by JoJo

The message that got back to Wheat Carlson, presiding over supper in the main cabin at Devil's Hole, was garbled to say the least.

"They what?" he said.

"They're back," Lobo the messenger expanded, scratching his own head. "Heyes and the Kid. Just rode in from the .... Kyle's with them."

"Why've they come here?" Wheat asked out loud and then found that the rest of them were looking at him puzzled, wondering who would know if their leader didn't.

He got up hastily and went to find his gunbelt. By the time hooves were heard outside the door he had wiped his face and fingers and strapped on the belt, so that when the door opened he was standing ready in front of the fireplace, king of the mountain. Nevertheless, when the familiar black-clad figure of Hannibal Heyes walked in, he still felt like a outsider in his own front room.

"Dammit, Heyes, what in hell are you doing back here?" he greeted his former leader, peering nervously past him because you could never be sure of Kid Curry. To his relief, Heyes did not look angry, or like he was about to take back the gang by force, but he had clearly been on the road for some time. He was unshaven, covered in trail-dust and had a lean and hunted look about him.

"Hello, Wheat," he said.

"What you want?" Wheat demanded, not ready for any kind of welcome yet.

Heyes lifted a hand, removed his hat and rubbed his forehead under the thatch of gritty dark hair. "Safe haven," he said. "Can you do that for us, Wheat?"

Although the phrase might have foxed one or two of the others, Wheat knew what it meant alright. "You ain't telling me you're on the run from someone are you, Heyes? You ain't telling me you've brought a posse to our door?"

Heyes' eyes didn't have the slightest glimmer of their normal life, which made a cold finger scratch down Wheat's spine.

"There's a posse," Heyes conceded, "but we lost them two days back."

"You sure?"

Heyes nodded his head. It seemed too heavy for his neck. "Just need to rest up," he said, swaying slightly.

Kyle came clomping in the door then. "We gotta take ‘em in, Wheat," he said meaningfully.

Again Wheat looked over Heyes' shoulder.

"Need help here, boys," came Lobo's voice from outside. Heyes turned around but his feet seemed weighted down by rocks. Kyle removed his cheroot and gave him a close look and then slipped back past him into the dark. After a minute more there was the sound of cursing, a bad-tempered exchange, and then Kid Curry came through the door, with Kyle hovering behind him, his eyes round as saucers.

Heyes moved aside to let them into the cabin, putting out a hand to steady Curry over the threshold. Wheat sucked in a breath and then whistled it out, which made naked irritation flash across Heyes' face.

The Kid was as dusty and unshaven as Heyes, but he mostly looked like a horse had trampled on him. Or a whole team of them. More than that, though, was the way he was standing, one shoulder hanging down, with his gun arm crooked tight into his side. He took his hat off with the other hand and gave Wheat a belligerent look, daring him to say something. There was a unhealed wound above one eye and his face had the misshapen and oddly-hued appearance that told of recent bruises, and bad ones at that. He looked sick as a dog.

"Hellfire," said Wheat. "What happened to you?"

"Doesn't matter," Heyes told him.

"You look half dead, Kid."

Wheat couldn't help the remark, shocked in the first instance at the comprehensive battering of a man who, for much of time he'd known him, had positvely radiated rude health. After another second it occurred to him that at least it might mean he wouldn't be a danger to them, and Wheat had always thought Kid Curry bore keeping an eye on. Heyes too, come to that. In fact, Heyes probably even more, because he was tricksy with it.

Kid Curry took a look around the room. "See you're keeping it nice, Wheat," he said, and although his voice managed a hint of the deadpan acid they remembered, it was breathless and dry as a dust-bowl.

"If you've brought trouble with you, Heyes," Wheat said, dragging his eyes off the Kid.

"Wheat, for crying out loud!" Heyes snapped. "There's nothing but trouble out there! Just askin for a day or two's shelter .... from old friends. That seem unreasonable to you?"

"Things not going so well then?" Wheat said, trying, and failing, to keep a hint of satisfaction out of his tone. "Well come on in ... there's stew on the stove. Might as well change the watch now, boys. Boys!" He clicked his fingers at the four who had been sitting at table with him. They had carried on eating while watching the entrance of their former fellows and their current leader's reaction as if it was some kind of floor show set up purely for their entertainment.

"We're not here to threaten you, Wheat. We ain't got the strength." Heyes took a hold of Curry and tugged him forward.

Fincus put bowls on the table and someone went to see to the coffee-pot. Lobo had led the horses away for stabling and Wheat went to the door and looked out, sniffing the air, like it could tell him if there was danger nearby. Kyle, relieved of his watch, came and perched on the end of a bench regarding Heyes and Curry curiously.

The Kid ate about two forkfuls of meat and drank half a cup of coffee. He sat uneasily and the hand he used to eat shook badly. The other one, his gun hand, stayed in his lap. Wheat felt a bit more relaxed to see that. Heyes just sat silent at the Kid's side, eating, his shoulder pressed into him like it was a prop to keep him upright.

"There's room in the bunkhouse," Lobo said when he came back in. "Come on and sleep, Kid. Want for me to take a look at you?"

"Forget it," Curry growled. "Had enough jokers playing doctor to last me a lifetime." Although Heyes moved as if to help him up, he shied away from the touch and struggled to his feet. He saw Wheat looking at his hand and he held it up for him. It was bound up in strips of cloth and the fingers looked raw and swollen. "Don't go thinking of testin me, Wheat," he said, leaning on the shoulder Lobo proffered. "'snothing wrong with my gun."

Heyes was the only one who didn't watch his slow progress across the floor and out the door with bated breath. Lobo, although he wasn't wanted, went out after Curry anyway and Heyes glanced up at the last and sent him a small nod of gratitude.

"So what did happen?" Wheat asked, sliding into his seat at the head of the table once the door had closed.

"He got busted up," Heyes said simply.

"A doc see him?"

"No," said Heyes.

"And who's on your trail, Heyes? And what for?"

"We haven't done anything ... got recognized is all."

"And the Kid?"

"He's healing."

Wheat snorted then. "Well it sure doesn't look like it. Listen, Heyes, you c'n stay here for tonight. Get your sleep and your food. We'll give you what we can. But I want you out of here by tomorrow evening, you hear me? We got our own plans."

"Oh yes?" Heyes was surprised at the little frisson he felt to hear that.

"Yes, and it's none of your business and we don't need none of your advice."

Heyes held up his hands. "Going straight, Wheat. Don't need no more trouble than we already got. But can you not give us more than one night? You can see how he is."

"Tellin you, Heyes. We don't want you here."

"Wheat," said Heyes. "C'mon. Please."

Wheat was satisfied then. Why, he'd practically got Hannibal Heyes to beg him, and it looked uncommonly like he was disillusioned with the law-abiding life already. "I'll think on it," he said grandly. Heyes laid down his fork and picked up the Kid's plate.

"Mind if I finish this?" he said.

Wheat waved him ahead. "Shoot," he said. "If the Kid can't eat then he must be bad."

"He's bad enough," said Heyes, looking up as Lobo came back in the door. "What do you reckon?"

Lobo made a face. "Bad enough," he agreed. "Runnin a fever."

"All the time," said Heyes. "Worse at night." He circled his shoulders stiffly. "They did some damage."

Kyle tutted. "The Kid gone and plumb irritated somebody, huh? Bet it was over some perty little swish of skirt."

Heyes just shook his head at them. He finished up the second plate and pushed it aside. "Going to bed," he said.

"Good to see you, Heyes," said Wheat as he got to the door. Heyes turned and looked at him narrowly. Then he went out.

It was getting dark. The patchy grass and higgledy-piggledy corale looked the same as ever. So did the tumbledown cabins and gurgling, brown-stoned creek, with the spiky hills quiet in the background. Nothing changed. It should feel like some kind of home, but it didn't. Heyes had really hoped never to come back. He picked his way across to one of the smaller buildings, where he had not slept before. That thought almost made a smile come to his face.

How are the mighty fallen.

Inside the cabin there was a bunk on each side of the room with a table and chairs in between. A dirty basin of water stood on a small stand in one corner, with a pail on the floor next to it. A broom had been left leaning by the door and there were several shirts drying on a rail by a small, blackened stove. Someone had thrown some bedding down on the floor in a heap. Over on the far bunk Kid Curry was stretched out on the lower mattress, still shrugged into his sheepskin under some blankets. His boots were tumbled under the table and his gun-belt hung over his head. Heyes walked over and went on his haunches, hauling up the blankets with one hand, the other keeping him steady on the floor.

The Kid sighed. He was awake, for sure, but he didn't bother to open his eyes. He hardly flinched when Heyes laid a hand over his forehead, then tucked the back of three fingers into the open collar of his shirt. The low-grade fever he'd been carrying was beginning to notch up again.

"Feels like you're giving up on me, Kid."

Curry cleared his throat slightly but didn't speak. He was too bad even to reassure Heyes anymore, and in any case he was still pissed that they'd come to Devil's Hole in the first place. Wanted to keep going south, find some heat and sea air. They'd had some words about it, but it was more or less hopeless arguing when Heyes was flinty-eyed with determination and he was hardly able to string more than five or six words together at a time.

"Trust me," Heyes had said. "Rest up with the boys for a week or so, then when you're stronger we'll talk about .... Mexico, if you insist ... and I'll have a plan."

About Pike. He wasn't going to add that bit out loud. What to do about Pike.

"Try and get some sleep," Heyes said now. He levered off his own boots and began unbuttoning his shirt. Hot bath tomorrow. Wash some clothes. Eat some more. Sit in the sun and think. He climbed up to the top bunk, wrapped himself in blankets and then hung his head over the edge, looking down. Heyes looked down until he was pretty sure the Kid really was sleeping. Then he heaved himself back up and lay flat on the pillow. It had to help, sleeping on a bed. Surely it had to help.

In the morning he woke with a headache and a powerful thirst, but he felt ready to make their case a little more bluntly. He supposed he'd have to tell them about Pike, even though his own appreciation of what had been inflicted on his partner in Marionsville was still on the incredulous side. Leaving the Kid sleeping he went out to relieve himself in the fresh air, splash water from the brown-stoned creek over his face and the back of his neck, and then stumped across to the main cabin.

There was no-one but Wheat around.

"Bin thinking, Heyes," Wheat said, as soon as he came in. No good mornings. No hope you slept good.

"Oh yes?" Heyes sat at the table and picked up a cold biscuit. There was something almost comforting about the quaint domesticity of the Devil's Hole. Someone had made biscuits, there was a pot of coffee on the stove and the table was covered in crumbs and slops which made him grin through his mouthful.

"Yes," said Wheat. "Thinkin."

Heyes waited but nothing else seemed forthcoming, so he got up again and helped himself to coffee. After one sip he decided this was Lean's coffee. Strange that he should remember such details.

"I planned a job," Wheat then said in a rush, "in about a week's time. Mail train. Now we're nine strong right now, but I figure we could probably use one or two extra men. What do you think, Heyes? You in? Don't know that the Kid will be up to it ... but he can stay here and rest up while we're away. There now. That's my offer."

Heyes drank more coffee.

"So you do need my help," he said.

"Damn it, Heyes, don't even think about it ... I don't need you taking over .... if you come in on this job then you're just part of the gang and takes your orders from me like everybody else."

Time was, thought Heyes, when he could have finagled Wheat, Kyle and the rest of the them, into his point of view, whatever the circumstances, at the drop of a hat. They'd always fall for some line he would spout and become willing followers again once they'd got their initital grumblings over and done with. Seemed like the months without Heyes and Curry had sharpened up Wheat's sense of independence.

Damnit.

"Well," said Heyes, "suppose you tell me what this job is, Wheat?"

Wheat gave a little smile then. "No you don't, Heyes ... you ain't getting me that way. If you're in, you'll get the details night before same as everyone else. Just like you used to do, you and the Kid."

"I couldn't possibly come in on a job without knowing what it is," Heyes said. "That would be stupid."

Wheat's eyes crunched up, as if he had felt the broadside but it hadn't quite made contact. "Well that's the deal," he said. "You can earn a week's rest for the Kid if you say yes. Otherwise ..."

"Otherwise?"

"You gotta leave, Heyes, simple as that."

Heyes battled his inner fury. He didn't like it that Wheat was in control. He didn't like it that he was having this conversation without the Kid at his shoulder. Somehow he didn't know how to respond when he wasn't responding on behalf of both of them. And he was in despair at the thought that he'd got a choice between the law and criminality laid in front of him so soon.

"Give me some time," was what he said.

"Uh-huh, I see. Well, you got until sundown."

"Su--?" began Heyes, then subsided. He helped himself to the last of the biscuits and then walked past Wheat on his way out of the cabin.

"That's it," Wheat called after him, "You go on and talk it through with him. I'll be waiting."

Talk it through with him?

Heyes hoped that'd be possible. When he got back to the sleeping cabin he found Kid Curry standing up half naked in front of the big chipped basin, washing in cold water. The bruising along his spine and round his kidneys had faded to yellow and brown but the extent of the marks and the thought of the pain they'd caused still made Heyes' blood boil. It was getting very tiring, always having his blood boiling at such a rate.

"Well good morning," he said, his initial feeling of optimism at seeing Curry on his feet evaporating when the Kid turned around. His eyes were still heavy, his posture one of eternal discomfort.

"Don't tell me, Heyes," he said, "Wheat wants us to leave."

Heyes was impressed. "How'd you know that?"

Curry laughed mirthlessly. "Well can you blame him? If you was still leader here would you want old faces turning up and bringing trouble?"

"If I was still leader here," Heyes said, a catch in his voice, "then I'd sure as hell find space for old faces in need."

Curry towelled himself down half-heartedly. "Would you now?" he said.

"I'm not arguing with you, Kid," said Heyes, feeling anxious. "Wheat's asked me in on this job they're doing, says you can rest up til it's done. I've got until sundown to decide."

"And?" said the Kid, reaching for a clean henley shirt hanging over the bunk post, "what you going to decide?"

"What do you think, Kid?"

"I think we should leave and go to Mexico."

Heyes tried to think of a new way of saying it. "Kid, you can't keep going out on the road. We won't get as far as Mexico before you fall asleep and don't wake up."

"Maybe so. But all we're doing now is running while you think of ways of getting your own back on Pike."

"Well, so I'm saying let's stop running ... just for a week. It'd do you the power of good."

Curry narrowed his eyes to slits and took a walk across the room to him. "Heyes, are you plain out of your mind? A few wild words from Wheat Carlson and you'd be willing to risk our amnesty? What's the matter with you?"

"You're what's the matter with me!" Heyes shouted, loud enough to cause the Kid to take a shocked step back. He regarded Heyes doubtfully from a distance of several feet.

"Oh go on away and leave me alone," he said eventually. "You'll make the right decision, Heyes. Must be a fool, but I trust you."

"Go and eat breakfast," Heyes fluffed, not sure whether he was relieved that the Kid hadn't reacted angrily, or scared by his passivity.

By the look that crossed his face the thought of breakfast seemed to fill Kid Curry with a sudden nausea. "Sure," he said. They parted in uneasy silence, Curry over to the main cabin and Heyes across the yard towards Wheat and Kyle who were standing talking a little way away.

"He's a bag of bones," Kyle commented as Heyes approached, motioning at the Kid as he went through the door.

Wheat planted his feet apart and crossed his arms over his chest. He couldn't tell from Heyes' face whether he had his answer or not.

"Still thinking, Wheat," Heyes said straight off. He was damned if he'd tell them before the allotted hour. "We're just going to hang around thinking until sundown. If that's all right."

Wheat snickered. "Hannibal Heyes can't make up his mind," he said, amused. "Well there's a first. Reckon I got one over on you with this, Heyes."

Kyle looked amused, too, although obviously not quite sure why.

"Well don't mind me," Heyes said pleasantly. "You boys just get along doing whatever you need to do. I may just have me a bath if you can spare the water."

Wheat waved him ahead, grinning toothily. "We c'n spare enough," he said. "'slong as the Kid don't spend as long soaking it in as he used to."

They both got a bath and a shave in tubs of water that cooled too rapidly, and Kid Curry shivered and grumbled his way through his turn, a phenomenon that pained Heyes as it was so out of character. While Curry splashed and winced outside the back door, Heyes picked at bits of food and hung around listening to the boys. They had more coffee after, and sat outside the main cabin in the struggling sunshine, Heyes reading a month-old newspaper that he had found in the store-room being used as a potato sack.

Curry closed his eyes, wishing it felt warm.

"They're going to play poker," Heyes said after a while, casually shaking the paper and peering over the top of it.

"Heyes ..." the Kid said. There was warning in his voice, and an overlay of worry. "Why don't you just leave them be?"

"Hell, Kid, are you turning wise on me?"

"Just tell me you won't ... irritate them," Curry said on a little wheeze.

"Listen, you go on back and sleep as long as you can," Heyes said. "I'm just going to keep them ... occupied." He laid down the paper and nodded in a way that was supposed to put all Kid Curry's fears to rest.

The Kid grinned at him fleetingly. He knew Heyes was trying to do his best by him, but he also knew he was plotting, buying more time before he had to make his decision. Frankly, although he had plenty to say on the matter, all his efforts, both mental and physical, were entirely taken up by trying not to give in completely. It was incumbent on him, he felt, to contribute to the partnership by not collapsing. By early afternoon he was drifting off in his preferred half-upright position against stacked pillows and blankets, cheeks a little flushed, breathing quietly but carefully, even his unconscious self striving not to stretch his lungs too much. And Heyes was sat around the table in the cabin with five of the gang and two bottles of whisky.

"Like old times," Kyle said unguardedly, filling Heyes' glass to the brim. It seemed to please him, and there was no-one to remind him that Heyes always won since Wheat was out on the ridge doing his watch.

"It's good to be back, boys," said Heyes. He took two quick gulps of the whisky, and it felt dangerously good.

Kid Curry woke when he got cold.

Possible answers to the question of where he was whirled into and then out of his head. The first piece of reality seemed to be fingers poking under his shirt, pressing on the tender spots, jabbing at his ribs, probing and sharp. A ungentle hand touched down where it hurt the most and he opened his eyes on a room the size of a barn. Above loomed a ceiling obscured by dense shadows. On either side of the bed dark, empty space rolled away, further than he could focus upon. He sat up with a familiar twinge of pain in his side.

"Heyes?"

No answer so he lay down again, shutting his eyes against the annoying sensation that the room had expanded while he was asleep. It didn't do much good. If anything, it seemed even bigger when he closed his eyes against it, and he felt sure that he was about to get stuck in the belly with those chilly fingers once again.

"Jus' leave me alone," he growled.

"Hurts to breathe, huh?"

The voice was close enough to his ear that he could feel the air move.

"Tsshh ... looking at me with them sweet blue eyes, like you think you can read my mind."

A calculating, slow pressure, searching for the broken bone.

"You're a bad boy, kinda bad boy we don't care for, needs to pay for his sins. I want to hear that you're paying."

"Heyes," whispered the Kid, the name ending on a rising note of panic.

"Hurts to die, don't it?"

It certainly hurt to die.

"Tell me then, you thieving, ignorant outlaw ... I ain't going to stop until you tell me."

With Heyes not there, there was really only one thing to hang on to and he grasped for it so hard he felt himself falling. It was written in his stars, had been since birth. Whatever they say, whatever they do, don't ever, ever give the bastards the satisfaction.

So help him, Kid Curry wasn't going to say a word.

Too much whisky.

Heyes had the thought when it was too late. The boys, without Wheat's controlling presence, had all got a touch of old-comrades-in-arms excitement and he had fallen for it too. A couple of them had even gotten as far as reliving old times, in which Hannibal Heyes had been the best leader of a gang of outlaws that there had ever been. He drank to it, far too many times.

Dark had fallen, as Heyes knew it would. Hours had passed in the timeless way they did in the Devil's Hole. Heyes was supposed to have decided and decreed, but Wheat was late back from the ridge and Heyes couldn't resist being clever, he just couldn't.

He pushed back his chair and got unsteadily to his feet.

"Aw, you're not leaving?" Fincus drawled. "We're jus' getting going."

"Only um ... four dollars and seventeen cents left in the pot, fellers," Heyes said, "I can't hold anymore," and he jingled the pocketful of coins weighing down his vest pocket. "It's been a rare plesh ... a rare ple ... 'sbeen rare, boys, really .... rare."

A chorus of hoots. Hannibal Heyes could stay conscious while liquored-up, longer than any of them, but he stopped making sense much sooner.

"Mebbe you'll be joining the gang then, Heyes?" Kyle questioned hopefully as he weaved his way to the door.

Heyes waggled his fingers over his shoulder. "Mebbe," he said.

Out in the dark he walked in a few circles to try and clear his head, reprimanding himself under his breath. He went to take a drink of water and then headed towards the cabin. Inside the door he took a few steps in the general direction of the bunks, guided to them by the sound of muttering.

"You know, Kid," he said, "I could make this job of Wheat's so much easier ... I could probably carry it off even if he didn't tell me what it was," and he laughed out loud.

Then he stumbled over something on the floor and nearly pitched headfirst on to a bunk. His boot had made contact with something soft. Turning, he nearly stumbled again but the cloudy sensation in his head was evaporating and he went down to his knees instead. The pitchy dark of the cabin was alleviated just by a glow from the stove and what moonlight had crept in through the unshuttered window.

"What you doin' down there, Kid?" he said anxiously, one hand patting along a shoulder and then threading through sweaty hair. That Curry spent half his life delirious had forced him into adopting numerous methods of wordless communication.

Curry's head rolled on his neck, making a crunching sound against the wooden boards.

"Trying to get away again, huh?" Heyes went on. He pulled the Kid's shoulders up into a clumsy hold, wanting to convey security. It wasn't the first time he'd heard Pike visiting in the night although he'd never said a word about it. There had been a small spike of fever, Heyes could tell, but now it was shuffling away again. In a while the Kid'd be shivering fit to bust and then there'd be some hours of boneless sleep. Right now he made an inarticulate sound of protest, but it wasn't against the drunken death-grip Heyes had on him.

"First, do no harm, Dr Pike," Heyes said through gritted teeth as he levered Curry into more of a sitting position on the way to getting him back to bed. "I'm gonna kill you for it one day, I swear to God I'm gonna kill you." He hated the emotion, the sound of it coming out of his mouth, almost as much as he hated Pike.

"What's going on in here, Heyes?" said a voice at the door, and Heyes found himself out from under the Kid, on his knees and with his gun in his hand before he even realised what was happening. The Kid seemed at least partway conscious because he didn't let himself fall, just dropped a hand down on the back of Heyes left leg.

Wheat was standing there, lit by a lamp he held in his hand, staring at the gun pointed at him. There was a second of disbelieving silence on both sides and then the gun was slowly lowered. Despite the cold sweat prickling all over him, Hannibal Heyes relaxed, attempted to re-holster the gun and found he was still several hours from sober. His heart was hammering and he could almost have burst into hysterical laughter at the picture of himself drawing a gun so damn fast. The weapon clunked on to the floor.

"We're not going to risk the amnesty, Wheat," Heyes said, reaching out behind him to clasp one hand around the Kid's forearm. "I can't come in on the job."

Wheat's sillhouette gave a shrug. It was more or less what he'd expected. He was glad because he hadn't been able to imagine how he would have pulled off a job with Heyes looking at his every move, but there had also been a sizeable part of him that had felt a rising confidence in the outcome if Hannibal Heyes was going to be any part of it.

"Seems fair," he said magnanimously. "But you're going to have to leave."

"Give us a few more nights, won't you, Wheat ... for old times?"

"Cain't do that, Heyes. Too dangerous."

"Let me get him well," said Heyes. How he hated sounding desperate in front of Wheat Carlson. In front of anybody, but especially a man he could not help guiltily feeling was still his subordinate. Wheat shook his head. He was revelling in this, but trying hard not to show it.

"Now, Heyes, if you taught us anything, it was that we have to think of the gang first. If you cain't see your way clear to coming in with us, then I ... and I'm the leader, Heyes, so I gotta make these decisions, even if I don't like it ... well then, I cain't agree to you staying. You're eating our food, drinking our whisky and sleeping in our beds, and there's no knowing when this crazy doctor will get here and take us all down. That's it, Heyes. That's all I gotta say on the matter."

It was an impressive speech, Heyes conceded. Wheat had indeed learned from him. He was right, too, about protecting the gang's wider interests, but Heyes was confounded that loyalty counted for nothing in today's Devil's Hole. I would've done it differently, he told himself, if it was still me in charge.

Still me in charge.

What a mess of regret and memory there was in those four words.

Wheat left the lamp but he didn't stay to help with the Kid. Heyes had to half lift, half drag him back to the bunk, and when he'd got him laying down again he sat hunched up on the edge for a while, his head spinning at breakneck speed if he closed his eyes. He had fallen into something of a doze when at his back Kid Curry coughed and stirred.

"Water?" Heyes whispered, shifting around and rubbing one hand clumsily on top of the pile of blankets.

Curry's teeth clattered on the tin mug that he was offered; his hands shook half the water down his chin and he pushed it away. "Good draw, Heyes" he croaked.

Heyes guided the mug back towards him, held his hands on it steady. "Yep," he said, his own voice shaky with whisky. "See, I don't need you."

The chesty laugh he received in reply made him smile at least. He put the mug under the bunk and they stared at each other through the pale red light.

"Hard for ya, isn't it?" Kid Curry said at last, a hand snaking out from the blanket and poking Heyes in the ribs. "Not bein in charge."

"Damn right it's hard!" Heyes came back at him. "But I'll learn."

They were down off the mountain before Dutch had peeled the first grubby potato of the day.

And it wasn't just Heyes who was learning. Kid Curry was finding things out too.

Like how to ride in a certain position, one arm cushioned around his ribs, hunkered slightly down, his good hand gripping the reins with a kind of numb strength, while Heyes led the way in miserable silence, sitting on his frustration at not being able to move fast enough, turning slightly every so often to make sure he was still being followed.

Like interpreting the world through a peculiar haze in which the trees looked uncommonly tall and the sunshine felt impossibly cold on his skin.

And like how to convince Heyes that he was doing good, because he felt like he had to repay him for his care somehow.

Once out of Devil's Hole, they carried on moving in the same direction as before, away from where they last saw Dr Pike's posse, and vaguely south. Heyes wired Lom Trevors from a place called Bamburg to see if he could pick up any intelligence. Lom's pithy response told them that things had changed.

Expect bounty read the telegram that came back.

The Kid shrugged and turned away when it was handed to him on the porch of the telegraph office, forcing Heyes to explain what he thought it meant. Instead of the hapless group that had pursued them out of Marionsville hoping for a cut of the reward money, now they were being tailed, at a distance of maybe a day or two, by a single man.

"Good news," Curry said, and Heyes couldn't read the voice, couldn't catch either irony or hope.

"God damnit, Kid!" he exploded and got stared at by those sluggish, guarded eyes under the tan hat.

"Not good news?"

Heyes swallowed down his jangling nerves and spoke slowly. "No, Kid, not good news."

"I can deal with one gun, Heyes, a lot easier than a bunch of ‘em."

"But a single bounty-hunter'll move quicker, get to us faster. And what makes you think you're going to be dealing with anything?"

""m not dead yet, Heyes." A plodding response, long on weariness, just a little bit short on fighting spirit.

"So you keep saying."

"Well it must be true then."

Heyes dug in his pants for coins to pay for another message. He stumped back inside, the Kid on his heels, and pulled another sheet towards him, scratching with the pencil while shielding the page from Curry's view, but the Kid leaned in close and grabbed his wrist, pushing it aside so he could read. His fingers felt ice cold.

"Pike?" read the message.

"You're getting crazy about this, Mr Smith," warned Kid Curry. He actually had a bit of life in his voice all of a sudden. Sounded worried, exasperated. He screwed up the paper and directed a very small smile over the counter of the telegraph office. "We're done here."

"I might never be done," Heyes mumbled to Curry's back when they were outside the door again.

Kid Curry wheeled round with surprising speed and arrested him with a thumping slap on the chest. "Will you just drop it, Heyes! You're making me tired. Would you think about something else for a change ... like where we're going? You ever gonna get round to having your talk with me about Mexico?"

"Mexico!" Heyes responded with spirit. "You must be crazy! Any bounty hunter worth his salt will figure we'll go south. No, Kid, what we gotta do is go north again. As far north as we can get until we think he's lost us for sure."

"What?"

"North, Kid. Out of Bamburg by train. North."

Kid Curry spluttered for a second but managed to hang on to his temper. "And if we go ... north ... where it's cold, remember, and you know I hate the cold ... then ... then will you give up on Pike?"

"Damned if I can understand how you don't want to wrap your hands round his scrawny neck and ...."

"Heyes, I don't like you like this. You could get us into more trouble than anything I've ever managed when you're like this. You got me away from him, we lost his fool posse, now let him sit on his bony behind and dream of a bounty he'll never get."

"But how do you square it, Kid?" Heyes persisted, and the Kid was sorry to see him so deeply wounded. "You spend every blessed night trying to get away from what he did. I knew he hadn't taken care of you, but ...well there's a word for people like him ... a word ... I can't recall what it is though."

"Cracked?"

"Worse than that," Heyes grumbled.

Kid Curry adjusted his posture, tried to stand a little easier. He knew it wrung Heyes' heart, same as the way Heyes' helpless fury wrung his own.

"Well whatever kind of a man he is, Heyes, when we get north are you going to give up stewing over him?"

The fact that they were standing here having a robust discussion about it brought Heyes some clarity of mind. "Sure," he said, thinking that he should be prepared to give up pretty much anything as long as the Kid was strong enough to fight him about it.

"Good," said the Kid, satisfied.

They had a night and a day to wait before the next train north and twenty minutes after it left Bamburg Kid Curry was asleep in a graceless sprawl against Hannibal Heyes' shoulder and gave him a dead arm and a crick in the neck that he thought might just have been worth it. Heyes sat staring out of the dark window, his mind running faster than the wheels on the track. Burning a hole in his jacket pocket, folded into a small square, was the return telegram that he had collected just before they got on the train.

Got dirt on doctor. Keep your plan legal and take care of Jones. Lom.

The Kid was still sleepy when they stepped off the train at the end of the line, wrinkling his nose gainst the exceptional chill he was sure he could detect in the air.

"Are we safe for now, Heyes?" he asked, grabbing at the nearest corner of black sleeve as they came out of the station, his eyes darting back from the expanse of unfamiliar street to the glimmer of Heyes' eyes, like two hot coals in a corner of a dark room.

The trust nearly made Heyes' heart stop still.

In a world spoiled by mean spirits and twisted souls, Kid?

The last weeks had taught them both a fiercer mutual reliance than ever, but Heyes was still shocked to realise that his own understanding of their situation had gone way beyond Curry's. Knowing the night obscured his weary smile, he slipped a hand round the back of the Kid's neck and squeezed.

For encouragement.

For love.

"Not ever, Kid," he said quietly. "Not ever."

THE END