A Friend in Need
(Not a full story, just a glimpse inside a few days with Heyes, Kid, and a man they both consider a friend)
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Kid Curry stood at the window of their hotel room, in the predawn hours of the morning and watched a heavy rain form puddles in the muddy street that glimmered in the lamp light. He listened to the soft snoring sounds of his partner and the occasional bursts of thunder. When he heard Heyes begin to stir, Kid let the tatted curtain slip through his fingers and fall back into place.
"Something the matter, Kid?" Heyes mumbled softly.
Kid moved away from the window just as a bolt of lightening flashed and, for an instant, the room lit up as bright as day.
"Nothing's wrong. Go back to sleep," he said in a soft, almost whispered tone.
Heyes stretched in his bed, but didn't shift the covers away. "Too late for that. I'm awake now," he replied as another loud crack of thunder sounded outside.
"Train don't leave for another five hours, Heyes. I can wake you in time for breakfast before we leave."
Heyes folded the blankets down a bit and sat up in his bed, leaning his back against the bedpost. "How long have you been up?"
Kid shrugged. "Ain't slept."
"Kid, you know we don't have to do this," he said as he lit a lamp that brought a soft golden glow to the room. "It's not like he knows we're even coming."
Kid's silence told Heyes that his partner felt otherwise. He watched with some concern as Kid sat down at the table near the window and picked up his gun and cleaning cloth, one in each hand, studied them both for a moment, then set them both down on the table.
Another flash of lightening filled the night sky and sent streaks of white shadows across the room.
"I know what it's like to be responsible for someone dying, Heyes. I can't imagine how a man of the cloth reconciles himself with that, especially when that someone is a child." Kid said, his eyes still focused on the gun cloth lying on the table.
It had been three days since they had seen the newspaper article, and over a week since the incident occurred. The article had been brief and provided few details but had said that Reverend Robert Spencer of Taos, New Mexico accepted full responsibility for the death of an infant child.
Heyes knew that Kid shared a sort of bond with the man they had known simply as Spencer, a man who had reformed from alcohol and returned to his religious calling in large part because of the actions he had witnessed by the man he knew as Thaddeus Jones.
Loyal to his partner, Heyes was more concerned about Kid's reaction to the news than he was about Spencer's predicament. During the week they had spent at West Bend, Joe Briggs, a man hired to terrorize the sod busters of the community, had tormented Kid relentlessly and Kid, for the sake of his partner, had reluctantly tolerated the constant goading. Spencer, the town drunk had witnessed this and found inspiration in Kid's repeated display of 'turning the other cheek'. Spencer had concluded that Kid was a people's philosopher, a gentle soul but without fear.
As the storm began to wane a soft breeze filtered in through the open window and a stillness settled in the room. Heyes watched as Kid seemed to settle a bit as well and picked up the gun and cleaning cloth once again, this time actually cleaning his gun with some earnest conviction. Heyes turned the lamp up brighter and picked up the book on the nightstand.
"Want me to read out loud for a while?" he asked.
Kid smiled sadly but nodded. "That would be fine, Heyes."
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Three Days Later, Taos, New Mexico
Stepping off the train, Heyes and Kid were both affronted by the heat and dry air. While the train station was a mixture of brick and adobe, all the stores and businesses that lined the wide dirt street were constructed of the traditional pink adobe mud bricks. Both the material and the resulting light color kept the buildings cool in the hot sun and dry heat. With bedrolls under their arms and sheathed rifles over their shoulders, they left the depot and headed into town.
"Let's get a room first, then we'll find Spencer.," Heyes suggested.
Twenty minutes later, their gear safely stored in their room, Heyes and Curry stepped back out into the hot, dry air and looked up and down the street. Spying the saloon, Heyes nudged his partner and pointed to the building across the street. "Maybe a cold beer and a little information," Heyes said. "Bartenders tend to know everything that's going on in a town."
Kid nodded. A cold beer sounded like the perfect solution to the heat.
"Two cold beers," Heyes said as they stood at the bar."
"Cold ones are five cents extra," the bartender told them. "Ice don't come easy n these parts."
"That'll be fine," Heyes replied. "I wonder if you could tell us where we could find Reverend Spencer."
The bartender brought them each a bottle of cold beer, the porcelain stopper still sealed in the wire that they twisted loose, then pulled the stopper from the bottle.
"Spencer? You'll find him at the Methodist Church, two blocks west on Mesa Street. You friends of his?"
Kid nodded. "We've known him for a couple of years."
"Nice fellow. Seems to understand that folks ain't hell bound just cause they have a bit of trouble staying on the straight and narrow."
Heyes smiled. "That sounds like Spencer. I think he discovered that the hard way a few years back."
"Likely what makes him such a good Preacher," the bartender replied.
"I heard he ran into a little trouble, recently," Kid said, then took a long gulp of his beer.
"Yeah, a real tragedy that was."
"What happened?" Heyes asked.
"I ain't one to spread tales. You said you were friends of his so, ask him," the bartender replied.
"Two blocks west, you say?" Kid replied.
"Yeah, on Mesa Street."
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Like all the other buildings in Taos, the Methodist Church was a one story pink adobe brick building. But the church had been given a coat of white paint that quickly dried out in the hot New Mexico sun, and various shades of pink spotted much of the exterior walls. A belfry that rose above the front entrance housed a brass bell, and atop the belfry was a simple brass cross. A wooden sign stood in the lawn and identified the building as the Methodist Church and listed Robert Spencer as the minister.
"Suppose we just walk inside?" Kid asked.
"It a house of the Lord, Kid. I think everyone's invited."
Kid nodded and the two men dismounted their horses in what could only be described as an apparently synchronized motion. They tethered their horses to the post, then walked up to the front doors. Heyes tried the knob and found the door unlocked. He gave the door a gently shove, then walked inside, followed quickly by his partner.
Inside the small sanctuary, Heyes removed his hat, then nudged Kid to do the same. The room was empty and their boots clapped loudly on the wooden floor as they made their way down the aisle.
Moments later Spencer walked out of an adjacent study and stopped abruptly and smiled when he recognized Smith and Jones. He then took confident steps toward them, his hand extended in greeting.
"What brings the two of you to Taos?" he asked.
"We read about you in the newspaper and, well, we were a little concerned," Heyes explained.
"I'm fine, really. You needn't have made the trip on my account. Come, let's go back in my office where we can talk."
They followed Spencer as he retraced his steps. Once inside the office, Spencer motioned them both to chairs.
"I can offer you some coffee..."
"No, I'm fine," Kid replied.
"None for me," Heyes added.
Spencer nodded and sat down behind his desk. "Well, as you can see, the church welcomed me back with open arms," Spencer said, again smiling.
"We read you was responsible for the death of a child," Kid said.
"Responsible? No," Spencer replied. "Those are the words of a misinformed and overly zealous reporter, anxious to sell newspapers."
"I don't understand," Kid replied.
"The parents of that child are very young, barely more than children themselves. They come from different backgrounds, different religions... different cultures. They face ridicule everywhere they turn. The child was born prematurely. Her heart and lungs were not prepared to function outside the mother's womb. The doctor told them the child would likely not live more than a few days. They came to me, not as members of this church, but as desperate parents, wanting their child baptized, seeking a clear path to heaven."
"And you gave them that?" Heyes asked.
"Mine was not the first church they had approached. Because the child's father is an Apache Indian, no other church would perform the baptism. It was obvious the child could not survive a trip to the Apache camp. So yes, I agreed to perform the baptism."
"There's a lot of animosity toward Indians in the West. I suspect you're facing some of that backlash yourself now," Heyes said.
"Before I finish telling you about that child, let me tell you something about the three of us," Spencer said as he sat back in his chair.
Kid and Heyes exchanged quick, nervous glances. "What about the three of us?" Kid asked.
"You know," Spencer began, choosing his words carefully, but without any hint of judgment or reproach."When you decided to face that gunslinger in West Bend, I realized there was something to your story that I didn't know, that turning the other cheek was not some philosophical choice you had made, but rather some self-enforced restriction that bound you to something of far greater importance. I didn't know what that was, but in traveling my own soul searching path, something compelled me to find out."
"And did you find out?" Kid asked quietly.
Spencer smiled but was slow to reveal his answer. "Whenever I came across someone from Wyoming or even more specifically, from West Bend, which did happen a time or two, I would ask 'do you know Joshua Smith or Thaddeus Jones?' I'd describe you both in great length. But always the response was no. Eventually that made me wonder if those were in fact your real names. So I began to search more deeply."
"And?" Kid asked.
This time Spencer's smile was warm and friendly. "And I came to know why you responded the way you did. Sometimes one turns the other cheek because it is the right thing to do, the Christian thing to do... and sometimes one does so because there really is no other recourse, no other option."
"Is that what you're doing now, Spencer?" Heyes asked. "Turning the other cheek because you have no other option?"
Spencer shook his head. "That child took her last breath in my arms. But she died in God's arms. Those aren't my words. They came directly from the parents during the child's funeral that, they asked my to conduct. Like you in West Bend, Thaddeus, I felt bound to something of far greater importance than any backlash I might endure."
"I can't say I hold much in the way of religious conviction, Spencer, so I ain't never lost and later found such faith the way you have, but I'm glad to see you have a restored faith. The world needs people like you who follow a higher law and who do what's right, even if it ain't the common way of thinking," Kid replied.
Spencer smiled. "See Thaddeus, you are a people's philosopher."
"So what kind of backlash are you facing?" Heyes asked.
"Very little, actually. The child died within minutes of being baptized. There is not a Clergyman in town willing to denounce a child' path to heaven."
"And the parents? What's become of them?"
"They decided to move to the reservation. The husband..." Spencer stopped and smiled. "In some ways that boy was well beyond his years. He said the difference between the Indian world and the white man's world is that the Indian and the Great Spirit are essentially one. There is no need to pass judgments because all living things return to the Great Spirit when they leave their earthly ties. Only the Great Spirit determines eternal destiny."
"Unlike us with heaven and hell?" Heyes asked.
Spencer nodded. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying one philosophy is right and the other wrong. I'm just saying the Biblical reference of speaking in tongues, may be referring to God's approaches to reach various peoples. Maybe all religions are essentially correct, and God reaches out to people in a variety of ways."
Kid smiled."I'm passing the torch, Spencer. I ain't the real philosopher here. You not only found your way back to the fold, you figured out the reason why there's so many shepherds."
Spencer laughed. "Each flock is gathered and tended individually?"
"Something like that," Kid replied.
"It is interesting that often times something said or done can cause a chain of events, like the two of you reading an erroneous news article and feeling compelled to make the trip here. I suppose that falls into the 'working in mysterious ways,' category," Spencer mused.
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Kid Curry sat in the window seat of the train as it moved through Colorado toward its final destination of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Outside, a heavy rain fell, and the dark clouds cast a gray hue across the land. Kid paid little attention to the landscape that lay beyond the train. Instead he carefully watched small drops of rain trickle down the glass, often joining other drops which both widened and hastened the downward spiral.
Heyes watched his partner as he studied the raindrops with an intense interest. "You alright, Kid?" he finally asked.
The sound of Heyes' voice broke Kid's concentration and he turned and nodded. "Just thinking about everything Spencer said. "I don't know how he done it, Heyes, but I think he really found his calling."
Heyes smiled. "I suspect he did it with a bit of help from both friend and foe."
"Foe being the bottle?"
Heyes nodded. "Likely understands the hardships and pitfalls most folks battle, cause he had more than a few of them things himself."
"I think he's in the right profession. In fact for him, I think it's more than a profession. For Spencer, I think it's more of a calling. He don't just believe what he preaches. He honestly lives it."
"I think you can take a little of the responsibility for that, Kid, by helping him find his way back," Heyes told him as a proud smile crossed his face.
Kid chuckled. "A jig and a prayer."
"Yeah, and I guess when it comes right down to it, Kid, you really are a people's philosopher."