"I hate when we split up, Heyes! Nothin' good ever comes of it when we split up," groused the Kid.

"Just shut up and hold still and so I can look at your leg, Kid. It's only for a little while. Let me get you patched up and then you're just gonna lie low here while I lay a false trail. I'll be back before you know it to get you to a doc."

"Quit your fussing, Heyes, it's just a scratch," the Kid batted his partner's hand away from the bloody, ragged hole in the thigh of his jeans. But despite his words, his face was ashen and he swayed slightly as he attempted to stand up. Heyes quickly threw an arm around his partner to prevent him from toppling over, then steadied his partner's frame as he sank back into the pile of musty hay.

The two former outlaws were hunkered down in what was apparently an abandoned barn. The only illumination in their shelter was a shaft of silvery moonlight shining through a large chink in the roof. The ramshackle house they had crept past may or may not have held sleeping occupants, but it had been quite some time since this barn had housed any animals beside the three half-grown owlets that were perched in the rafters above, downy feathers puffed out as they hissed in alarm at the intruders huddled beneath them.

Their one remaining horse stood in a corner, head down, hungrily munching on the leftover hay. Her flanks were glossy with sweat and she was breathing heavily, having carried twice her accustomed burden for the last several miles.

The posse had been unrelenting. Heyes had been in the lead and the Kid trailing behind, firing bullets over their pursuers' heads, but the men following soon realized the object of their pursuit was not actually aiming for them. Unfortunately, the lawmen and newly deputized townsmen had no compunctions about not returning the favor.

When Kid's horse suddenly went down, Heyes had immediately doubled back, kicked his foot from the stirrup, and reached down to haul his partner up behind him. He'd pushed his little mare mercilessly until the posse was out of sight, then expertly laid no less than four false trails. The pounding of hooves and the muffled shouts growing fainter and fainter convinced him the posse must have fallen for one of them. It was only then that he slowed the exhausted horse to a walk, steered her across some rocks and into a shallow brook and waded her upstream until he reached a rocky bank on the opposite shore. As they emerged from the water, he realized the Kid was no longer upright, but was instead leaning heavily against his back.

"Kid?" he whispered. "Are you hit?"

He felt his partner struggle to sit up and heard his gruff response,

"Just a graze."

Heyes could tell by the strain in his partner's voice that his injury was worse than he was letting on. Fortuitously, he'd spotted the decrepit old barn, almost completely concealed by overgrown vines, and decided to take a chance on stopping and seeing to the wound. But he couldn't afford to tarry there much longer. The posse would soon figure out they'd lost their quarry and might double back and eventually pick up their trail again. Heyes intended to lure them away from the Kid's hiding place.

As he deftly tied his bandanna around the Kid's bloody thigh, he scolded the injured man,

"This ain't a scratch, Kid. The bullet is still in there and it needs to come out. You are going to lay low in here while I suss things out and that's final."

Heyes scanned the barn, then stood and approached the horse, and was soon stripping her of their gear.

"That's alright, old girl," he crooned softly. "You're gonna rest, too. But not just yet. I just gotta ask you to do one more thing for us."

A plan was starting to form in the back of his mind and he apologized to the horse as he heaved some sacks of what looked like flour onto her back. He mentally calculated how much extra weight he needed to add to ensure the mare's tracks were deep enough to appear as though she were still carrying two riders.

Before remounting, Heyes swapped his blood-soaked bandanna for a fresh one, noting in satisfaction that the bleeding had all but ceased. He ripped the jeans further to get a better look at Kid's leg. The bullet hole was small and neat, but there was no exit wound and that was a problem. He crammed the bloody bandanna into his pocket, then made sure his partner could reach the canteen and the saddle bags with their cache of food. The Kid was fuming silently at being so helpless. He looked up at his partner, silhouetted in the doorway.

"You be careful, Heyes. If they catch you, I'll come bust you out."

"Have a little faith, Kid," was the light retort.

It was too dim to see his face, but Curry could just picture the familiar dimpled grin that his dark-haired partner would have been wearing as he slipped out into the night, leading the laden mare behind him.

At that moment, the female barn owl swooped in silently through the broken window with a large, limp shape in her beak. She settled on the rafter beam, and the baby owls, almost as big as their mother, jostled noisily around her for their meal. The largest one nabbed the morsel and the other two squawked in protest. Apparently not considering the prone man on the barn floor a threat to her young, the owl soon flew out again, in search of another rodent to feed her babies. Kid couldn't help but feel a sort of kinship with the owlets, so big, but so helpless and ungainly, unable yet to fly and hunt on their own, dependent on their parents to bring them food, forced to wait impatiently in the rafters. Here he was, waiting helplessly and impatiently in the hay below for his partner to return. At least he had his .45 in case the posse found him - his last thought before he drifted off to a restless sleep, the silvery-blue moonlight playing on the golden curls spread out against the straw.

ooo

Heyes pushed the mare onward, backtracking their trail to the brook. He swam her well downstream to a muddy spot near where he had first entered, then made a much more obvious trail on that side of the river, so that it would appear as if they had not crossed, but merely stopped to take a drink and bind up their wounds. Then he dismounted and pulled the soiled bandanna out of his pocket and squeezed several drops of blood from it, staining the muddy bank and the surrounding vegetation with the crimson liquid. He trampled all around the area, making it look as if they had tarried there for quite some time. He remounted the mare and prodded her into a trot, leaning over her side, squeezing out more drops of blood as they progressed. Heyes didn't know if he should be grateful or alarmed that there was enough blood to make a conspicuous trail.

After proceeding several miles, he could again hear the low rumble of hoofbeats and the distant voices of the posse, this time gradually getting louder. The men had picked up the bloody trail and were now spurring their horses onward in excitement. Heyes eyed some low-branched trees ahead and whipped the mare into a gallop. Just as they entered the copse of trees, he stood up in the stirrups, caught onto a branch and held on for dear life. The horse kept going, picking up speed now that she no longer bore the weight of her rider. He hauled himself up into the branches of the tree above the trail and perched there breathing heavily but silently, praying that the horse had enough energy left to continue for at least a few miles. Soon the posse came into sight. Heyes held his breath and counted the riders as they passed just beneath him, so close he could smell the sweat of the men and feel the shaking of the tree limb he was grasping. Five, six, seven… Seven men, including their leader, Marshal Milt Harcourt, a man he did not care to cross paths with ever again.

Harcourt had recognized them in Boggsville, just about sunset the evening before. Heyes replayed the scene in his mind. He had experienced the curious sensation that time itself had somehow slowed down. The partners rounded a corner in one direction just as the Marshall rounded it in the other. Eyes locked. There was simply no point in pretending to be someone else. They knew Harcourt and he knew them and they all knew it. Harcourt had instantly gone for his sidearm, but the Kid, bless his heart, had been faster to the draw. His shot blew Harcourt's holster clean off his gunbelt before the lawman cleared leather. This had naturally annoyed Harcourt, who let out a stream of invective as he chased after his errant sixgun, skidding as it was along the dusty street, still ensconced in the now amputated holster. This gave Heyes and Curry the few precious moments necessary to bolt for their horses – thankfully tied to the hotel's hitching rail a few blocks away, still saddled, for the boys hadn't yet completed their usual routine of checking out the town. However, it didn't take Harcourt long to round up six men who were goaded on by the prospect of sharing in the $20,000 reward, not to mention earning bragging rights for being the ones to finally bring down the notorious and elusive pair of outlaws. They had been chasing them for more than 24 hours straight, apparently stopping only long enough to rest their horses, but always picking up the trail shortly after.

Heyes waited in the branches until he could no longer hear the posse. Then he lowered himself from the tree silently and began to walk in the opposite direction.

ooo

It was almost nine pm when the scruffy-looking man entered the stage coach office, surprised yet relieved to see a lamp still lit. The agent was just getting ready to shut the office for the night. He was supposed to have closed up and gone home by now, but had stayed open late after a large group of men led by a self-important US Marshall had barged in and demanded to commandeer fresh horses from the stage coach line's stables. Claimed they were a posse hot on the trail of those infamous outlaws, Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry. At first the agent had protested, but the Marshall implied he would be charged with obstruction of justice or some such if he didn't cooperate. Fenton was too small a town to boast its own sheriff, so the clerk reckoned he had no recourse but to comply. He got the men and horses sorted, and they had ridden out in a cloud of dust. Now he finally had the posse's mounts comfortably settled in the stable and was ready to close up and head home when this disreputable-looking fellow ambled in. A trapper maybe, speculated the station agent to himself, raggedy and unshaven, sporting a straggly goatee and wearing clothing that needed washing as badly as their wearer.

"Hold on there, Sonny!" called the man in a thick, countrified accent. "When does the next stage leave?"

The agent sniffed and almost ignored the shabby character, until he realized he was waving some bills at him. As long as he's a paying customer, he thought, who am I to judge? A lot of eccentric folks out West…

"There's a six am tomorrow morning to Glenview," he responded politely. "$13.50 one way."

"Gimme one ticket to Glenview!" barked the man, then added somewhat casually, "Bill Porter still the sheriff there?"

"Bill Porter? Don't know that I know of any Sheriff Bill Porter. Clay Jackson has been sheriff of Glenview as long as I can remember. You sure you're not thinking of Glen Point?" asked the agent as he wrote out the ticket and counted out change.

Hannibal Heyes grinned from behind his fake mustache. "Oh, yeah, I always get those two towns mixed up," he answered, satisfied that neither he nor the Kid were acquainted with a Sheriff Clay Jackson.

"Wait a minute, Sonny," he continued. "Is there a train to Glenview?"

"You want the stage or the train, mister?" The agent was getting a little impatient. He wanted to go home, eat some warmed-over dinner, and collapse into bed.

"Well, just wanna know my options," drawled the scruffy man.

"There's an express train from Oak Knoll to Glenview tomorrow afternoon – but it don't stop here in Fenton for passengers. The next local runs through Tuesday, four pm."

"Stage Coach it is," was the immediate answer.

"Okay, mister. Here's your ticket. Meet the stage right out front of the livery stable. Only stops here long enough to change horses and pick up passengers. If you're not there at six on the dot, he leaves without you. Hope them horses are rested up by morning."

The agent seemed like he wanted to complain about something to someone and Heyes was all ears.

"Some tin-horn US Marshall came riding in here an hour ago demanding I trade his posse's horses for some of ours. Seems he spotted Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes down in Boggsville and he's been chasing them a night and a day."

"You don't say," Heyes answered. "Heyes and Curry, huh? Did they catch either of 'em?"

"Naw, but he seemed to think they were headed north to Oak Knoll. Said one of them was wounded and bleeding bad. The way they was talking, sounded like Curry," answered the man. "Them horses was run hard, too."

Heyes thanked the agent, pocketed the ticket, and ambled over to the saloon to see if there was any more news about the posse. He would also buy some food to take back to his injured partner holed up in the barn. He smiled to himself in smug satisfaction. North to Oak Knoll was the direction he had sent the game little mare, flour sacks still strapped to her saddle.

ooo

"Alright now, Kid. Here's the plan. You get on the 6 am stage to Glenview. Here's your ticket. We can't be seen together. And, try not to limp too much if you can help it. They know one of us got hit. Go straight to the doc there. I'll be on the train right behind you."

The partners had walked the three miles into Fenton in the pre-dawn gloaming, Kid insisting he was fine, but grimacing each time he put weight on his injured leg and not protesting overly much when his partner wrapped one arm around him for support. They had reached the outskirts of town, but they didn't dare risk being seen together.

"Quit motherin' me, Heyes," grumbled his partner. "You be careful jumping that train, now. I know ya didn't sleep a wink last night so ya gotta be tired. You never woke me for my watch."

Heyes didn't argue the point, but answered conciliatorily, "Train don't come through 'til four, so I've got plenty of time to rest up some. There's where the stage stops, right there. You can sit on that bench and wait for it."

He slapped his partner on the back and faded into the shadows, no longer wearing the raggedy disguise.