Shattered, Chapter 2
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With great difficulty Sheriff Wilkes and the mortician lowered the the pine box to lie flat on the boardwalk. The gun belt bounced and the Colt .45 slipped from the holster and came to rest between Kid's knees, while the rifle landed across his chest. The jostling caused the half open eyelid to retract and the milky white sightless eye appeared to now stare at Heyes who was standing at the foot of the casket.
"I'll place coins on his eyelids when we get him inside," the mortician told the bereaved survivor.
Heyes didn't hear him, his own eyes locked on the single open eye of his partner.
Sheriff Wilkes nudged the mortician and jerked his head in the direction of the pine lid resting against the storefront. Picking up the lid, the mortician and Wilkes laid it gently over the top of the pine box.
"If you could lift that end, we'll lift the sides," Sheriff Wilkes said to Heyes.
Wilkes propped the front door open, then the three men hoisted the heavily laden pine box and shuffled their way into the mortuary and with some struggle, hoisted the box even higher to place it on cloth shrouded catafalque.
"I know these decisions are difficult…" The mortician said giving Heyes what he hoped looked like a concerned and caring expression. "Will you be wanting a cemetery plot for your…"
Heyes cut him off, "My partner? My friend? My cousin?" Heyes' voice rose in frustration and despair.."No," Heyes snapped, "He don't need no Boot Hill plot. I'll be taking him home."
The mortician gave the sheriff a nervous glance before forging forward with his necessary but awkward questions. "May I ask how far he will be traveling? If it's a significant distance, there are some additional preparations to prevent...Well the summer heat can be difficult to manage."
Heyes rubbed his fingers back and forth across his chin and mouth as he struggled to temper his response. "Make the preparations," he said. "Whatever needs to be done, do it."
"Am I to assume that you are Hannibal Heyes?" Sheriff Wilkes asked in a voice free of reproach or judgment.
Heyes gently laid a hand on the lid of the casket and slowly nodded his head. No one spoke for several moments until Heyes pulled his hand from the lid and sucked in a deep breath and let it out in ragged, quick gasps. When he finally tore his eyes from the casket and looked at the Sheriff, his eyes were moist but piercing.
"The Kid was sick, so he stayed here instead of going to Cheyenne to pick up the amnesty papers, and I'm ready to hear just what happened."
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"According to the few witnesses…Eli Rawlins walked into the restaurant and shot Curry from behind without a word." The sheriff watched Heyes' face transform from stricken to a smoldering rage. He knew, if Kid hadn't been sick, there would have been no way he would have gotten the jump on him. He closed his eyes, trying not to imagine the gutless coward raising a gun to his partner's head.
The sheriff stopped, waiting for Heyes to reopen his eyes.
"Go on," Heyes said through clenched teeth.
The sheriff continued "Then he was yelling that he had just killed Kid Curry and he was going to be rich. Was still yelling when I come running over. I didn't know if he was Kid Curry or not. Ain't no pictures and your description on your wanted posters are pretty common for a lot of folks. So I arrested Eli, and hoped to sort this all out. Circuit Court Judge will be riding in on Friday. But since you ain't denying that he ain't Kid Curry…" the Sheriff cautiously added, "I'm figuring Eli was in the right."
Heyes jumped up from his chair so quickly that the sheriff instinctively dropped his hand to his holstered weapon. Heyes was shaking so hard that it took several attempts to even speak. He put his palms flat on the table as he leaned close to the Sheriff.
" .Him in the back of the head!"
"Ain't against the law for being a coward. Not saying that maybe there shouldn't be, but there ain't. I'm going to let a Circuit Judge settle this. And my advice to you Mr. Heyes…you do the same."
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Heyes spent much of the evening sitting alone at a back table in the saloon nursing a whiskey or two, and ignoring the whispers and stares. He hadn't eaten all day but had no desire for anything of substance. Ordinarily, that is, if Kid were at his side, they likely would have retired early, but Heyes needed a bit more alcohol to garner the courage to return to an empty hotel room. One of the saloon girls tried to entice him with the offer of some private company, but one look from the famous outlaw, told her he had no such interests.
Near midnight, Heyes walked into the hotel lobby carrying a bottle of whiskey in one hand as he crossed the lobby toward the stairs.
"Mr. Smi...Mr. Heyes, there's a telegram here for you," the clerk called to him.
Heyes shrugged. "I'll pick it up in the morning."
"But it's from the governor of Wyoming."
Exhausted in every way possible, Heyes hesitated at the foot of the stairs, then sighed and made his way across the lobby to the desk.
The clerk handed Heyes the telegram and he took it without giving it so much as a glance. But he did raise weary eyes to the clerk and gave him a slight nod.
As he walked back toward the stairs, Heyes fingers tightened around the unread telegram as he wadded it into a ball. Governor be damned, he thought.
Heyes slipped the key into the lock and gave it a twist as he turned the door knob. He stepped inside the pitch black room and, dropping the room key on the dresser, he searched the wall for the match holder. He struck a match and lifted the globe of the oil lamp to light the wick. Then shook out the match flame and readjusted the globe before turning up the light.
Heyes turned his back to the dresser and stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes fell upon Kid's unmade bed and the indentation in the feather and down pillow where Kid's head had rested. Looking slowly about the room, Heyes saw Kid's Sherpa and saddle bags slung over a chair, and a small tin of gun oil and a cleaning cloth sitting on the table near the window. Heyes looked at the bedpost, expecting to see Kid's holster but instead, the image of Kid's gun resting in the casket flashed through his mind and he shook his head hard to shove the thought away.
He walked the few steps to his own bed and sat down. Holding the whiskey bottle in his left hand, his right hand moved toward the cork and hovered there for a moment. He brought his hand down past the neck of the bottle to the fuller, rounded section of the bottle and wrapped gloved fingers tightly around the container. Then he drew his arm back and hurled the bottle across the room where it shattered against the wall, staining a large swath of wallpaper and spewing shards of glass across the floor.
He sat motionless for minutes watching the whiskey drip down the wall before he
surrendered the useless battle and buried his head in his hands and, for the first time since Kid's death, Heyes wept uncontrollably.