"Hey, boss! How's the leg?" asked Ted the piano player from the piano bench, surprised to see his injured boss in the front room of the saloon. With a helper on each side of him, Curry was slowly and cautiously hopping out of the little back work room where he had been staying for his first few days of healing up. He made his way with the support of Bruce the porter and a grizzled ex-miner named Hank Appleton who had been helping in the sheriff's office and Christy's Place. The two carefully settled Curry into an arm chair that Cat's cowboy cousin Joe had just hauled in from the lobby of the hotel part of the building. The boss settled his cast-encased leg onto a pile of pillows before answering.
"I guess it's coming along, but it is awful slow." The Kid sneezed thunderously and wiped his nose. "Pardon me!" Blessings came back at Curry from all over the saloon. Curry smiled at his friends and employees, realizing how nice it was to have so many people who cared enough to bless him. That was still new in his life.
Then he turned to his wife's cowboy cousin, "Thanks, Little Joe! Get yourself a beer from "Big Joe" on me." The visiting cowboy had been locally dubbed "Little Joe" to set him apart from the stout bartender, who got the name "Big Joe." To his other two helpers, Curry added, "And thanks, you guys. Cat will show you two what you need to do next. Go on! You can get beers later." Curry shoed his employees away, Bruce going upstairs and Appleton into the back room Jed had just vacated.
"What're they doing?" asked the portly bartender, leaning over to stare down the bar toward the door into the back rooms. Cousin Joe only laughed as he leaned on the bar, but Appleton came through the door with a box of tools in his hand just as Joe the bartender was asking his question.
"Never you mind. Get back to doing the work I pay you for." barked Curry.
Appleton wasn't shy about enlightening a fellow Christy's Place employee. "We're taking apart the boss's brass bed, Big Joe. That's so's we can haul it down the stairs, and get it through that skinny little doorway into that room where Jed Curry's been sleeping since he broke his leg, that's what we're doing." He grinned at the bartender and continued up the stairs. "That big bed will be crowded in that little place, but we can't keep these love-birds apart another night." The ex-miner winked at his boss. Cousin Joe smiled sympathetically at Curry from under his cowboy hat.
"Hush up, Appleton! Get up those stairs and do your work, if you want that beer!" chided Curry crossly.
"Oo!" cooed Ted suggestively, playing the opening notes of "Beautiful Dreamer" on his piano. Saloon girls, customers, and Little Joe alike laughed and whistled in good fun as Cat followed Hank up the stairs to show him how to take apart a brass bed-stead. Curry growled ineffectually. What he was waiting for would be well worth the momentary embarrassment.
Nearly an hour later, Cat Curry was fluffing the pillows on the newly assembled and neatly made up bed. Jed Curry stood in the corner, leaning on a shelf as he watched his wife at work.
"Now don't you kick me too hard with that cast, husband, you hear?" said Cat at she helped her husband back to bed and put a pillow under his injured leg.
"I'll be careful . . ." started Jed.
"Not too careful!" said his wife saucily, swatting her husband on his good thigh.
"You were a mean woman to make me wait a whole night to cuddle up with you." said Curry. "I've been mighty lonely waiting to get you back to town."
Cat sat on the bed and embraced her husband, starting to make up for lost time. But then she pulled back. "I've got to get back to work, Jed," said Mrs. Curry apologetically. "I have to catch up with all kinds of stuff Big Joe let slide while we were away. I know you haven't had much chance to do paperwork outside the sheriff's office."
Jed sighed. "Yeah. I'll be reading newspapers from all the local town and new wanted posters, but this morning I had a look at our books. I'm afraid Christy's ain't making money quite like it was. Heyes would be grieved at me for letting things get out of hand."
Cat said, soothingly, "I'll go over the books and see what I can figure out. Joe's not the manager you are, Jed."
"Manager! I've hardly had time to be a sheriff since I got back, sure not to manage here a whole lot. I hope my real name ain't keeping too many folks away. Madge was thinking I might attract customers, but I don't think it's been working out that way. I've heard some people say they came to see me, but maybe more are staying away. I don't know why anyone would come to see me anyhow. I don't do nothing worth seeing."
"You're well worth seeing, no matter what you're doing," murmured Cat, gazing at her handsome husband appreciatively. Then she sat back down on the bed to express her affection. No amount of duty could long keep her from the man she had missed so long.
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A couple of days later, Jed Curry was sitting on the porch of Christy's Place with his leg up on pillows and his gun at his side. The sheriff was finally enough over his cold to start venturing out, though his nose was still a little red. He saw the billowing steam and heard the echoing whistle of the train just pulling out after a brief stop. Jed hoped maybe a customer or two would have arrived. Things had been way too quiet at the hotel of late.
Curry was glad to see a figure coming down the street with saddle bags over his shoulder. The approaching young man in boots and a cowboy hat looked mighty familiar, though he was back-lit in the afternoon sun and hard to see properly at a distance. Then the man got close enough for Jed to see him.
"Al Kelly!" yelled the Kid in delight, "Come over here!"
The blonde young man smiled uncertainly as he hurried down the street to Christy's Place. He settled his saddle bags and rifle on the porch and sat down in the rocking chair next to Curry. "Hello, Sheriff!" the young man said with a slightly nervous smile. He extended a hand that Curry gladly took.
Jed was startled to see the deputy, but he couldn't hide that he was glad. "What in tarnation brings you down here from Wyoming? You told me you couldn't leave that state for five months 'cause you're on probation."
Kelly's grey eyes sparkled. "Well, it seems somebody made a few calls on that newfangled piece of machinery they call a telephone. Talked to the governor of Wyoming. And he talked to my boss. And here I am, if you'll have me for a second deputy. I hope I ain't come all this way for nothing."
Curry felt a terrific weight lift from his shoulders – and the shoulders of Billy Healy. But he didn't want to come across as too easy. He looked critically at the Wyomingite before he spoke. "Let's see, Kelly. You came without asking me if I'd hire you. That was taking something big for granted."
Kelly squirmed. "Um, yeah, but you did say you were gonna make me an offer, when we talked before."
"Yeah, I guess I did," confessed Curry. "So, you been keeping your nose clean? No stealing stuff? No drunk and disorderly?"
"Clean enough for the governor to grant me a special pardon, Mr. Curry." He pulled a piece of stiff, buff, legal-sized paper from his saddlebag and handed it to his potential boss. "What do you think of that?"
Curry read the letter carefully, a smile growing on his face. "Go in and give your saddlebags to our man Bruce to take up to your room. I'm paying for your room and board, so don't worry none about that. Then get down the street to the sheriff's office as quick as you can and tell Billy Healy who you are. He's in charge while I'm out. He's done darned well, so don't be a smartass with him. I guess you've heard what happened to me and this damn leg?"
Kelly nodded. "Yeah, I heard about your run-in with some Colorado rocks. And how your deputy got that killer, Garth Hogan, behind bars. Clever guy, Mr. Healy. Or lucky. The papers made him out a real hero. By the way, do you know who made the telephone calls that got me here?"
Curry speculated, "It might could have been my partner?"
"You hit that bottle dead center, as usual," said Kelly, grinning. "Mr. Heyes with a telephone is about like you with a gun, I'm thinking. Thank you for taking me on, Mr. Curry. It'll be real fine to work with the best."
"Thank you, Al. I don't know as I'd be sitting here with a busted leg if I was that good, but I try. Healy's about dead of work since I got hurt and he had that murderer to cope with and a few other trouble makers who've come through town lately. The Doogan gang tried hitting a mine payroll. Billy and some other local guys headed them off. Wish they'd got 'em locked up, but the varmints got away."
"That's a shame, boss," said Kelly. "I'll watch out for them. But right now, I'll head on down to the office."
Curry was glad to have a new man eager to get to work. "Yeah, you do that. You can see clear enough where it is. Don't you let Healy stay on duty too long. No matter how beat you are from your trip, you can't be worse off than Healy is. He was up most of the night and the night before and been mighty busy in the daylight, too. He'll know what paperwork you got to fill out. Get him to bring it down here for me to sign. He'll want to come anyhow, to make sure you're on the up and up. Then you can head back to our office and get started. I'll get Cat to send some fried chicken, biscuits, and lemonade down to you in the office for lunch, if that suits you. Oh, and she just baked a blueberry pie. You can smell it now. Mm! My wife's a top-rate cook."
"That sounds just great, boss," said Al Kelly. "That's right thoughtful of you and Mrs. Curry." He meant more than he said, as the Kid could easily guess. Lemonade suited him better than beer while he was struggling to stay off the liquor that had contributed to his previous problems with the law.
"Wish I could be working with you guys," said Curry. "Doc says I better wait another week to be up on crutches much while my break knits up. Sorry I got to put you on duty so quick. Healy will show you around town. And Al - Billy's squeaky clean, so don't shock him too damn bad, alright?" Kelly only laughed in reply. Then he saluted his new boss and went into the hotel to give his luggage to the porter.
Jed scribbled a note for his new deputy. Soon Kelly was back on the hotel porch to pick up the note and then he walked down the street to the Sheriff's office. Curry sighed contentedly and leaned back in his chair. There was one problem taken care of.
"Who's that fine looking boy?" asked Cat, coming onto the porch with lunch on a tray for her husband. She watched the new deputy walking down the street.
Curry sniffed appreciatively at the delicious scents of warm fried chicken and blueberry pie. "That's Al Kelly, my new deputy. He's the guy I met in Wyoming and wanted so much. I was awful put out when I found out he was on probation, but don't tell him that. The governor let him off to come down and help me out."
Cat asked, "Why'd the governor worry about a deputy on probation for stealing whiskey?"
"Heyes and that telephone of his." Curry laughed happily.
Cat shook her head. "That partner of yours has – what's he call it in Yiddish? Chutzpa. You know - guts. I'm glad he got help for Billy and you at last, so my cousin Joe can go back to that ranch where he's top hand in Kansas. I'll miss him. But even with him gone, we'll still have young ladies swarming all over this place with two such good-looking deputies staying here."
"I guess," said the sheriff gruffly. He had given the matter of handsome deputies no thought. "Billy's not had a minute to go a courtin', that's for sure. But I, Mrs. Curry, got plenty of time and a lovely lady already won."
"Why, Mr. Curry, you're taking me for granted already," said Cat, taking mock offense. "I've half a mind to go off and leave you to sit here and eat all by your lonesome."
"Aw, don't do that, Cat," begged her husband. "I've been longing for you real bad." Cat was unable to resist that invitation.
"Mm, honey," said the Kid, surfacing from a kiss. "You taste even better than fried chicken!"
Cat snorted and swatted her husband playfully. "You are such a romantic devil, Jed Curry!"
Meanwhile, Al walked down the street, observing his new town as thoroughly as an admiring young lady coming out of the dry-goods store was observing him. He went to the building that had a newly lettered sign over the door reading "Jedediah Curry, Sheriff, Louisville, Colorado." Some town wag had already drawn a smoking pistol on the boards next to the sign with a piece of charcoal. Kelly smiled at it, doubting that anyone would have dared to do that if the sheriff had been on duty.
Billy Healy looked up from a pile of paperwork he'd been dozing over and pushed his long black hair out of his face to greet the stranger coming in the door. The deputy stifled a yawn. He hadn't gotten more than about four hours sleep the night before, thanks to a fight among miners at a bar across from Christy's Place. Two of the worst trouble makers were still stewing in the cells.
"What can I do for you?" asked Healy not bothering to get up from his worn old office chair as he would have when he had first taken the job.
Al Kelly grinned. "It's more the other way around, Deputy Healy. I'm here to help you."
"Oh? Another volunteer deputy?" asked Billy cautiously, looking the younger man over carefully.
"Nope, Sheriff Curry said he'll be paying me, and giving me room and board at Christy's Place. We met in Wyoming back before he got here from West Virginia. I'm Al Kelly." Kelly reached out a hand.
Healy was exhausted, but he wasn't careless. He didn't shake Kelly's hand yet – it could be a trick. "You are, are you? You got proof of that?"
Kelly wasn't surprised to have the deputy be so careful and correct, considering what their boss had said about the man. "Yeah, here's a note the sheriff wrote for me just now. And I've got a letter from the Governor of Wyoming, too. Looks like we can't go down and talk to the sheriff at Christy's unless you got another man to watch those boys in the cages.
Reading what his boss and a governor had to say, Healy began to relax a bit. He chair squeaked as he leaned back in it. "There's a man who can watch for us. He'll be back here any time."
The back door to the office opened to admit a middle-aged, unshaven miner with a gun tied down on his hip. He was wearing a deputy's badge and swaggering a bit as he stepped toward the desk. "Who's this, Healy?" he asked in a gruff voice.
Healy gestured to the new deputy, even younger than he was. "This is another new boss for you, Appleton. Al Kelly's our new hired-on deputy. Kelly, this is Hank Appleton. He's been mighty helpful while the sheriff's laid up."
Appleton reached out a hand to the new man. "Good to meet you, Kelly. Where you in from?"
"Hello, Appleton," said Al. "I'm from Wyoming. I used to work with a friend of Mr. Curry's, so he recommended me. Sounds like you guys have been up against it."
"We're managing fine," asserted Healy testily. "But just the same, I'm glad to have another paid man on. And a fellow Wyoming man, at that."
"You gonna' let us out a here?" yelled one of the men in the jail cells. "I got to get back to that coal mine soon or they'll fire me!"
"Me, too!" added the other man.
"Not for another hour, and longer if you make trouble," said Healy firmly. "So pipe down." The men fell quiet quickly, which impressed Kelly with how his fellow deputy kept discipline.
The deputy reached into the desk and pulled out a tin star. "We'll wait for the sheriff to pin this on you. But I can start showing you around." He pulled a key from a chain around his neck and opened a heavy iron box bolted to the floor next to the desk. "Here's the keys to the front door and the cells. You'll get a key to that box from the sheriff. Keep it on you all the time." Then the deputy reached into the file drawer of the sheriff's desk. "And here's the papers to fill out when you arrest a guy. And the ones for releasing a man, like you'll want to do with those clowns in the cages in about an hour. You can see their forms in here for drunk and disorderly last night. And here's the form you got to fill out so we can hire you. The sheriff's got to sign it. Stick any forms in my in-box, here. I'll show you where to file them later."
The phone on the desk began to ring. Al Kelly started at the sound. Healy picked it up. "Louisville Sheriff's office!" he shouted into the mouth piece.
"Hello, Sheriff Brevort. Thank you but, no, I won't need you to send a man down," said Healy after listening for a moment. "Emergency's over, for now. We just got on a new paid deputy – name of Al Kelly. Down from Wyoming. Yeah, he has experience wearing a badge. And a letter from the Governor. Thanks, just the same, Sheriff. Appreciate it. Yeah, I'll give Sheriff Curry your best. Thanks. Talk to you later."
"So, you guys got one of them new machines, too," said Kelly. "Must be good to be able to call other sheriffs when you need help."
"Oh, yeah," said Healy, not looking as happy at this thought as Kelly would have guessed. "That was Sheriff Brevort from over to Boulder. Remember - they can ask us for help, too. And they have already. Either way, I think they keep a special eye on us."
"I guess lawmen feel antsy about Sheriff Curry. But he's a good man, from what I've seen," stated Al Kelly firmly.
Healy looked hard at his new colleague. "Yeah, they do, and he is. By the way, his partner calls up now and then from New York, so don't let it throw you."
Al grinned, showing off his white, even teeth that were rare in those days. "I won't. Yeah, I guess Heyes and the Kid are still good friends."
"You be respectful when you talk about your boss and his partner," declared Healy.
"Ah, come on, he can't hear down the street and he sure can't walk here himself on that leg," said Kelly. "He said he won't be up on crutches much for a week or more."
"You listen to me, Kelly," fumed the black-haired slightly senior deputy, shaking his finger at the new man. "I mean it. Mr. Curry's earned all the respect you can give him, and so has Mr. Heyes. He saved my life cross country with that telephone."
"Sorry. Didn't mean to take liberties," said Kelly, straightening his posture and wiping the grin off his face for a moment before it reappeared. A smart-aleck grin seemed to be the new blond deputy's natural expression.
"That alright, just keep some respect," said Healy, trying not to be too stiff with his more relaxed new colleague. He couldn't stop yawning. "I got to show you around some. We'll be back soon, Appleton," said Billy, "so keep an eye on those guys in the cages."
"You mean I'll be back, Healy, but you won't," said Kelly. "Sorry, but the boss said for me to give you a chance to rest. How long's it been since you got a full night's sleep?"
"I can't remember back that far," joked Healy as they walked slowly down the street, keeping a careful eye out around them between long yawns. "I ought to object to having you take over, but I ain't up to it. Not is the boss says so. Man, I could sleep for a week!"
"I'll watch the town for a few hours, boss," said Kelly.
"You don't have to call me boss," said the slightly older man, yawning again. "But don't get smart with Mr. Curry, or his wife, either. I'm just starting to get to know this town. There's a lot to know, even in a little place like this. Watch out for that boarding house down that alley – the worst types in town stay there. And there's the cheapest livery stable, so keep an eye on them, too. Make sure you patrol that alley back there – every kind of low life sneaks along there, especially after dark. There's three saloons back up to that alley and a bath house and a pawn shop. Here's Christy's Place. Let's go in and see the boss." Healy smiled at Al Kelly. He hoped the two of them would get used to each other soon. They might have a lot to get through as a team.
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Heyes found a little time to visit his mentor before he headed west for his three interviews. Charlie smiled proudly at the former outlaw. "So now you've got real interviews – not ambushes like the last one. Three schools. That's a great percentage from the applications you've sent out – what is it, a dozen?"
"Fourteen, Charlie," said Heyes with a smile, "just sent out the last two today. That percentage would be 21 point four two . . ." Heyes laughed at himself and stopped reciting useless digits. Charlie Homer was laughing, too. The eager applicant was sitting on an overstuffed chair in his former advisor's parlor. It was a room where Heyes felt as at home as in his own apartment. However, Heyes brushed away some dust before he put down his coffee cup. Marie Homer would never have let the end tables get dusty. Heyes felt spoiled to have a woman looking after him these days when Charlie Homer no longer did.
"What does Beth think of maybe living in Salt Lake City or Laramie or Denton, Texas?" asked Homer, sipping on a cup of coffee.
Heyes sipped from his cup. "She says it would be an adventure. That's a nice way of saying she'd find it . . . primitive and isolated after New York or Maryland. I hope she wouldn't hate it too much, but she makes sure to sound happy when she's talking to me. She doesn't want to spoil my opportunities, loving wife that she is. I've spent some time in all of those places, but she hasn't. I hate to have to take her away from civilization."
"They're college towns, of course, so not as far from civilization as some western spots," Charlie pointed out.
"Yeah, but not exactly big towns or big colleges. I'd make friends and so would Beth. But she'd miss her New York friends, there's no doubt of it."
"You'd miss your own friends, too." Charlie Homer's eyes looked thoughtful under his furry grey eyebrows. "I'd miss you, too. I've gotten used to getting you out of trouble, you old gun-shot outlaw, you."
Heyes grimaced playfully at that, reminded of the moment when he had told Charlie who he really was. He had had a fresh bullet wound in his hip at the time and had been very near death. "If we settle in Wyoming, you could visit us when you go out to see your brothers and sisters and their kids," suggested Heyes hopefully.
"I see you as family just as much, Heyes, you know that." Charlie looked compassionately at his former advisee.
"Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it. Other than the Kid, I don't really have any blood family. Unless my Uncle John is still alive, but he wouldn't ever want to see me again. After that name hearing, you know why. I did finally tell Beth that story, after I got out of jail."
Charlie, one of the few people who knew the story, said sympathetically, "I'm glad you did, but it had to hurt. I hope your uncle would have forgiven you by now. You ought to try to get in touch with him."
"I haven't forgiven myself, so why should he?" snarled Heyes, looking away from Charlie. The pair sat silently for a few moments, just sipping their coffee.
Finally, Heyes said, "I've done practice faculty interviews with you, Beth, and NG till I'm blue in the face. Do you have any last bit of advice for me on those three interviews I'm off to tomorrow?"
Charlie nodded. He had given this some thought. "They'll know who you are, but don't push it in their faces. I'd say you ought to go with the fiction that you're just a regular applicant until they make you talk about the outlaw stuff."
"I can't ignore my criminal past. It's a fact, Charlie," said Heyes regretfully.
Homer was teaching again. "Yes, but it isn't the central fact for these interviews. The central fact is whether you are qualified to teach mathematics at the college level. So are you?"
Heyes bristled at even a pretended questioning of his credentials, "Yeah, of course I am. You know that better than anyone."
"Anyone but you, Professor Heyes. So, there you go. Concentrate on how sure you are of that. And on your teaching philosophy of making sure your students see practical applications for what they're learning. We've been over all this. When you have to go farther on the personal stuff, talk about your background before and after Devil's Hole. Especially out West, the way you learned and taught and how you finally got to college and did so wonderfully will be impressive. You'll be an ideal role model for the type of students they'll have. Of course, you'll have to put up with the questions they ask. But you can artfully redirect things, I'm sure."
Heyes hadn't ever visited a college west of the Mississippi. "I guess those schools out there have a lot of guys from one-room school houses like me?"
Charlie answered firmly. "Lots. I've got plenty of friends in schools out West. Many of their students get to college by some pretty circuitous routes, though maybe not many quite as unusual as yours. So play on the good stuff you want to share with those students - your practical experience, determination, and work ethic. Of course, my recommendation backs you up on all that."
Heyes nodded and took all this in. "I appreciate it. It's good that there might finally be a good side to my past. If I can get anybody to see it." Charlie Homer was one of the few people to whom the infamous former outlaw would show his insecurities.
"Come on, you old con man, you can encourage them in the right direction." Homer winked at his former student.
Heyes grinned. He nodded and said, "I'll do my best. If my head will cooperate and not let my mouth give out at the wrong moment, I might just be able to convince them to give me a chance. I'm all keyed up to give it my best shot, anyhow." Heyes' eyes were sparkling with anticipation over his momentous trip west. "But you know how I get when I'm enthusiastic. I just hope I don't run on at the mouth too much and spoil my own chances."
"You won't, Heyes. You'll watch the guys interviewing you and time it just right," said Homer comfortingly.
Heyes said, "I'll try, anyhow."
"How're you gonna deal with the Mormons in Salt Lake City?" asked Charlie. "I'm real surprised they'd even ask you come, since you aren't a member of their church."
Heyes nodded. "Yes, I wasn't expecting them to contact me. But it turns out the church of Latter Day Saints is talking about giving over charge of the University of Deseret to the secular authority of the Territory. The name will charge to the University of Utah, probably next year. They need to get some non-Mormons onto the faculty to get that transition started. I guess they see me as about as non-Mormon as they come. I'm sure no Saint."
Charlie had heard a lot of stories from his former student, but there were still aspects of his past that remained hidden from Professor Homer. "Seems like you've been all over the West. Even more than I have. I haven't been in Utah Territory – have you?"
"Yeah. I was there a few months once back in the 70s. I even tried going straight for a while. Did some hunting and trapping down in the southern part of the territory. I tried to stay on the straight and narrow, but I couldn't stick it." Charlie imagined he could guess why – the wily outlaw must have been bored stiff doing such physical work.
Heyes pulled out his new pocket watch and opened the cover nervously. "Sorry, but I've got to go. I'm taking Beth to dinner, then we'll be in bed early so I can get up and catch the train west."
"Good luck, son. And watch your back." Homer clapped his protégé on the back and walked him to the door.
"I will. Thanks, Charlie." Heyes waved back to his old advisor as he went out the door and went down the steps to the sidewalk. Charlie Homer watched out the window as Heyes walked down the street with his hands in the pockets of his suit.
Late that night, Heyes lay in bed still awake, lying stiffly still so we wouldn't bother his hard-working wife by tossing and turning. But she was onto him. "Joshua, sweetie, I know you're awake. You've got to relax and get some sleep. You know you don't sleep well on trains."
"Yeah. I'm trying," answered the anxious applicant in the dark. "I'll drop off. Don't you worry, honey. I'm just excited. I can't get my brain to stop running. I've got so many ideas. Just think – I'm only a few steps from maybe being a professor. We've got a lot of dreams bound up in that."
Beth rubbed Heyes' tense shoulder. "It is pretty thrilling."
"And it's making me a nervous wreck," added the prospective professor.
"That's no surprise, darling. The interviews themselves are enough to make anyone uneasy. And in Wyoming, with your history there, I understand your misapprehensions."
"I hope nobody would make trouble for me. But we stole an awful lot in Wyoming. There are a lot of people with a bone to pick with anyone from the Devil's Hole Gang, especially me." Heyes didn't sound proud of himself.
Beth tried to cheer up her husband. "I always thought you were popular with people there."
Heyes signed in the darkness and put his arm around his wife. "We are – or we were - with a lot of the common folks - ranch hands, dirt farmers, little shop keepers, miners, and drifters. I've never understood exactly why, but I've seen it over and over, so I know it's true. But the mine owners, ranch owners, bankers, big business men, lawyers, judges, and the lawmen, of course – they'd cheerfully see us in Hell."
"You scaring me, honey."
Heyes held Beth and caressed her. "Sorry. Calm down, Elizabeth. I won't let anything bad happen. But those university boards, in Wyoming, Utah, Texas – they'll all be loaded with those guys I just listed. It won't be easy to convince them to support hiring me. And they'd look way down their wealthy noses at somebody from a poor dirt farm in Kansas, even if I wasn't a former outlaw. Then there's Governor Hogg of Texas – the guy who got shot in the back by outlaws. He'll give that new teachers' college a hot time if they start to get serious about me."
Beth rallied in defense of her husband. "It's not fair. They have to give you a chance. You're such a great teacher and mathematician."
Heyes spoke matter-of-factly. "Sure it's fair. I robbed them and their colleagues. Those rich guys suffered and so did their employees and clients. And we can't forget the people whose livings relied on those local businesses we hurt. I know the economic math – too well. Now my chickens are coming home to roost, that's all. And boy oh boy, do I have a lot of chickens."
"Poor baby!" Beth gave her husband a kiss on his scarred cheek. "But you have a special weapon against those men. I don't care what you think – you've still got that silver tongue. You could convince one of those chickens to lie down with a fox. And don't you ever forget that gleaming academic record. You earned every one of those A-plusses, awards, and honors. And you've got a pile of recommendation letters backs it all up in spades."
"I won't forget, sweetheart." Heyes yawned. "Now I'm finally getting sleepy. Good-night again. And thanks for believing in me."
Beth snuggled up beside her husband. "Good-night, darling. Try to relax and get some sleep. You'll need it."
Soon, Heyes was snoring softly. But his wife still lay awake. She was sure there were threats her husband hadn't seen fit to mention to his concerned wife. She wondered how powerful some of Heyes' old enemies might be in Wyoming – and long it had been since an outlaw had been lynched there.
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Beth was up early with her husband the next morning, quickly buttoning up her dress with practiced fingers.
"I don't know why you're up and getting dressed, honey," said Heyes. "I'm can go down to Union Depot by myself and you can sleep another hour and a half before you have to get up for work."
"I want to see you off, darling," said Mrs. Heyes. "Just to spend a few more minutes with the man I love."
"You are a very romantic woman," said the ex-outlaw, giving his wife a kiss. He picked up his saddle bag and his briefcase. "And I'm a lucky man. Alright, come out and get a cab with me, if you want to."
Soon, they caught a cab and it wasn't long before they were standing on the busy, echoing platform of New York's biggest train station. Heyes' train west was already pulling up to the platform as they arrived. Before the west-bound man got aboard, he stopped to give his wife a lingering hug and kiss that was a bit beyond what was considered proper in public at the time. Even as she stepped back to let him go, he leaned forward and snuck another quick kiss. Then he picked up his luggage and stepped up to the train car. He dropped his bags just inside the car door and blew a kiss to Beth as the train pulled out.
Mrs. Heyes sighed and turned to get a cab to the Leutze Clinic. She would be a bit early, but that wouldn't hurt anything. "My, oh my, who was that dashing, handsome man you were kissing so passionately, Miss Elizabeth Warren?" asked a familiar voice behind her.
Beth whirled around in surprise. "Deborah! And here's Rebecca with you! It's been too long since we were at Columbia together!" She threw her arms around her two friends and gave each a kiss. "What brings you two from Boston to New York?"
"We're on our way to Baltimore for a suffrage meeting," answered the stout Deborah, whose gleaming dark hair was done up in a tight bun.
"Yes, we both still teach in Boston," said the red-headed Rebecca. "We're transferring from one train to another. But what about you? You really must tell us about your very handsome beau."
"Beau nothing, that's my husband!" crowed Beth proudly, her eyes gleaming. She held up her wedding ring for her friends to see.
"I don't believe it. You've left the old maids' society at last!" cried Deborah in shock, kissing Beth again. "Congratulations! And curses on you for a traitor to the cause!" The three laughed together. They had long ago become convinced that none of them would ever marry.
"Felicitations and all that, dear, but who is he?" asked Rebecca. "He must be a miracle on two legs if he can be smart enough to keep up with you and have such good looks, too!"
Beth blushed and nodded. "He is a total miracle. He's absolutely the most amazing man I've ever met. I've known him for nearly six years, but we just got married in May. That was after he got his MA from Columbia. With honors."
"Then where's he going, leaving you alone so soon after your wedding? That's hardly gallant of him," said Rebecca jokingly.
"Oh, but he is as gallant a man as there is on this earth. He's an authentic hero. But he's gone to apply for teaching posts out West – teaching college mathematics," declared Beth proudly. "He's got three interviews arranged."
"Good for him, but you still haven't told us anything. Where's he from?" asked dark-haired Deborah, curious as usual about any mystery.
"And what, my dear, is his name. And therefore, your married name," said Rebecca. She was puzzled to see the hints of worry on her old friend's familiar face.
Beth took refuge in reciting facts, "He was born in Missouri, grew up part way in Kansas with his family on a farm, the rest of the way in an orphanage in Texas, and he's spent most of the rest of his years all over the West. That is, until we met in New York at the clinic almost six years ago."
"So he had aphasia?" Rebecca was understandably concerned.
"Yes. Very bad aphasia. He'd been shot in the head. Just a ricochet graze, but a serious one. If you saw him at all well, you can hardly have missed the scar on his left temple."
"Poor man!" exclaimed Deborah.
Beth nodded. "He was very brave about it. But he's a passionate talker and it was a sore trial for him. It took a long, hard fight for him to get to talking and writing again. But he was so smart, it wasn't hard to get him interested in going to college even though he'd never even finished grade school as a boy."
"Elizabeth Warren, stop hiding things behind a wall of facts. Who did you marry?" asked Rebecca with suddenly seriousness.
Beth swallowed and came out with it, bracing herself for their reaction. "Hannibal Heyes."
"Beth, that isn't funny," started Deborah, but her friend motioned her to be quiet.
"She isn't kidding. It's true – I can see it in her eyes. She married that notorious bandit," said the every-canny Rebecca, observing the serious look on Beth's face. "Debby, you know what a romantic Beth has always been. The man with the famous silver tongue talked her into it."
"No, not really," said Beth, blushing. "I fell hard for him when he couldn't say a word. Talking or not, he's a charmer, my Heyes."
"My God, you aren't joking!" whispered Deborah. "You really married that infamous crook."
Beth glared at her old friend for a moment. "I don't like that word any more than Heyes does. Please don't use it about my husband. And besides, he's not an outlaw any more. He went straight years before I met him, and now he and his partner have a pardon and amnesty," said Beth. Mrs. Heyes kept chattering while her old friends adjusted to the thought of who she had married. "Actually, when I met him, he was using an alias. He went by Joshua Smith and I thought he was just a cowboy with some engineering experience. It was a couple of years before I knew better. When we started to get serious and he told me who he really was, I'm afraid I walked out on him."
"It must have been a terrible shock," said Rebecca. "To discover what kind of man you'd fallen for."
"Oh, I knew what kind of man he is. He's a wonderful, hard-working, ambitious, fascinating, gentle, caring man. And he's a brilliant scholar and teacher. I just hadn't known about his past."
Beth's red-headed friend sounded almost angry. "Come on, Beth, he's a criminal. I know he's not the famous fast-draw one, but he did kill a man, didn't he? I remember seeing about the murder trial in the papers. Thought I didn't read the details, or I guess I would have seen your name."
Beth looked solemn. "Yes, Becky. When he got back from that trip to Montana he was sure I would leave him after he told me he'd shot that man to death. It was a man who had the Kid held hostage. But I understood. I mean, Heyes could hardly let a kidnapper shoot him, or his partner, could he?"
"You just call him by his last name?" Deborah didn't come from a rich background, but she had been raised with up-middle-class manners, so it surprised her to hear Beth speaking in what she saw as a low-class way.
Beth explained. "He hates his first name. It does sound kind of silly, with the alliteration with his last name. My husband is a fun-loving fellow, but he does have his dignity. His friends have always just called him by his last name, so sometimes I do the same. And sometimes I call him Joshua, like when we were courting. He even went to court to take it as his middle name."
Rebecca stared at her old friend, still trying to process the news about her marriage. "I simply can't believe this. We're standing here talking about our confirmed fellow lady bachelor and scholar who's managed to marry one of the two most notorious outlaws in America. It's the most bizarre thing I've ever heard. I'm happy for you, I guess, Elizabeth dear, but I'm worried for you, too. Do you really trust such a man? How on earth do you propose to live? Do you think anyone will ever hire him to teach college?"
Beth blinked hard, fighting tears as she stoutly defended her man. "Yes, I trust him with my life. And yes, someone is sure to hire him. He's a brilliant mathematician and a prize-winning teacher. He's an authentic genius. Someone will hire him. They have to! It would break his heart if they didn't. And it's the most wonderful heart."
"She's got it bad," Deborah said regretfully to Rebecca.
"I'm afraid so," replied her red-haired friend. "I guess the most marvelous thing is, you can see that he has it just as bad for her. I wouldn't have thought a man used to saloon girls would fall for Beth. Not that there's not good reason – I just thought no man would ever realize how wonderful you are, Elizabeth. Your wits are much too swift for most men. So your beloved Heyes must be a genius, indeed."
"He is, and I'm not the only one who thinks that. Ask any of the academics he writes to all over Europe – in their own languages, by the way."
"Goodness gracious! That is impressive. But oh dear," said Deborah, "There's our train coming in. We've got to part."
Rebecca hugged Beth and then picked up her bags. "The very best of luck to you, Mrs. Heyes. And to your gallant gentleman. I wish we could meet him. Please write and let us know where you wind up. I hope he'll be teaching and you will, too." The pair of friends climbed onto the train, resisting the efforts of a red-cap to help them with the steep step.
"Good-bye, Beth!" called Deborah from the train car. "Do write with your news!"
"I will!" shouted Beth, waving at her college friends as their train noisily picked up speed and pulled out of the depot. Mrs. Heyes caught a cab to work with a distracted look on her face. She felt lonesome already. Her thoughts were moving steadily westward with Heyes on the train.
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Heyes, on his West-bound train, was too busy and distracted to feel lonesome immediately. "Ticket, sir?" asked the conductor. The largely recovered aphasia victim was glad to be able to produce his ticket and speak to the conductor now without the trouble he had had when he had first taken a train east from Colorado nearly six years before. He had a long ride ahead of him and had brought a new math book along to read. Soon he was happily writing notes and equations on a pad.
"Wow, those are long equations!" exclaimed a young man who sat next to Heyes as the train left the station in Pittsburgh. He looked to be in his late teens. "Are you a professor or something?"
Heyes gave his jeans-clad neighbor a warm smile. "Not yet, but I want to be. That's where I'm going – to interview with some colleges and universities for faculty posts."
"That's great! What do you want to teach?" It was nice for Heyes to have someone be impressed with him without knowing his real name.
"Math. Do you like math?" Heyes asked hopefully. It would be fun to talk math with someone instead of just reading about it.
The bright-eyed youngster smiled. "Yeah. I'm working toward being an engineer, so I use math a lot. Right now I'm headed out to Kansas to start an apprenticeship. I wish I could go to college, but there's no way I could ever afford it."
Heyes thought of the long years when he had felt the same way. He couldn't let another young man give up on his future. He urged his seat-mate, "Work hard at your apprenticeship and maybe you can get a scholarship. That's what I did. I got two degrees without paying a penny for them."
The boy was surprised. "Really? You can do that? Go to college without paying?"
Heyes was delighted to give the youngster the good news. "Sure, but it isn't easy. You have to be very good and work very hard. And the school has to have the money for it. Or sometimes you can find a scholarship fund to pay for your schooling. The school could help you to find a scholarship, if you ask them and if they're interested in you. Of course, you have to pay for your living expenses somehow, too. So you might have to get a job on top of going to school. I knew plenty of people who did that at Columbia."
"But you didn't, mister?"
Heyes felt the old shame about being a charity case. "No. I wanted to graduate in a hurry. So I got some friends to help me with the expenses. I don't know how I'll ever pay them all back, but I will."
The boy could hear the determination in Heyes' voice. "I'll bet you will, once you're a professor."
"Yeah, that's right. I've got a wife to support and we want to have children, so it may take a while. But I'll pay it off if it's the last thing I do."
"Say, what's your name?" The youngster could have had no idea of why this question would make his new acquaintance uneasy, but he could see that it did.
"Joshua. What's yours?"
"Jerry." The two shook hands. "Where are you from, Joshua?"
"Kansas. But I'm coming from New York City, where I went to school. What about you?"
"I'm from Pittsburgh. I'm going west for the opportunities, as they say. I've never been out there before. Have you spent any time in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, or Indian Territory?"
Heyes laughed. "I sure have. I've been all over the West in my time. You tell me what part you want to know about and I'll tell you what it's like." The two eager west-bound travelers passed happy hours talking about the West and looking out the window. The aspiring professor failed to mention his law-breaking past, but still found plenty of stories to tell. By the time the pair parted nearly three days later, when Jerry got off the train in Kansas, they were fast friends. Heyes felt kind of strange waving good-bye to his new friend without revealing his last name. But it also felt good not to see that awful shock in Jerry's eyes that he had seen way too many times in the last couple of months.
The potential professor wondered how the dean in Utah would react to an academic interview with someone he knew full well was a former outlaw. Heyes was just as glad to have his new friend get off. He needed time to himself to get his thoughts together for his first interview.
The next day, Heyes got off the train at the depot at Salt Lake City and went to find a hotel. His brain was racing already as he mentally reviewed all the strategies he and Beth and Charlie had come up with and all the points he wanted to make with the dean. He gazed around the city, fascinated by its picturesque setting in a broad valley embraced by lofty mountains. "Beth would love these mountains!" thought Heyes happily, knowing how much his wife enjoyed beautiful scenery. He had a couple of hours to clean up and get ready for his interview at the University of Deseret. He had done some research and knew that the name of the school came from the original name the Mormons had given to their territory and that it meant Honey Bee in the language of the Book of Mormon. Heyes found a nice, clean hotel called, appropriately, "The Beehive" and checked in. He signed his name as "H. Joshua Heyes," still feeling rather self-conscious about the appellation.
A sudsy bath cleaned the Utah dust off of him. Then the ambitious candidate got into a suit he had been caring cautiously for days to keep it from getting winkled. The light wood felt uncomfortably warm in the hot, dry air of Salt Lake City. But he was sweating as much from excitement as from the weather. Then he set off to find the school. The hotel clerk easily directed Mr. Heyes to nearby Union Square, where he found the towering stone university building with its Mansart roof, tower, and porte cochere. Heyes mentally classed the architecture as trying just a bit too hard to impress, but he knew it was a common failing with academic architecture of his own period.
Heyes found the imposing front door opened, so he walked in at what his pocket watch told him was precisely two o'clock. "Can I help you, sir?" asked a neat male secretary.
"Yes, please. I have an appointment with Dean Smith at 2:00."
The secretary looked down at a journal on his desk and found the appropriate entry. "You're Joshua Heyes?"
Heyes still felt a bit strange answering, "I am."
The interviewee went in the office door and shook hands with Dean Smith, whose blue eyes looked wary above a full grey-streaked brown beard. "Thank you for coming all this way to the University of Desert, Mr. Heyes. It is, to say the least, interesting to meet you." This did not come across as a complement. He was talking about meeting the notorious outlaw far more than the mathematician.
Heyes tensely sat on a slick leather arm chair and took a sip from a generous glass of water waiting for him on a table. "I'm glad to get to meet you and to see the school and the city."
The dean immediately began peppering his interview subject with questions. "Have you been in Utah before, Mr. Heyes?"
Heyes didn't have to stretch his imagination to understand the meaning of this question. His strategy of waiting to discuss his past was about to fall into ruins. "Yes, I've spent some time here, but it was years ago."
"So not in an academic capacity." There was a hard edge to the dean's voice.
"No, not at all," Heyes had to admit.
"In fact, you were on the wrong side of the law at the time, weren't you?" Smith's voice was accusatory.
Heyes wasn't going to fight his interviewer. There was nothing to do at this point but to give way as gracefully and honestly as he could. "Yes, part of the time I was here that is true, I regret to say. Some of those months I spent as an honest hunter and trapper, but the rest of the time I spent with a criminal gang. I'm sorry about the damage I did in those days. Now I can only do my best to make up for it by doing my best at academic work."
"The Devil's Hole Gang, so far as I know, never struck Utah." Much to Heyes' frustration, the dean was fishing for particulars and firmly aiming the conversation back to his interviewee's past rather than his future.
Heyes wasn't going to go any farther than he needed to in this direction. "No, it was a different gang. I have left that life behind long ago, sir. I have put a great deal of effort into getting an education so I can make an honest living and teach others to do the same."
Dean Smith said crisply, "I am glad to hear it. Of course, we place great emphasis on the morals of our faculty members." He wasn't going to make this easy.
Heyes nodded. "Of course. That is as it should be for anyone who teaches young people and can act as an example. I am very much a changed man in the last seven years, nearly eight years now. I work hard at my field and strive to leave my evil past behind."
"That is good to hear. However, I hope that other aspects of your past might still be with you." The dean looked keenly at Heyes to see if he would understood what was meant.
"You mean my ability to use mathematics for practical purposes?" The ex-outlaw understood the dean clearly.
"Yes, I do mean that. Although I fervently hope those purposes would be legal, rather than involving setting charges to destroy bridges and blow open safes." The dean sounded hostile on these last phrases. He was not going to let this interviewee off easily about his past.
Heyes was still doing his best to steer the interview toward academic topics. "Of course, there are many very constructive practical uses for mathematics. More building bridges than taking them down, and devising locks to keep banks safe rather than robbing them. As I said in my letter, I think teaching practical applications for mathematics is critical. Students need to know what they are working toward."
"That makes sense, particularly in light of your new article. I have read it." Heyes thought he detected a little softening of the dean's attitude toward him.
"Oh? How did you find it?" The new author was honestly curious.
Dean Smith reluctantly admitted, "As an English teacher who hasn't dealt with serious mathematics in a long time, I had expected to be baffled by it. There were aspects of the advanced technical work that I found difficult to grasp, of course. But all in all, I found it admirably clear. Between your vivid descriptions of explosions and the settings where they would be used, I wound up learning a good deal of applied mathematics almost before I knew what was happening. Is that how you teach?"
Heyes followed up eagerly, "When I can, yes. Of course, there are times when regular academic routine is necessary. But when I can use stories and verbal images make things vivid for my students, I find it improves their grasp and recall of principals. It they can see themselves in active relation to the equations, they get more involved. And it helps them not to fall asleep in class."
If Heyes expected his witty last point to fetch a smile, he was disappointed. Any faint grin was hidden under Smith's ample beard.
"How did you first begin to use math for practical purposes? I mean, before you went straight."
Heyes sighed, making it clear that he wanted to get back to focusing on his future rather than his past. But he complied with the question. "When I was with a gang, an explosion to blow a bridge went far wrong. They used too much dynamite and it went off too soon. The bridge went down before we were all clear and the explosion carried a lot farther than they thought it would. Some of our own men were killed. And we had had guys hurt before when they used too much dynamite. And sometimes what we thought was going to blow didn't. I realized the man who handled explosives for the gang was setting the charges almost randomly, from experience rather than calculation. They just did it by guess and by golly. A friend in the gang had given me a book on algebra and some basic instruction. And later I picked up a technical book on gold mining, including how to calculate explosive charges. So I put them together. I tried to do some figuring, then set off an experimental charge, well away from anyone. At first it was difficult to understand how to align the numbers with the dynamite and the things I was trying to blow up – wood crates were my first subjects. But soon, I got to where I'd figure things and set it up – and everything would go just as I had it calculated. That was an amazing feeling – to see the numbers on the page line up with real life so perfectly. I practiced that a few times to make sure I really did understand things. Finally, I sprang it on the gang leader and he let me try when we were blowing a safe. It went like clockwork. The safe opened perfectly, but wasn't damaged too bad – badly. After that, I was in charge of dynamite. I made sure men didn't die from my charges. I hope that now, my new understanding of how to set and direct charges will save a lot more men – men doing honest work." Heyes damped down a grin at the memory. He didn't want to look too self-satisfied.
Smith nodded. "If you can teach those principals, maybe so. I hope so. Didn't you win Columbia University's award for student teaching?"
Heyes wondered if the dean wanted him to come across as bragging or what. Simple honesty, however, served the ex-outlaw's purposes best. "Yes. In the fall, I had a semester as a teaching assistant in the regular way handling a couple of sections of a freshman math class. Then in the spring, I was leading two more sections. That went fine, but then at the end of the semester I had to take over teaching two classes for Professor Homer while his wife was dying of cancer. That included a graduate seminar."
The dean was startled. "Taught by a Master's student? Didn't Professor Homer have any PhD students available?"
"Yes, but he said he trusted me more than any of them. And the graduate dean agreed with him, since there were no PhD level students in the class. I stayed, of course, in close touch with Professor Homer and followed his notes to the letter. It was hard, but we managed. I couldn't betray his trust."
"That's quite a testimony. Trust is vital for us in hiring any faculty member." Heyes could see Dean Smith writing notes on a pad on his desk. He could also see the cool blue eyes beginning to thaw.
Heyes nodded. "I've done my best never to let Professor Homer down, or any of my mentors or friends."
"I assume you mean since you went straight."
"Always." The former outlaw asserted.
"Honor among thieves?" The dean raised one eyebrow.
Heyes replied forcefully. "Among men, sir. I've come a long way since I went straight, but I have always kept my word."
The dean was not shy about making his interviewee recall as hard time in his life. "When you had words. I understand you spent quite some time in silence, after you were shot in the head."
Heyes didn't let the reference throw him. "That is correct. But, as you will know if you read the transcripts of my trial or read the newspapers about it, I found a way to inform my doctor about who I really was. I didn't want to put him or his clinic in danger."
"Even so. And it must have been a terrific challenge to make up for your aphasia as well as your lack of academic background as you earned your degrees."
Heyes nodded. The dean sounded appreciative of this, even respectful of the man who had achieved so much. "Yes, sir, I faced a lot of challenges. But my doctor was a great help. And my tutor – she's now my wife – she got me prepared well for school. It all came down to regular work habits, discipline, and good friends."
"A good group of traits for any student," said the dean with a barely detectable smile. "I hope you would instill those values in your students. Tell me, Mr. Heyes, have you thought about earning a PhD?" Dean Smith was studying the brown eyes across from him very closely.
The aspiring professor nodded. "I have thought about it, certainly. I am giving it very serious thought. I want to learn as much as I can, so I can teach at the highest level. But thinking comes cheap and degrees cost money. I can't start another degree until I have a regular position so I can pay off my debts from the first two degrees."
"I see," said Dean Smith as he took notes. Heyes felt certain that he had scored a point or two for his honorable behavior.
Heyes was disappointed to hear his questioner return to outlaw related questions yet again. "Do you ever encounter any of your, um, former colleagues, now that you are on the straight and narrow?"
Heyes carefully hid his annoyance. "I keep in close touch with my partner, certainly. He's the sheriff of Louisville, Colorado, these days. So you don't have to worry about him. Otherwise, I have purposefully kept my distance from any outlaws for a long time."
"Do you mean to tell me that you haven't encountered any of your former associates in all the years you have been straight?" The dean was openly skeptical.
The former outlaw wasn't going to lie. "No, of course not. I've run into one now and then, though not on purpose."
"And you didn't turn them in to the law?" The Dean was still prepared to attack any chink in Heyes' armor.
The ex-conman knew how to diffuse that verbal bomb. "The last time I met one of the outlaws I knew, other than Jedediah Curry, was when I was still wanted. So I could scarcely walk into a sheriff's office turn the man in for the reward. I would have been arrested immediately."
Dean Smith was seriously struck. "I beg your pardon. Do you mean to tell me that during the entire time you were seeking amnesty, you were still subject to arrest and imprisonment?"
"Of course. And summarily shot. I was still wanted dead or alive until early this last May." The ex-outlaw supposed his interviewer, like most people other than outlaws, hadn't thought out the implications of being wanted.
"You mean anyone could have killed you at any time without violating the law?" The dean was horrified as he began to see Heyes' side of the question.
"Yes," Heyes stated flatly. "And more than one tried it."
The dean's cold façade broke open utterly as he looked with compassion and admiration at the man he was interviewing. "Merciful heavens! How did you manage to concentrate on your education and teaching while you were struggling to retain your liberty and your life?"
Heyes steadfastly resisted smiling as he saw his story winning over the dean. "It wasn't easy, though being in New York made it a bit tougher for guys to spot me. For all those years, my partner and I were careful, to put it mildly. There were officers of the law who knew about our pending application for amnesty and thus would not arrest us, but there were very few of them. Of course, there were four governors. But the deal about the possible amnesty was to be kept strictly confidential. Certainly the governors respected that. My partner and I respected that also."
"Even when it could have cost you your lives?" asked the dean. Heyes nodded.
"I confess that it was distracting, at times. It was hard to concentrate on school, but I did my best and it worked out. When I was teaching last semester for Dr. Homer, I knew that I was likely to be arrested for second-degree murder at any time. I'm just glad they waited for me to finish my teaching, papers, and thesis before they took me away for trial."
Smith shook his head. "That is quite the testimony to your devotion to education; that you could study at all under such circumstances, much less achieve such fine results. So this summer is the first season that you have spent without fear for your life and freedom, but without recourse to dishonest means of self-defense, in how long?"
Heyes' voice was matter-of-fact. "Seven and a half years."
"That is extraordinary!" The dean made no attempt to disguise his admiration.
Heyes allowed himself a slight smile. "I must say I'm pretty relieved to have the amnesty. Now I can concentrate on being an honest man, a husband, and on working toward being a professor."
The dean was enthusiastic. "But now that you are free to lead your life legally, I am puzzled that you would choose teaching as a career. There were countless easier careers you could have chosen. With your natural gifts, so many other jobs would have been easy for you."
"But there weren't any other that I felt were more important or that I wanted more." This was no con; Heyes' fervent statement plainly expressed his passion for his field.
"Can you explain that?" The dean asked, eager to look inside this fascinating man.
Heyes nodded. "Oh, yes. I've always respected teachers and enjoyed teaching in any way I could. And I was good at it, too."
The dean, seeing that there was another great story here, prodded Heyes. "Pardon me, but what chance would you have had to teach, before you started graduate school?"
"I did some tutoring when I was still an undergraduate at Columbia. I worked with a young western man who had gotten to college at an early age and wasn't ready for it, emotionally, as much as he was academically. But long before that, when I was still on the wrong side of the law, actually, I did a lot of teaching. That's how I got my complex plans across to some pretty ignorant gang members. I even had a black board installed in our hideout so I could chart out my plans and write out instructions for the men."
"Aren't a lot of outlaws illiterate?" The dean asked.
Heyes agreed. "You are quite correct, a great many of them are. It's one reason they turn to crime – pure ignorance. So there were a lot of illiterate recruits for the Devil's Hole bunch. When I could manage it, I taught them reading, writing, map-reading, logic, and some basic mathematics."
"That must have taken a lot of work and great deal of patience." The dean's voice betrayed his admiration.
Heyes' eyes glowed with enthusiasm. He couldn't hide, nor did he wish to, how much he loved teaching and seeing his students thrive. "Oh yes, it was hard. But it was very rewarding work. Some of them really took to it. There were a few young fellows who did so well that I told them to get out."
The ex-outlaw had startled the long-time academic again. "I beg your pardon? You threw out the smartest, most able men?"
"Yes. I told them I thought they should go off and try honest lives, that they could be successful at it. I don't know if any of them made it straight, but I never saw any of them among outlaws again. So maybe they did. I hope so." Heyes knew very well that he had scored important points with this story. What he didn't say was that the smart outlaws were often more likely to rebel against his demanding rules and to cause trouble for the discipline of the gang.
Dean Smith, unaware of this last hidden motivation, looked long and thoughtfully at Hannibal Heyes before he returned to asking questions. "You actually tried to help men go straight before you went straight yourself?"
"Yes, on a few occasions. And just after the Kid, I mean Mr. Curry, and I went straight, I strongly advised a former colleague of mine to stop breaking the law. I am proud to say that, with the help of the woman who became his wife, I was eventually able to convince him. He is now a successful businessman and investor in California." Heyes kept his voice neutral, trying desperately not to come across as smug.
"Really? You mean you went back into the company of criminals in order to get one of them to leave the wrong side of the law? That sounds almost unbelievably noble." Now the dean was skeptical again, inviting another story.
"Well, no, that wasn't how it started out. I was no altruist. I went back to Devil's Hole to earn a sizeable paycheck from a woman who wanted to get there for her own reasons. But when I got to the old hideout, I realized the new leader was planning a big job – a theft, I mean. Had it gone off while I was there, or shortly after, I could have been blamed. My partner and I could have lost our opportunity for amnesty, at the least. We could have been imprisoned. I tried everything I could think of to stop that big job from going off. It wasn't easy, but it finally worked. And my friend who went straight, and his wife, remain extremely grateful. So I'm glad to have done some good for the world, but I can't go around pretending my actions were selfless."
Now the dean was smiling as he guessed, "Might you be one of your friend's profitable investments?"
Heyes nodded with a sparkle in his eyes. "Yes, I'm an investment, though I don't know about profitable yet. He's been very helpful with my expenses outside of the tuition that was covered by my scholarships."
"I appreciate your being open about the real motivation for your actions. I hadn't expected such honesty from you," the dean confessed, as open on his side as Heyes was on his own.
"Yes, I've always had the gift of turning events to my favor, at least since I got past the disasters of my childhood. I hope now to use those gifts to benefit my students, my school, and my country." Having set it up so carefully, Heyes now dared to make a grand-stand moral statement that he could not have attempted even a few minutes earlier.
"Ah, the silver tongue. That sounds noble, but with the background you just gave me, it also sounds realistic. So let us discuss some of the uses of those gifts at this institution in more detail." Heyes was relieved to hear this. The sparring with the dean was over. Finally, he could really talk math and teaching. Finally, they could discuss his potential future.
Nearly an hour later, Heyes had emptied his water glass and talked a great deal more. The dean said, "Well, I think that about covers the academic end of things. There are a few questions I need to ask in other directions. Mr. Heyes, I understand that you were recently married."
Heyes hoped he wouldn't trip now in the home stretch of this long, high-pressure discussion. "Yes, sir. I married my tutor from the Leutze Clinic. Her maiden name was Elizabeth Warren."
"So, she's an educated lady with a professional background?" Smith wasn't surprised that Heyes would marry such a woman.
The faculty candidate allowed his pride to show. "Yes. She has a master's degree in English and Education from Columbia University. She's the person who convinced me that the higher education I had always dreamed of might actually be possible."
"Does she plan to continue teaching?"
"Perhaps, but first we'd like to have children. Of course, she would stay home with our family."
The dean was relieved to hear it. "That's just as well. I'm afraid she would find teaching posts very hard to get in this territory. Women here are expected to be wives and mothers, with perhaps even fewer opportunities for careers than they would find elsewhere."
Heyes treaded carefully, trying to stay on the moral ground that would fit the ideas of this particular interviewer and his school and the locally dominant religion. "She understands that and would be happy to stay home and confine her teaching to our children, if we are lucky enough to have any."
"I see. Mr. Heyes, do you drink?" The dean clearly didn't like asking the question, but he had to do it.
Heyes couldn't help feeling a little tense. He knew that Mormons were not officially permitted to drink. And he knew that if he ever let his drinking run away with him, as he had at times in the past, it would destroy his career. But then, that had always been true. "Yes, I do drink, but only beer and wine. Nothing stronger than that and I can do without it. I have heard about the Mormon prohibition."
"Good. The territory isn't dry, but the church prohibition means that drinking by faculty, at school or in public, is frowned upon. Of course, what you do at home or with friends is your own business. I confess to being surprised at an ex-outlaw who doesn't drink whiskey. Is there a reason for that?" The two men were now getting friendly enough that the question came across as perhaps more personal than academic.
Heyes awkwardly skirted a discussion of his greatest weakness. "I, um, when I was on the wrong side of the law I did drink hard liquor. It is, as you know, expected in those circles. After I went straight, I gave it up. I haven't tasted hard liquor in more than six years and I am . . . determined to keep it that way." He tried not to blush at hanging up over a difficult word. There had been few such instances that day.
"I see. That's a very responsible approach, if I may say so. I respect your self-discipline." Heyes insecurely feared that the dean guessed he had given up hard liquor because he couldn't handle it, as it would have been stated in those days. The inability to carry one's liquor well was considered a moral weakness. Heyes appreciated having the dean state it in terms of respect rather than disgust.
"Thank you. I've changed a lot of things in the years I've been on the right side of the law."
"That's very clear. Drinking is not the only thing not permitted at the University. Other prohibitions include smoking, gambling, and the drinking of coffee."
Heyes purposefully didn't mention smoking or gambling, since had done so much of both. "Oh, I didn't know about coffee. I hope I could have a cup at home?"
"That would be perfectly acceptable. You just wouldn't find it in the faculty lounge as you would at other schools."
"That's not a problem at all." Heyes smiled at the dean. If they were discussing small, practical points like coffee, it strongly suggested to the Heyes that he had a good chance at this post.
"I'm glad to hear it. Well, I think we've discussed all the points I wanted to cover. Do you have any further questions for me?"
"No, not at the moment. You've been very thorough and very fair. Thank you, Dean. It's a pleasure to meet you and to see this very impressive school. I hope it has a bright future." Heyes meant that very honestly. He shook the dean's hand. The grasp was firm and dry. Interviewing an outlaw apparently didn't make this man nervous. Or least, it didn't now that they knew each other far better than they had an hour and a half before.
"I hope so, as well. Let me take you to meet the president."
Heyes flashed a brilliant smile. If he was meeting the president of the university, that was a very good sign, indeed.
"Do you have other interviews before you return home to New York?" Smith asked as they left his office and crossed the secretary's office to another door.
"Yes, I have two more interviews. So it will be more than a week before I'm back in New York. If you have messages for me, you can call or wire my wife at the address on my hard here. I'll keep in touch with her, so I can reply to you if necessary." Heyes handed the dean the card his friend NG had printed for me. He thought his having the other interviews could only help his chances. The more schools showed an interest in him, the more legitimate such an interest would seem.
Smith said warmly, "Thank you, Mr. Heyes. I will forward any messages through you wife. Ah, here is the President's office." The dean knocked on the door, calling "Mr. President, do you have a moment to see Mr. Heyes?"
The door opened. "Good afternoon, Dean Smith. So this is Mr. Heyes," said the President, a tall and stately figure with a grey mustache but no beard.
"Yes, sir," said the dean. "Mr. Heyes, this is President Park."
Heyes gladly took the president's hand. Park has been at the University of Deseret for many years. He was well known and admired in western American education. "So, Mr. Heyes, what do you think of our little school?"
"I'm impressed by what I've seen and heard, sir. I understand you have recently added a lot to the library. That must be a boon, so far from other libraries."
"Yes, the territorial library has just come here," said Park, his voice betraying his pleasure at Heyes' knowledge of his beloved school. "And we have a new school of geology and mineralogy."
"Ah, I know they could make good use of my practical approach to mathematics," added the eager mathematician.
"Even so," said Park. His enthusiasm faded suddenly. "Mr. Heyes, I'm glad you are so interested. But I must say that we will be taking special care in investigating your peculiar background and all aspects of your application. Our board members will be watching this with care. We cannot afford to hire such a man as yourself, no matter how brilliant, without much thought."
Heyes, too, spoke seriously. "That does not surprise me, sir. I am sorry about the reasons for it, but I can't turn back the clock to change my past. I can only hope to be able to go forward to a better future for myself and my students."
"Thank you, Mr. Heyes," said the President. "We will be in contact."
"Thank you, sir," replied Heyes, understanding that his brief contact with this western academic legend was at an end. The ex-outlaw and the academic dean left the office and went over the academic secretary's desk.
"Here, Mr. Heyes, you will have some forms to fill out for your application," said the dean. "Our secretary, Mr. Perkins, can help you with that. It's been a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Heyes. I wish you well, whether you wind up teaching, here or elsewhere."
Heyes felt that the dean meant what he said. "I've enjoyed our talk, sir," said Heyes "or most of it. I wish we could just talk math, but I understand the need for the rest of it."
The two men shook hands in farewell. Then Heyes sat down at a small desk and confronted a more complex form than he had ever filled out. He had filled out forms to get into Columbia University, of course, but they had been simpler and he had felt free to write a lot of lies on those papers under the name "Joshua Smith." Now, under his own name, the ex-outlaw would have to cope with sharing the truth of his past in terrible detail. As Heyes studied the multi-page form, the secretary stared at him.
"Mr. Heyes," Mr. Perkins asked at last, "are you quite well? You are looking very pale."
Heyes swallowed and nodded. He felt ill, but didn't dare to admit it. "I'm fine, but I, um, I have some questions about this form. For one thing, can I have a couple of extra pages?"
"Oh, for the blank for describing past work experience?" asked the secretary.
"Yes, but that isn't the worst." The job blank was bad, it was true. He could hardly really list all the jobs he had held in the last ten years; he couldn't remember the names of all of his employers on the many odd jobs he and the Kid had taken. The addresses of all those ranches, gold mines, gambling parlors, private homes, and other much stranger places would strain even his prodigious memory. And some of the work he and the Kid had done would scarcely be appropriate for a future professor. Heyes would have to figure out some very creative but believable descriptions in a hurry as he sat here writing. Of course, when one got back earlier than the autumn of 1883, the title gang leader wasn't a very impressive one. But that wasn't the question that was causing the ex-outlaw his worst anxiety. "Here, I'll need a while and some space to cope with this one." Heyes pointed to a question that said. "Have you ever been arrested or charged with a crime? If so, please explain." The four or five blank lines on the printed form were scarcely sufficient for Heyes' needs.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Heyes, have you been arrested?" asked the secretary in all innocence. "None of our applicants have ever answered yes to that before."
"Oh, great," muttered Heyes under his breath. Out loud, he said, "Of course I have. A good fourteen, fifteen times, - or maybe sixteen, if you count being taken from custody in Montana for a second degree murder trial to custody in Wyoming for an armed robbery trial." Heyes was sweating as he ran straight into the implications of spelling out his criminal history in detail, even followed by reference to a pardon and amnesty from four governors and the President of the United States. He could only imagine that such a form, filled out honesty, would doom his chances in Utah or at any college or University.
"I beg your pardon!?" asked Mr. Perkins in astonishment at Heyes' rueful numbering of his past arrests.
Heyes pointed to the top of the form where he had filled his infamous name in with block letters. "Didn't you know?
"Goodness, no! No wonder the President sounded so serious. I, um, I would be glad to help you answer any questions, Mr. Heyes." The young secretary, his pale skin colored only by a profusion of freckles, seemed to go paler yet. "Though I've never seen that block filled in before. I guess you should explain the whole thing."
Heyes sighed heavily. "I'll need more sheets. That's fifteen years as an outlaw to explain, though it all winds up with a pardon and amnesty."
"Well, thank goodness," answered the secretary. "Do you have documents about the pardon and amnesty?"
"I do, yes."
The secretary smiled. "Then I imagine a certified copy of those documents would fill the bill on that question, don't you think?"
Heyes nodded. "Thank you Mr. Perkins. That sounds like the best idea. I've got a set of certified copies with me. If you can point me to a nearby notary and a scribe, I can have another set of certified copies made. Or I can mail a copy to you when I get home to New York."
"I'm a notary myself, Mr. Heyes, so if you can get copies made, I'll be pleased to compare them to the copies from which they are made and to certify them." He gave Heyes directions to the office of a nearby scribe who found a great deal of academic employment.
As Heyes left the University building, he still felt utterly unsure of where he stood. He was reasonably certain that the dean liked him and was impressed by him, but what President Park's skepticism would mean remained a mystery. And the employment form was a nightmare. Yet as Heyes waited impatiently for the scribe to copy his vital documents, he felt that somehow he had a chance here. It was just a gut feeling, but at this stage, when his academic and criminal records were clear to the school, human reactions were what mattered most.
While he waited for the scribe to finish his work, the ex-outlaw looked curiously around the classrooms, offices, lecture halls, and library. It all looked fairly ordinary for a small western school, although this school was much older than most other such institutions west of the Mississippi. The building was fairly new, but the institution had an older history that was communicated through some aging but well-cared-for furniture. Heyes knew that the school was over forty years old – very old for a western University in those days. There was no odor of tobacco or coffee anywhere, of course, unlike most other schools or institutions of any kind in that era. The recently augmented library showed a marked bias toward religion and agriculture, which wasn't surprising. Heyes suspected that his own private library could rival some of the more specialized areas in mathematics of these institutional holdings. If he came, he would soon set about correcting that.
Heyes finally picked up the copies of his pardon and amnesty and got the secretary to certify them. The whole process took a couple of hours. But before the weary, emotionally wrung out Heyes returned to his hotel, he found a telegraph office and sent a message home to his wife saying that he felt the interview had gone well but he had no realistic idea of his chances. He said he liked the dean and the setting. He didn't mention that he wondered if he might have a hard time in such a very upright moral setting without the least hint of even the slightest sin. He would struggle, he supposed, getting through long academic days without coffee and long years without the occasional cigar. He also did not communicate his worries over how Beth would cope with life in such an isolated territory where even her religion would be in the minority.
Heyes sat on the bed in his plainly furnished hotel room that evening, staring at an engraving on the wall across from him and wondering if he could identify the city without looking at the title. He thought it might be Paris, but he wanted to be sure. An educated man should recognize Paris with ease. Looking at the engraved title would be like cheating, so he held his finger up to block it. There was a river with bridges and some tall churches that looked old. Finally Heyes felt he was sure and went to check. It was Prague. He was glad that there wasn't anyone around to see him fooled that badly. There was certainly always more to learn.
After a good steak dinner in the hotel dining, room, the academic candidate returned to his room. He knew it wouldn't be a good idea to go looking for places to drink and gamble in a town where he hoped he might soon be employed in a position of trust. So he read his math book for a while. Then he set it aside. He thought back on his interview, trying to learn all he could for future ones. This had really been his first academic interview, not counting the "NYU ambush." Charlie had called him an old con man. The former criminal had certainly used an assortment of his old verbal skills during the interview. The feeling had been familiar, harkening back to his days working with Soapy and his ilk. But had the interview really been a con? Everything Heyes had said had been the truth. He had used his truths with care and avoided saying some things that were true. He had built an image in the dean's mind as deliberately as any builder would stack stone upon stone. But there was nothing wrong in that, was there? Wasn't the skillful use of words, facial expressions, and gestures to communicate thoughts and impressions what academics did, as much as what con men did? Was learning from dishonest experience as bad as doing some new wrong? Was it somehow cheating? He thought not; but he wasn't totally sure how a person who had always been honest would see it.
Heyes had, indeed, experienced very few job interviews before and they had been extremely brief and informal at best. He remembered one of the more formal sessions with a potential employer during his days seeking amnesty; that interview had consisted of drawing a rough map of Devil's Hole country and shooting a tin can mid-air. He had never even been paid for the job, come to think of it. It was, as a matter of fact, one of the jobs that had made Heyes nervous when he had been filling out the past employment blank on the form today, since the episode had included a whole party of people using aliases and two men had been murdered. So it was a big step from his past to the kind of interview he had been through that day and the kind of job it was for. The interview experience that day at the University of Deseret had been far more akin to his murder trial and his statements to the Columbia University board. He supposed feeling grilled like a well-done steak was to be expected. It was particularly tough to have to wait to find out the verdict from each school. But they did have other candidates and this was the sort of decision that took time. There might even be another round in some places, perhaps with a sample lecture. Heyes didn't worry about that – he could lecture to beat the band and he knew it. Just so long as his aphasia didn't kick up. It hadn't that day, though he had been painfully conscious of the pauses in his speech and the words he had to change at the last second.
Heyes wished he had Beth with him to help him to sort out his feelings and expectations. Thinking of his wife made the darker ex-outlaw jealous of Jed Curry, who had his wife with him, knew where his future lay and what he would be doing, had paychecks coming in, and even had a child on the way. For Heyes, all of those areas remained in serious doubt. Of course it was true that the Kid's current job involved getting shot at among other dangers, while Heyes was probably fairly safe. Or maybe he was safe. The people of Wyoming, as the former outlaw had told his wife, had good reason to dislike a man who had stolen so much of their property over the years. Such resentment toward a law-breaker could still get dangerous. Heyes recalled reading in the newspapers about the lynching of accused Wyoming rustler Cattle Kate and her husband only two years before. But that was a very different situation than the return of a former outlaw to interview at a University. Or he hoped it was.
In any case, Heyes hated having his and Beth's future left hanging. But the aspiring professor knew two things for certain. He was tired, and he had a long train ride ahead of him the next day. So he stripped to his underwear, turned out the lamp, and turned over on his side. He could hear a clock ticking loudly in the dark.
*The University of Deseret changed its name to the University of Utah in February 1892, but whether that change was actually already being discussed the previous year I do not know. Dean Smith is my own invention, but President Park was a very real person. I know little about his character except what I can presume from his long and distinguished history at his school. The addition of the territorial library and the school of geology and mineralogy to the University of Deseret in 1890 are both historical facts. The description of the school building's exterior is based on photographs, as is the description of the historic city where it stood. There are many engravings of city views of Prague. I don't know which would have been most likely to appear on the wall of the hotel in Salt Lake City in 1891. Prints tend to get around a lot. The story about Governor James Hogg of Texas' being shot in the back by outlaws is historical fact. The story of the death of Cattle Kate at the hands of a lynch mob is evidently true, but whether or not she rustled cattle is less clear.
