Disclaimer: Alias Smith and Jones and all characters belong to Glen A. Larson and Universal TV.
Kyle hailed from Kentucky, but it had taken Wheat six months after he arrived in Devil's Hole to ask. Not because he didn't care to know, but because where they came from hadn't seemed to matter any, only where they'd be heading once they hit the big time. The way Wheat always figured it, the past was done and gone with nothing anybody could do to change it. Spend too much time thinking about your past, and you got dragged down 'til you couldn't think about anything else; 'til you couldn't go forwards anymore.
Big Jim hadn't introduced the rest of the boys by any more than name, and after a couple of days of trying to second guess the chain of command, he'd wandered over to the cookhouse where Kyle was trying to start the stove with the help of a bottle of kerosene.
"So, you the cook around here or somethin'?" he'd asked, and Kyle had answered, oblivious to any irony, "Nope, the explosives man."
Wheat had decided he'd better stay close and keep a watch over him if he wanted a chance of seeing his next birthday.
After a while, they kind of stayed close all the time. Wheat had always been something of a loner, but he didn't mind knowing Kyle had his back, even if he wasn't too certain at times what he was doing behind it.
Kyle never stopped being tickled by the Wanted posters. Whenever the gang were in town, he'd make Wheat read them out to him. "Your momma never send you to school?" Wheat had asked, when he got tired of it.
Kyle considered this. "I guess we was too poor for her'n Pa to keep anyone who wasn't workin'. Then she passed on, havin' my little brother."
Wheat felt like he ought to say something to that, more because Kyle, for better or a whole lot worse, was his partner, than because it was manners. "Happens to the best of us," he offered.
"Pa took to the bottle an' I got packed off to Pa's folks, but they had less'n us. An' Momma's people didn't want nothin' to do with her after she was married."
"Your pa weren't good enough for her in their eyes, huh?"
Kyle's shoulders had moved in something like a shrug, his jaw working on his plug of tobacco. "Pa was a Reb."
Split states, they'd called them, during the war; Kentucky, Missouri. Made it sound as if everything had been right down the middle, all clean and tidy, north on the one side and south on the other. Not like it was, torn apart, near as hell; counties, church congregations, neighbors shooting neighbors. Wheat had come back to a family he couldn't look in the eyes, but least it had been to a town that knew who it was. And when he'd gotten himself a horse and a gun and left again, he'd been looking for money and glory and hadn't found nearly as much as he'd thought he might, but he'd ridden right into another family.
Maybe that's why, down inside, he'd been sore at Heyes and the Kid when they decided to try and go straight. Thinking that it might give some of the boys the same idea and they'd go busting things up. Maybe a fellow needed something to stick with, after all, something to call his own.
"What's a man supposed to do after he starts out that way?" he said now, thoughtfully.
Kyle's grin widened again, his mouthful of teeth slowly taking over his entire face. "Learn t' blow things up and become an outlaw."
Wheat's attempt to contain himself came out as a snort. As he caught the other man's eye, it turned into an outright chuckle.
"Well, I reckon I'll drink to that," he said.
So they did.
They never had hit the big time, but they kept right on looking for it just the same. Wheat figured the odds were better if they stuck together. Whisky, women and gold; much as they could handle. It was all out there someplace, just waiting.