H A Z E

by Goldie

There was so much dirt. Dirt was everywhere. Sand and dust and wind blowing it around. And there was dirt in his clothes and dirt in his mouth. And, thought Kid Curry, there was dirt in his eyes, or otherwise why would he be having so much trouble focusing?

The only thing that mattered at that moment was to get away from the dirt. To simply put one foot in front of the other and walk away from the dirt. The Kid made an effort to do that but wasn't sure if his feet were responding to his request. He tried to look down at them but couldn't see them because of the dirt. And he wasn't sure if he was looking down or not. For that matter, he wasn't even sure if he was standing or not.

All the dirt was brown. Or black. The Kid closed his eyes and shook his head to shake out the dirt, but it stayed. The head-shaking did no good at all. All it did was cause dizziness. The Kid suddenly thought of his partner Hannibal Heyes. And then he wondered why he suddenly thought of Heyes. Why would he do that as he was struggling to get away from all the dirt and wind? The dirt was everywhere – eyes, ears, mouth. The Kid wondered if anyone else could see it. But when he looked for everyone else, he saw no one through the clouds of dirt. The Kid wondered if he was going crazy.

And there was a loud ringing sound that wouldn't stop. He raised his hands up to his head and tried to cover his ears. The sound was annoying. But covering his ears only seemed to make it louder. And, again, the Kid wasn't sure if his hands were actually covering his ears. He couldn't feel them, and he couldn't see them because of all the dirt. He tried once again to block out the noise with his hands but felt himself falling forward. Into the dirt.

Someone, he thought, must have pushed him. But he couldn't see anyone. And, then again, he wasn't sure if his eyes were open or not. He felt himself being pushed again. Or was it pulled? He struck out with his fist at his unknown assailant but wasn't sure if he made contact or not. Again he felt pressure on his shoulders and this time he fell forward intentionally as an escape measure. Since he couldn't calculate accurately, the side of his face landed directly on the ground. In the dirt. There was some pain involved, he figured, but he couldn't feel it. The loud ringing was blocking out the pain. But he did feel pain on the other side of his head. How could that be?

Kid Curry wasn't sure if he was being attacked or not. It was frightful. Once again he swung out through the air with his fist. He felt his hand make contact with someone or something but he could not pull his hand back to his body. Apparently his attacker was holding him. The Kid wished to God that he could see. The dirt swirled in the wind and the noise was deafening. Although he didn't want to, he screamed out, unable to stop himself. He felt his arm being released and he believed he was falling forward again. Pushed? Maybe, he didn't know. Once again the thought that he was going crazy crossed the Kid's mind. And for a second he thought of Heyes again.

Or maybe it was clouds instead of dirt.

Or maybe . . . nothing.

The Kid opened his eyes again. Again he saw nothing but the dirt. Now he was convinced that it was clouds instead of dirt. Black clouds. Was that possible? The Kid was fairly certain it wasn't. Or, at least, if they were black clouds they should be in the sky, not in front of him. Instinctively the Kid lashed out at them with his fist. He felt a connection, a hard one, and it startled him. But the clouds did not disappear.

He stopped moving for a moment to get his bearings. He concentrated on the blood flow through his body and calculated that he was probably lying on his back. The loud ringing noise had stopped but he couldn't hear anything else, either. He shook his head to be sure, but there was only silence. This upset him more than anything. Desperately, he tried to remember the last things that had happened to him so he could interpret what was happening to him now. Everything was fuzzy, though, and memories were evasive.

Suddenly the Kid felt something brush against his face. As a gunfighter, he was used to being poised for quick responses. He responded but now he was certain he was very slow. His right hand reached for his gun but merely graced his hip. He brought both hands up to his face as quickly as possible and made another connection with someone or something other than himself. He felt his hands being subdued and, frightened, he tried to sit up.

Again he feared he was being attacked as he felt his body being held in place. He braced himself for the worst but was pleasantly surprised when he felt no sudden pain. He could not move but he felt a soft touch on the side of his head. He swiftly turned his face to the touch and was surprised to . . . to . . . to smell something familiar.

This was new. He tried to concentrate on the smell, but again his brain would not cooperate and provide him with the correct information. Wild thoughts began to fill his head. Crazy, unrelated thoughts about horses and saddles and corrals and . . . and Hannibal Heyes. What about Heyes? What about Heyes? The Kid tried hard to concentrate on his partner, hopeful that the familiarity they shared for so long would help him to focus, but he was unable to make much of the puzzle in his brain. The horses galloped through his head. The thought brought him simple amusement but no smile graced his lips. Kid Curry was struggling to make sense of his life at that moment, struggling to survive.

Although he himself had no conception of time, it was almost a day before the Kid once again opened his eyes to try to see something besides clouds or fog. This time he was rewarded with the sight of colors and shapes! At first, nothing made sense to him, but he held his breath and tried hard to focus , allowing his face to relax since he thought that would help. In a moment, certain images became clearer. The colors and the shapes turned into things – curtains, furniture, walls. There was nothing threatening here so the Kid relaxed the rest of his body. He became aware that he was lying on his back.

Now his mind began to work a bit more clearly. He tried to understand what this furniture might mean or if he had seen it before. At first, nothing.

He held his hands up in front of his eyes and saw them clearly and noticed that his hands were in good shape. His eyes traced up his arms and found nothing amiss. He had vague memories of being held and attacked but these memories were vague, at best. He wondered what part of his body had been attacked and sat very still to try to concentrate on what hurt.

In a moment, he realized that the biggest ache was on one side of his head. He reached his hand up there and encountered a cloth bandage. Kid Curry didn't understand. If someone had attacked him, why did they go to the trouble of bandaging the wound? Now he began to be aware of other aches and pains, most notably in his lower back and side. He made a slight move as if to sit up and his back stung uncomfortably. He gasped and lay quickly back down.

Although undesirable, the pain did force some memories back into his brain. Now the fog cleared a bit and he began to understand what had happened. His partner Hannibal Heyes suddenly entered his mind, also. It all began to make sense to him finally, to tie together. The Kid held very still as his eyes scanned the room. The room was in fact familiar to him. He knew those curtains. And that bureau. This was the room he was staying in while working as a wrangler for the Horseshoe Ranch. He remembered sleeping peacefully in this very bed.

He once again tried to sit up, very slowly this time. Babying his back allowed him to sit with a minimal amount of pain. Slowly he swung his legs over the side and sat still, holding on to the edge with his hands.

Things were slowly coming back to him. Heyes came to the forefront of his mind again. Heyes had wanted the two of them to take wrangling jobs at the ranch for some quick money. The Kid remembered painfully that he had been against the decision since he didn't like horse wrangling. But Heyes won the argument, as he usually did. The Kid thought back angrily to that conversation. He had wanted to skip town and travel on down to Mexico to relax for the winter, figuring to fish and live off the land and just live free from the constant threat of posses. Heyes had argued that some money was needed prior to that venture. Grudgingly, the Kid remembered, he had acquiesced.

Horse wrangling was a hard job. They had spent their days rounding up wild horses and their nights breaking them. Breaking wild horses! Not one of the Kid's favorite activities. He was experienced, it was true, but he did not enjoy the bumpiness, the jerking around of his body, while atop a bucking mustang. With distaste he remembered doing a lot of that lately. He remembered being mostly successful but he also remembered hitting the ground hard a few times. He remembered Heyes once laughing at him and giving Heyes a look that shut him up instantly. He remembered that Heyes himself hit the ground on the very next ride and he had laughed loudly at him. It had seemed strange to him at the time, because Heyes was such a good rider.

The Kid felt his anger beginning to rise again. He had not forgiven Heyes for locking them into those back-breaking jobs. Back-breaking!? That must have been what happened! The Kid racked his brain once again to remember what had happened to him. Slowly it was coming back to him. The last thing he remembered – clearly – was attempting to break a bronco that just wouldn't give up. He remembered hitting the ground, and then - ? And then what? The Kid knew now that he must have passed out for some reason. These last moments of foggy thinking and the clouds in his head and in his eyes and ears must have been what he was going through while unconscious or semi-conscious. He must have been quite a fighter. He rejoiced that he could now hear normally and his vision was returning also. Best of all was the ability to think somewhat clearly again.

But these happy discoveries were overshadowed by his anger at his partner, whom he felt was responsible for what he had just endured. He had been knocked out before but never anything like this. He wondered how long he had been out for. Maybe a couple of hours! And it was all Heyes's fault! Where was he, anyway? The Kid wanted to give him what-for.

He looked around to where he remembered Heyes's bunk had been but Heyes was not in it. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it and found himself fighting dizziness again. He groaned.

At that moment a man the Kid had never seen before entered the bunkhouse and pulled up a chair next to him. "Well, I'm glad to see you finally awake!" said the man kindly. "Let's have a look-see." He pulled something out of the bag he had set down and reached for the Kid's head.

"Whoa!" said the Kid, a little stronger than he had intended. "Who are you?"

"I'm Doc Kincaid. I've been taking care of you. Mighty glad to see you come around. Hold still, young man, while I look at this wound." The doctor unrolled the bandage. The Kid did nothing to interrupt the doctor's examination and seemed to be preoccupied. The doctor dabbed some medicine on the head wound and applied a fresh bandage. "It's coming along fine," he announced. "How are you feeling generally?" he asked as he felt for the Kid's temperature.

"Mmmm . . . what?"

"I asked how you're feeling. What's on your mind, anyhow?"

"Nothing," said the Kid irritably.

The doctor held the Kid's wrist with one hand and looked at his pocket watch with the other. He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I'm your doctor, son. You can tell me what's on your mind. Something special's bothering you, all right, by the looks of this pulse." He let go of the Kid and sat back, obviously waiting for an explanation.

"It's between me and my partner," said the Kid after a pause. Anger was evident in his voice as he pointed to the bandage. "This is his fault."

The doctor raised his eyebrows but said nothing. The gesture was not lost on the Kid.

"He's the one who thought this job would be a good idea. I didn't want anything to do with breaking horses!"

"Oh," said the doctor, understanding. "It's your partner's fault that you fell off the horse, is that it?"

"Well . . . yes. Yes, it is. You don't know what I've just been through. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I think I saw hell today. These last couples of hours have been the worst of my life!"

"Couple of hours?" The doctor raised his eyebrows again. "Exactly how long do you think you've been out for, son?"

"Two or three hours."

The doctor shook his head. "What's the last thing you remember? Clearly?"

The Kid had to give that one some thought. "Falling from the stallion, I guess. Eating dirt and dust. Everything after that is cloudy. Sandy. Haze." Heyes. He shook his head and regretted it immediately.

The doctor once again leaned over and continued his examination of the Kid's other wounds. "Well, I'm not surprised. That stallion took quite a chunk out of your head." The Kid stared at him as if the doctor was responsible for his predicament but was quiet. After another moment, the doctor leaned back again. "You'll be all right, son, with some bed rest. I wouldn't go back to breaking wild horses, though."

The anger the Kid had barely been controlling rose to the surface again. "Damn right I'm not going to be breaking horses! You're damn right! He . . . Smith can do it all day long if he wants, but I'm out!"

Doc Kincaid laid a strong arm across the Kid's chest and said, "Simmer down, simmer down. You've got to try to relax for a spell." His voice was soothing and had the desired effect; the Kid calmed down. "I don't blame you if you're angry," he continued, "but I think there's something you should know. . ."

Just then, Hannibal Heyes himself walked into the room. Obviously delighted to see his friend conscious, he ran to the bedside. Heyes was beside himself with joy and yelled "Kid!" before he remembered their aliases and corrected his mistake. The doctor paid no notice.

"How are you feeling, partner?" Heyes asked with a big smile, genuinely interested.

The Kid scowled at him. If not for the presence of the doctor, it is entirely possible he may have taken a swing at Heyes. "How do you think I am? Smith!"

"Sore, I bet!"

"That's right. Sore in more ways than one!"

The doctor laughed a little here and interjected, "Joshua, my patient believes that you are responsible for his injuries!"

"Oh." Heyes lowered his eyes. "He may be right, Doc."

"Damn right I'm right!" said the Kid, immediately regretting the dizzy sensation this outburst caused.

The Kid's anger bristled Heyes, who wasn't used to admitting fault. "Well, you don't have to worry any more, Thaddeus. I told the ranch we're taking off as soon as you're well enough to ride."

Softening just a bit, the Kid glared at his partner. Then he turned to the doctor and asked him, "How long will that be?"

"Well, we'll have to wait and see. Now that you're awake, the healing should be quick. Maybe just a couple more days."

This was disgusting! The Kid wanted nothing more than to leave immediately. "A couple more days!" The Kid's head began to hurt anew at this blow-up. Both Heyes and the doctor leaned forward to assist him as he cried out in pain. The doctor repeated "Relax" soothingly, and Heyes merely held on to the Kid's arm and watched with worried eyes.

In a moment, the pain had subsided and the Kid said, "Will someone please tell me what happened?"

Doc Kincaid looked to Heyes, but Heyes had eyes only for the Kid. "Thaddeus," said Heyes softly, "you've been in and out of consciousness for almost three days now!"

At first the Kid found this hard to believe. His eyes opened wide and he forgot to breathe for a moment. He looked to the doctor, who nodded solemnly. "That's right, son. Three long days. That horse packed quite a wallop."

"No . . . that can't be." The Kid shook his head slowly and looked off to the distance at nothing. He didn't want to believe it was true, but it could be. His last coherent memory was of falling from the bronco and hitting the ground painfully. If the horse kicked him, he didn't recall it. There were plenty of memories after that, but they were all hazy. He remembered sand – either eating it or seeing it. Or it might have been in his eyes. There were lots of clouds, too – black ones. He thought he had been seeing them clearly, but now that he thought back on it, there really weren't any clouds at all. He was seeing darkness, nothing at all. His vision must have left him for a while. And his hearing, too. He remembered loud noises at first but then – nothing. For a while. Nothing. This saddened him.

Then more memories came back. He remembered reaching out with his fist and connecting with something. He couldn't see at the time and was afraid. Fear was an emotion normally unfamiliar to the Kid. The fact that he felt he had to defend himself against an unseen enemy also saddened him. Now he was sitting comfortably in his familiar bed and surrounded by caring people. The intense feelings of fear and helplessness that he had endured in the last few hours – rather, days – had threatened to overwhelm him. Now, thankfully, they were merely memories. He looked from Heyes to the doctor and tried to concentrate on the comfort he was feeling, rather than the pain.

There was a forlorn, helpless look in the Kid's eyes that prompted the doctor to suddenly ask, "Are you all right, son?"

Kid Curry thought before answering. He looked at the worry on the doctor's face, and he looked to his partner for his reaction as well. Heyes looked very concerned. The fact that he cared deeply was evident on his face. The Kid concentrated on Heyes's face. Something was different about it. In a moment, he realized what it was. Bruises. Weariness.

"Did I hit you?" he asked his partner.

Heyes cracked a smile. "Twice, partner. Twice." He rubbed his jaw. He had a black eye, too, the Kid noticed.

The Kid smiled, even though it was painful. He thought about it. "When?"

"At first, when I was trying to get you away from the stallion. And the next day. Both times you probably thought you were being attacked. Didn't seem like you could hear me."

The Kid smiled and looked down. He had hit Hannibal Heyes and he wasn't even coherent enough to enjoy it! "You deserved it, you know. For getting us horse wrangling jobs."

"All right, maybe. But will you please stop hitting me?"

The Kid held out his hand. "Deal."

They gently shook hands. "Deal."

The Kid hung on to his partner's hand. "You know, Joshua, you look terrible."

"I'm not surprised," interjected the doctor. "He's been tending to you for three days now. I think it's about time you got some sleep, Joshua."

Heyes looked at his partner. The Kid nodded. Kid Curry watched his partner cross to his bunk and plop down in it, falling instantly asleep.

The Kid leaned back and relaxed. "Is it true, Doc? Was I really out for three days? And he was here the whole time?"

The doctor was packing up his bag and preparing to leave. "That's what they tell me. He was right here every time I came to check on you. He was here when I couldn't be. That's why I sent him for a walk just now, to get the kinks out of his legs. Let him sleep, he needs it. It wouldn't be a bad idea for you, either. I'll see that some simple food is sent in to you. I'll be back tonight to check on you." With that, the doctor left.

Kid Curry was alone with his thoughts. He listened to Heyes snoring gently. He reveled in the fact that he could hear and see clearly again. Even smell! He cautiously thought back to those anxious hours. He remembered at one point smelling something familiar. Now he knew what it was. It was Heyes – his sweat, his leather gloves, perhaps his worry. The Kid thought it remarkable that he was able to smell his partner's worry over him.

Or maybe it wasn't so remarkable.

The Kid wasn't sleepy. He idly watched Hannibal Heyes sleep, allowing his thoughts to travel where they would. When he remembered the anger with which Heyes had entered his mind during those anxious times, he became angry with himself instead. Heyes may have been responsible for those jobs, but . . .

A small war waged itself in his head. The Kid told himself anew that Hannibal Heyes was undoubtedly responsible for all the clouds in his head and the sand in his eyes and all the aches and pains he had experienced in the last few days. Heyes was responsible for his having been unconscious and for his head wound and . . . and . . .

But the Kid knew that he had been under no obligation to do what Heyes said. Even though the horse wrangling was Heyes's idea, the Kid knew he had gone along with it, trusting, always trusting, his partner to make the right decision. Perhaps it truly had been the right decision . . . but something had gone terribly wrong.

He wondered how he could have been in such bad shape from a simple fall from a horse. Surely he had fallen many times in his life. Never had he tasted sand or seen clouds before. What could have happened to put him in such bad shape? 'That stallion took quite a chunk out of your head,' the doctor had said. I've been to hell and back, thought the Kid.

. . . But Heyes . . . Heyes was somehow there with him the whole time. Heyes did what he could to save him from the horse's hooves. Heyes got him safely away. Heyes fretted over him for three days. Without sleep. The Kid felt his anger with his partner melting away. The anger turned into a strong feeling of contentment over his good fortune. His good fortune to have a caring partner. With fondness he looked toward the bunk and was a little surprised to see Heyes smiling back at him.

Heyes rubbed his cheek. "Even when you're half asleep, Kid, you've got one hell of a right!"

Kid Curry chuckled with him. The haze was gone. The clouds and sand were gone. He knew that he may have been to hell but he was back now. And he was no longer alone or afraid.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

9