Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry managed to keep up a good pace for most of the morning but, by noon the flat sandy, desert landscape was giving way to rocky outcrops with no clearly defined trail. This gave them more cover but it would slow them up. The two riders picked their way carefully through the rocky terrain. The last thing they wanted was one of their horses to get injured. From experience they knew that riding double was a sure way of increasing the odds towards getting caught.
They hated riding through rocks - it was tiring and frustrating so, by the time the sun had started to set they were more than ready to find somewhere to stop for the night.
Heading for high ground with the biggest boulders they could find they set up camp so that they could see the path they had taken but their horses would be well hidden. Kid brushed the animals down and fed them a few handfuls of grain from the small stash in his saddlebags and water poured into a shallow tin bowl from one of their canteens. In this dry environment they all had to share. He hoped that tomorrow they would come across an arroyo that still had a little water in it after the storm and the horses could drink.
Heyes carried their saddles to a flat sandy spot and busied himself clearing away any stones from where their bedrolls would be. If there was one thing he could not abide it was turning over in the night to find a rock in the middle of his back. The Kid well, he could lie on a bed of nails and say it was the best night's sleep he'd ever had.
Rummaging through his saddlebags he sighed as he looked at the jerky and hard tack in his hand. He wished he could get some coffee going but lighting a fire was out of the question and anyway, there was nothing here to make one with.
As darkness enveloped them they sat chewing laboriously through their supper then, as the moon rose, they took turns in keeping watch throughout the cold desert night.
ooooo-OOO-ooooo
Heyes rubbed his hand over his face and yawned as the first light of dawn crept over the eastern horizon. From his vantage point above their camp his attention was drawn to something moving; it was some way off but it looked like it could be a horse and rider. He rubbed his eyes and squinted as he tried to focus in the dim light.
Pushing his hat down firmly on his head he climbed down to their camp where he nudged his partner with his foot.
"C'mon Kid, time to go."
Kid Curry groaned. He hated it when they had to keep watch. Each time he got back to sleep it felt like Heyes was waking him again after two minutes instead of two hours.
"I think I saw a rider. Some way off, but it could be Hendy."
"Huh, it would just be our luck to get a bounty hunter who don't need any sleep," grumbled Curry as he started to pack up his bedroll.
"Let's saddle up and get moving," Heyes caught the look on his cousin's face. "Yes, I know! Before breakfast, again. Anyway, we only have the same for breakfast as we had for supper. You can eat while you ride."
Kid nodded; there was certainly no argument to be had about a jerky and hard tack breakfast. "You keep watch, Heyes, I'll saddle up," he said and with a grunt he shouldered one of the saddles and trudged over to where the horses were tethered.
Throughout the morning they once again tediously picked the best path through the rocky outcrops until suddenly, both horses began to toss their heads and pull on the reins.
"There goes your mare startin' again, and now she's messin' with my horse too," griped a sleep-deprived Kid Curry.
"She's not startin'!" Heyes said defensively. Both horses whickered and tried to pull to the right. "Hey, Kid, I bet they've smelled water. We've got a little time and they sure need a drink. Let's give them their heads, see where they want to go."
They gave the horses free rein and exactly as Heyes had predicted they soon came across a small pool in the shadow of some larger boulders.
Both riders sat and watched their mounts sucking up the water. While they were resting there, Kid decided it would be a good time to check his horse's hooves. The gelding was due to be re-shod and he wanted to check that none of his shoes had worked loose over the difficult terrain.
Kid's boots hadn't even touched the ground before there was a loud crack and a bullet whizzed over his horse in exactly the place where he had been sitting a fraction of a second earlier. It ricocheted off a rock somewhere behind them.
Heyes instantly flattened himself to his horse's neck before slipping from the saddle and, gun in hand, joined Kid who was crouched next to his horse.
"Sheesh, that was close!"
"Uh, huh." Heyes could feel himself breaking out in a cold sweat as he realized that his partner would probably have taken the bullet in the middle of his chest if he hadn't dismounted at that precise moment.
"Can't be Hendy, can it?" Kid couldn't believe the bounty hunter could have made up that much ground.
"Don't know who else would be shootin' at us right now, do you?" said Heyes, the tightness of his throat making his tone sharper than he intended.
"How's he caught up that fast? He can't be goin' much faster than us through these rocks and I don't think we're leaving too many tracks either."
Heyes shrugged. "Maybe he's half Apache."
Kid half stood, trying to peer over the rocks in front of them.
"I'm gonna go round those boulders over there, see if I can get a good look in that direction." Curry indicated with a jerk of his revolver before he crept around to their right to shelter behind another boulder.
All was quiet for a minute then a bullet gouged a chunk out of the rock near Kid's head. Hearing the shot Heyes called softly, "Kid, you okay?"
"Yeah. Saw the muzzle flash," Kid replied from the niche he stood in. "Must be a rifle. Bring me the one you helped yourself to, will ya. And some bullets."
A little irked by his cousin's jibe Heyes pursed his lips as he pulled Hendy's rifle from his saddle and, staying low, moved round to hand it to his partner who immediately fired a single shot in reply.
"No bullets. Sold them with my rifle."
Kid grimaced at this information. "I'll hold him here with a few shots while you take the horses out the other way."
"Good idea, don't be too long." Heyes led the horses as quietly as he could through a gap in the rocks and down a slope where he mounted up and waited. Leaning on his saddle horn he strummed his fingers impatiently while listening to his partner trade shots with Hendy. Much to his relief it wasn't long before Kid appeared and scrambled down towards him.
Tossing Heyes the rifle Curry vaulted into his saddle. Heyes quickly passed him the reins and they urged their horses on, much faster than they would have liked over the rough ground.
It was around noon when they began to leave the boulder strewn country behind them and as soon as the trail turned into scrubland they increased the pace to a flat out gallop once again. After several miles they could feel their horses struggling to sustain their speed in the heat of the midday sun and decided they had to take a risk and slow them to a trot.
Heyes turned in his saddle to check on his partner and it was then that he noticed blood on Kid's shirt.
"Hey! Are you hit?"
"No, a piece of rock thrown up by a bullet. It ripped through my shirt but only grazed me," Kid said simply as he pushed his finger through the tear in the arm of his blue shirt. He grinned. "Rather a hole in my shirt than in me, huh?"
"You sure you're okay?"
"Yes, I'm sure. Now quit worryin'," Curry complained good naturedly.
Half an hour later, as they crested a rise, they were faced with two options. Vertical, slick, red rock cliffs lay in front of them and continued for some distance off to the left before returning to boulder strewn terrain. Alternatively, to the right lay a rough steady climb up to a plateau, covered in thick forest.
"I'm thinkin' we should head into that forest. We could easily lose him in those pines." Kid Curry reined in his horse and pointed towards the plateau before noticing the colour had drained from his partner's face.
"What's the matter, Heyes?"
Heyes tried to sound matter-of-fact as he shook his head. "Nothin', but I don't think we should go up there."
"Why? Oh, wait...don't tell me...y' gotta hunch." Kid's tone held more than a hint of sarcasm.
"No. It's more than a hunch."
Curry waited with raised eyebrows for an explanation.
Heyes swallowed hard. "Kid, I just know something bad will happen if we go up there."
"How can you possibly know that?"
"I think I had...a...a premonition." Heyes noted his partner's baffled expression. "You know, a warning that something's gonna happen. An omen."
"I know what a premonition is!" Kid replied irritably. "I don't believe in 'em though - didn't think you did either. I recall you tellin' me once that you didn't believe in bad omens, only good ones."
"If you'd had the nightmare I had those few nights back you would."
"I think it's time you told me what happened in this dream that's got ya so spooked."
Heyes hesitated and tried to avoid his cousin's gaze. He knew that Kid was the only person who could read him and he didn't want him to see the fear in his eyes. "Well..."
"Come on, Heyes, we have to decide which way to go. Hendy will be gainin' on us," Kid urged.
Heyes cleared his dry throat. "It ain't easy for me to say, Kid but..." He caught the look from Kid pressing him to hurry, "...but in my dream, you got shot!"
Kid screwed up his face. "Aaaw Heyes, is that all?!"
"No, that's not all, Kid. You were shot so bad...you died! I saw it all, real clear. You lying there, dying, right there in front of me, in the middle of a forest!"
"And that's why you don't wanna go up there?"
Heyes nodded.
"Seriously?" asked Kid in disbelief.
"Seriously," came the adamant reply.
Curry was about to say something dismissive but stopped, for as Heyes reached up to adjust his hat he noticed that, almost indiscernibly, his cousin's hand was shaking. Heyes' hands never shook. Kid had seen him handle explosives many times, including nitro, without so much as a twitch. It was then he realized how much this nightmare had unnerved his partner.
When Kid spoke again his tone was soft and steady. "Okay, Heyes, if it matters that much to you - no forest. Let's keep goin' this way and see where it takes us."
Heyes took two slow steadying breaths, his eyes conveying his relief before they spurred their horses on towards a gap in the cliffs ahead of them.
ooooo-OOO-ooooo
The high walls of the red rock canyon towered above the two riders as they followed the path through the dry wash, the sound of their horses' hooves making a strange echo off the slick rock face.
For a half mile or so the canyon hadn't seemed too bad but now that it was narrowing, all Kid Curry could see as he looked around him, was danger. Whether Uriah Hendy decided to follow them in here, or took a route somewhere above them, there was no cover.
Hendy shooting at them earlier in the day had clearly shown that it didn't matter to him whether he took them in dead or alive and right now, as far as Kid was concerned, if they stayed in the canyon they were as good as dead. Because of Heyes' reaction earlier Kid decided not to voice his unease but he guessed his partner would have realized the danger they were in.
Heyes had also been eyeing the canyon walls and his thoughts were exactly the same. He was also acutely aware that if this went bad, and if he was going to be of any use to the Kid, he needed to get a hold of himself and put the nightmare out of his mind. Over the past few days he had tried looking at it logically, telling himself that it was only the work of his subconscious but he still couldn't shake the fear that something bad was going to happen.
To make matters worse, as they rounded a bend it became obvious that they could go no further, if they wanted to take their horses that is.
"Dammit!" spat Curry. "We're gonna have to turn back!"
Heyes slammed his hat down on his saddle horn in frustration and raked a gloved hand through his hair.
"Sorry Kid, it's my fault we came this way."
Curry tried to keep his tone even. "It's okay, Heyes. We'll have to find another trail is all, but you do know it will probably mean goin' up into that forest, don't you?"
Heyes nodded. "I know," he said quietly as he replaced the battered hat on his head.
They turned their horses and started back the way they had come but had not gone far when Kid pulled his horse to a halt and held up his hand. His keen hearing had picked up a faint sound, like distant hooves echoing off the rocks, exactly as theirs had done.
"Hear that? There's someone else in the canyon. We need to find another way out otherwise we're gonna make real easy targets, real soon."
Thankfully, the ex-outlaws were familiar with the vagaries of canyons having lived in the canyon that was Devil's Hole for some years and, as they retraced their steps, they scanned the walls for any sign of a trail that may not have been visible from the other direction.
Heyes was starting to consider giving up looking for another way out and was about to suggest to Kid that they hunker down somewhere and try to ambush Hendy, he pulled his horse to an abrupt halt causing the animal to throw up its head in protest. He pointed at the cliff to their left.
"Over there. What's that?"
Curry squinted at the rock in the glaring sun, not quite sure what he should be looking at.
"I can't see anythin', Heyes."
"Well, it don't look like much but I have a hun..." Heyes snapped his mouth shut thinking it wiser not to finish what he was about to say. Instead, he led the way toward the cliff.
As they got closer, the shadows on the rock face began to change and it became clear that Heyes had indeed seen a possible trail behind the cliff face. Curry leapt off his gelding in order to take a closer look.
"What do you think, Kid? Can the horses manage it?"
The trail rose steeply. It was narrow, with slick rock on both sides and barely wide enough for a horse. Kid peered into the dark enclosed space finding it difficult to see exactly how the ground lay for more than a few yards.
"Dunno, Heyes. Looks pretty dangerous to me."
"Yeah, and sitting here waiting for Hendy to take another shot at us isn't?"
Kid aimed a humourless smile back at his cousin. "We'll end up with crushed legs for sure if we try and ride. If we lead the horses it might be okay but, if it narrows any more or dead-ends, then we're in big trouble 'cause there's no room to turn around."
The sound of hooves began to get clearer.
"Well, I don't reckon we have a choice anymore," stated Curry.
Heyes dismounted. "Let's do it."
Both men took a moment to flip their stirrups up on top of their saddles and quickly tie them together with a saddle string to ensure they stayed there and wouldn't rub or knock against the rock face. Then, gently encouraging his horse forward Kid started to lead him up and away from the canyon floor. Heyes let his partner get a few yards ahead before doing the same.
Each man, at some point on the trail, wondered if this had been another mistake. Finding safe footing for both them and the animals was difficult and in several places it was down-right perilous. The cousins were glad of their long reins as they had to stay well away from the horses so that they could scramble, almost jump at times, up to the next level of rocky ground. Thankfully, the horses proved to be braver than they had ever imagined, especially Heyes' skittish mare, and they all reached the top safely, but exhausted.
While the horses stood blowing hard and quivering a little Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry leaned on each other, silently sharing a feeling of relief. Eventually Heyes straightened up, stretched his back, and reached for his canteen taking a few mouthfuls of their precious water before holding it out to his cousin. Kid took a long drink.
Now he had got his breath back Heyes said. "Just goes to show, Kid, we do get lucky sometimes."
"Well,...I can do without that kinda luck if it's alright with you."
"For a moment back there I didn't think we were gonna make it," Heyes admitted. "It was real tough for the horses."
"And us!"
"I figure we should make the forest before nightfall. Let's hope there's a stream or two along the way. I don't think we'll get too much more out of these horses if they don't get a good drink. Not after that climb."
"Let's lead them a little while longer, make sure they're movin' okay," suggested Kid. "Hendy will have to either double back or follow us up that trail, so we've gained a bit of time."
Heyes hung his canteen back on his saddle. Turning, he stared warily at the pine forest in the distance.