A LOOK INSIDE KID CURRY

I have always prided myself in my ability to understand human nature. And I think that understanding is what gives me my silver tongue, as Kid calls it. I can read people, figure out quick what motivates them, and that ability has enabled me to talk us out of many a tricky predicament.

Growing up the way we did, and Kid being at such a tender age when we found ourselves on our own, well Kid leaned on me, depended on me a lot. Hell, he was just eight years off the teat when Bloody Kansas happened. That's too young to have the weight of the world on your shoulders. So I bore that weight for the both of us. And for quite a few years, Kid was comfortable with that. So was I.

But Kid suffered through those years at Valpo. In a month's time, Kid and me went from having a home and family that loved us to being shuffled into a reform school when there wasn't nothing that needed to be reformed.

I'm not sure exactly when it was that I started seeing Kid in a different light, but it was before we left Valpo. There wasn't any particular event that I recall, although Kid might know better than me on that fact. But one day I just noticed that Kid held himself different, stood different, sometimes even looked different... more confident, or maybe defiant. And I have to say, it worried me.

Turns out it was a defiance I was seeing in him. He was twelve, maybe thirteen, and he'd purposely prod the older boys into fights. He'd stare down a teacher who was trying to discipline him cause he just up and stopped doing homework and wouldn't even bother trying to look like he was paying attention in class. Once or twice he even tried to stand up to me and, well I got a silver tongue and I could out talk him, but I could see this cold indifference in his eyes. And it worried me.

I knew it was all some kind of show he was putting on cause I'd watch Kid sleep at night and I knew just how tormented he really was. He'd toss and turn and sometimes he'd cry out in a voice that sounded more like that eight year old Jed than the young man he was growing into now.

When Jed hit puberty, he just sprung up and filled out overnight. He became formidable and what was worse was that he knew it. He developed a sort of aloofness, started referring to some people, mostly teachers, as walk-offs and developed a whole story around the explanation of a walk-off. He'd use that to goad older boys into challenging him, usually into a fist fight. He'd win some. He'd lose some. But he built himself a reputation at that school.

And he talked to me incessantly of buying a gun. I figured that had something to do with the night dreams. I know Kid's pa and brother, Sam had both been working with him, teaching him how to handle a hand gun. Looking back, I wonder if they were concerned about the possibility of raids, maybe they knew there were times when they were both out working in the fields and there was no one to protect Kid's ma and his two little sisters when his pa and brother weren't close by. Now, I can't say for a fact that was what they were doing, teaching Kid to protect the women folk, but after what happened, it does make me wonder. I figured maybe that was why it was so important to Kid to have a gun. To do now, what he couldn't do then, protect the only kin he had left...me.

Kid and me left Valpo a few months before Kid turned fifteen. I was seventeen and Kid could pass for almost seventeen which is probably why it didn't take us long to get hired on at a ranch near Cheyenne. Kid didn't prod the other hands like he did the older boys at Valpo. I think maybe that was because those hands just treated us like one of them, expected us to hold our own with the work. One thing I've come to respect about cowboys, ranch hands and the like is that, they don't pry into another man's business, another man's past. The only things they care about is that you do your fair share of the work, and you don't do nothing to cause harm to someone else.

Neither me nor Kid had ever had a penny to our names, so twenty dollars a month seemed like a lot of money to the both of us. As soon as we got our first month's pay, Kid bought himself that gun. It was a second hand Peacemaker but he treated it like it was brand new. He oiled and polished it every day (he still does that with the gun he has now). And every spare minute he had, he was outside practicing. Kid said he was going to be the fastest draw there ever was, and hell-fire, he was determined. By the time Kid turned fifteen, he could draw faster than any man on that ranch, and aim straighter, too

A couple of the other hands would tell Kid he was becoming quite the gunslinger and Kid would smile that irresistible smile of his and I think he liked that idea, although I doubt he likely knew what all it entailed to be a gunslinger. But he liked the attention, the admiration, and the respect he got being able to shoot the way he could.

I think Kid being so good with his gun, combined maybe with getting a little older and being treated as an equal among the ranch hands, sort of tempered the Kid. He never really formed no bonds, no real friendships with any of the other hands, but he weren't out to prove anything anymore, unless of course it was a shooting contest, then I'd see that calculated, determined look in his eyes, that look I see to this day. Today I know if ever that look disappears, well, Kid will just hang up his gun, permanent.

By the time Kid and me decided to move on, things had changed between us. I didn't like that at first, but I've come to rely on those changes now. Kid was a man by then, seventeen years old, confident in who he was, more of a ...partner than a responsibility to me. And we was different enough not to..friction each other too much. We both sort of just knew what oiled the gears so to speak to keep our friendship, our partnership running smooth.

Yeah, things were good between Kid and me, at least until we, or rather I, decided to join up with Jim Santanna and the Devil's Hole Gang (now that's a story all to itself). The end result was that Kid and me went our separate ways. During those couple of years, I turned into an outlaw and Kid, well Kid really did turn into a gunslinger.

Years later, when Kid became an outlaw and we was back together, we admitted to each other that we had each heard stories about the other, and we'd both had some concern about the other. Kid told me years later that he'd killed a couple of men during those years apart. He said that made him just like those Bloody Kansas soldiers. I pointed out the difference between self defense and murder, but Kid said that made no difference, that the end result was the same, a man was dead and some kid might be orphaned. Kid don't talk about that anymore, but I think he still feels the same. Kid's mule-headed in his thinking sometimes, and that's a couple of those times.

I think that might have been why Kid decided to join up with the Devil's Hole gang, well that and being back with me again. Kid never trusted anyone by me, still don't. I think being back together again brought Kid some kind of peace. I know it did me. But Kid weren't ever intended to be an outlaw. He's got too much of a gentle side to him, and he's seen too much killing in his life. It's the killing that affects a man so, at least a good man like the Kid. But he'd follow me anywhere, just to keep me safe. I think that's why he stayed with the gang.

It might be why he gave thought to that amnesty . Oh, he weren't pushy about it, would have let it drop if I'd said no to the idea, but by then, it sort of appealed to me, too. Kid and me were getting older by then, nearly thirty, and I think Kid was realizing he wanted a different kind of life, that he always did want a different kind of life. I could see that in him and I thought maybe that damn loyalty, that responsibility he felt for me was holding him back.

So, that's how we ended up being where we are today, still running, still drifting, still hiding. But now the difference is, there's an end in sight.

And for Kid, and maybe me, a chance for some happiness in sight.