As the lunch after his talk broke up and the crowds moved from the restaurant toward various afternoon sessions, Heyes noticed that the undergraduate who had inquired about his past hadn't gotten far. Heyes hurried up and asked him, "What's your name, son?"

"Herbert Clay." The student looked apprehensive. What might Hannibal Heyes do to a man he was mad at?"

Heyes tried not to look threatening. "Don't worry, Mr. Clay. I'm not out to get you. But there are things I need to know – for my own safety. Like who'd you hear my first name from?"

"From one of my professors, sir," the student answered shyly.

The ex-outlaw reassured the young man, "You don't have to call me sir. Remember – I'm just a filthy outlaw."

The young man flushed and studied the dining room's carpet. "I don't hold your past against you. I was just curious. I'm sorry if I offended you, Mr. Heyes."

Heyes said, "I take no offence. But putting it around about my dirty past is no good for my academic career. You know that. The cat's out of the bag, now. Can I take a wild guess on where you're in school? Could it possibly be New York University?"

"Yes, sir! How'd you know?" The young man looked at Heyes in surprise.

"Let's just say I had inside information from the same source as your professor did. I can't ask anyone to hide the truth, and it is the truth. But I'd much rather start as clean as I can in this new field. I hope you can understand that."

"Of course, sir."

Heyes sighed. "I meant it when I told you not to call me sir. Once I hire on as a professor someplace – if I ever can – maybe you can add the sir. But until then, I'm just H. Joshua Heyes, out of work new graduate."

"Alright, Mr. Heyes. Good luck to you. From what I heard you say in your talk and around that table, someone really ought to hire you." Clay gave Heyes a reticent smile.

"Thanks!" said Heyes with a grin, "I hope somebody with the power to hire me agrees."

That evening, after the sessions finished, Heyes stepped quickly out of the coffee gathering that had attracted most of the conference attendees. He heard his old name mentioned too often and saw too many curious stare in his direction for his comfort. Instead of staying where he was quickly becoming an object of open curiosity, the retired outlaw went to have a quiet, early dinner at a nearby restaurant with Charlie Homer and Professor Holton Prendergast. "Well, do you think anyone will ever hire me, Holton?" Heyes asked the professor from Penn State. The star mathematician had quietly earned the right to call his new professor friend by his first name.

Prendergast looked at his new acquaintance with sorrow. "They ought to be competing to get you, Heyes, but you know how important money and politics are around universities. I'm afraid you ticked off the wrong people when you gave offense to bankers and railroad executives."

Heyes slumped. "You're too right. But I'm not giving up any time soon. I want this too much."

"And you've got gifts too great to be wasted," added Charlie Homer.

"Thanks, Charlie," said the senior professor's protégé. "But I'm getting an awful lot of silence in answer to all those applications I've sent out."

"It takes time, you know that," said Holton Prendergast. "Deans and presidents and boards will start to come around eventually. Your talk today won't hurt your chances."

Heyes gave a lopsided grin. "Having my past not get around until after I spoke was a blessing. I appreciate your help with that, Holton."

"My pleasure, Heyes. Let me pick up the bill, gentlemen," said Holton Prendergast. It didn't take him long to argue down the weak protests of his friends.

As the three mathematicians walked back to their hotels through the historic streets of central Philadelphia in the long shadows of the early evening, Heyes was finishing up telling a story from after he had gone straight but before he had been shot in the head. In answer to pestering by Professor Prendergast, he admitted, "So yeah, I got into some art theft. Now, thanks to a friend studying art history, I know that stupid bust was a late copy after the head of the Prima Porta Augustus. As bad shape as it was in, it probably shouldn't have sold for fifty bucks – certainly not ten or twenty thousand." His audience laughed appreciatively at the irony. The sound echoed off red brick row houses on either side of the narrow street.

"Is that the only time you've stolen art, Heyes?" asked Professor Prendergast.

"Uh, no," answered Heyes uneasily, avoiding his new mentor's eyes. "Sorry. I guess I've stolen about every kind of thing about every kind of way there is, except for straight stick ups and stage coach robbery. I never would stoop to either one."

"You've picked pockets?" Prendergast unintentionally walked farther away from the western ex-outlaw.

Heyes was becoming more and more uneasy about discussing such a topic in public. "Uh, yeah. Mostly when I was a boy and Jed and I ran away from the Home for Waywards."

"Mostly?" Homer was interested to know more about the kind of subject he and his former student had only very rarely discussed.

Suddenly there was a rustling from a shadowy alley opening off of the dirty old Philadelphia street. Then there was a loud click. Heyes turned like lightning toward the sounds, crouching, and drew a small pistol. His companions heard the click as Heyes cocked the gun – a lot like the click they had just heard. "Come out of there, now! Hands up!" said Heyes loudly to whoever had made the noise.

There was a long, tense pause. There was another rustling sound in the alley. Then a large rat boldly ran across the street in front of the three men. The three mathematicians laughed. Heyes stood up straight and carefully returned his pistol to the holster hidden under his jacket. He looked sheepish. "Sorry, gentlemen. That's embarrassing."

"You're paranoid, Heyes!" barked Prendergast angrily, shaken by his new friend's easy return to gun wielding.

Heyes looked down, "Yeah, I guess I am. I said I was sorry."

Charlie looked at Prendergast, but spoke to his former student. "Heyes, how long have you had amnesty?"

"You know as well as I do, Charlie. Less than three months," answered Heyes softly as the three men resumed walking back to their hotels. Heyes walked with his hands in his pockets – which the other men now knew meant he was set to draw his pistol again if it was necessary.

"And how long were you wanted dead or alive?" Charlie probed further.

"Twenty years," Heyes gave this terrible number in a detached voice without meeting the eyes of either of his companions.

Homer asked, as if it was a math problem, "And how many times during those twenty years do you think someone tried to kill you or turn you in?"

"Gosh, I don't know, Charlie. I tried not to count." The reformed outlaw sounded upset by the question, but he appreciated the point Charlie was making.

Homer urged his former student, "Come on, Heyes. You've got to have a realistic idea."

"How do you count that kind of thing, when anybody could be against you whether you know it or not? How do you count a posse or bounty hunter that kept trying?"

"Just give us a rough estimate," Charlie requested, patiently. "I think Prendergast and I both ought to know."

Heyes tilted his head thoughtfully. They could see him rapidly counting across the years. "I don't know. Maybe 140, 150 times?"

Homer looked sad, but Prendergast was truly shocked. He asked, "Honestly? That many?"

"Easily, Holton, easily," said Heyes, meeting the professor's eyes. "We are talking about twenty years, after all."

Prendergast continued the questioning, "How many times have you drawn your gun like that since you got amnesty?"

This was an easy one for Heyes. "Twice, not counting tonight."

"Both false alarms, I assume," said Prendergast.

Heyes shook his head. "You assume wrong. The first time was a guy trying to rob my wife. The second time – just a few days ago – was when two guys tried to kidnap me and make me open a safe for them. Both times they were holding a gun on me. Both times, I turned them in to the law. I guess I just attract trouble."

Holton Prendergast sounded shaken, "Good lord! I'm sorry I called you paranoid, Heyes. I think sensible is more about the size of it."

"That's what I think," said Charlie Homer. "I just wanted to make sure you understood that, Holton. When you tell guys in the field about Heyes, make sure they know he's sensible and safe to be around. Maybe safer than anybody you ever met. I mean, if that really had been a robber tonight, wouldn't you rather have had Heyes with you than not?"

Prendergast didn't answer and Heyes didn't stop scanning the urban shadows for dangers. He was just as alert a bit later when he walked from his hotel to the train station to take a late train home to New York.

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Earlier that same day, over sixteen hundred miles away, Billy Healy had been was sitting in the Louisville sheriff's office minding the desk. His boss had gone home to Christy's Place to get lunch. It was a warm afternoon and there hadn't been any miscreants through town in days. The sheriff and his deputy had had a quiet time with no more than the usual town drunks and a couple of bar room brawls to concern them. Billy knew that his boss was restless, wondering when he dared to call for Cat to come home. How could anyone know which violent men might turn up and when?

Billy yawned and stood to put a new wanted poster up on the bulletin board. The hand bill had just arrived in the mail that morning. The woodcut illustration showed a bearded man with a distinctive sneer. Just as he pushed a tack through the lower corner of the wanted poster for a multiple murderer named Garth Hogan, Billy Healy heard the front door open. It was his boss.

"Oh great!" exclaimed Jed sarcastically, seeing the poster. "I knew I recognized that guy eating a ham sandwich at Christy's Place. I guess he'll have paid up by now, if he's not staying for a drink. You go get Hob and Gus saddled, and get our emergency packs and full canteens. I'll go see if I can nab Hogan before he leaves. You be ready in case we need to follow him. He's from Montana but I don't know if he'll head north or what. Have the handcuffs ready and check your pistol, Billy."

"Yes, sir!" Healy's eyes were shining with excitement as he started to run out the door.

Curry grabbed his deputy's sleeve. "Take it easy or any guys he has outside could tip him off. You're just going down there to fix your saddle. Right?" Healy nodded, trying to steady his nerves as he went to prepare for the pursuit of his first murderer. "Just follow my lead, Billy," said the sheriff, trying to give his deputy confidence. "You'll be fine. This guy's quick to draw, from what I recall, but he's not stupid. He's alone, far as I can tell, unless he's got boys watching the street. Which he might, but if he did, I didn't spot 'em. And he's not as fast on the draw as I am." Billy grinned – nobody was as fast as his boss.

The sheriff ambled down the street toward Christy's Place as coolly if he was just going to get a glass of beer. Healy locked up the sheriff's office as casually as he could and walked down the back alley toward the stable, trying not to show the world that he was hurrying.

Curry hadn't been out the door for three strides when he saw Hogan walk out the door of Christy's Place and head toward a tall chestnut mare tied out front. Christy's was still a long way down the street from where the sheriff was existing his office. Curry had to yell so the murderer could hear him, "Hold it right there, Hogan!" Hogan turned to look at the man coming toward him in the street with a drawn Colt. The wanted man broke into a run as Curry yelled again, "Hogan!" Curry had hoped to prod the violent criminal into staying for a gunfight that the new sheriff was certain the law would win. But Hogan had obviously recognized him. The murderer had the wisdom to retreat from the famous gunman in a badge.

Hogan didn't pause. He leapt into his saddle. "Stop!" yelled the Kid, "you're under arrest!" but the murderer didn't stop. Curry fired at Hogan's back. The bullet pinged loudly as it hit off the buckle of Hogan's canteen strap.

Curry cursed and was about to fire again. But he noticed a little boy on the sidewalk right behind his target. Jed didn't dare fire, in case he missed. "Get out of there, boy!" yelled the sheriff. Hogan hauled his horse's head to the left and spurred away. Since his target was now clear, Curry fired at the retreating murderer again. The next bullet missed cleanly. Curry could have sworn the shot after that hit something, but he saw no blood nor any faltering as Hogan's horse turned and vanished down an alley. Curry wondered if maybe he had put a slug in the criminal's saddle bags or something else harmless. The sheriff cursed again. Billy Healy rode up on the back of the sure-footed Hob, holding a saddled horse named Gus ready for Curry to mount. Billy already knew these were the two toughest trail horses in the Christy's Place stable.

Jed vault into his horse's saddle from behind and led the way after Hogan at a gallop. The two lawmen slowed down as they approached former Sheriff Wilde's big, elegant white house outside town.

"Harvey!" yelled Curry from his saddle as he paused to reload his gun at the same time he was talking to Wilde, "Come out here!"

"No, Harvey, you aren't with the law any longer! Don't take chances!" pled his wife shrilly, trying to hold her husband and keep him from going out the door.

"If the law needs me, I'm gonna help!" growled Wilde as he freed himself from his wife's grasp and hurried out onto the porch. He looked up at the two men on horse-back. "What is it, Jed?"

Curry looked down from the back of his prancing bay, who could feel how eager his rider was to be off. "Garth Hogan just rode past here."

"I'll take over here. Watch out, boys! Hogan's dangerous!" called Wilde, waving after the two lawmen who were spurring away even as he spoke.

The pair rode off away from town headed into the mountains at a dead run. The dust stirred up by Hogan's horse still hung in the air, so they knew they were close behind him. Curry couldn't help remembering how it felt to be chased that way himself, but it didn't make him less eager to catch his prey. Jed grinned over his shoulder at Healy. It was Curry's first time chasing a big-time criminal in his new position. The two men, in pursuit of a desperate, dangerous murderer, somehow managed to laugh as they rode. They were as giddy as two boys engaged in an exciting game. It would get serious later, they knew too well. For now they were just galloping along a narrow country road past open fields and shimmering aspens on a beautiful day expecting adventure.

The men galloped on. They followed twists in the trail over a couple of low ridges. Numerous narrow, rocky trails crisscrossed the area. The murderer's track grew harder and harder to follow and it had been some time since they had seen or heard him. Jed stopped and studied the tracks. "Can't be sure – I think we're going right, Billy."

The pace slowed to an easy lope alternating with stretches of long-strided walking as they got into the Flatiron Mountains and their horses struggled with the rough going and with weariness. Suddenly Jed looked up at the ridge beyond the one where they were and pointed to a rider pausing behind a tree, hardly visible. "There he is!" he whispered to Billy. The two men urged their horses on again. Jed was in the lead. Billy followed him, his horse still climbing the ridge as Curry's was on the way down. The deputy heard a loud whinny from the horse ahead of them and then thuds, the rattle of falling stones, and a moan from his boss.

Healy urged his horse. It seemed like forever before he could see over the ridge. He stared at the far side of the slope. Curry's voice sounded strangled as he called up from much farther down the mountainside, "Watch out, Billy! It's bad going here!" Healy hurried his horse down the steep, gravel-strewn, rocky incline as rapidly as he dared. He found his boss lying among the rocks at the foot of the slope. The sheriff's lower left leg was bent at an awkward angle. Curry's horse limped uneasily among the rocks and trees.

"Boss, what are you doing there down?" Healy asked, knowing how stupid it sounded.

Curry spoke as casually as if he had been sitting on a porch on a Sunday afternoon. "My horse fell on those rocks up there and I fell off. My leg's broke."

Healy gasped, "Oh no! Are you sure?"

The Kid replied, "Damn sure. I heard it snap. And it hurts like Hell."

Healy started to dismount.

Curry raised his hand. "No, Billy! You stay in that saddle. Go after Hogan right now, while you can still catch him. He's a murderer and you got to put him behind bars before he kills somebody else."

"But boss, I can't leave you here all hurt like that!" Healy was horribly torn.

"You can and you will. That's an order. Go! I'll be fine. I've been in worse fixes than this a bunch of times. Get going, Billy!"

Billy reached for where Curry's canteen had been thrown in the accident. He put the container's strap into Curry's upstretched right hand. Then he turned his horse sharply and rode away over the slope. "I'll be back as soon as I can with help, boss!" the young deputy shouted behind him as he departed.

Curry sat where he was. He had no choice. The slightest move was agonizing. Lying perfectly still was bad enough. He took a drink of water from his canteen and winced as even that slight movement hurt his leg worse. "Well," he murmured to himself. "Curry, you exaggerated some. If you've been in worse fixes, it ain't been exactly a bunch of times. And not many of 'em hurt like this. And Heyes was there to get me out and now he's way out East. And I sent my deputy away and I ain't got but one. Help! Anybody out there?" No one answered the call of the sheriff in distress. He hadn't expected that there would be anyone in shouting distance, and he had been right.

A terrible hour passed, or Curry thought it did. He couldn't exactly reach for his pocket watch. A bug got in his mouth and he spat it out. "Shouldn't have done that," he joked to himself. "Probably be the last thing I get to eat for a couple of days. But it could have been poison. Help!"

In between calls for help, Jed kept up a lively conversation with himself. He was trying not to panic and hoping that some passerby might hear him and come to help. But the talk got grimmer as the hours passed.

"Gosh, I wish Heyes was here. He'd say something bad, but he'd get me safe. Or Lom. Or Wheat, even. Anybody out there? Help!" There was no reaction except the loud song of a mocking bird. "Aw, gee, I can't move. I could make this thing worse. I've helped guys with broken legs before – like Lobo once. Now it's me. Aw, gosh." His muttering died away into foul curses that got more and more profane.

He started to feel worse and worse; his talk to himself got more and more desperate. He felt his own forehead. "Curry, you're raving. Got a fever. Feels hot and I know it's coming on to sunset and getting chilly. But I feel hot as fire. I've got an infection in that busted leg. It's probably gangrene and they'll take the leg off. I'll be the one-legged sheriff. My children will be scared of me. My wife won't want me in her bed. Oh, Kid, what have you gone and done to yourself? Oh shut up, Curry, now you're raving, for sure."

The injured sheriff shivered in the evening chill, which hurt his leg horribly and woke him from the stupor he had fallen into. It was quickly getting dark in the shadowy mountain valley. He could hear animals moving around in the bushes and trees around him. "Where's that damned deputy of mine when I need him? I sent him off hunting outlaws, like I'm 'sposed to do. Now I'm stuck here all night. What if Billy can't find me tomorrow? What if that murderer killed him and he never got to tell anybody I'm here? What if Hogan comes back and shoots me? Oh stop worrying, Curry. Somebody will find you. Some time. When you're a skeleton and the birds are making nests in your eye holes. Oh shut up, Kid. Now you won't sleep for worrying and fretting. Oh, great, 'cause I'm awful tired and oh, how this leg hurts. Gosh, I feel awful. And awful alone."

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When Heyes took the train back from Philadelphia and walked in the door of his apartment very late that night, Beth was waiting anxiously near the door. She sprang up as her husband entered. "Oh, Heyes! Jed was off chasing a murderer called Hogan with his deputy today."

"Was?" Heyes was already upset. "Garth Hogan out of Montana?"

Beth was patient with her anxious husband. "Yes, but let me finish. Billy called and told me this not long ago. Jed was thrown from his horse and broke his leg. He ordered Billy to keep going and leave him behind. Billy finally caught the murderer when the man's horse threw him and he was knocked out. Billy locked him up, but it took him all day. This evening when Billy got back to the place where he left Jed in the mountains, he was gone. Billy had left Jed all alone with just a canteen and his gun, which was fully loaded. Now they can't find Jed anywhere. Nobody heard any shots that Billy knows of, but the place is way off in the woods with nobody near."

Heyes stared at Beth in appalled shock. "Is Billy sure he had the right spot? It's easy to get lost in the mountains."

"He's sure. He said the rocks are quite distinctive. And Jed's horse was right nearby. He's lame and couldn't have gone far."

Heyes looked at his wife in desperation. "A man with a broken leg vanished? Could Jed ride?"

Beth took her husband's hand. "Honey, he couldn't stand. He couldn't do anything. It's a bad break. But he vanished in the Colorado woods. There are men out looking for him still with lanterns in the dark. Billy saw some kind of marks that made it look like someone had dragged something heavy away from the place he left Jed. Billy lost the trail in the rocks and the dark. Wilde went out and helped, but he's just as baffled. Jed's gone."

"Oh, hell! I should have been there! He's my partner! I should be there!" exclaimed Heyes in frustration, turning away from Beth and releasing her hand. "I was off scribbling things on boards, talking, getting applause, and having dinner while Jed was chasing a murderer and lying there all alone with a broken leg. He needed me and I was in Philadelphia talking. If I took the train west, he could die in the four days it would take me to get to him. He could be dead now. Oh, damn! What am I gonna do?"

Note - There are multiple real people called Garth Hogan in evidence on the internet, but not one of them is or, to the best of my knowledge was, a nineteenth-century murderer.