"God damn it! Son of ....!"

It was not the first time that day Heyes had let out a volley of involuntary curse words. This time the cause had been a splinter of rock, flying up and catching him on the cheek. The red stain of blood on his hand assured him the words had been warranted.

"Whatcha hollerin' ‘bout now, Heyes?" asked Wilbur, his assigned guard for the day, leaning lethargically on his rifle, cheek bulging with chewing tobacco. Heyes looked over at the plump, balding man, furrowing his brow and gritting his teeth.

William Wilbur was about as happy as Heyes at being here, in Aurora, but lack of any other suitable employment had driven him to take the job as prison guard. They had formed an alliance of sorts. As long as Heyes didn't cause him no trouble, Wilbur was happy to go a little easy on his notorious charge.

"You wanna take a turn at this?" Heyes said, indicating the large boulders surrounding him, which were his assigned work duty for the day.

"Nope!' Wilbur replied cheerily. "Ain't ya forgettin', I'm the guard and ya're the prisoner. It's yur job to crack them rocks up real small, for the railroad and mine to make sure ya do it right," he finished with a wide, gapped tooth grin.

"There's no need to look quite so pleased with yourself," Heyes retorted, gingerly touching his cheek with his finger. "Couldn't you have gotten me another work duty, one that ain't quite so hard on the back?"

"Not down to me what job ya git. I'm just told to watch ya. Seems to me ya should count your blessings."

Heyes looked at the man incredulously. "Could you enlighten me to what blessings you're referring?"

"Now there ya go, talkin' all fancy again. That there's one of them blessings I was talkin' about. ‘Cos ya can talk all fancy, ya got yaself that cosy job doing the prison books. Iffen it wasn't fur that, the warden wouldn't have gotten ya to play that darn game with him."

Heyes allowed himself a smug grin. That little privilege had indeed been a blessing, excusing him from more arduous tasks and work assignments. He had taught himself to play chess one cold, miserable winter, when they had been holed up at Devil's Hole. The long spells of concentrated silence had near driven the Kid mad. Heyes had tried to teach his partner the basics of the game but Kid had become so frustrated he had eventually drawn his gun on Heyes' queen, which had his own king in check mate, after about a dozen moves. Even Heyes had to concede chess wasn't the Kid's game.

There again, he wasn't playing chess, with or without the Kid today. Heyes' expression clouded and he lifted the sledgehammer once more and brought it down with a hard smack.

"Well it didn't do me too much good, did it? I mean, just cos I beat him last time he's assigned me to rock splitting for the foreseeable future, so I don't feel very blessed at the moment!"

"Ain't no one botherin' ya, is there? In this place I'd call that a blessin'," Wilbur responded.

"Only you and you sure ain't a blessing!" Heyes said sarcastically.

During his incarceration at Aurora prison, Heyes had quickly learned that it was best not to fight the system but to make it work for you, by whatever means possible. There was no telling how long he could be there, or indeed, whether he'd ever leave, therefore the best policy was to keep his head down and keep out of trouble, which wasn't easy with his kind of reputation. He achieved this by stringently adhering to the prison rules, maintaining good relations with the guards and fellow prisoners as best he could and keeping himself to himself. So far, it seemed to work. It did mean that he hadn't been able to forge any real relations with anyone. Forging a friendship made you susceptible. Not that he needed any friends. He had one of those. A pretty good one but he wasn't here and that was another thing he could count as a blessing.

"Come on, Heyes. Iffen ya don't swing that hammer a few more times, we're both gonna be in trouble." Heyes looked over at Wilbur, giving him a small smile of resignation and lifted the heavy, headed hammer once more.

Some hours later, Wilbur was escorting Heyes back through the large, wooden doorway to the main part of the prison. Both men had slumped into a weary silence, the heat of the day having taken its toll. There didn't seem to be a bone in Heyes' body that didn't ache in some way and, strange as it may seem, he was looking forward to being confined to the cool and quiet of his cell for the night.

"Wilbur!" The loud shout caught their attention. "You're to take him to Block C," one of the other guards instructed, inclining his head in Heyes' direction.

"What fur?" Wilbur asked, frustrated that the tail end of his shift had been disrupted.

"I don't know," came the irritated response. "Just been told to tell you."

Wilbur sighed deeply and Heyes gave him a sympathetic smile, even though he was equally annoyed at the interruption of routine, which was the one thing you could depend on in this place usually. With a resigned shrug of his shoulders, Wilbur gestured in the direction of their assigned destination.

It was commonly known that the purpose of Block C was as a holding area, for prisoners awaiting further trial, transfer to other institutions and in some cases, before execution.

Once inside the block, both were surprised at being greeted by a disgruntled warden and a couple of unknown men, dressed in suits.

"At last!" the warden exclaimed. "You can go now, guard," he told Wilbur, who cast a worried glance at Heyes. After giving a respective nod of the head in understanding, Wilbur retreated back through the door.

"What's this all about, sir?" Heyes asked politely, belying the nervous tension, which was building inside.

"You'll find out soon enough," came the brusque reply. The warden turned on his heel and headed out the door, leaving Heyes confused and feeling somewhat uncomfortable. The two smartly dressed men looked him up and down, taking in his miserable countenance and pallid complexion, even though he'd spent the day in the sun, his dusty, threadbare, prison regulation uniform, hanging from a skinny, undernourished, bony body.

The taller of the two men stepped forward and took the handle of the door of a nearby room.

"In here," he stated simply, turning the handle and pushing the door open. Heyes looked cautiously inside.

As the door swung open, a figure inside spun around. A rush of emotion surged in Heyes as Jed ‘Kid' Curry stood before him. He was only vaguely aware of the door closing behind him as he entered the room, his eyes firmly fixed on the fair-haired man.

"Hi!" Heyes' inadequate greeting hung in the air as the Kid stood tense and grim faced.

"Good to see you, Kid," Heyes persisted. "How much did this little visit cost you?"

"A good deal."

"Well, I hope it's money well spent. How'd you come by it, anyhow? Not been tempted by anymore banks recently I hope?"

The Kid let a smile slip. "Nope, been busy doin' other things."

"That's good. Good to know you're keeping busy."

"Oh, I've been real busy."

"Good."

"How you been?" the Kid asked, concern clouding his blue eyes.

"I've been doing okay."

"Yeah, looks like it!" The Kid indicated the cut on his partner's cheek.

Heyes frowned for a moment until he realised to what the Kid was referring. "Mark of a hard day's graft," he informed him, with a resigned smile. "So, what you been busy doing?"

"Writing letters."

Heyes let out an involuntary guttural laugh. "Who to?"

"Just about every one we know ... and the governor." The Kid's expression remained passive. Heyes' did not.

"The governor!" he exclaimed loudly.

The Kid nodded meekly. "Yep."

"Why ... I mean, what were you .... I .... Kid?"

"It was worth a try, Heyes. I thought if he got to know some more about us, and what we've been through, he might look on our situation a little more favourably, consider letting you go free."

Heyes regarded his friend and his shoulders sank. "Well, you tried, Kid. Writing never was you're strong point but I appreciate your trying."

The Kid stared at his feet.

"So, who are the suited fellas outside?" Heyes continued dismally. "They come to make sure to don't try and break me out?"

"They've come to make sure everything is signed and approved right," the Kid answered.

"Huh?"

The Kid raised his head and blue eyes met brown. He fished inside his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "I did it, Heyes. I got you out, all on my own!"

"Huh?"

"The governor signed the amnesty papers. You're a free man."

The wide, dimpled grin that creased Heyes' face said it all. He gazed at his partner, searching his face to make sure he'd heard right. The sparkling blue eyes and warm smile told him he had.

"I knew I could count on you, Kid."