Behind a woodpile in the shadows of a narrow alleyway crouched a small scruffy man. He had been there for the past fifteen minutes, fidgeting nervously while he studied a building across the street. Abruptly, he straightened himself to his full height, hitched up his ill-fitting trousers and walked purposefully over to the Sheriff's office.
With one hand on the doorknob the man cautiously looked up and down the street before opening the door. Removing his hat he quickly slipped inside.
Sheriff Lom Trevors sat behind a large leather-topped desk. So absorbed was he with the pile of papers he was thumbing through that he didn't look up or even acknowledge the man who shuffled forward to stand in front of him. After a few seconds the man anxiously cleared his throat.
"Yes?" said the Sheriff, his tone disinterested and his eyes still not moving from his paperwork.
"Um..."
"Come on, I'm a very busy man," came the impatient prompt.
"Ain't we all, Sheriff," the man drawled.
Lom Trevors raised his eyes slowly then opened them wide in astonishment.
"Kyle Murtry, what the blue blazes are you doing here, and in broad daylight too?! Did anyone see you come in?" Lom hastily crossed the room to lock the door. He also pulled the window shade closed.
"Naw, I was real careful, Lom." Kyle grinned nervously, turning his hat round in his hands.
Lom folded his arms across his chest and regarded the diminutive man carefully. "Well, what do you want?"
"I...um...y' see...we...um..." Sheriff's offices made Kyle nervous — he was an outlaw, after all. He guessed it had to be something to do with all the Wanted posters on the walls and the cramped jail cells with their iron bars and solid locks, not to mention the tall, uncompromising lawman standing there sporting a big tin star and a loaded six-gun.
"Come on. Spit it out!"
Kyle's brow furrowed as he looked uncertainly at the lawman, but he did as he was told and launched a wad of chewed tobacco onto the floor right next to the Sheriff's highly-polished boots.
Lom's eyes narrowed and he took a deep breath. "Kyle, I meant, tell me why you're here," he said with all the patience he could muster.
"Oh yeah,...um...Wheat sent me to tell ya to get Heyes and the Kid here, real quick."
"Here? To Porterville?"
"Naw. He needs 'em back at the Hole."
"What for? He'd better not be thinking about pulling a job in these parts," Lom added threateningly.
"Naw Sheriff, we's only small time now Wheat's in charge. Hell, it'd take him a month o' Sundays to think up a job as good as Heyes can." Kyle grinned. "Y' know we'd never pull anythin' 'round here anyways, 'specially in your town," Kyle replied with his most innocent wide-eyed expression.
Lom pursed his lips and frowned. "It was just a coincidence that you, Wheat and the others were all in Porterville the night the bank blew sky-high, I suppose?"
Kyle nodded. "Uh, huh. We was on our way to the Tumble T, lookin' for some honest work for a change," he lied.
Sheriff Trevors returned to his desk. "You'd better tell me what Wheat needs them for and it'd better not be anything illegal."
Kyle Murtry shook his head vehemently. "It ain't, Sheriff. I swear. It's just that... well...this fella, he turned up at the Hole lookin' fer 'em. Says he's a friend a theirs and he needs their help real bad. Nearly done got his head blowed off, ridin' in like that. Jus' as well Johnson ain't no good with that ol' shotgun a his!"
"Look, I'm not going to get those two back here just because this fella says he knows them and wants some sorta reunion. And besides, they can't go into Devil's Hole — they're not supposed to associate with known outlaws."
Kyle opened his mouth to speak but hastily snapped it shut again. By his reckoning, Hannibal Heyes had returned to Devil's Hole twice since he and Curry began their quest for amnesty but he realized just in time that informing the Sheriff of this fact might not be such a good idea; neither Lom nor the Governor would appreciate Heyes' breach of his amnesty conditions.
"Wheat ain't too happy 'bout feedin' this fella, or his horse, but he don't like the idea of him just ridin' out ag'in neither."
"So, what's so all-fired urgent? This fella can't know they're going straight if he's looking for them at the Hole."
"I dunno the details, Sheriff, but Wheat says it's real important. Matter o' life an' death, even."
Lom was sceptical. "Hmm."
"Yup. So... ya gonna send Heyes a telegraph?"
Lom stroked his moustache while he considered what he should do. He had some business to attend to in Cheyenne next week and was planning on paying the Governor of Wyoming a visit while he was there. There had been no news from the Governor's office about the amnesty for some time now and he knew Heyes and the Kid were getting jumpy — if the frequency of their telegraphs asking about it were anything to go by. It seemed to him that, up to now, they had done a good job of staying out of trouble and he certainly didn't want anything to go wrong at this stage.
Whilst not wanting to encourage the ex-outlaws to return to Devil's Hole — he suspected that the depth of Heyes' larcenous tendencies were such that he might be tempted to return to his old life once he was there — Lom hoped that if Wheat was planning something big, but ultimately stupid, Heyes' silver tongue might be able to talk him out of it.
Then there was the risk that if they didn't help this 'friend', he might take it upon himself to go blabbing to all and sundry who Thaddeus Jones and Joshua Smith really were. Just about everyone in Porterville knew that Smith and Jones were friends of his and he didn't fancy his chances of re-election, or of even keeping his job as Sheriff, if the town's dignitaries got to know their real identities. He had, after all, given his approval to a couple of notorious outlaws checking over the bank's security when Miss Porter was in charge.
The Sheriff sighed. "Alright, I'll send Heyes a telegraph, but you're gonna have to take it to the telegraph office. I don't have the time." He pulled open the top drawer of his desk.
Instinctively, Kyle took a couple of nervous steps backwards preparing to run if the Sheriff produced a pair of handcuffs or a hidden gun.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?" Lom demanded as he placed a small notepad on the desk and dipped his pen in the inkwell.
"Nowhere," Kyle hitched up his trousers and squared his shoulders with his own particular air of bravado.
Lom began to draft the telegraph. "What's the name of this friend of theirs?"
ooooo-OOO-ooooo
Lamplight illuminated the word Telegraph which was ornately etched on the Wells Fargo office window. Dusk was falling; the nights were closing in and the air now held more than a hint of the approaching winter.
When Lom had handed over the note together with a fifty cent piece he had been sure to make his instructions clear. Kyle was to wait somewhere secluded until the telegraph office was empty and almost ready to close up; that way he was less likely to be seen. So, for the second time that day Kyle Murtry crouched in an alleyway, waiting.
He watched as the lamplighter did his rounds, lighting the sparse street lanterns with the aid of a long pole, and once the office was empty of customers and there was no one around to see him, he hot-footed it across the boardwalk and in through the door.
From behind the counter a uniformed clerk regarded the scruffy cowpoke. "Can I help you?" he asked, unsmiling.
Kyle thrust a crumpled piece of paper across the counter toward the clerk together with the money. "Need this sendin', real quick."
The telegrapher picked the note up between finger and thumb and regarded it with a look of distain.
It read...
To: J. Smith and T. Jones
Peak View Hotel Clearlake Colorado
Urgent you return to DH. Jim S###### is there. Needs your help.
Sheriff Lom Trevors
Porterville Wyoming
Noting the name of the sender the telegrapher's attitude changed completely and he looked up to enquire politely about the rest of the word that followed the S, which was illegible. To him, the smudge looked a lot like a dirty thumbprint.
The office was empty.
Tutting to himself he tossed the coin in the cash drawer. It was time he closed up. His wife was making her special pot roast and a trip along the main street to the Sheriff's office would make him late for supper. Adjusting his visor the telegrapher gave a small shrug of his shoulders and began to tap out the message on his equipment, leaving out the missing letters of the S word.
ooooo-OOO-ooooo
Kid Curry strode through the open door of the saloon, the light at his back throwing his long shadow across the boardwalk and onto the dusty street beyond. When he reached the middle of the street he stopped, flung his arms wide and turned to the man following him.
"Look, Heyes, I'm not sayin' you shouldha stayed in the game all night. I'm just sayin', I was surprised you quit when ya did."
"Will you keep your voice down," griped Heyes, checking that there was nobody within earshot to hear his real name. "I thought you'd be glad I didn't give that young fella a chance to get upset, 'cause we both know that's what would have happened if I'd won another pot. Then we'd have been in all kinds of trouble 'cause that gun of yours would have got involved and then maybe the Sheriff, and..."
Heyes paused mid-sentence and frowned as his partner's exact words came back to him. "Anyhow, I didn't quit! I left the game at an appropriate juncture."
"An appropriate what?"
"Juncture. It means moment, point in time."
Kid shook his head and walked on. "Sheesh! Why didn't you just say that? No, don't tell me. You read that fancy word in a book by that fella, what's-his-name."
"What fella?"
"You know. The one with the stupid alias."
Brown eyes rolled skywards. "Oh, you mean Mark Twain. It wasn't Twain, it was Dickens."
"Pfftt."
Hannibal Heyes smiled to himself and patted the three hundred dollars folded neatly in his shirt pocket as he followed his disgruntled partner into the lobby of the Peak View Hotel. Heyes was more than content with his winnings tonight, even if the Kid wasn't. He certainly had no intention of upsetting anyone over a poker game. Clearlake was a nice, quiet little town and, all being well, they planned on staying a while — maybe even spend the winter. Nobody knew them here, especially the Sheriff, unlike the last two towns where they had been spotted after only one day and had to make a quick exit. This had put the Kid in a somewhat ornery mood and Heyes was hoping that a prolonged stay in Clearlake would shake him out of it.
He was just about to place his foot on the worn red carpet of the stairway when a voice hailed him from the front desk. "Mister Smith! Excuse me, Mister Smith, I have a telegraph for you."
"For me?" Heyes wasn't expecting a telegraph.
"It's addressed to both yourself and Mister Jones." The desk clerk held out a small yellow envelope.
Despite his rising concern Heyes smiled as he thanked the man but a frown began to crease his brow as he made his way up the stairs. Nobody knew where they were except Lom and these days a telegraph very rarely brought good news. It was often a request to do a 'job' or a 'favour' for the Governor with the promise that it would further their bid for amnesty. Lately, however, these promises were starting to wear a little thin.
Closing the door to their room behind him he leant against it and opened the envelope.
"Whatcha got there?" Kid Curry deposited his gun belt on a table by the window before sitting down on the adjacent chair and pulling off his left boot.
Without replying, Heyes pushed himself away from the door and held out a piece of paper. The boot dropped to the floor as Kid took the telegraph, glanced at it and looked up, puzzled.
"I don't get it."
"Neither do I; but it has to be genuine. Only Lom knows we're here."
"DH. Does that mean what I think it does?"
"Kid, the only DH I can think of is Devil's Hole."
After launching his hat in the direction of the table where it landed precisely alongside Kid's holster, Heyes slowly lowered himself onto the edge of the nearest bed. He raked his hands through his hair, his quick mind working on the possible meanings of the telegraph.
"How come Lom wants us to go back there?" asked Kid. "We're not supposed to go near the place. He's always remindin' us not to have any dealin's with outlaws and that place is full of 'em!"
Heyes smirked. "I wonder what he'd say if he heard about me being a guide for that party of fake archy-ologists, or taking Mrs Phillips into the hideout to find that Hamilton fella."
"Not forgettin' Wheat and Kyle helpin' us out a couple of times."
"It's more the Jim S part that's got me worried." Heyes began pacing back and forth. "Why would Big Jim Santana be back at Devil's Hole anyway? He should be having a grand old time over in San Francisco with Mrs Phillips."
"Yeah, and why would he need us? He knows we're goin' straight, don't he?"
Heyes stopped pacing and chewed at his bottom lip. "Yeah, he knows. I just hope he's not figuring on finally pulling that job at the Wells Fargo clearing house — the one I talked him out of."
"But, what if he is gonna do it ...?"
"... and Lom has heard about it and wants us to stop him," finished Heyes as he recommenced his pacing.
"Sheesh! Big Jim don't exactly take too kindly to being told he can't do somethin'."
"It's the only thing I can think of right now." Heyes gave a tight smile. "Maybe the answer will come to me later."
Kid began tugging at his right boot only to stop suddenly and reach into his vest pocket. "Later?" He pulled out his pocket watch. The mottled dial showed eleven-thirty. "Aaww, no," he groaned.
ooooo-OOO-ooooo
The next morning the two men sat in the hotel dining room, each clutching a hot cup of coffee while they waited to be served breakfast.
Bleary, blue eyes glared across the table. "So? You figured it out?"
Bleary, brown eyes closed and their owner breathed a heavy sigh. "No."
"No?! You keep me awake half the night tossin' and turnin' in that squeaky old bed and ya still ain't got it figured?"
Heyes shrugged his shoulders. "Guess we'll just have to go find out for ourselves."
"We could have decided that yesterday and both got some sleep," growled Kid.
Much to Heyes' relief, the waitress pushed through the kitchen door carrying two plates containing generous portions of pancakes, eggs and bacon. Eating would occupy his partner for a while; it would also stop him from casting that gunfighter stare over the rim of his coffee cup. Kid was always more amiable when he had a full stomach.
Ten minutes later Kid Curry's plate was empty. The blond sat back in his chair, his eyes brighter and his demeanour more amenable.
"So, we leavin' today?"
Heyes swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs. "No time like the present." He skewered a piece of bacon.
"Dammit. I really like this little town."
"I know. I like it too, but if we don't get in and out of Devil's Hole within the next two weeks we stand a good chance of getting caught by an early snowfall. You know how the weather can be up there." Heyes took a gulp of coffee. "I don't know about you, Kid, but I really don't want to get snowed in with Wheat and Kyle."
Appalled, Kid Curry stared at his partner. "Well, when ya put it like that..." He pushed back his chair. "You finish up here," he said quickly. "I'll pack our saddlebags and meet you at the livery stable."