Heyes was back at his perch on the roof of the abandoned saloon, looking out at the road from Granite Bluff into the ghots town of Lead Gulch through his field glasses. A lone rider was approaching. "Kid," he said aloud, taking in the tall physique, a glimmer of blonde hair. But he had spoken too soon. When the horseman got a little closer, it was obvious that the rider wasn't his partner at all, but the blonde-haired gang member, Walt. Heyes cursed under his breath. What went wrong, he thought in consternation? Hadn't his plan been fool-proof?
Walt rode straight into town on the main road. Heyes stayed where he was until the rider was directly beneath him. He stood and called out, "Walt! Up here."
Walt looked up - directly into the barrel of a rifle. He threw both hands up in the air and shouted, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!"
"Where's my partner?" yelled Heyes without preamble.
"It's too late," called Walt to the man on the roof.
"What?" asked Heyes, his voice deadly. "What did you just say?" He slid the rifle bolt back menacingly.
"Wait! That's not what I meant! He's okay. I mean, he's still in jail, but he's… "Walt's voice trailed off. He looked up at Heyes helplessly. "Can you…um, can you come down here so we can talk without shouting?" he pleaded.
"No," answered Heyes flatly. He paused. "But you can come up here. Leave your gun down there. In the street."
Walt slowly pulled his pistol from his holster and tossed it onto the road. Then he dismounted, tied his horse's reins to the nearest rail, and entered the saloon. A few minutes later, his raised hands emerged through the roof trapdoor, followed by the rest of him, a scared look on his face.
"Sit down," commanded Heyes, gesturing to the nearby upended crate. Walt sat.
Heyes' voice sounded dangerous as he demanded, "What do you have to say about my partner? And put your hands down."
"Listen, Mr. Smith. If it was up to me, your partner would be here instead of me, ya gotta believe that. But Mason says that the sheriff won't release him unless we go in there and say we lied."
"So go in there and say you lied."
"But since Jude is the one who knows what Kid Curry looks like, Jude is the one that has to go in and say he lied. But you've got Jude."
Heyes cursed again. He stood up, paced back and forth, then returned to his perch on the crate. "I'll let Jude go with you now, but I'm keeping Mick," he conceded.
"Only…only, there's a friend of Mason just showed up, a guy named Frank Reed."
"Reed? What's Reed got to do with it?" Heyes asked, recognizing the name.
"Well, ya see, Reed says he knows your partner is Kid Curry, too. He said he could tell the sheriff about seein' his fast draw."
"That doesn't prove anything. And I'll still have Mick."
"Um, well, um, the thing is…" Walt trailed off, not completing the sentence.
"Out with it, man."
Walt swallowed, not taking his eyes from the rifle, then said in a rush, "Mason says he don't care about Mick. He says go ahead and kill the big dumb Irish prick. His words."
If looks could kill, Walt would not have survived the malevolent gaze of Joshua Smith. Walt was beginning to think he was Hannibal Heyes after all. Skinny or not, this guy was scary.
"Then why are you here?" Heyes asked harshly.
Walt swallowed before speaking, then began, "Mason has an offer. See, all we really want is the reward money. So if you give us ten thousand dollars and let Jude go, him and Mason will go to the sheriff and say they made a mistake. And when your partner gets here, then you let Mick go."
"I thought you said Mason don't care about Mick! How do I know he's not gonna welch? What's to stop him from keeping the ten thousand and never saying a word to the sheriff?! Does he think I'm stupid?!" Heyes was shouting now, in anger and exasperation.
"I'll stay in Jude's place. And he wouldn't leave me behind," insisted Walt.
"How do you know that? He was quick enough to leave Mick twisting in the wind!"
"I'm his…I'm his son. I know I don't look like him. My ma was fair. So they tell me. Don't really remember her much."
After that unexpected revelation, Heyes was silent for several minutes. Finally, he asked, "What if I ain't got ten thousand dollars?"
"We know you do. We know you won it at the poker game. In Bridgerton."
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Twenty minutes later, Walt was sitting inside the dark abandoned lead mine alongside Mick. Heyes had held a gun on him while he'd directed the young outlaw to pry off a small section of board and squeeze himself through it. Then Heyes had nailed the board back on and hammered in several additional nails, just for good measure. As Heyes retreated from the shaft, he could hear Mick's bluster and Walt's explanation of the change in events to the older man. Heyes was livid at his reversal of fortune. But try as he might, he could not think of another way out.
Before bedding down for the previous night, he had untied Jude's legs and padlocked him in the stall at the livery stable. He had had to keep his hands tied behind his back, lest he remove the blindfold. But knowing from personal experience how painful it is to be tied up for a lengthy amount of time, Heyes had mercifully unbound his young prisoner's hands for a while. He had also given the boy some water, hardtack, and a cold can of beans before retying him. Of course, it was real tempting to let him just suffer. After all, it was this kid's fault his partner had been captured. As he fetched the boy's horse and saddled it, he mentally cursed Hank for bringing his nephew to Devil's Hole to begin with. Then he bitterly cursed Jude.
"I try to save you from a life of crime and this is the thanks I get," he muttered under his breath. When he unlocked the stall door and swung it open, he found the boy sitting forlornly in the musty straw. He could see from the tracks on his dirty face that the kid had been crying, but he hardened his heart. This stupid, ungrateful idiot was the cause of all his problems right now, he reminded himself.
"Get up," he said harshly. "Appears you're the Chosen One today." Heyes led him to his horse and helped him none too gently onto its back.
"Alright, kid, listen. I've got Mick and Walt. You've got ten thousand dollars in your saddlebags. I'm gonna lead your horse to the edge of town. Then I'm gonna untie your hands and slap his rump so hard he won't slow down for at least a mile. So ya better hang on tight. After that, you can go ahead and take off the blindfold. When you get back to Granite Bluff, you and your boss are gonna march straight into that sheriff's office and tell him you either lied or made a mistake about my partner. And if that don't happen, then I swear to God, Mick and Walt will die in that mine shaft. And I will personally hunt you down and kill you myself if it's the last thing I ever do. And if you decide to get greedy and keep the money for yourself and go someplace other than Granite Bluff with it, then not only do you have Mick and Walt's deaths on your head, you'll have me AND Blake Mason hunting you down. Ya got that?"
Jude nodded mutely, his eyes wide and fearful.
