If you have just finished reading Hannibal Heyes Goes to New York, you are in the wrong place. This is the second part of Two Degrees of Separation. You need to read the first part of that story first. This happened because of technical problems with the original Two Degrees of Separation. Two Degrees of Separation, Part II, starts after Chapter 10 of Two Degrees of Separation.

Here are the disclaimers from the top of the first Two Degrees of Separation:

This story follows Hannibal Heyes Goes to New York, or actually partially overlaps it. And HH to NY follows Not Again! You just have to read both of those stories first for this story to make any sense at all. This story gets in all kinds of things – drama, romance, hurt-comfort, and even some comedy. The beginning of this story is set about three years after the pilot and about one year after Not Again! The narrative concentrates on Heyes, but the Kid gets plenty of action. While this is about Heyes' years in college, don't expect an academic story! Far from it! A lot of it isn't even set in New York, much less the classroom. As Heyes' long-suffering advisor is heard to complain, "How are we ever going to get you graduated if you insist on running around playing cowboys and Indians all the time?"

Again, I must apologize for the use for my own purposes of characters I didn't invent. And I must also apologize for manipulation of the symptoms of Aphasia, a very real and very serious condition, for purely fictional purposes. I have given poor Heyes Aphasia after a bullet wound to the head. Also, to paraphrase what Dorothy Sayers said of Peter Wimsey and Balliol College, Oxford, I must lastly apologize for saddling Columbia University with so wayward an alumnus as Hannibal Heyes.

Again, I dedicate this story to the teachers among our readers. By now I hope the reasons are obvious. I would also like to dedicate it to second cousins. Although my two beloved second cousins will never read this or know about it, they are both wonderful men who are as much geniuses as Heyes and as faithful relations as the Kid.

The next week, again on Saturday morning, Beth returned to the door to the small room on Hester Street. It was the day after the last exams of the semester. Beth knocked and waited to see if her "Joshua" would let her in. She felt sure he would be there.

The door opened instantly. There was the man she had known as Joshua Smith standing, waiting for her. He looked at Beth with sad, worried eyes, with deep shadows under them. "Beth, I told you it's . . . dangerous for you to be here – and not just for me!" Beth silently stood her ground and looked at the man defiantly. He sighed with resignation and let her in.

"Beth," he said wearily, once the door had closed, "what do you want from me?"

Beth gazed with longing at her mystery man. "J . . . for God's sake, at least tell me your real name!"

Heyes shook his head, his eyes closed in pain. "That's the last thing I can tell you!"

Beth snorted. "Don't be so arrogant! I won't have heard of you. I don't know about any real western outlaws – just what Jim's told me from those novels he reads. Surely none of that is real!" "Joshua" shook his head. "Can't you just tell me your first name – just so I have something real to call you – something other than, than an alias? Just your first name can't give you away, can it?"

Heyes hooted, "It sure would!" He had always hated his first name; now he hated it more than ever.

Beth's eyebrows went up in surprise. She was heartily curious by now to know what name he could be so certain would, in itself, betray him. There were only a few western outlaws who were known coast-to-coast and most of those were dead.

Beth tried to move toward this man she loved, or thought she did, but he retreated a step for every step she took toward him. It was with Beth in his arms that he had slipped so badly two weeks before. He didn't dare trust himself close to her now. "Don't you know that you can trust me? Dr. Leutze knows, doesn't he?" "Joshua" nodded. Beth was determined. "You trust him, but not me?"

"Joshua"nodded again. "I had to trust him. Having me there could have put the whole clinic at risk. He had to know. But now, with that cop on Long Island and his friends looking for me, the danger's worse – a lot worse. I don't want you to go to prison for being with me! Prison! Friends of – of ours – have been put on trial for aiding and abetting before. I can't let you take that chance!"

"I'd say that's up to me!" Beth remained defiant.

"No!" Heyes was equally adamant. "This is my . . . responsibility. Just mine! I've spent most of my life like a boy, running away from real life, doing as I pleased. You aren't my teacher any longer – I'm not just your student or a patient! I'm a man! Let me be a man. This is life or death, Beth. It's my life or death. I can't let it be yours!"

Beth was in an agony of worry – but also curiosity. How could this man have gotten himself into so much trouble when he was so smart and so gifted! "Alright, you're a man. I ought to know. How on earth did you get to be an outlaw, when it's so clear what a good man you are?"

"Am I? Aren't many who think that! How did I . . . Beth, you couldn't . . . understand how it was. You've had your own losses, I know, but you can't know . . . " The man sighed again and tried to turn away.

"I sure won't understand if you won't tell me," Beth prodded at him. "Does this have to do – with what you would never tell me – with what happened when you were a boy in Kansas?"

The man's eyes closed again for an instant as he gathered his courage to tell a terrible story. "Yeah. I guess it all does." There was a long, dreadful pause.

"My parents . . . and my cousin's parents . . . and all our brothers and sisters, were . . . murdered in the Kansas border wars. They were murdered and. . . " He stopped, the anguish on his face all too eloquent. There was more than he could not, would not, say, perhaps to anyone ever. Beth looked at him, tears welling in her eyes, guessing at the brutal realities of war that he couldn't share. It took a minute for Heyes to gather himself to tell the parts of the story that he could face.

"I was nine, my little second cousin was only seven. There wasn't anyone left but us. We had no place to go, no one to look after us. They took all the food and the horses and they burned the houses and barns. With men . . . scouring the country for food, there wasn't much left for us." It was hard for Heyes even to say this, to think about it, much less to think of what it might mean for Beth to know it.

"Oh my God! What did you do, Joshua," Beth asked, forgetting that Joshua wasn't really his name. It was the only name she knew. Oh, how she wanted to how onto him, to comfort him, to feel his warmth close!

Heyes stumbled through the story, pacing in agony, shortening things as much as he could. "We ran and we hid. We hunted jack rabbits. We stole. Mostly, we starved. We wound up in a home for . . . waywards. I don't really remember how that happened. I was starving too bad when they took us. They didn't feed us much, and taught us less, and they worked us hard. We tried to get away, but they hauled us back over and over. They beat us then – worse than before. We finally took off for good when I was 15 and my cousin was 13. I figured we were old enough to make it with just the two of us. We stole horses and rode as far away as we could get. We tried to find work. Sometimes we did find a work for a bit here and there. There were all the old soldiers and ex-slaves looking for work, too. A couple of skinny kids were nothing to anyone. We – well – you don't want to know all that.

So . . . I wound up riding with an outlaw gang. It was the first time since . . . home . . . that there was anyone but J . . . my cousin who cared about me . . . at all. Not that it was . . . disinterested. I had – um – skills they valued. At least they made sure I didn't starve. The . . . my cousin – he tried to stay away – to make an honest living. But he was too good with his gun and guys kept ch . . . forcing him to fight. He joined the third gang I was with – he needed someone to watch his back and so did I. That last gang was more . . . decent than the first ones.

But I still – it was wrong to get my cousin into crime, just because I couldn't find anything better to do myself! God! If only I could go back . . . live it over . . . and fix it . . . do better." He looked down at Beth, the agonized guilt plain on his face.

Beth stared at him, totally appalled. This brilliant man, this man she was so sure was good – he had been through so much. He had done so many things that shocked her. And he felt so terrible about it all – most of all it tormented him to think about what his actions had meant for his cousin. Beth asked, "How long were you with gangs?"

"Fifteen years. God! Fifteen years!" Heyes looked away from Beth, trying to cope with his overwhelming regrets. When Heyes and the Kid had been riding together, escaping from posses and other dangers, there had been no time to stop and think about what their choices had meant. He had often been so caught up in his addiction to danger, that he had actually enjoyed their adventures. Now, his very distance from the Kid had allowed Heyes to realize more rationally how he felt about his own past, and the Kid's.

"Posters went up about us all over in the West. We brought in good money – good for us – bad for the banks and trains and the people with money in those safes. But we were never wanted for murder - the rule was no killing. We enjoyed having enough to eat, a roof over our heads, clothes without holes in them, some fun times, some respect."

Beth was appalled. "But weren't you in awful danger all the time? Did you ever get caught – jailed?"

"Sure. Lots a' times." Beth's mystery man grinned wickedly at her and looked incredibly blasé about being in jail. This was so foreign to everything that Beth knew!

Beth asked in bafflement, "But if they had you in jail, why didn't you go to prison?"

He actually laughed at that. "They take men who've just taken fifty thousand out of a thousand dollar safe and they put them behind a 50 cent cell lock with a badly paid deputy to guard them. What do you think happens?"

"If it was that easy, why did you stop stealing?" Beth sounded a bit angry – how could anyone who seemed, in the life she knew, to be such a decent and gifted guy, be so at home with theft and jail break?

The easy smile vanished. Heyes ducked his head, but not in time for Beth to miss the pain in his eyes. "We never would kill. That was our hard and fast rule. But people started to die anyway – and suffer – because of us. Or . . . we . . .woke up and realized what a lot of harm we'd been causing to decent people all along. How many people's life savings did we get away with? How many lives did we wreck? We'll never know, now. We – my cousin and I – we met a family that we had . . . ruined . . . with one of our jobs. It had seemed like easy money to us and only some company to miss the money. But we got to know this farmer and his wife and kids – lost all their savings in that job. And that wasn't even the worst. . ." He paused, struggling with his sorrow before he could go on. "Finally, we'd had enough. Just figured it was wrong and we went straight. We thought we might get an . . . amnesty. They offered, but it's never come through."

He stopped and Beth just stared at him in the silent, trying to comprehend the life he had described for her. It was utterly beyond her ken.

So he went on. "We went straight two years before you met me. God, that was hard! After having things pretty decent for a few years, to be running and sometimes starving, month after month. We had some good times, I'll admit it. Some fun here and there, met some good people. But it never lasted. Any time we thought we'd found a place where we could stay a while, get decent jobs, something would happen, someone would . . . recognize us. Some bounty hunter, some sheriff, some outlaw. We'd have to go on the run again. I remember the . . . my cousin saying that when we retired from crime he didn't think we'd also retire from eating and drinking and sleeping in beds. He lost his faith in me. Got to missing the good old days with Devil's Hole, bad as it was sometimes."

"Devil's Hole?" Beth knew the name. Beth's mystery man looked up in real distress. How had he slipped and said that name aloud? Now the truth would have to come out. But then, he had always known that it would.

Beth said, with growing bitterness, "I've heard of the Devil's Hole Gang - the gang with Kid Curry and Hannibal Heyes. Those awful outlaws! I don't know how Jim can read books about those men like they were heroes. He tries to tell me about it and I tell him I can't stand it! So they got you involved? Who did that?"

"I guess you'd have to say Heyes did the dirty deed."Beth's friend smiled with bitter irony and his voice had a hard edge to it.

Beth was roused to fury. "Hannibal Heyes! Awful man, tempting decent good men like you and your cousin into a gang, ruining your lives! If I had him here, I'd kill him!" Heyes turned and starred at her, shocked by the violence of her words. He had always seen her as such a gentle woman. He knew she was exaggerating; he doubted that Beth could ever kill or even wound anyone - physically. But the emotion behind the words was real enough and it cut him to the bone.

"What did you do in the gang?" Beth asked bitterly.

"I, um, opened things." He looked away from her, toward the floor, blushing in shame.

"Things?" Beth asked.

"Come on, you know! Doors, windows, strong boxes, safes . . . cells. And I . . . um . . . planned things – times, routes - you can figure it out – the math Mr. Robertson taught me came in mighty handy." His nervous pacing had led him to a window by Jim's bed. He stood looked out it with a fixed gaze, seeing nothing, but avoiding Beth's gaze. He waited for her reaction. If she knew any detail about the gang, she would know who had opened the safes. But apparently, she hadn't realized that.

Beth was still caught up in her hatred of a man she imagined to be a thousand miles away. "That awful man Heyes getting you to do those things! Taking a decent men and making them into criminals. He must be a monster." Beth was getting angrier and angrier, and more and more worried about her Joshua.

"Oh come on, not such a monster! Who do you think made the rule about no killing? No other gang cared if they killed or not."

"Why do you defend him? After what he did to you?" Beth's hatred would not be softened by this consideration.

Heyes was angry in his turn. The resistance to killing during his crimes was the one thing on which Heyes had built what little self respect he had left. And Beth had made it clear that she neither knew nor much cared. Crime was crime and she was against it all.

Beth demanded to know, "Why are you still loyal to that awful man? You don't still know that Heyes, do you?" Beth looked offended to even say the name.

"It would be awful hard for me not to know Heyes," her mysterious host replied with a bark of harsh laughter.

Beth's fear grew – for herself and for her former student. "What?" A dreadful thought struck her – right out of Jim's western dime novels. "Don't tell me he's your brother or something."

"Or something."

"What?! Who is that Heyes to you?"

There was a tense pause. Beth's host seemed to wrestle with himself before he went on. He had come so close – now he had to tell her the rest, or this determined researcher would find it out for herself – and maybe cause terrible mischief along the way.

Heyes looking directly, very purposefully, into her eyes so that he would take the full brunt of her reaction. He said, "Heyes is . . . me."

Beth's mouth fell open and she just stared, stunned and utterly horrified. In reaction against Jim's hero worship, she had built up a terrible image of Hannibal Heyes the utterly immoral outlaw – and she couldn't conceive of how he could be the same person as her beloved Joshua. As close as Heyes had led her to this truth, she hadn't been able to take that final step.

Suddenly, Heyes had a pistol in his hand, aimed at Beth's heart. He didn't cock the gun, but Beth didn't know enough to notice that.

"Miss Warren," said Heyes in a tense voice, "I think you'd better go. Now. And you'd better not come back here anymore. If you did, I'd be long gone. I know a little something about vanishing. I'm a professional at it."

"You don't need to pull a gun on me!" Beth was shaken. This wasn't at all the man she had thought she knew so well.

"You're the one who just threatened to murder me!" Suddenly Heyes was really angry. Beth began to be frightened of him. "Maybe it would the easiest way for you to get the ten thousand on my head! Or maybe now you're thinking it might be easier to take me in for the ten thousand alive rather than having to haul me in dead. Get out and get out now! Then I can leave this tenement, this city, this life – go back west where I belong! And I'll let the Kid know he and the lady he wants to marry had better hit the road, too, before you set the law on them. They're very decent folks, but now they'll both be fugitives. She wouldn't turn on him, not ever." He glared at her furiously, his fear swallowing up his love.

Now Beth was the sad and sorry one. She felt frightened, and yet she couldn't help but trust Heyes, as Doctor Leutze did. "You don't have to go. Of course I won't turn you in. Or your partner. I couldn't possibly. I thought I knew you. Maybe I didn't, but I know you're a brilliant student, and I still think you're a decent man. You've got to stay and finish your degree! You've put in so much work! What a waste, to go back to crime and forget your academic career!"

Heyes answered bitterly, "I – we - wouldn't go back to crime, not ever. The Kid and I would die first – we probably will. That big price on our heads is dead or alive – I told you. How can I believe you that you won't turn us in yourself, Miss Warren? You called me a . . . monster, said you'd murder me, just because you didn't know what face went with the name. Now you know and you think I'll trust you with my life and my partner's life and his girl's life, too?"

"You are safe! And so is your partner and his fiancé! I promise, I won't turn either one of you in! I promise! I promise! You don't really think I'd turn you in for money, do you? Have you locked up for the rest of your lives? Never! Never! I swear it!" Beth was determined to leave Heyes in no doubt about his safety.

"Alright, alright! But I don't think we'll be seeing any more of each other, will we? Somehow, I don't think you want to be associated with a mere . . . criminal." His face held a strange combination of anger and regret.

"Of course not! I won't turn you in, but you're right. I'm not going to stay with an outlaw. I just couldn't do that. I just . . . I couldn't." She truly could no longer imagine how it would be possible for her to remain in a romantic relationship with this man. The very thought had the ludicrous quality of a bad dime novel.

Beth's voice turned suddenly strange even to her - cold and distant, as she steeled her heart so that she could stand to walk out - to leave the man she loved. "Good-bye Mr. Heyes." Beth drew herself up with dignity. She turned and walked out, not glancing behind her.

As she left she heard Heyes say behind her in a very quiet monotone, "Good-bye Miss Warren." As she left, he collapsed onto his bed. The door closed. He sat, stunned. It was all over at last.

Unless Beth broke her word. Then it would be only beginning.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooooooooo

Beth's rapid walk did not slow down until she stepped into a cab. Then the horse was trotting swiftly, carrying her away from Hester Street. She broke down and sobbed. She felt terribly torn. Had she done wrong to leave a dangerous criminal in place at Columbia University, or had she done wrong to hurt and leave the man she loved? Could both be equally wrong? Both hurt!

Beth was tormented. That night she tossed and turned, unable to sleep. She could not stop seeing the anguished the face of Joshua Smith, and then Hannibal Heyes with his face distorted with fury. Beth returned to Hester Street early the next morning. Jim was there, sleepily waking up to let Beth in.

"Jim, where's – your roommate?" Beth asked in anxiety.

"G-g-gone home I g-g-guess, B-B-Beth. When I g-g-got b-b-back yesterday, he was g-g-gone. All his st-st-stuff's g-g-gone, t-t-too. S-s-surprised me. Why?"

Beth, tears starting in her eyes, just shook her head and ran down the stairs.

Jim shouted after her "Who is h-h-he?"

Beth did not answer.