The Kid was sitting (carefully on a chair so he wouldn't shake the bed) near Heyes' bed at the Homer's place, and the partners were having a bit of private talk on a Sunday morning when the Homers weren't back from church yet.
"What's the news from home, Kid? What's up with Cat?" asked Heyes hoarsely.
The Kid looked very anxious, "I don't know, Heyes. I ain't dared to telegraph yet – don't want to give anything away."
"What?!" Heyes dissolved into coughing and it was a while before he could go on. The Kid had to hand him a glass of water and a fresh handkerchief. "Cat'll be wild with worry! And Lom . . . The word from the New York papers is sure to be out there by now. There's being careful, but that's just plain mean"
"I know, Heyes, I know! But after what happened with the train, I just don't dare." The Kid was so used to being careful about not being overheard that he was whispering and looking over his shoulder.
"What do you mean about the train? What happened? You know I don't recall much of it," Heyes spoke cautiously – he really didn't know much about what had happened after he had gotten sick. Everyone, including the Kid, had assumed he knew and hadn't wanted to talk about it to him.
The Kid hated to remember that time, now that he had figured out how much trouble his own actions had caused. "Heyes, you know, when we were in that little town, Dead Elk, after you got so sick."
Heyes shook his head. "Not much, Kid. I remember you found a bed for me someplace and I slept. That's about all I can remember at all. Dead Elk, was it? Never heard of it."
The Kid shook his head in regret. "It's where we caught the train East. Before we went off, while you were asleep at that little hotel, I sent telegrams to Cat, and Lom, and Sheriff Wilde, and Dr. Leutze – told them all where we were and when we were coming and on what train. Used our aliases, but it wouldn't have taken a gnat's sense to figure that out. Our trail was so easy to track in all that snow, and going slow with you so sick. Teasdales must have been laughing all the way. I feel damn bad about it, Heyes, and then I went and shot you!"
Heyes had been going to give the Kid a tongue-lashing, but now he stopped. He was really floored. He stared at the Kid in utter shock. "You what!?"
"I told you the next day, Heyes, when you asked what in the hell happened. Don't you remember at all?" Heyes shook his head, utterly appalled. "I sure didn't mean it, but it was me. It was right after I got it in the arm and the train shaking all over going around that turn – I missed my aim and I missed it bad."
"Why in God's name did you fire when you weren't sure of your aim and there was someone near the line of fire? That's against everything your Pa ever taught you!"
The Kid didn't want to make excuses, but he had to explain some. "Teasdale had his Colt aimed at my heart – only a couple yards away! And I didn't have any idea that you were anywhere near the line of fire. Nobody could find you – I heard the Teasdales asking where in the hell you were and I didn't know any more than they did. Like I say, I'm terrible sorry, Heyes. But I just had to fire. Wasn't no other way."
"Oh." Well, Heyes could see his cousin's point. And he could picture what an awful situation it had been for the Kid. He could see that the Kid felt as awful as he said he did. There was no use in being mad at his partner. "Well, don't worry about it, Kid. It's all over. You sure saved my life before that and after that, and I'm getting better now, so I guess that's just all over. But what I don't get is how you got the Teasdales off that train."
Now the Kid was startled. Heyes really didn't remember what he had done! "But Heyes, that wasn't me – it was you! I don't know how you did it, but you shot Aloysius Teasdale, and then you got the caboose door opened and tipped both of 'em out it. Saved both our lives, for sure."
Heyes couldn't speak; he was so thrown by this. He had been all heroic and didn't remember a thing about it! The Kid went on with his story. "And then there you were. A conductor came in with a lantern and asked if the gunfire was all over. He said you looked dead – lying with your eyes open, not blinking and I had to agree. It about killed me when I thought you was dead. Then I put my hand up to close your eyes – and felt you breathing. I just thanked God so often he must have gotten annoyed at me for bothering him."
Heyes had always had a horror of corpses with open eyes – and he had seen quite a number of them. It sent a shiver down his spine to think that he had lain like that and the Kid had thought he was dead. He had a feeling that he would have nightmares about the picture that story made in his mind.
Heyes shook his head and coughed hard for a few minutes. Finally he could speak, "I surely do not remember that! I'm sorry to have worried you so, Kid. And thank you – you've done an awful lot to save me, over and over since then. And I feel bad about coming and camping out with the Homers, too. Must be might inconvenient having two wanted outlaws staying with them – not many wives would put up with that. I've got a lot of folks to be grateful to, and you head the list."
The Kid looked at Heyes real hard, "Well, you may not remember it, Heyes, but you saved my life that day and almost lost yours while you were at it, so I feel more like thanking you. Again!"
Heyes waved away the Kid's heart-felt thanks. He couldn't stand to have his partner feel that indebted to him. They had, after all, saved each other's lives so often that it was impossible to keep track. There was no use in continuing to be all upset over it. They just had to go on. "Don't mention it, Kid. You sure did save my life.
But back to the telegrams – that was kind'a careless of you. But I can see how it happened – takes time to code up a telegram so it speaks only to the person who gets it. And you must'a been awful tired out. I know I was – slept right through all that time. But it does make trouble for us, now. You got to watch out for the Teasdales. Could get here any time, and you know them – no dirty trick they wouldn't stoop to."
The Kid nodded. "I do feel real bad that Cat would be worrying over us, but if the Teasdales are in town, or they got friends here – how do I know where to go send a telegram that they can't find out about?"
Heyes took a swallow of water. "I don't know, Kid. Probably they wouldn't even know where to go to find a telegraph office in Manhattan, but we can't be sure."
The Kid nodded and said, "I do hate to think of Kyle and the boys all worried, 'specially over you."
"Well now there, Kid, I think we'd better let sleeping dogs lie. Better let folks – specially at the Hole - think I'm dead. Might take some of the heat off."
The Kid sat up indignantly. "Well, you changed your tune on that! What about that time that guy was gonna' be hanged as me and you made me see what a bad thing it might be?"
Heyes at up in his turn to defend himself, "That was when I was gonna face a murder rap and you might have faced some kinda charge, too, over letting that guy hang in your stead! Totally different situation – I explained it to you at the time. But now – if folks just think I'm dead but there's no legal teeth to the situation, it could help." The Kid could see the wheels turning in Heyes' prodigious mind as he figured out who to turn the situation to their good.
"But to let Kyle and Wheat, and Lom, think you're dead?"
"I think the Devil's Hole boys are just gonna have to grieve for a while. We can't let out the truth that wide. But we got to get word to Cat soon as we can, and to Lom! Hmn. When the Professor and the Mrs. Get home, let's ask them about what might be a safe place to send a telegraph from.
But before Professor Homer and his wife got home from church, Jim Smith arrived at the apartment. He had heard that Heyes wanted to see him.
As soon as the Kid had the door opened, Jim rushed to the back of the apartment to find his former roommate. Jim knelt by the bed and stuttered, "H-heyes – I'm s-sorry I got so mad at you. You've had a lot to p-put up with for a long t-time. I guess you've made up for what you did."
"I don't know about that, Jim," Heyes responded in a raspy voice. "I don't know that anything could make up for what we've cost folks. But I'm glad you forgive me for what I did to you. I'll try to stay straight with you from now on, alright?" Jim smiled and made it clear that it was fine with him. He still couldn't quite believe that his old hero Hannibal Heyes had really been his friend for the past two years.
Jim had brought Pops Havel with him – the old man wanted to see how his hurt friend whom had known as Joshua Smith was. The old man looked a bit nervous at entering a gentile house, but not seeing crosses on every wall, he settled down some.
The old man leaned over the bed solicitously. "So Joshua, you are getting well again, even after all the gun fightings the papers talk about?"
Heyes flushed in embarrassment. Obviously even to a man who didn't speak English too well and was not too long over from the old country, it had become pretty obvious who Heyes and the Kid were. The story must be in the Yiddish papers as well as the English ones by now.
"Yes, Pops," Heyes said in his still raspy voice. "I'm healing up, with my friends looking after me. I'm a lucky guy. I'm grateful to you for finding a place for us, that first night. I wish you'd let us pay you or thank you in some way."
Pops Havel laughed like a creaky donkey. "I tell you what makes us all happy, Joshua Smith or Hannibal Heyes or whoever you are, you stop making eyes at my friend Ezra's Devora – stop worrying Ezra and his wife that you get their daughter to marry out of their faith, huh? You get nice goyishe girl and marry her, huh?"
Heyes smiled, "Yeah, Pops, I already got me a nice goyishe girl. In fact, you keep quiet about Devora, huh, my Beth she could show up any time to visit me."
"Oh!" exclaimed the Kid with awful glee in his eyes at finding this new way to tease his partner, "So Beth isn't your only New York girl? You've been chasing after nice Jewish girls, too?"
"Oh, Thaddeus, I haven't seen Devora in a long time. And we never did spend much time together. When I last saw Devora, I could hardly speak English, much less Yiddish. She is awful pretty, I got to admit. But I knew her father didn't want me to be serious, so I stayed away."
"Oh, Mr. Kid," chuckled Pops. "You should see the child – she is the loveliest girl in New York and couldn't take her eyes off this man Smith! If she knew who he is, the bad man from the West, it would break her heart!"
"Oh, Pops," moaned Heyes, "Don't you dare tell her! And you know the Kid and I've gone straight. We aren't bad men any longer. And ain't I telling you, Pops, I've got a Christian girl." All this talk really was making Heyes nervous. He didn't think that Devora had ever been serious about him, and he didn't want Beth, who could arrive at any time on this Sunday afternoon, to think he had been serious about another woman. Heyes knew that Pops was only joking , but any kind of hint of lack of faith really bothered him. After all the troubles he and Beth had had coming together, he sure couldn't stand for anything to come between them now.
The Kid asked, "Jim, Pops, do you guys know a telegraph office where we might be able to go and send word to my gal, Cat, out west? One that would keep it a real secret – not let the Teasdales or even the cops bribe them and find out what we sent?"
"Sure, K-K-Kid," answered Jim, "I know a p-p-place they'd keep the l-l-last t-t-trump a secret – f-f-for a c-c-consideration! Out in my neighborhood. I'll t-t-take you there – when we t-t-take P-P-Pops home."
The Kid sprang for a cab, to save old Pops Havel the long walk home. The Kid looked curiously around Hester Street, with its crowds of poor, black clad orthodox Jewish men, women, and children, all over the street, buying and selling from myriad push carts selling nearly everything under the sun. It was dirty and crowded, but it sure was interesting. He had hardly gotten a glimpse of it before, or paid it much mind, when Heyes had seemed to be on his death bed.
As the Kid helped Pops Havel out of the cab and Jim scrambled down, it caused a bit of a stir. Not many cabs ever came to poverty-stricken Hester Street! There were so many push carts and other little stands around that they had to stop a good block away from the little telegraph office, which put them nearer Pop's room anyhow. They got Pops to his door and the Kid thanked him again as they made sure the bent little man climbed safely up the dirty steps.
As the Kid and Jim came back down the steps, they saw and heard another commotion in the streets. They heard yelling and a piercing scream and the sound of many running feet. When they looked in the direction of the noise, the Kid felt his heart start to pound. He saw two men, taller than anyone else in the street, and far more familiar to him. It was the Teasdales, in eastern style suits, but unmistakable, on the far side of the street. Grover had a bandaged leg, and Aloysius a bandaged left shoulder. But they were both wearing their gun belts and neither one had a bullet wound in his right arm. They weren't there for the view. The burly pair was walking slowly, swaggering along, near the entrance to the building where Jim lived – they must have come looking for the Kid in this place so close to where most people still thought that Joshua Smith lived. So the Teasdales were hunting the Kid – thinking that Heyes was dead. He could only guess that someone – maybe at the Leutze Clinic – had given away the fact that Joshua Smith had used to live with Jim Smith on Hester Street.
"Down, Jim!" whispered the Kid urgently. "Listen to me!"
But Jim wouldn't listen to the Kid. Instead the slender young man darted across the street and vanished into a dark doorway nearly next to the Teasdales, who turned to watch him. The Kid had to distract them – he yelled, "Hey, you damn bastards! You want me – here I am!" That got their attention – and diverted them from Jim, and from a pretty young woman they had been harassing.
The Kid felt terribly helpless, standing there all alone in a strange place, surrounded by people who could be hurt in a gun fight. But the people around them were scattering. And the Teasdales were looking straight at the Kid.
"Kid!" yelled Grover Teasdale in his most arrogant, loudest tones. "So we got the right spot! You ain't' so good at covering your trail, Kid! Or keeping Heyes safe – did he die of the flu or did you shoot him? We didn't get him – but sure saw him there, dead!"
The Kid stared at his rivals, unsure what to do. He wasn't going to argue with them and prove that Heyes was alive. "Get out of here, you scum! The cop will get you, sure! They don't take to murderers around here!" Curry tried to delay the men – to give all the confused figures around them time and warning to get away before the shooting started. And sure enough, the crowded street was emptying – people running into doorways and vanishing into alleys.
"If they get us, they'll get you, too, Kid!" yelled Aloysius.
Curry wasn't at all sure that he could draw at more than the slowest speed, much less shoot accurately, with his injured arm still stiff and very painful. He hadn't practiced his draw since he had been shot. His arm just hurt too much and he had felt it was better to rest it. Besides, he had no safe place to practice in this crowded city.
Suddenly, the black bearded figures bent to grab for any small, defenseless figures they could find – women and children. A skinny curly-haired girl of no more than six escaped Grover, while a tiny boy even younger run between Aloysius's legs and nearly tripped him. A lovely girl dashed through a doorway, leaving her shawl in the limping Grover's hairy hands. The Kid knew with a sick certainty what the Teasdales were trying to do. They were trying to get themselves human shields. They were going to shoot it out with him, but as dirty as they could.
The Kid couldn't wait. He had to strike before the Teasdales, slowed by their bandaged wounds, could catch a skinny poor child each. His draw might be so slow that he would be dead before he could squeeze the trigger of his Colt, since neither Teasdale had an injured arm. But he couldn't wait. Aloysius had nearly chased down a limping fat grandmother with a baby in her arms. Jim popped out of a doorway, dashing for the baby, yelling at the top of his lungs. Aloysius turned to him – away from the helpless grandmother and his screaming grandson.
Three gunshots roared in the confines of the street, echoing between the tenement buildings. Shrieks echoed all around. The Kid collapsed to the ground. Jim ran up to him. "Kid! Are you alright?"
The Kid looked up, "Forget me!" he said in a low voice, clutching his arm and cringing in an agony of fear to see the results of his shots. "Is the baby alright? The woman? And you?"
"B-b-baby's fine, K-K-Kid. So's his nana. I'm fine. Everyone's fine – except those murderers! But you're hit!" gasped Jim, out of breath from his dash across the street.
"I'm fine, just hurting in the arm," whispered the Kid between gritted teeth. One of the Teasdales had shot him in the wrist. But he looked down at the wound and realized that it wasn't more than a graze – painful, but not dangerous. Drawing his gun with his hurt arm had hurt nearly as much. But what about the Teasdales? With Jim's help, the shaken Kid got to his feet. He was quickly across the street.
The Teasdales lay twitching side by side in the dusty street. The Kid stood to look at the men he had shot. Slowly they stopped twitching and lay still, bleeding only a little. Each Teasdale had taken a bullet right between his eyes.
But the Kid felt no satisfaction in his precise shooting. He felt relief – no one had been killed except a pair of murderers. But that made the Kid a killer – yet again. And he might go down for murder. He didn't know which way to go or what to do.
A skinny man, pale with fear, approached the Kid, speaking in a thick accent. "Mr., that was mother and son you safed. They live because of you! What can I do for thanks?"
The Kid shook his head. He didn't want thanks. He felt sick. A tall orthodox man with some grey coming into his long black beard approached. "Mr. Curry, you get out of here now," he urged. "The cops be here any minute. You be gone – no one will remember you were here, or where you went. Jim, get him out of here a quiet way." The Kid saw a pair of quickly emptied pushcarts approaching with a little crowd of men each. Each cart quickly acquired unaccustomed cargo and a rough blanket covered the dead man on each. Men pushed the carts rapidly creaking away. The tall man – some kind of leader here – went on, "The bodies will be gone – in the river – no one will know what happened. The blood – we will wipe up, or cover with chicken blood. You are safe, sir. You saved our children. Get gone, now!"
And the Kid, not knowing what else to do, just nodded and followed as Jim led him through a complex of allies. In minutes, the Kid would not have been able to figure out his way back to where they had come from. He was never sure quite how he got back to Professor Homer's place. He climbed the steps. Jim pounded on the door and yelled for help – they had to get the Kid out of sight. Mrs. Homer opened the door and let the bleeding Kid in. He stumbled down the hall and he collapsed onto the sofa where he had been sleeping. It was over – or the Kid sure hoped it was. If the people of Hester Street kept their words, the Kid and Heyes and their friends might be safe. But if not – or if the betrayal at the Leutze Clinic went deeper – they might all be in danger.