the Kid's eyes had shut again, but he opened them when Heyes sat back next to him. Trying to speak he managed to produce nothing but a little croak. Heyes frowned and shook his head, but Curry seemed agitated and grabbed hold of his arm.

"It's alright, Kid, no need to get wild. You need something? More water?"

Kid Curry got his most stubborn look then. His fingers gripped down on Heyes' arm, although there was really not much strength left in them. With a huge effort he managed to expel some words, faint, but nevertheless containing some force.

"What ... you do .. to me ...?"

"Oh, is that it?" Heyes replied nervously.

"What?" Curry rasped in frustration.

"See, you had lots of air, swilling around in the wrong place. I had to let it out. One of your ribs was poking in after those guys bust it."

"You ... you ...."

"Now don't get uppity, Kid. I just went to look in one of good ole Doc Pike's big books. Figured either I could drop it on your head, put you out of your misery, or read up a bit of doctoring. Picked up some doctoring things too, and got out while they were still jawing on down at the sheriff's office. Bit of a lucky strike, I guess." His own voice nearly failed him at that point and he gave a shaky laugh. "Had to take the chance of hitting the right spot .. else ... well ..."

"Else?"

"You'd'a died."

"Hah!"

Heyes made a face. "Pike could have done it the day we brought you in. Seems he preferred you to suffer." The thick treacle of bitterness dripping off the words pained Kid Curry. He wanted to say some things, take the sting out of it, but his brain would not cooperate. His ears were filled with a fuzzy noise that kept coming and going. He made an attempt to sit up but found Heyes pushing him back down.

"No contest, Kid. You got no strength. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to lie there a while yet and let me take care of you. You're still black and blue." He grinned suddenly, a slight sparkle in his dark eyes. "And you're likely gonna be pissing blood for weeks."

"Heyes ... " the Kid growled. "You stabbed .. a goddamn ... knitting needle in my ribs."

Hannibal Heyes' fixed grin softened out. He reached his hand and patted the Kid very gently. Curry's cheekbones were sharp. It hurt Heyes right in the heart. He worked hard to keep the smile on his face.

"Yeah, and if you don't lie quiet and do as you're told I'm going to do it again," he said.

Kid Curry fought the overwhelming exhaustion coursing through his system. Heyes watched him fight it, shaking his head.

You are one ornery, mule-headed critter, Jed Curry.

But a helpless fatigue rolled over the Kid. His eyelids suddenly fell shut as if weighted down and his fingers relaxed abruptly against Heyes' forearm. Heyes closed his other hand over them. He'd stand vigil, happy to do so. He'd see the Kid through this and out the other side, and he knew what would give him the strength to do it.

In truth, he burned with unseen rage at the Websters, but so much more at Dr Pike and Mrs Blaine that he thought it might choke him. Their willful negligence, such casual cruelty ... Hannibal Heyes was a man who could turn away from things easily if he thought it would help a longer-term cause, neither ruled by impulse or possessed of much of a reckless streak. Behind everything his brain ticked and ticked, calm and sure, keeping him in control. But this ... this felt different. This was something that tasted of acid, something dangerous that could burst out of him in a moment. Heyes felt like he was never going to forgive and forget.

Just for now, though, while he had to stand guard over their survival, he made himself shrug it down inside, and bent to pull the blankets up securely around the Kid's shoulders. Then he rolled himself up real close next to him and wondered how he was going to stand guard and sleep all he needed at the same time. Couple of hours at least, he thought. Couple of hours and then we should move on.

The Kid muttered something, and shivered a little.

At more or less the same moment Emmett Pike learned that the posse he'd raised had left for the Triple H outside Marionsville. Boosted by as many unpaid and aimless men as possible, it would head into the mountains at dawn.

"It's ours, Lydie," he proclaimed to Mrs Baines, cosying up to her on the swinging seat that creaked back and forth on her front porch. "All that bounty, sure as you like."

"Well I hope they shoot ‘em," said Mrs Baines flatly. "That Hannibal Heyes coming back here and robbing you, Emmett ... he deserves the rope, for robbing a doctor of his tools."

"That he does," Dr Pike agreed.

"We get the money either way, you sure of that?"

"Dead or alive, Lydie. That's what it means. Reckon we'll get one dead and one alive, and that'd about suit me. I intend to see Heyes standing up in court, and then being led away to jail for the rest of his sorry days."

"Or the rope."

"Yes, Lydie dear. Or the rope."

Mrs Baines clucked in satisfaction. She glanced up at the sky. "They say it'll be getting cold up in the hills."

"So much the better," Pike said. "There's nowhere to run. Those men are going to hunt them down like dogs." And he reached under the seat to find his bottle of whisky, determined to stay more or less where he was until they dragged Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry through the dust up the main street of Marionsville and dumped them at his feet.