The Kid paced up and down the dusty little Louisville railroad station platform on a warm, sunny late spring day. He was waiting for Heyes and his physics student friend. This meant that one more person was getting close enough to the pair to give them cause to worry about his penetrating their aliases. The pressure on both partners just kept increasing and at this moment, the Kid sure felt it.
The train whistle came softly from the distance. The Kid looked east to see the distant column of smoke getting nearer. He wondered when Heyes' life would stop being divided in half – East and West – school and home. When would both of their lives stop being divided between the public and the secret, the lie and the truth? When would it all come together?
As the train finally pulled into the station, a pair of amazingly similar figures jumped off, each with saddle bags over his shoulder. Both were five-foot-eleven dark-haired, brown-eyed men wearing pin striped suits and gold wire-rimmed glasses. But one was Heyes, who had turned thirty-six years old the previous February and was continuing to add a few grey hairs at his temples, while his companion was a round-cheeked youngster who looked barely twenty. Both were smiling at the Kid, but Heyes looked confident and happy, while his young friend's smile was decidedly timid.
"Welcome, you two!" called the Kid.
Heyes unobtrusively swept his eyes around the station, and gestured the Kid and his fellow student to come away from a couple who had just gotten off the train. Heyes spoke in a low voice with a particular sparkle in his eyes, "Partner, this is Matthias Peale." The Kid reached out and took the hand of young Peale, who had a surprisingly firm handshake for someone who looked so intimidated. "You remember our friend Henry Peale?"
"Yeah, I remember – he came and visited us about ten years ago, wasn't it?" said the Kid very cautiously and quietly, "after he . . ."
Heyes continued in a low voice, "Yeah – after he went straight. He came back to the Hole bout ten years ago. Brought his son Matt. Remember – eleven-year-old, smart as a whip and into everything?" The Kid nodded. "Well, this is him – all growed up!"
The Kid stared back and forth between Heyes and young Peale. "You mean . . ."
Young Matt Peale spoke for the first time in a quiet baritone, as careful as the two partners that no one could overhear him, "Yes, Mr. Curry. Quite a coincidence Mr. Heyes and I would both wind up at the same school, isn't it?" The young man gave the Kid a shy smile.
"We'd better get to Christy's before we really talk, not take chances," said Heyes with a grin, "But we have a man here we can trust, Kid! Part of the family, you might say." The Kid began to relax, just a little, as the three walked eagerly down the dusty unpaved street and went in the back way at Christy's.
"Cat!" cried the Kid into the kitchen, where Cat was fixing lunch, "come out and meet the physicist from Columbia!" Cat, hearing something special in her man's voice, came out into the big back room.
"Cat," said Heyes, "this is Matt Peale, son of Henry Peale, the best dynamite man the Devil's Hole Gang ever had! Peale, this is Cat Christy, who's gonna marry Kid Curry one of these days!" For the last few months, there had been a slender silver ring on Cat's hand to prove this fact.
"Pleased to meet you, miss!" said Peale politely, "and Mr. Heyes is exaggerating about my Pa. Nobody could beat Mr. Heyes at dynamite, from what I hear. I'm glad I'll get a chance to see him in action when we get to work."
"Welcome to Christy's Place, Mr. Peale!" said Cat warmly, "Sounds like you already know all about tehse two characters."
The Kid grinned gladly at Peale, "Cat," he explained, "when Heyes and I went straight, we had two real decent guys in mind who done the same – Lom Trevors and Henry Peale! Peale went straight years before Heyes and I ever joined up at the Hole, but he came back to visit once and brought his son with him. So it's been about ten years since Heyes and me saw this boy. He sure has grown up and gone far! How's your Pa and Ma these days, Peale?"
"They're both very well, sir," answered Peale. "They live in Montana. Pa worked as a mining engineer after he went straight and married my Ma. He's retired now."
"They ought to be right proud of you, Matthias," said Heyes. "You do such great work! And for about the fiftieth time, Peale," said Heyes, "would you please stop calling me Mister? When we're in safe company, just plain Heyes is just plain fine! If you're going to be my partner on the MA project, you've got to relax and treat me as an equal!"
This made Matthias's mouth drop open. "I don't know if I can do that M . . . Heyes. You've been my hero ever since I was a boy!"
Heyes laughed and told his partner, "Turns out Matthias here spotted me at Columbia about a year and a half ago when we had a math class together. It took the boy nearly a year to get up the courage to let me know that he knew who I was! When he came up to me last fall and called me Mr. Heyes I almost fell into my soup! It's just in the last few weeks we've been working up ideas together. He's as trustworthy as any man you'll ever meet, Kid."
The Kid smiled at Peale, "When we're in safe company, you sure can call me Jed or Kid, Matthias. So you prefer Matthias to Matt these days?"
"Yes, M . . . Kid! Thank you!" said Peale with a grin. "You're my hero, too! It sure made Pa glad when he heard you guys had gone straight. He and Ma will be so happy when they find out you're maybe getting close to amnesty!"
"We'll have to see about that, Matthias," said the Kid. "We haven't been able to get the new governor to follow through on anything yet. We hope Heyes' studies will cut some ice with him, but we ain't counting any chickens at all 'cause we got no guarantee they'll ever hatch."
As they finished a lunch of soup and fresh-baked bread, Heyes stifled a yawn and said, "Kid, can you please show this young man around town for a while? I got things to do in my room before we get to any work."
Peale turned to Curry hopefully. The Kid said, "Sure, Heyes. You think I ought to introduce him to Sheriff Wilde so he'll know what you guys will be doing with all that dynamite and nitro?"
"Yeah, I do think! But like I say, I got things to catch up on here," Heyes picked up his saddle bags and went up to his room while the Kid and young Peale headed out.
When the Kid and Peale got back from their tour around Louisville, Cat said, "Don't go up to Heyes' room and bother him, boys. Let him come down when he's ready."
"Why, is he that busy?" asked the Kid.
Cat chuckled, "Yeah, I guess you could say that. Last I saw, Heyes was asleep."
"Aw, he didn't get to catch up on what he said he needed to do!" said the Kid.
"Yeah, he did," said Cat with a wink at Peale, "What he needed to catch up on was his sleep! You know how hard he works all the time. He'll need plenty of rest if he's to keep up with this young guy!"
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Later that afternoon, Heyes and Peale went through the explosives the Kid had gotten for them. They also sorted out the odd collection of equipment and supplies that Heyes and Peale had brought with them, including a quantity of white chalk. They looked at a map with the Kid and discussed the quiet valley he had found where they could blow things up. It was on some land belonging to a local mine owner. The owner was planning to build a house on it one day, but hadn't gotten to it yet. There were some big rocks and stumps the owner wanted blown out before he built on the land, so it was ideal for Heyes' and Peale's purposes.
That evening they were expecting the photographer and carpenter that Curry had found for them. They might be able to relax around Peale, but, as Heyes told him, "There's not a photographer on the face of the earth that the Kid and I can be easy around! If we didn't need him to document blast patterns, I wouldn't have him within ten miles!"
At nearly dinner time a tall, skinny blonde man with a thin beard and a black bag walked into the saloon and looked around curiously. "There a Joshua Smith here?" he called out.
"I'm Smith!" said Heyes, standing up. "You Eakins the photographer?"
"Yeah! Best technical photographer in the state if I do say so myself!" Eakins and Smith shook hands heartily. Then Heyes introduced Peale and the Kid to the new man.
"This does sound like a kind of an interesting job, Mr. Smith," said Eakins. "But I surely do hope that you know what you're doing with those explosives."
The Kid and Peale got big grins on their faces at that. "Does he know how to handle explosives?" asked Peale, with bubbling enthusiasm, "He's only . . ." The Kid and Heyes fixed the boy with serious looks, and he immediately reined in his eagerness, "a serious expert with explosives. A very fine expert."
Not much later, the burly carpenter, Zimmerman, showed up and joined the discussion. Heyes wanted him to come along on their first day of blasting to build a shelter where they could hide during blasts. "Good thing you asked for a carpenter, Joshua - you can't drive a nail to save your life!"
"You ain't any better, Thaddeus!" retorted his partner. "It's a wonder you got a thumb left!"
As the discussion broke up, Eakins went up to his room. They would need to be up early. As Eakins climbed the stairs, the Kid walked with him, talking under his breath. Peale, who had just gotten to his own room and could hear their voices but not what they were saying, wondered what it was they had to say to each other.
Early the next morning, Heyes, Peale, Eakins, Zimmerman, and the Kid rode out into the mountains. There was not strictly any reason for Curry to go with the party. Heyes could have found the valley from a map without the Kid to guide him. But Curry enjoyed blowing things up almost as much as his partner did and so was glad to go along. The Kid led the way and helped to manage the two mules loaded with explosives and blasting equipment. The photographer had his own mule with a large format camera and a supply of the new-fangled film negatives that were lighter and easier to deal with than the old glass plates. The carpenter brought his own mule to haul wood and nails and tools out to the blasting site. There was a special glee about the party as they rode on that bright, clear morning. They were all – or all except the photographer - looking forward to some fine explosions.
Heyes was glad to learn that the "quiet" valley was only a couple of hours from Louisville so they would be able to sleep back in the hotel every night. When they got to the little valley with its big rocks and trees, Heyes and Peale worked methodically figuring out where to rig their charges, and how to set up all of their gear. The carpenter constructed a heavy wood barrier with sides and a roof where they could all crouch during blasts. The photographer set up his equipment behind a boulder even farther away than the shelter, where he hoped it wouldn't be damaged by flying debris. Meanwhile, the Kid led the horses and mules away to hobble them where they wouldn't be too spooked by the noise to come.
As they got down to the actual rigging of charges and fuses, with the photographer and carpenter working some distance away, the Kid could see Peale's eyes sparkling. "Wow, I get to watch Hannibal Heyes himself rig charges!" whispered Peale to the Kid in high excitement. "It's a dream come true!"
"He ain't too bad," admitted the Kid, critically, watching his partner work as he had so many times before. "I just hope he ain't forgot too much. It's been a while, you know. You goin' to help him some, Peale?"
Young Peale went eagerly to stand at Heyes' shoulder and help with setting charges. The youngster glowed with delight at the opportunity to work so closely with his hero. The five men sheltered behind the barrier the carpenter had built. Heyes gave the traditional warning yell "Fire in the hole!" and then calmly counted down in a loud, steady voice, "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one . . ." then he pushed the plunger.
The explosion went off with a deliciously loud bang and a colossal cloud of dust. Peale, Heyes, the carpenter, and the Kid leapt up with exclamations of delight, while the photographer cringed. The brays of the mules and squeals of the horses sounded in the distance and every bird within a couple of miles flew into the air. The white chalk that had been added to make the explosion easier to chart had flown everywhere. The shelter seemed to be satisfactory, so the carpenter rode off with his mule. The Kid ran to look after the livestock, while the photographer, convinced by Peale and Heyes that all was safe, hauled his camera into position. Then the photographer was busy with his exposures while Heyes and Peale got out measuring tapes and surveying equipment. They made charts and graphs and did equations. The Kid sat on a stump and watched with some interest at first. But the recording process got tedious for him and he fell to meditatively whittling a stick.
When everything was properly measured and recorded, the process started over. Heyes and Peale in close and delighted consultation positioned another charge. Peale set off this one. Again, the horses and mules gave cry. The Kid sighed and went to check on them, while again Heyes and Peale called in the photographer and set to work recording the result with pictures and numbers. Then they went through the whole thing again with a third charge. The Kid continued placidly whittling his stick as he sat on a downed tree waiting for his compatriots to get their repetitious work finished.
As Heyes, Peale, and four men crouched behind the barrier to set off the next charge, Heyes yelled "Fire in the hole!" and began counting down, "Ten, nine, eight . . . whoa!" Halfway through the countdown the dark ex-outlaw suddenly leapt up from his sheltered spot and Peale pulled back as a snake curled right by where Heyes had been crouched. Heyes yelled in a panic, "K . . . Thaddeus, get it! Get it! Is it a rattler?" It took at least thirty seconds for the Kid to stop laughing and finally shoot the snake dead. By then Eakins had taken off into the woods at top speed. Clearly, rattlers were not his cup of tea, either.
Heyes was incensed. "It ain't funny, Jones! That thing could have bit me! You took your sweet time shooting it!"
Curry laughed again, "I wouldn't have let it get you, mighty dynamite man. And you'll notice that you never heard a rattle – it's just a harmless little pine snake."
Heyes pointed at his partner, "You got too much fun out of it! Did you put it there yourself?"
"'Course not! Come to think of it – Peale, was it you set that thing on Heyes?" Suddenly realizing what he had said, the Kid clapped his hands to his mouth. Had the photographer, cowering in the woods, heard him?
Apparently not, since he showed no sign of nervousness as he returned to their shelter for Heyes to yell "Fire in the hole!" again and count down again to actually set off the charge.
They set off several other charges. "Why do you have to do some many bangs?" asked the Kid. "It seems like they're all alike to me."
"They've got different angles and different charges," explained Peale. "And we got to duplicate our results a bunch of times to make sure they're right. It'll take a few days to get all the blast data we need."
"Well, count me out," said the Kid. "If you don't need me, starting tomorrow, I stay home. I got better things to do with my time."
"Sure, Thaddeus. Can't blame you," said Heyes. "Must get kinda dull between blasts."
When the sun began to get a bit low in the sky, they packed up their gear on the mules, saddled up the horses, and rode for Louisville. All were tired as they rode through the trees and over the rocks in the gathering dark. "I think we're off to a good start – plenty of data," said Matthias.
"I'm just glad to have your fine place to come back to at night, Thaddeus!" said Heyes with a yawn as they saw the lights of town in the distance. "We surely have ended long days in the saddle in less comfortable circumstances."
"We sure have!" agreed the Kid.
"Where've you boys been riding together before?" asked Eakins.
Heyes and the Kid exchanged brief uneasy glances. They didn't dare to have the photographer get too interested. "Oh, here and there some years back – before Smith went to New York," said Curry, carefully casual.
The following days fell into a routine. Peale and Heyes set off explosions beside large rocks, under large rocks, between large rocks, under large stumps, between large stumps, etc., etc. On the afternoon of the fourth day, which was Saturday, Heyes was standing in rapt attention studying a blast pattern when he suddenly felt that something was wrong. He looked up to see Eakins the photographer putting his lens cap back on, with the camera facing not the blast pattern, but Heyes himself.
In the mountains it wasn't a hot day, but Hannibal Heyes started to sweat. Eakins had just taken a photograph of him! One of the main reasons that Heyes and the Kid had been able to stay free all these years was that, so far as anyone but Clementine Hale knew, there were no existing photographs of them. Now there was a photographic negative of Heyes! But the former outlaw couldn't afford to panic. At the end of the project, after all, Heyes would get all the negatives Eakins shot – that was the deal.
But Heyes couldn't help yelling in annoyance, "Hey, Eakins! We ain't paying you to shoot portraits – just the blasts!"
Eakins shrugged. "I won't charge you for it, Smith. I just got bored with blast documenting, and you were posed so great there against that big rock!"
Heyes sounded plenty irritated, but hoped no panic showed, "Well don't do it again!"
On Saturday evening, Heyes, Peale, and Eakins rode into Louisville at the end of a tiring day. Heyes yawned as they unsaddled their horses in the Christy's Place stable, "To tell the truth, Peale, I don't know that I'm getting a blast out of blasting any longer. Four days of it is enough for me. I've got plenty of data for equations – what about you?"
"I think I'm set, too, Joshua," said Peale. "If you can just take my set of prints to New York when you go, I can take the train to see my parents before I go East. Wish you could come along – I know they'd love to see you."
"Can't go with you, Matthias, but I'll take your prints to New York," Heyes smiled. He was enjoying being hero-worshipped by his young friend.
Heyes went to Eakins on Monday, when he was getting a drink in the saloon between printing sessions. Heyes asked, "Eakins, you know that shot you took of me? I was thinking my girl in New York might like it, if it came out. I'll pay you for it – a print and the negative."
"Sure, a print. Not the negative." Eakins shook his head firmly.
"Why not? What do you want with a negative of me? I ain't nobody," said Heyes in annoyance.
"It's just a principle of mine," said Eakins calmly, "I keep hold of my negatives. Don't want other guys printing my negatives and getting money should be coming to me. I'll sell you a print, though."
Heyes didn't dare press the point and make his concern obvious. He had his own ways of solving the problem. When Eakins was downstairs printing, Heyes cautiously picked the lock to his room and searched for the negative. The former robber dug through piles of the new-fangled film negatives, being almost excessively careful to keep the stacks as they had been – he knew how obvious it always was to him when his room had been searched. And he looked with the greatest of care through Eakins' notebooks and every place else he thought a negative could conceivably be. But the negative of Heyes' portrait wasn't anywhere in the room that he could find. It must be among the ones Eakins had downstairs to print.
So when Eakins went for a walk at lunch time, Heyes checked the negatives in the makeshift darkroom in the smaller of the hotel's two back rooms. The portrait negative wasn't there.
But the next day, Eakins brought to Joshua Smith a print of himself - a very clear full-length three quarter angled portrait. It made the subject's blood run cold to see it. Heyes paid the man for the print, trying his best not to look like he was panicking - although he was.
What had happened to the negative for the portrait?
The night, Heyes and the Kid visited in the back room. Heyes told his friend, "It sure is good of you to put us up and be so helpful, Kid. I don't like asking so much of you and Cat – what with giving Eakins dark room space in your place while he makes his prints and all. You just let me know what I owe you, and I'll pay with interest like I said."
"You don't have to pay for the rooms, Heyes! What kind of partner, much less cousin, would I be if I charged you?"
"BS, Kid. I said I'd pay and I will. It's all school expenses. I'll pay my benefactors off when I get a faculty post." Heyes stopped and sighed.
"What is it, Heyes?" asked Kid in concern, seeing how worried his partner looked.
"When I get a faculty post! I sound so confident. Got no reason to be. I should say if I get a faculty post. I just worry more and more about how any school will ever trust me. Peale keeps his Pa's past a deep secret for all the Columbia folks, you know. And he's been straight for twenty years and more! And Henry Peale, pardon my arrogance, is not Hannibal Heyes. I mean, nobody outside our old business, and a few old lawmen, knows his name. Will anyone ever trust me to teach?"
The Kid tried to calm his partner, "Aw Heyes, you've always known it'll be hard. You got plenty of ways to make a good living if teaching doesn't work out right away. Don't worry so much!"
Heyes sighed again, "Well, if I don't worry about that, I worry about just getting graduated at all without getting thrown in the territorial penn. With all these people who know about us - the pressure is about to drive me out of my skull. And by the way, a joke's a joke and all that, but give me the negative."
"The what?" the Kid asked, startled.
Heyes' eyes flared with anger, "The negative, Kid! That portrait shot you paid Eakins to take of me. You've had your fun – hand it over!"
"I did no such thing!" the Kid exclaimed, "I admit it, I put the snake under you. It was a treat to see you jump! But I wouldn't ever take a chance on a picture of either one of us!"
"You don't fool me!" fumed Heyes, "Peale said he heard you talking to Eakins that first night he came. Hand over the negative! I searched his room and the dark room and it ain't there. You got to have it!"
"Not guilty, Heyes! I only talked to Eakins about the dark room. Any portrait of you, he did on his own. You don't think he really heard me say your name, do you?" now the Kid was getting nervous.
"If he did, he's a superb actor," admitted Heyes.
"But why keep the negative if he knows who you and me are? Why not just turn us in to the Sheriff? What good does a photograph do him?" wondered the Kid.
"I got not a clue, partner," answered Heyes. As Heyes took the train back east, he added one more to his list of worries, and so did the Kid.
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The day after Heyes got back to New York, a large envelope arrived for him from Louisville. Heyes carried it back from his post office box to his rented room to open it in privacy. Inside was a folded newspaper clipping from a Boulder paper, illustrating the photograph from the mysterious missing negative. The caption read "Eccentric Columbia University graduate student Joshua Smith sets off blasts in Rocky Mountains near Louisville, Colorado, to further scholarship." The photograph was credited to "Howard Eakins, staff photographer."
Heyes lost it when he saw that. He yelled just as if his partner could hear him, "Staff photographer?! Kid, I thought I could trust you to have good sense. You hired a newspaper photographer! You IDIOT!"
Heyes threw the newspaper clipping as hard as he could. As he watched the paper flutter harmlessly to the floor, the ex-outlaw began to laugh.