The Kid couldn't help but agree with the conductor – Heyes sure looked dead. Curry felt as if someone had kicked him in the stomach. As he fought to keep from passing out due to blood loss and shock, he felt sick and numb. He had killed Heyes. While trying to save his own life, he had accidentally shot his own partner to death. The one who had saved the Kid's life had been Heyes – it had been the last act of his short life. And then the Kid had killed him.
Curry stared at Heyes' body, too numb and exhausted and shocked to speak or even cry. The Kid remembered Cat's telling him about her vision of Heyes lying in a pool of his own blood. She had been right. Heyes was horribly white. His lips were slightly parted as if had been about to say something when the Kid's bullet took his life. The Kid knew that Heyes had had a great dream – the reason he had been studying so hard. And Heyes had never dared to tell his partner what it was. The brown eyes were open in a fixed dull stare. The Kid couldn't stand to see that terrible, accusing gaze. His own right arm was bleeding and trembling, so the Kid reached gently with his left hand to close his partner's eyes.
As Curry's hand crept up Heyes' face, he felt a tiny warm breath on his hand. Heyes' eyelids fluttered under Curry's fingers and closed on their own. Heyes was alive! His breathing was terribly shallow and slow, but it was unmistakable. The Kid, knowing he wasn't up to helping Heyes much, called out to the conductor, "He's alive! He's alive! He's breathing! Please help him! I can't. . ." and Curry passed out.
When the Kid woke, he found himself lying on a cot in the caboose with his wounded arm bound up neatly and his arm in a sling. Heyes was lying in the other cot next to him, breathing slowly and noisily. His wound, too, had obviously been cleaned and dressed and bandaged, since there was no more blood to be seen. A little bit of color had returned to his cheeks, but not much. The conductor said a nurse happened to be riding on the train and she had been glad to help the two wounded men. Heyes lay very still all that day, never regaining consciousness. But slowly, he started to look less white and his breathing grew stronger.
But the Kid, after a few hours of sleep and some food and plenty of water, sat up and looked around. He felt like he could manage pretty well so long as he didn't need to use his right arm. He just wasn't sure what they would do when they got to New York. He remembered the yell from Grover Teasdale – the Teasdale brothers knew about Heyes and Doctor Leutze's clinic. And they wouldn't keep the identities of Heyes and the Kid any secret - that was for sure. What in God's name, Curry wondered, would happen when they got to Grand Central Depot the next day?
Heyes sure wasn't up to making a plan. The Kid thought about the last time he and Heyes had made a plan in a caboose. That time Heyes had been pacing up and down as he thought. This time the Kid would have to do it sitting on a cot.
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Heyes finally opened his eyes early the next morning as the dawn light came in the caboose's windows and struck the side of his face. The Kid leaned over him in concern. "What the . . . hell . . . happened, Kid? Don't . . . remember." Heyes whispered weakly as his eyes flickered opened. "It hurts."
The Kid leaned over his pale, wheezing partner, "Oh Christ, Heyes, one of the Teasdales shot me in the trigger arm. When I tried to shoot Grover before he could plug me again I slipped and hit you. I didn't mean to shoot you! God, I'm so sorry! We thought you were dead- the conductor and I! We were sure of it. Thank God we were wrong!" But by the time Curry had finished speaking, Heyes had passed out again.
Late that afternoon the train pulled into Grand Central Depot. The Kid had his own and Heyes' saddle bags packed. It had been hard with only one arm working properly. But then the nurse, Miss Thompson, a nice middle-aged lady, had come back to check on the pair and had helped with packing. Heyes lay on a stretcher. Even though he was awake, for the moment, as weak as he was and with the wound in his hip, it would be impossible for him to walk. Curry had arranged with the conductor to find porters to carry the stretcher off the train. They would find a cab for Heyes and take him to the nearest hospital.
But as the train pulled in, the Kid heard what news boys outside the train were yelling. He knew that he would have to figure out a different plan – and figure it out fast.
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At the Leutze clinic in New York Dr. Leutze, too, heard yelling newsboys. They were, as usual, shouting on the street outside the clinic. He couldn't hear their exact words, just the sound of their shrill voices. He ignored them as he did every day. But then he heard a strange sound – a dull heavy thump from Beth Warren's office. After burying one of her aunts and entrusting the other to her married sister in West Virginia, she had recently returned from Maryland and was working frantically to get back into her teaching. So what had happened?
The good doctor knocked on the door. He got no answer. He knocked again and yelled. Again, he heard no response. He anxiously searched through his keys and found the one to Miss Warren's office. He opened the door to find Beth Warren lying unconscious on the floor. The doctor bent over Beth and looked at her carefully – he could see nothing physical wrong with her except that she was very pale. But now that he was closer to the clinic's windows, he could hear the newsboys more clearly and he understood what had happened to Beth. The newsboys were shouting:
"Gunfight on New York Train: Teasdale Brothers and Kid Curry injured, Hannibal Heyes Slain"
Obviously, Beth Warren, on hearing this news, had fainted dead away.
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Kid Curry heard the same headline shouted at him at Grand Central Depot. He had no idea how the news, inaccurate as it was, had gotten out. Maybe it had come from the Teasdales themselves or someone they had told. Now he didn't dare take Heyes to a hospital – they would be arrested within minutes. He leaned over Heyes and whispered, "Where can we go, partner? We've got to get out of sight, fast! The news has the story of our little gun fight! They think you're dead, but otherwise, it's too accurate! I wish I knew what all was in that story!"
"I don't know what to do," whispered Heyes, "If they know about . . . Leutze, they could know about my . . . room, or school. I don't know where we can . . . hole up." It was obvious that he was not just weak – his aphasia was troubling him badly.
But as the porters carried the stretcher and the boys' bags off the train, amid the crowds flowing off of multiple trains, a little old man in a black suit, tall hat, and long beard hurried up.
"What is it the matter with my friend Joshua Smith?" he asked anxiously.
"Pops!" said Heyes in the loudest voice he could manage, barely above a whisper, so hoarse he was hard to understand, "Pops . . . Havel! Where can we go on . . . Hester Street, Pops, or near it? We got to have a place to stay. Not my new place and not Jim's place. My friend here, Jones, and I, we need a place to stay for a day or two. No one can know. We can pay."
The little orthodox Jewish man, realizing that something very serious was happening, came close to Heyes and whispered in his heavy accent, "My friend Maxie, he has an empty room. Not very nice it is, but quick and cheap. And we keep it quiet. I take you there." A porter hailed a pair of cabs that would hold Heyes, the Kid, the little man, and the luggage. Quickly, before people realized what was happening, the little entourage vanished into the cabs. The Kid liberally passed around tips, hoping to insure silence from all of these people who knew too much. When they got to Hester Street, Pops Havel's friends soon had Heyes in his litter up one flight of steps to a tiny, dark room. The Kid handed out more tips – more money for silence.
There was a one small bed in the dirty little room and a single empty chest. There was only a single small window. It wasn't much but they were able to put Heyes on the bed. When Heyes was reasonably settled, the Kid went back downstairs. He stepped out into the unfamiliar Yiddish-speaking crowds on the street. He found a boy who spoke English and entrusted him with a note to Dr. Leutze, and a liberal tip.
"Dr. Leutze
Joshua Smith is very sick and shot but alive. Watch out for Teasdale Gang – they know about you and Joshua. They are two tall men with black beards. We shot them both, but they are alive. We are hiding. We need help. We can't risk writing down where we are. We can't risk a hospital. Will be in touch when we can.
Thaddeus Jones"
Pops Havel and his friend Maxie brought food and drink to the Kid and Heyes and made sure that they were as well provided for as they could be. They refused to take any money for their services, despite their obvious poverty. That night the Kid slept on a thin mattress they brought and laid on the floor of the dirty little room on Hester Street. And Joshua shivered and twitched and raved in the bed with a raging fever.
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By the next day, Heyes' breathing was terribly noisy. He sweated and thrashed - he still had a high fever. He couldn't remain where he was without help or he would soon be dead. The Kid looked at him and knew that being arrested was not the worst thing that could happen to them. Heyes, momentarily lucid but barely able to speak, gasped out to the Kid where he thought they could find help. They didn't dare go to the Leutze clinic after what the Teasdales had said.
The Kid, lost in the crowded Manhattan Streets, finally found Columbia University less from Heyes' incoherent directions than from the help of multiple strangers. He picked out a young man dressed in an immaculate overcoat that suggested to Curry that he must be a student at this prestigious institution. The Kid tapped him on the shoulder, "I'm looking for Professor Homer's office – Charles Homer - do you know where his office is? He teaches math . . . Would he be there?" The student was startled by the odd man accosting him. The student stared at the man in a muddy, bloody shearling coat, cowboy boots, and a battered brown cowboy hat. There was a pistol on his hip. But then, it was New York City, the home of many strange sights and stranger people. So while the young man stared, he didn't call the authorities.
"Yes, sir! I major with Professor Homer," said the young student, drawing a confused look from the Kid, who had no idea of a major outside of the army. "His office is over in that brick building across Madison Avenue, up on the second floor, room 213. I don't know if he's there now. He's teaching winter session, but classes don't start until next week."
"Thanks!" said the Kid and took off running, with the curious student looking after him at this vision out of a dime western novel. Curry was thinking that he just had to be in time . . . in time for what, he hardly dared to think about. And the professor had better be there.
The Kid ran in the door of the impressive gothic building, ran up the stairs to the second floor, and into the hall. He looked for the room numbers and figured out which way he needed to go. He dodged through a crowd of loitering students and arrived at room 213 to find the door just opening and a tall, slender gray-haired man coming out with a briefcase in his hand. "Are you Professor Homer?" asked the Kid. He
"Yes, I am. What can I do for you?" The professor looked curiously at the Kid but didn't say anything about his out-of-place rig.
"I . . . um . . . do you know Joshua Smith? A student here?" asked the Kid, consumed with anxiety.
"Sure I know Smith – he's my best student – the best I've ever had in twenty-five years of teaching - and I haven't heard from him. He was supposed to be in touch by now. Do you know what's happened?" asked Professor Homer, who sounded pretty anxious himself.
"'Fraid I do . . ." began the Kid
"Afraid?" interrupted the professor. "What's happened to Smith? And for that matter, what's happened to you? Are you hurt? And who are you?"
"Can we talk - in private?" Kid looked toward the professor's office – he was terrified that when he said what he had to say, the Professor would turn them both in, or just not help. The professor looked pretty dubious – what might this dusty, bloody young man with a gun on his hip do in private?
"I've got to go!" said the professor, pulling out his gold pocket watch and taking a quick step down the hall. "I've got a meeting and I'm late now. Can it wait?"
"No, it damn well can't!" the Kid almost yelled, and then his voice dropped to a desperate whisper "He'll die if he doesn't get help - now!"
The professor's eyes opened wide. He opened his office door and ducked through, beckoning to the Kid to follow, and then closed the door. "Alright, what is it? What the hell are you and what's happened to Smith – and to you?"
"I'm his partner, Thaddeus Jones. Did he ever mention me?"
The Professor nodded. He had heard some about Jones, but very little about any of Joshua's western life. "Yes, he's mentioned you. Said you run a saloon in Colorado – what are you doing here? And what happened? Looks like you're hurt."
"Yeah, but it's ain't bad – just a bullet across the side of the arm. Joshua's been shot, too, real bad. I've got to get him to a doctor and we need help from someone we can trust. Joshua said he'd trust you with his life – and mine – an' that's just what we got to do. He's shot in the hip – he's lost an awful lot of blood and he's sick too – he's real bad off." pleaded the Kid. "You got to help us!"
"Christ!" exclaimed the professor. "What on earth? Why didn't you just go to the hospital? . . . Can't Doctor Leutze help?" asked the Professor "He'd know just who can help. I know where the nearest hospital is, but I don't know anyone there."
"We can't let anyone see us, or we couldn't. Now that he's so bad . . . I don't guess it matters none. If he don't get help, he'll die. We think the clinic might be watched," said the Kid. He realized that the Professor wouldn't know what he was talking about and dared to take some precious time to explain. "We . . . stopped some real rough Wyoming guys from murdering a bunch of people in Colorado and they . . . didn't like it much. They ambushed us on the train. I shot at least one of them and Joshua, sick as he is, got the other - and Joshua pushed them off the train. But they weren't hurt bad and they said they'd be headed this way. They know about Joshua and Leutze's place. They must have found out about a telegraph I sent – I was too careless. I sent a note to warn Leutze, but couldn't tell him where we went – in case anyone else saw the note. I got to be more careful now. The guys from Wyoming know me, so I can't go there.
But first, we got to get Joshua to a doctor. Can you come and help me? I don't know New York City, so I don't know where the hospital is. And Joshua's too sick to tell me if he knows where it is. A guy at the train station helped me to get him in a cab and get him to a place where he could hide and try to heal up. But he ain't healin' – he's gettin' worse. And I can't get him anywhere by myself with this bum arm. He's way too bad off to walk." The Professor looked probingly at "Thaddeus Jones." As the Kid realized, Professor Homer would by now, from the newspaper headlines, be pretty sure of who he really was and therefore who Joshua Smith really was as well. But there was no time for names and revelations – only for action.
"Let's go!" The professor dropped his brief case and opened the door. As they hurried down the hall the professor shouted to a secretary in an office they passed that he had to go out and had to miss his meeting. With the weary Kid straining to keep up with Professor Homer's long strides the Professor asked "Where is . . . um . . . Smith? We'll need a cab. "
The Kid was relieved that the professor was a practical fellow and could work out the details. "He's at a room on Norfolk Street – didn't dare use his own room – could be watched, too. Number 124 Norfolk Street, up on the second floor."
The professor hailed a cab and after what seemed an interminable, tense, worried ride they were at Norfolk Street. During the ride, the professor had stared hard at the Kid, but didn't dare say anything that could be a problem if the driver overheard it, and the ride over cobblestone streets was too noisy to talk in anything other than a shout.
They got out and went up two flights of narrow stairs to a small door. The Kid knocked loudly, four times as a signal. Heyes' voice came back, faintly, hoarse and slurred as if he had been drinking, "Who' zat? I got the door covered!"
"It's me - with Professor Homer!" shouted the Kid back. "We've got a cab out front to take you to the hospital. Put the gun down so we can come in, Joshua." He tried to remind Heyes to keep up their aliases, at least with a door between them and the possibility of being over heard on the landing. There were tenement dwellers close all around them, doing sweat shop labor behind their doors. But the Kid's subtle warning did no good – Heyes was too out of it to catch the hint.
"Tha' you, Kid?" Heyes' voice was a faint croak, slurred even worse. Professor Homer gave the man next to him a sharp look – but this just confirmed what he already knew.
"'Course it's me! Let us in, damn it! Put the gun down!" shouted the Kid in exasperation and terrible worry.
"Alright. Come . . . " Heyes' voice was so soft they could hardly hear it. They heard a sharp rap which might have been Heyes' gun dropping to the floor. The way his voice had trailed off had the Kid and Professor Homer both worried that he might have passed out – or worse. The Kid fumbled in his pocket and finally fished out a key. He opened the door cautiously, afraid that the delirious Heyes might shoot him. In the dim, shuttered room Curry lit a lamp. By its light they saw Heyes lying on a tiny bed in a tangle of bedclothes. His gun lay on the floor where they could see that it had fallen from his limp right hand. Heyes looked as awful as he had sounded –a blood-spotted bandage bound around his hips where his wound had reopened from his fevered thrashing, his face pale and his dark hair tangled and dripping with sweat. His eyes barely opened as Curry and the professor entered.
"Christ almighty, Smith, what happened to you?" asked the professor and knelt down as he got out his handkerchief to wipe Heyes' brow.
"Sorry prof," Heyes gasped, so hoarse he could scarcely speak and fighting to remain conscious, "'fraid your prize student is nothin' but a gun-shot old outlaw – about done for." Heyes' eyes closed and his head fell back onto the bed limply. The Kid leapt to the bed side, where he leaned over and listened to Heyes' heart.
"He's alive, but his heart's awful faint and racy." said the Kid anxiously. "We got to get him to the hospital right now."
The professor bundled up Heyes with a blanket from the bed to keep the cold out and took him gently in his arms. The professor was strong and long-armed enough to carry Heyes down the stairs, which the Kid couldn't with his hurt arm. The Professor raced down the stairs with his precious armload of outlaw. He said to the Kid, "So you're Kid Curry – and he's – he's Hannibal Heyes, the criminal mastermind! Despite the newspapers, he's not slain after all!"
"Wha'd ju call me?" Heyes opened one eye and spoke in a dull, hoarse whisper, but he still sounded kind of pleased at this new title.
"Shut up, Heyes! You're too weak to talk, remember?!" barked the Kid. "Professor, you'll keep that under your hat, I hope! Unless you want Heyes and me dead – or in the Wyoming Territorial Prison for the rest of our lives – if Heyes lives." The Kid tried to look dangerous, but not dangerous enough to make the professor turn against him. Heyes had passed out again and lay limp in his teacher's arms.
The professor paused as got to the street door and waited for the Kid to open it. "You can count on me, Mr. Jones, to keep your real names to myself. Smith is right about me. You can trust me. But, you two have gone straight, right? I mean, even before Smith got here to New York. I follow Wyoming news closely and it seemed like we didn't hear much out of your for a couple years before Smith got here. I mean other than the rumors that you'd gone straight, and a couple of robberies that at first were supposed to be yours, and then were cleared up with some other names on them. 'Cept that Lodge Grass job last month, and I assumed someone else pulled it – it wasn't slick enough for you."
"Yeah, Professor, we been straight for almost four years now. We're going for amnesty. And we never robbed stages." The Kid said, "But we got to get Heyes to the hospital. When he's well, he can tell you all about it. You know how he loves to talk." The professor raised his eyebrows. In fact, his student Joshua Smith had usually held his tongue all too much for the professor's taste. With company who really knew him, evidently the laconic Joshua Smith became a very much more talkative Hannibal Heyes.
Together the Kid and the professor got into the waiting cab, the unconscious Heyes cradled across their laps, and set off for the hospital.
When they got there, they didn't have to wait too long for a doctor to see Heyes.
The doctor, a serious young man named Doctor Turner, had a quick look at Curry's arm and got a nurse to patch it up. Then he and a pair of nurses did what they could for Heyes. After nearly an hour, Turner came out of the room, wiping Heyes' blood from his hands. He spoke to Jones and Homer in his office. "Gentlemen, your friend, hmn, Smith, has pneumonia. And a bad bullet wound in the hip. It isn't infected, thank goodness, and I was able to get the bullet out safely. But he's lost an awful lot of blood and he's very weak. Before we keep him here and maybe endanger the other patients, answer me one question, Mr. hmn – Jones. Is your real name Teasdale?"
"No!" answered Curry. "It ain't. Do I look like I've shaved off a full black beard lately?"
The doctor looked at the blonde man before him and smiled. He hadn't had time to read the details in the newspapers, but he had heard the headlines shouted at him on his way into work that morning, "No, you do not. Well then, I can guess your name. And your friend's name, assuming that the press got their news just slightly wrong – I hope. Our medical oath says 'First, do no harm.' I won't turn you in - so long as you take him away as soon as you can. I don't want to put other patients in danger. And we've put him in a private room – can you pay for that?"
"I can," answer Professor Homer before the Kid could speak. "He's my friend."
"Alright! We'll keep Mr. . . . Smith safe as long as we can. I won't turn him in, although I can't guarantee that no one else in the hospital will. We will minimize the number of people who see or know about him. I'll warn you gentlemen if any danger arises or he needs to be moved. Is that satisfactory?"
"That's more than satisfactory, Dr. Turner!" said the Kid. "We're in your debt."
"We are that, Doctor," agreed Professor Homer.
The Kid and Professor Homer stayed for a few hours, watching over Heyes and fearing the worse. Heyes fretted with a high fever that came down only very slowly under treatment. His harsh breathing remained so shallow that they could hardly believe he would make it through the night. But finally the doctors sent them away, saying that they could hardly do the patient any good and were only tiring out his wounded partner. They stationed a burly male nurse to watch the patient's door.
Curry and Homer went to Professor Homer's apartment, where his wife, Marie, fixed them a good dinner and made Curry comfortable in their guest bed. The professor insisted on sharing his guest's real name with his wife, who accorded the Kid respect, but no evident fear.
The Kid was back at the hospital to see Heyes early the next morning. Heyes was still unconscious but his breathing had eased some. At noon the Kid went back to Homer's place to rest for an hour or so while the professor watched his prize student's room.
Curry returned that afternoon. He went in to check on his partner. Hearing Curry come in, Heyes opened his eyes. "How're you doing, partner?" The Kid inquired softly.
Heyes coughed horribly and had to catch his breath before he could speak. Finally, in an achingly hoarse voice, he asked, "Kid, how's the arm?"
"It's patched up fine, but I asked how you are, Heyes." the Kid insisted, but he got no answer. Heyes had lost consciousness again. Curry wiped his partner's damp brow. Curry went to sit on a ladder-back chair outside the door to guard Heyes. The doctors wouldn't turn them in. But Heyes was vulnerable to many dangers still.