[A note from the author – this is a trigger warning. In the first scene of this chapter, Heyes faces some very disturbing questions. I have kept the wording as brief and non-explicit as possible. But it is obvious what we're talking about. If the discussion of child abuse and such stressful topics is likely to upset you, you might want to skip from about 100 paragraphs into the scene to the last 45 paragraphs of the scene. Or you might want to skip it entirely and go to the scene set off by 0s at the end.]

Heyes looked questioningly at the dean, but the man wouldn't explain his reluctance about the next part of this interview. His brown eyes avoided Heyes' gaze. He just muttered under his breath, "You didn't lie to me – don't you dare lie to Stevenson. And don't hide things. It would finish you, and not just here." Paulson darted an anxious look at the man he had just interviewed to be a junior instructor at Harvard University.

The ex-outlaw nodded and looked questions at the dean, but he didn't dare to speak aloud because they had reached their destination. In the simply furnished little conference room to which Dean Paulson led Heyes, they found a pale slender, bald man in a black suit. He was sitting at the round, dark wood conference table, reading a medical journal that he put down as they came through the door. "Dr. Stevenson, meet H. Joshua Heyes," said Paulson. "Mr. Heyes, this is Dr. Stevenson. I hope the interview goes well." He didn't sound enthusiastic about the introduction. The dean turned and left.

Stevenson stood up and studied Heyes for a moment through his thick glasses before he extended his fastidious hand. "I'm interested to meet you, Mr. Heyes," he said in a crisp, highly educated New England tenor.

"Glad to meet you," said Heyes. It was a lie. He found the doctor's handshake strangely cool. The word "interesting" seemed scarcely strong praise.

There was a moment of taut silence while the two totally different men stood and studied each other. The former outlaw immediately felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the nearly colorless eyes behind by the doctor's glasses. "Well, what sort of doctor are you and why are you interviewing a mathematics candidate?" asked Heyes with a candor he imagined the doctor rarely encountered at Harvard.

The doctor spoke in a neutral tone, colored by what Heyes read as a trace of excitement. He had encountered this attitude before from lawmen or fellow criminals who were trying to hide their reaction to meeting so famous an outlaw. "Mr. Heyes, I'm here at the request of the school's board of directors. My job is to figure out what makes you tick and whether that form of ticking might be acceptable or even desirable in an academic setting. Considering your criminal background, I hope you understand the board's caution."

Heyes wasn't going to be deterred. "I suppose I do. I guess a bunch of eastern businessmen consider me a pretty dangerous sort of animal. But they're wrong. I'm not an outlaw any longer. I haven't been in nearly eight years, as you must know. I'm a mathematician. So I like my facts complete and precise. I'll ask again – what kind of doctor are you?"

The doctor was not intimidated. "A medical doctor. That's all you need to know - for the moment. Please sit down."

The pair sat across the table from each other. The round table put a good 6 feet between them, which made things even more awkward. Heyes thought to him, "Hm. Well, since you're being coy about naming your specialty, I guess I'll be figuring you out while you're figuring me out." The former outlaw wasn't intimidated, but he was on his guard. There was only one kind of health this man was likely to be investigating in a conference room, and it didn't involve asking Heyes to cough or peering down his throat. He didn't know what kind of questions to expect from someone trying to get inside his head in this unfamiliar way.

The doctor inquired mildly, as if he asked it every day, "Are you armed, Mr. Heyes?"

The former outlaw was taken aback, but he answered calmly. "No, sir. It's normally against academic rules to carry a loaded gun on campus. So I don't ever carry at any school, no matter what the rules turn out to be. And anyhow, the gun I brought from New York was lost in the flood in Connecticut when the train derailed."

This didn't satisfy Doctor Stevenson. "I didn't ask if you were carrying a loaded firearm. I asked if you were armed. There are other kinds of weapons."

The applicant watched his interviewer's eyes closely as he asked, "Do you mean this little thing?" With stunning speed, a small razor-sharp knife appeared in Heyes' hand from somewhere in his coat.

Even the canny doctor drew back involuntarily at that, despite the two yards of table between himself and the little blade. "Do you always go armed? Even now that you have amnesty and are attempting to make an honest living?"

Heyes answered dispassionately. "Almost always. There are places where I don't – like in churches, or classrooms. My past doesn't allow me to relax about my personal safety."

Stevenson glanced down at a pad of paper on the table in front of him, on which he began to notes. "Why is that? Are you not a long way from your Western former rivals and the lawmen who used to be a threat to arrest you?"

Heyes kept in his voice level, though this wasn't the kind of questioning he had expected or wanted. "The law is not a problem any longer, as you say. But the people on the other side of the law are another matter. They do have access to trains, like anybody. And not all threats come from the West. I've needed a weapon for self-defense more than once in New York City. You could ask the police to whom I've turned in four criminals in just the past few weeks."

The doctor nodded. He was taking notes on a pad in a precise, quick hand. "So, while you attempt to make the transition to being a professor, you retain some of the habits of an outlaw. I would think you would be glad to leave it behind – to longer need to flee from the authorities. It must have been a grim life, being an armed robber. " The doctor didn't have to say the word paranoid for the former outlaw to suspect he was thinking it.

"Grim? Me? That was never my style." Heyes retorted.

The pale grey eyes looked up from the pad to meet Heyes' brown ones. "What do you mean by that? I would expect wanted criminals to take a very serious, perhaps jaundiced view of life. It might not be a healthy attitude to take into a classroom, in fact."

Heyes answered, "I agree. I try to look on the bright side whenever it's reasonable. In fact, I find humor helps with communication and it makes life better for everyone. My partner and I had a fine time, when we could, before and after we went straight. I mean, we weren't goofing around generally when we were riding for our lives or blowing safes or locked up, but at other times we did have fun. Well, actually, we did do some joking when we were in jail. It helped to keep the guards from thinking we were seriously working on escape plans."

"Although, of course, you were working toward escape at such times?" The doctor was obviously intrigued.

"Of course. We weren't going to sit around in jail. We were always thinking."

"That kind of emotional deception sounds dangerous," Doctor Stevenson observed.

"Well, we watched ourselves. But, in most situations that weren't actually life-threatening, we saw no reason not to get a kick out of life. When you're that used to having your life and liberty in that much danger, anything short of a deadly threat doesn't bother you much. Life around Kid Curry isn't dull, that's for sure, and I wouldn't call it grim either."

"Even in prison?" inquired the doctor.

The smile faded from Heyes' eyes. "That was different. We didn't have fun in prison. Or I didn't – I didn't see my partner after about the first minute, not until I was standing in that dirty warden's office talking for our lives. You know about how we took down that scheming warden, Johnson?"

"I do. Very enterprising of you, but extremely dangerous." The doctor nodded. "In fact, haven't you experienced a great many very serious situations recently?"

The subject of the interview was getting mightily puzzled. He didn't see any of this as tending to reveal any dark aspect of his personality, or having anything to do with teaching college mathematics. He admitted to his questioner, "Well, the last few months, what with Marie Homer's death, the arrest, the murder trial, the robbery trial, prison, and after we got amnesty, the hearing to get permission to graduate – none of that was a lot of laughs. And frankly, interviews are interesting, but not a lot of fun."

"But when you and your infamous partner were still on the wrong side of the law, you laughed and had fun? I would be curious to learn more about what you found to amuse you between calculating thefts and fleeing for your lives. Very interested, indeed."

Heyes started to wonder if he was dealing with another reader of dime novels. He doubted it. He felt certain that these questions were leading toward something very different. The dean's unease couldn't have been that misled, and the cool, analytical attitude of the doctor made the former outlaw uneasy in itself. He answered, "Yes, my partner and I found ways to stay sane no matter what awful stuff happened. I'd say the creative sense of humor we brought to crime would make a pretty good property for a professor. We used our sense of fun to help keep a bunch of fractious young outlaws on their toes. I learned from that. I know how to keep students' attention and to put it to good use. Between serious teaching, making a class laugh can serve a professor's purposes very well." He was determined to direct attention away from crime and toward the classroom.

But Stevenson thwarted Heyes, commenting, "Fascinating. Tell me about what you did to amuse yourselves when you were criminals."

"I thought we were here to talk about me as a professor?" The aspiring professor was a little prickly.

The doctor raised his eyebrows. "We're here to talk about you as a man. Tell me about a sense of humor among thieves."

Heyes' eyes began to sparkle as he thought back. "Well, let's see. There are so many stories. Back when we were riding with the Devil's Hole, when things got too serious, we'd lighten the gang's mood by pulling jokes on each other. It was good practice for staying alert. We had a kind of competition going to see who could loosen the other guy's saddle cinch without getting caught. There was an art to it, after a while. Me, I liked to loosen the Kids horse's cinch just a little – not so much that it would be obvious when he mounted up. It would sneak up on him."

"So you like subtlety?" The doctor stifled a smile.

"You got it. I can still picture my partner, the champion poker-face, trying to keep his dignity while his saddle slo-o-owly tilted to the side," the Kid's partner demonstrated the tilt with his hand "And there wasn't a thing he could do about it 'till it got too far and he fell in the dust. Actually, the time I'm thinking of, his horse had just peed. So it, well, it wasn't just dust. He lay there under his horse, glaring at me and cursing me up one side and down the other. I laughed 'till I about cried and even the boys chuckled some, though they didn't want to rile the Kid." Even now, Heyes smiled at the memory.

The doctor studied the interviewee. "I don't know that I'd have the bravery to get Kid Curry that mad at me. And what if your partner had had to escape in a hurry, and you had loosened his saddle?"

The former outlaw hastened to say, "Oh, we were careful about that. We wouldn't be pulling pranks when there was any serious chance we'd be on the run. And as for the Kid, of course he wouldn't really hurt me. Not me. But with how he looked at me, well I was a bit antsy about it. In fact, he kept waiting to get back at me. Day after day went by. We were riding cross country back to the hideout with our loot from a job out of the territory. Nothing happened and nothing happened. But I knew the Kid had something planned. And we were watching for posses, anyhow. I got to where I was jumping at shadows and pulling my Schofield over nothing. And the Kid, he'd just kind of smile. He knew he had me and I could only wait for him to spring whatever it was. It was no fair getting him back before he finished getting me, you see."

"Honor among thieves?" Stevenson sounded skeptical.

"Among family, actually. He's my second cousin. We grew up together."

"I see. You have my interest – you have to tell me - how did he finish his revenge?"

"Finally, we were in camp one night and he yelled that he saw somebody coming after us. So I jumped into my saddle. My horse was off at the gallop, but I wasn't going with it. The cinch failed right there – in the middle of a big patch of cactus. Man, I was pulling cactus spines out of my ass for a week. The Kid laughed with every one of them." Heyes laughed good-naturedly as he remembered it.

The doctor smiled too, but without relaxing his careful observation. The ex-outlaw was thinking this interviewer, unorthodox as he was, wasn't nearly as bad as Dean Paulson had led him to think.

Chuckling, Heyes added, "Yeah, he really got me that time. But I got him back. Yeah, the Kid's a bad man to get mad. But there are reasons a man might not want to get Hannibal Heyes mad at him, either. And I imagine my ability to keep discipline wouldn't hurt my standing with students. A little respect goes a long way."

"Depending up on what you do to earn it, and how to use it when you have it," the doctor commented.

Heyes began to feel that he couldn't say anything quite right in front of this interviewer. He tried, once more, to move the subject back to teaching. "I run a tight ship in class, like I did with my gang. There's some joking, sure, but I demand a lot on homework and I have high standards in discussion. And, of course, I make sure they know about my own work as a practical example. You might not be a mathematician, but you can ask them about my work. I'm good." The aspiring professor, watching his interviewer's eyes, added, "I wouldn't ever hurt a student, of course, but I have other ways of making people regret crossing me. Creative ways. Way that help to motivate students."

"I don't doubt it. So you have to tell me," said the doctor, still smiling, if only with his mouth and not his eyes, "how you got your partner back that time."

Heyes began to wonder where all this was going, but he had to finish the story. "I waited a while, too, letting him get tense and jumpy. Then a couple of days after we got back to the hideout at Devil's Hole, I struck." He paused for effect, watching the doctor's pale face to make sure the man was hanging on his every word. "When he went to get his share of the take out of his stash to get some poker money - it was gone."

"You stole from your own partner?" The doctor as least feigned shock.

But Heyes chuckled. "Oh, only temporarily. I made it look like pack rats had eaten the bills – left a few bits and pieces of printed paper in the saddle bag. Man, was the Kid incensed at those rats! He sent one of the men miles and miles to buy us a cat for the place so he could get those rats killed. But the, um, 'rats' stole a newspaper with the Kid's name in it, and ate it up. The rats were me, of course. And then, just when Curry was really about to tear his hair out, I handed his take and the newspaper back to him. Man, he was furious! Fumed and cussed me like he was half-brother to the devil. He counted those bills over and over, worrying that I'd kept some of the money or torn it up to look like rat leavings. Fact was, he'd forgotten exactly how much his share was by then, so he didn't know if I'd kept some for myself or not. Drove him about wild not being sure."

"Well, did you return it all?" The doctor was as curious as any boy reading a dime novel would have been.

"Of course." Heyes was visibly insulted that anyone would doubt him on this point. "As I showed him in the books I kept, he got back every penny. Well, every dollar. We didn't exactly bother with stealing pennies."

"So - you wouldn't steal from your partner – just from other people?" The doctor raised his pale eyebrows in question – and challenge.

The ex-outlaw was affronted. "Everybody out West knows we didn't ever steal from people – individuals – we stole from companies. Banks, especially, with their holdings mostly from big commercial concerns and rich people. We'd never take anything from real people. That was one reason we were so popular. Nobody liked the companies we hit any more than we did."

"So the people who have interest in companies or money in banks aren't real people?" The doctor sprang his verbal trap.

Heyes went tense for a moment. That wasn't good impression to leave with someone employed by a board of wealthy businessmen and he knew it well. He had to repair this in a hurry. "Of course they are people, like anybody else. I realize that now. But at the time, we felt pretty mad at the authorities that had allowed such awful things to happen to our families. Those big rich corporations – they seemed awfully far from poor folks like our families. We were blind to the humanity of our victims, hidden behind a veil of money. We know better now, of course. I mean, my partner's a sheriff now. Defending businesses is a big part of his job. He's a businessman himself – he and his wife run a hotel. And the kind of math I do serves businesses like mines, railroads, engineering firms, even the military – the very kinds of organizations I despised when I was young, poor, and ignorant. Never fear – I won't teach anybody to disrespect the rights of others. Not now." Heyes laid it on as thick as he could, hiding his continuing resentment toward the powerful rich who allowed so much ignorance and poverty to continue. An interview was no place for excessive honesty.

"I see." The doctor was still taking notes and he apparently swallowed those last lines. Yet Heyes felt a shiver go down his spine. This interviewer was clever. He had gotten the former outlaw to relax and laugh and then to admit to his own past prejudices in a way that had felt as if Heyes was in charge until the last second. Yes, the guy was good, the former conman thought to himself.

And sure enough, the doctor didn't leave it there. "Is it not true that you currently work for one of those brutal clothing factories in New York they term sweat shops? Is that not a system of legal theft from the workers?"

Heyes nodded seriously. "Sure it is. I know that in detail. After all, I do the books and I do them honestly. I know how much work those piece laborers do – long hours, bad working conditions, bad pay, no leave. Where I used to live on Hester Street; that kind of piece work went on in the rooms all around me. I learned Yiddish so I could talk with those guys. Of course we talked about conditions. I know precisely how little they're paid. And how little I'm paid, for that matter. My office space there isn't exactly comfortable in the summer, but it's better than what the fabric cutters and the sewers put up with. But that's how it is in this world. Especially in the New York slums with the new immigrants fighting to make it. I'm fighting to make it, myself. If I felt I was too good to work for Levy, he'd just get someone else. And without him, or somebody like hi, I'd have no income at all while I'm in search of academic work. The piece-workers want better, and most of them will get it in time. They know that and so does Levy. I want better, too, or I wouldn't be here.

And no, you don't have to ask, I wouldn't steal from Levy for anything. He runs a sweat shop, but he's as decent a guy as he can manage to be and still make some money. He was a piece worker himself, before. And besides, we can't do some kind of moral test on people before we ask if they're people- American citizens, worth having rights and being treated honestly. If you did that, plenty of folks would decide that I don't deserve rights. Plenty! Think of all the reasons I've given them. Business men or private individuals, good or bad, rich or poor, we all have exactly equal rights under the law. Or at least, if we aren't convicted felons without a pardon or amnesty, we do. Thank goodness – it's the only system that's anything close to fair."

The doctor prodded, "But does it really come out that way in real life? Equal? Fair?"

Heyes gave a short laugh, "Ha! No, of course it doesn't. This is real life. Like they say, some people are more equal than others. Especially when they can afford to pay good lawyers, or pay off the police, or buy politicians. But two wrongs don't make a right. Robin Hood isn't real. Theft isn't some sort of social experiment to redistribute wealth. It's just greed on the loose. Greed backed up by violence. Theft is the strong and clever oppressing the weak and stupid. It's not too different from the rich oppressing the poor. I ought to know. I've been on both sides of both of those equations."

Now the doctor was taken aback himself. "You have? I suppose you were wealthy for a time when you were stealing, and certainly you were clever and strong. But were you ever really weak or stupid?"

"Sure I was. You don't think I got stuff stolen from me when I was a boy in the home for waywards? And when I was a young, poor thief just learning the business? Guys exploited my weaknesses all the time until I learned to watch myself. Even now, I have to watch myself and my wife; we live in a pretty rugged neighborhood. An old colleague of mine attacked my wife the night before we were married, as a matter of fact. That accounts for two of the criminals I've turned in. My partner and I got there just in time. And remember how my family got killed – they took all we had while they were shooting my folks and my brother and sister." Heyes felt a trickled of sweat down his back. "Can we please talk about teaching or mathematics for a little while?"

Doctor Stevenson obliged – in a way. "I understand that you used to use mathematics as part of your criminal enterprises. Please tell me about that. Weren't you what they call a 'box man?' A safe cracker?"

Heyes didn't like to see the interview stay so focused on his criminal past, but at least this part of it might shed a positive light on his current work and future promise. "That's right – I used mathematics to figure up a lot of technical things about safe cracking. That would include the amount of time that might be needed to open a lock by manipulating the tumblers, or how much dynamite would be needed to blow a safe, or a bridge, or a window or door. And geometry to help me know how to deflect the force. And then there was my famous – or famous in the field – way of blowing up a safe from the inside using a suction pump and nitroglycerine. That required what was, for me then, a complex series of equations. I figured up the interior volume of the safe, minus the mass of the contents, plus the volume of the tubing, divided that by how much air could be pumped out in a single stroke by the air pump we used, figuring in air leakage on each pump stroke, and then calculating the time for the pump strokes needed to create a total vacuum. I even calculated how much the pumping would slow down as the man on the pump – my partner – got tired. As I said, even when I was an outlaw, there's a formula for everything. Or everything one can figure with any degree of certainty, anyhow. It's a good lesson to teach young people getting a grasp on math and why they should care about it.

I understand far more complex uses of equations now, of course, and I'm eager to teach them. But they still relate back to real life, if they are to have any meaning. It's just a matter of what aspects of real life they describe. And making that connection clear to students is vital." Heyes was keen to get this interview back to teaching – his future, not his past.

"I see." The doctor was still taking notes. "Are those all the ways you used mathematics before you, as you say, went straight?"

Heyes shook his head. "Far from it. I was a lot more than the box man for the Devil's Hole Gang. I was, as I'm sure you know, the gang leader for more than six years." As usual, when the connotation was negative, Heyes didn't admit to the Kid's status as co-leader. "I split the takes and figured up logistical details for job plans, from set up and access to get-away. My plans were known for being complex and demanding. But they worked because the math was right, I communicated all the plan details clearly to the men, and my partner and I picked the right men for the right jobs. That applies to teaching as well, of course – communicating clearly and understanding people's abilities are both vital skills. That's not to say that everything always went perfectly with our gang. It certainly didn't. But we learned from our mistakes. In the end, we were more successful than any gang ever had been – figured by monetary take."

"I see. And you're proud of that?" The doctor met Heyes' dark eyes with his own pale ones.

Now Heyes, having run into this question before, was ready to deflect the negative aspect of his past. "I am proud that I did good math before I had any real training. I'm also proud of how well I could teach ignorant men to use math and understand how it applied. But I'm not proud of the damage we caused to honest people and businesses. I mean, not only the specific concerns whose money was on the trains and in the banks we robbed, but the larger discouragement to business in general. I've had enough training in finance at Columbia University to realize that we must have hurt the economy of Wyoming in a pretty serious way. And that would have had an impact on a lot of innocent people not connected in any official way with the businesses we struck. I hope that effect is long over, since we've been out of the business and the territory – now state - for so many years. But I can see how formulas could be used to calculate the impact, if you had enough general information."

"I imagine you must be correct, but I'm not an economist. And neither are you. How long were you a criminal before you decided to leave that profession?" Stevenson's voice was crisp.

Heyes was getting annoyed. He allowed this to show. "Enough is enough, Doctor. I'm not here to talk about my criminal history; I can understand some questions in that line, but I'm really here to talk about being a professor."

"You were a criminal for more than a decade before you decided you wanted to be a professor. I want to understand your past and its impact on your behavior now," said Stevenson coldly. "And that's what I must do, or you have no chance of being hired." The doctor wasn't smiling now.

Heyes cleared his throat. This wasn't his ideal interview, but he would cope. "I'm not trying to be uncooperative, but it makes me uncomfortable. My criminal activity is far in the past. I was born into an upright family of farmers who raised me to be honest. My parents don't bear any blame – I want that clear. My crimes were my own fault and nobody else's. I have living family members who deserve no blame at all for my past misdeeds."

"Were you in trouble before your family was killed?" asked the doctor.

"Yes, sure. I was a handful as a boy," confessed Heyes. "I guess I got bored easily on a Kansas dirt farm. I did better in school than at farm work. When I got bored, I went and found trouble to liven things up."

The doctor added to his notes. "I see. Now, back to how long you were a criminal before you stopped stealing."

Heyes sighed. His questioner was implacable. "Do you want to know when I joined a criminal gang or when I started stealing?" The aspiring professor was clearly signaling that if his interviewer liked his information exact and analytical, the subject of the interview had a mind that worked that way as well.

"Tell me about both." Stevenson continued to take notes in a neat hand.

"Very well. I started stealing when I was nine, after my parents and my brother and sister were killed and our house and barn were burned. If there was another way to keep me and my little cousin from starving to death, I couldn't figure it out at the time." There was an edge of bitterness to Heyes' voice.

The doctor looked up and gazed keenly at the subject of the interview. "So you weren't alone in stealing even at that time?"

"No, my partner – my cousin, Jedediah Curry, was with me even then. He was only seven. His family was killed, too. He has fast hands, as the world knows. Even as a little boy he learned quickly how to make use of them. My hands aren't too slow, either."

"I see," said Stevenson, studying the man opposite him with raised eyebrows and an analytical gaze. "And did you suffer for having turned to crime?"

Heyes felt increasingly like a fly in the sights of a toad. "Yes, naturally. Folks around there were starving – they missed any little scraps we got. And Federal troops chased us – the War Between the States was going at the time, of course. And then we got put in a home for waywards."

"What marked you and your cousin as waywards deserving to be in such a place, Mr. Heyes?"

Heyes tried to look back without bitterness, to see the time from a distance. "We were stealing food and money, sleeping in other people's barns. That was how we made a living. But then again, we took a guy's dog once, before he ran away. We broke plenty of windows, tipped over outhouses, and things like that."

"Why do you think you broke windows and were so destructive? It could not have helped you to, as you put it, make a living."

"We were angry. And we didn't have anybody to tell us any better." It wasn't possible to keep bitterness out of the violently orphaned man's voice.

"Why were you angry?"

To Heyes this seemed a deliberately cruel question, but he tried not to lose his temper. "Why the h . . . why do you think? Our parents and brothers and sisters had been murdered, the raiders and soldiers were chasing us. We had no place to go and nothing to eat. The world had done us so many bad turns, we didn't hardly know what to do. I'd even been shot. A nine-year-old kid – shot!"

Stevenson didn't ask about the shooting, to Heyes surprise. Rather, he asked about another kind of pain. "You sound angry now. Do my questions bother you?"

"Yeah. It was a bad time. A long time ago, but it was a real bad time."

"A very bad time," corrected the doctor.

Heyes could hardly believe this Harvard doctor was prodding him and then correcting his grammar so insultingly during an academic interview. The applicant could hardly contain his fury, but he took a deep breath and silently counted to ten as his mother had taught him when he was a boy.

"Did you drink alcohol as a boy, Mr. Heyes?"

The sudden change of topic was like a slap in the face - or was it really a change? The aspiring professor tried to get go back to speaking as an academic applicant rather than a man under all-out emotional attack. All of these questions were important for understanding his character and he knew it. He knew it far too well. "Yeah - yes. When my family was killed the border thugs shot me, as I said. The K . . . my cousin brought me whiskey to help with the pain."

"You didn't stop drinking when the physical pain went away, did you?" The doctor spoke without looking up from his notes and without the least question in his voice.

"No." The word was as harsh as a cough, and far more painful.

Even as the questioning became more and more brutally personal, the doctor's manner was detached and scientific. "Your psychological pain must have been almost unbearable, after all the losses you had suffered. I am assuming you stole liquor or money to buy it." This was not a question – just a statement that the subject of the interview could not honestly deny.

"Yeah." Heyes strove not to reveal the pain and fear this question caused him, coming out of the blue. He had hoped these problems were long behind him. Suddenly, the past loomed up threateningly close.

"Your drinking was a problem for you and your cousin?" There was a hint of question here. It hadn't been hard for Stevenson to guess that a boy in Heyes' terrible situation would want to drink, once he had tasted liquor, but how much of a problem it became in this specific instance could not be something an eastern doctor could research easily. So this seemed likely to be a guess. But it was a canny one.

Again, the ex-out battled to regain self-control. "How did you . . . ? Yeah. Yes." Many times as he had been questioned in his life, especially recently, no one had ever put the needle to such sensitive places with such terrible precision. And all this talk about his partner made Heyes very nervous. He didn't want to cause his cousin any trouble.

"Did Mr. Curry drink, too?"

"Yes, but not like I did in those days." Heyes was willing to harm his own reputation if it might deflect harm from Jed Curry.

The doctor fixed his subject with a penetrating gaze. "Do you have difficulty, as it is commonly put, holding your liquor?"

"What the hell business of yours is that, Stevenson?" Now Heyes couldn't restrain his anger any longer. This probe, moving from past to present tense, had struck too sensitive a nerve. He knew that to curse during a college interview was unprofessional, but he was being pushed past caring. His eyes flared with fury. He felt his right hand straying involuntarily to where there had, for so long, been a gun at his hip.

"Answer the question, Mr. Heyes."

Heyes voice shook with barely suppressed emotion. "It's none of your business. It's personal. I see it as improper for you to ask such personal questions of me."

The doctor remained detached, looking down to take notes. "I think that answers me clearly enough. Yes, you have a hard time dealing responsibly with liquor."

Heyes had a good answer for this one, however. "I deal with it by not drinking it. I have drunk only beer and wine since very shortly after my partner and I began trying for amnesty. I think that's responsible."

The doctor looked up with evident surprise. "I agree with you, Mr. Heyes. That certainly helps to explain why you have been able to do so well in your recent academic career. I sincerely hope that you are able to continue having such admirable self-control."

Something about the way the doctor said it implied, Heyes, felt, that he might not be able to stay on the wagon much longer under the pressures he was currently experiencing. The applicant wondered - what did this man know and how did he know it? Heyes had avoided hard liquor for over seven years. It had been hard, but with the help of his partner, he had managed it. Why would he waver now?

Heyes remarked sarcastically, "Well, I'm glad you find something admirable about me. Mostly, you seem to find me beneath contempt."

"Not at all, Mr. Heyes. You should not inflict your own value judgements on me. If anyone has doubts about you, it must be yourself. I merely ask and observe."

Heyes' eyes smoldered angrily.

"And to go back to the other half of my original question, when did you join a criminal gang?"

Heyes again tried to speak dispassionately. "In 1868. When the Kid and I escaped from the home for waywards for the last time, we were starving and a gang in the Texas panhandle fed us. They started to teach us the business."

"The business. Interesting way to describe theft." There was that cool, neutral adjective again. "How old were you, Mr. Heyes?"

"I was fifteen years old."

"Wasn't it thirst as much as hunger that drove you to steal?" The words seemed so dispassionate.

"If you know the answers, why do you keep asking the damn questions?" Heyes growled.

The doctor seemed to ignore his subject's anger at him. His questions were far more than personal enough to excuse it. "Were you abused while you were in the home for waywards, Mr. Heyes?"

Heyes paused for a moment. He had had to face this direction of questioning at the hearing about his graduation from Columbia, but his lawyer had stopped it. There was no one to stop it now. No one but Heyes himself. "Yeah, they were rough with us. They beat us and worked us real hard."

"Very hard. You lose control when you're angry or upset, Mr. Heyes."

"I'm human. You started out seeming pretty human, but it turns out that you're a damn machine. Either talk math and teaching or I'm done talking to you." Heyes knew that he was allowing these terrible questions to shake him. He found it impossible to stay controlled and professional as his insides were turned out like a criminal's pockets in jail.

"If you want to work here, you will answer my questions. Do you want to work for Harvard?"

Heyes nodded, too furious for the moment to risk words.

"Very well. I will ask you again. Were you abused in the home for waywards, Mr. Heyes? And was your cousin abused?"

At the mention of his partner in this context, Heyes blushed nearly purple and started to his feet. "That's enough, Stevenson. That's more than enough. I know what you are. You're a damn psychologist. And let me guess at your specialty."

The doctor spoke before his subject could finish. "I'm a criminal psychologist, Mr. Heyes."

The former robber was furious. The words spilled out of him. "I knew it. You aren't here to talk with me about being a professor here. You're here to study me like a bug under a microscope. Well, I didn't come here to be studied. I came to talk about working for Harvard. If this school doesn't want to pay me to teach, I'm out of here. Now. And I'll make sure my many friends in the field, both in the United States and abroad, know about how poorly I've been treated here."

The doctor, however, remained cool. "You don't have to create the impression of control by citing your connections with foreign scholars, Mr. Heyes. I respect your work in your own field. I don't question that – nor am I qualified to do so. But I am fascinated to learn how a notorious felon came to want to be a professor and what it means for the kind of person you are now. And I must learn what kind of teacher you would make for impressionable young people. It is important that I understand that as fully as possible before I can possibly allow you to be hired. I really am on the faculty interview committee. Or I am in your case. We like to be careful of hiring former criminals. I'm just trying to make sure the word 'former' really applies to you."

Once again, Heyes tried to rein himself in. "It does. I'm sorry I lost my temper. This is hardly the first time I've been questioned like this and it's starting to get to me."

"Using my own skills to prod you into a response is just a tool of my trade." Stevenson was looking down at his notes again.

"An experiment on me?"

The doctor looked up. "Yes."

"And it worked." Heyes had no question in his voice. He knew the answer.

"It did. I'm glad you didn't try to strike me or do anything else illegal. You were angry, and I suppose you still are, but you have remained rational. You momentarily lost control of your grammar and clean language, but not very badly. And you didn't become violent. You reached for a gun that isn't there, but you wouldn't have drawn it. You know what is appropriate within an interview, from me as well as from yourself. Only after I crossed the line did you do so."

"So I passed the test?"

"So far, yes. This interview isn't over. Is it really true that you have not committed a felony in the past eight years?"

Heyes took a deep breath. "It won't be a full eight years until October. And we, uh, we broke jail a couple of times after we started going for amnesty. We weren't going to give up our liberty and spend our lives in jail on the whim of some local sheriff when a governor kept saying we could go free if we stopped stealing. And we did stop stealing. There were a few things – like I was forced to open a bank safe when my partner was held hostage and threatened with murder – but we turned in the take and the robbers. That was at the risk of our freedom and our lives, by the way. And, well, there were a few other, um, discrepancies in those first two years. The law knows about all of them." Heyes was fibbing a little here – he was far from certain that the law had any idea of some of the things he and his partner had done during their early days going for amnesty.

"So, you didn't really go straight, completely until after you had been shot in the head and suffered severe aphasia."

The mention of aphasia made Heyes start to sweat again. "Yeah, I guess that's right."

"What was it like to have aphasia?"

Heyes wasn't sure whether the doctor was really curious, or whether he just liked to probe into every possible trauma in his subject's past. He strongly suspected the latter. Heyes took a deep breath and paused to get his thoughts as much into order as well as he could on this very sensitive subject. "I can't tell you. Really, I can't. There aren't words. That's what it's like. No words and no idea of what words are. The world seemed to be totally crazy. I couldn't read or write or talk or understand. I didn't feel human. I'm told I tried to kill myself. I don't remember that. I don't remember a lot of it – thank God. I know it was awful. It changed me."

For the first time, some compassion colored Stevenson's voice. "I see that it did. Your distress is easy to understand. Humanity is defined by language, perhaps more than any other property. Did you try to hurt anyone else while you were in that vulnerable state?"

The former outlaw shook his head. "No, not that I know of. Well, after I got understanding back but still couldn't talk, I pointed my gun at one guy who called me a dummy. But I didn't pull the trigger and I wasn't going to. Other than that, no one has ever told me that I threatened anyone and I don't remember doing so. I got angry, but violence wasn't a way out and I knew it. There was a sheriff watching me very carefully – Sheriff Wilde, in Louisville. He knew who I was. He never had cause to complain. Like I say, I don't really remember it all very well. It's very fuzzy in my memory and the earliest days, when I couldn't understand, are nearly a blank."

"That is logical. Language helps us to classify our memories."

"Yes," said Heyes. He was starting to feel that the Doctor sitting across from him, despite his analytical manner, actually grasped some of what the former outlaw had suffered perhaps better than anyone with whom Heyes had ever spoken. Perhaps better even than Beth.

"So you have not committed a felony since the day you were shot in the head?"

Heyes was relieved to be able to say, "No. I killed a man, as you must know, but it was in self-defense. I've picked a few locks, but not to steal anything. One time I did that was to release my partner when he was illegally detained. Now and then I pick a lock just to save time, or once to let a child out of closet he locked himself in." Heyes hoped his total honesty in this direction would help his cause more than it hurt him, but he wasn't at all sure.

"Or to keep your hand in? You have considerable gifts, I understand – both mental and physical. Is it difficult for you to keep from using your talents to break the law?" Heyes suspected this was an honest question – the doctor really didn't already know the answer.

Beginning with just the right word, Heyes responded, "Honestly, no, it isn't. The threat of what would happen to my life and my partner's life and to our wives, is so out of proportion to any benefits that it just doesn't make sense. If I would steal a hundred dollars, say, from a store, the money wouldn't last. But it would create a significant chance that I could be in prison for the rest of my life. It would be horrible for my wife and for my partners and my friends. And that kind of confinement, without foreseeable end, would kill me, Dr. Stevenson. I know that now. I couldn't survive even a decent prison for long, much less an abusive one like where we spent those three days. So it's just not worth the risk, to me, much less to the people I care about. I understand mathematical probability very well, so I can calculate the odds of the total disaster that stealing or conning would bring about. Even a small percentage chance of catastrophe isn't worth it. I have to be trusted. I have to be trust worthy. Otherwise I have no future."

"Very true. So you exercise self-control. Admirable. But crime is still a temptation. You miss the thrill." Again, this was a statement by the doctor rather than a question.

"Yes, I do miss it. But I can get the same kind of thrill perfectly legally from winning at poker or black jack. I like to win."

"Who doesn't? Do you cheat at cards? Or did you?"

The former outlaw answered honestly, "No. Or not usually, then. I never cheat now. I mean, I know how it's done and I can do it with the best of them, but mostly that's to guard against being cheated myself. I've made my living at times managing a saloon floor – and that includes stopping card sharps - cheaters, that is. Cheating at cards out West can get you killed. So I avoided doing it. The risk was far too great. And besides, when I'm playing for enjoyment, cheating would take all the fun out of it. And well . . ."

"You don't have to cheat to have a very good chance of winning."

"That's right. A good understanding of probability, the ability to do complex calculations in my head, and the ability to remember cards were all very helpful to me. And I have a lot of experience reading men's faces and their body language." Reciting his own many impressive skills helped to give the interview's subject more confidence.

"Do you think that you're a genius?"

Heyes sighed, but he wasn't defeated by the apparent sudden change of direction. He recognized this as one of Dr. Stevenson's tactics. "I'm getting sick of the question, to tell you the truth. As many times as it's been asked and as I've heard other people say that I am, I'm starting to be convinced. I'm able to compete academically with a lot of people who have much, much better academic backgrounds than my own. I have to work at it, but still, I can beat them."

"Another way of winning?" The doctor suggested.

Heyes nodded. "Yes. And not an unusual one, in my field. Being around academia as much as I have been now, I realize that there are a lot more geniuses out there than most people know about. It's just that most of them don't get the publicity that I've gotten."

"Do you miss the publicity?" The doctor pronounced the final word with a hint of distaste.

"No. I haven't gotten a chance to miss it. I've been in the papers more than you may realize, even recently." The famous former outlaw spoke with distaste of his own.

"No, I think I've kept up pretty well."

"Oh? Are you a fan?" Heyes pounced on this rare opportunity to embarrass the doctor who was causing him such agony.

The doctor was, indeed, offended. "I would not use that vulgar expression of myself, but I have long found you professionally intriguing. I must tell you that I would be very interested to know how much that has been published about you is true and how much isn't."

Heyes said, "A whole lot isn't true. But then again, a lot of what I've done has never been published, to my knowledge. That would include some good things my partner and I have done, by the way. And I can't sort it all out because I've never read most of it."

"Oh? You haven't read the dime novels or the larger book?" Again, the aspiring professor had managed to slightly surprise his interviewer.

"No. I haven't read a word of it. I don't think I could stand it," Heyes added.

"For not being accurate?" asked Stevenson.

"Yes. Despite what you goaded me into, I like things to be correct - precise. Errors get under my skin."

The doctor nodded. "I can see that. But isn't that a problem for a teacher? Your students are bound to make errors."

Heyes was glad to set his interviewer straight on a subject about which he was passionate. "No, that's different. Student errors give me opportunities for teaching. I enjoy making use of student errors – dealing with them in a helpful way. I love to see students go from not understanding to understanding. When a student has had trouble with a subject, I will often ask him to teach the class what he just learned. It reinforces the lesson and gives them confidence in their new skills. People have helped me in the same way, of course. So I feel good when I can pass along the favor. I have been very, very fortunate in my teachers, since I was shot. They've turned my life around. If I can possibly do the same for others, even for just one person, it would be worth all the trouble my professional career has cost."

The doctor nodded again. "Yes, you have been fortunate. I understand that you married your tutor. Isn't that rather unprofessional?"

Heyes smiled. Here, for once, the doctor plainly had his facts wrong. "No. I didn't even ask her out until I had completed my classes with her and left the clinic permanently."

"So you waited until there was no ethical question?" There was an edge of sarcasm to the question.

"Yes."

"And what would attract an outlaw to an upright teacher?"

Heyes thought back. "I guess I spent so much time with her when we were working together that I didn't realize how much I would miss her when we were parted. When I had started at Columbia and wasn't at the clinic any longer, I got just plain lonesome for Elizabeth. We're happier when we're together. We still teach each other all the time. She knows a lot that's new to me and I enjoy learning from her. And she's decent enough to enjoy learning from me."

A slight smile crossed the doctor's face. "I'm glad to hear it. She sounds like a good match for you."

"She is." Finally, Heyes himself had good cause to smile.

"Do you play darts?"

The former outlaw had come to expect these abrupt changes of topic, but he was also realizing that they were part of a calculated plan. As a master planner himself, he could admire that control and calculation, even as it was used against him. He was interested, and anxious, to find out where this change of direction would lead and to see if he could exercise any control over it. "No."

"Bowling?"

"No."

"Billiards?"

"I just learned a few days ago, in Texas."

"Were you good at it?"

"I cleared the table my first full game." Heyes couldn't help sounding pleased by that, especially as he saw the doctor taking it down on his pad.

"You should be good at the game. You are a specialist in angles and have superb physical coordination."

"Yes, I am and I do." Heyes tensed. Whenever the doctor got him onto an enjoyable topic, something bad was bound to follow.

"How old were you when were you first abused? Where was it?"

Heyes had been right, but nothing could make this easy. "I told you they were rough on us at the home for waywards."

"That's not what I meant and you know it. I don't mean simple beatings or starving. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know." Heyes' voice was suddenly rough and angry again. He didn't dare to not answer, or even to hesitate too long for fear it would be interpreted in the worst way possible.

"You were abused in the home for waywards."

"Yeah."

"Unfortunately, for anyone who has been a helpless child with an effective adult advocate, the situation is horribly common. In residential schools, orphanages, jails." Even Stevenson, the detached professional, knew enough to give his subject a moment to gather himself. Yet, after a minute, he asked another question that Heyes felt was the most important of the entire interview. "Do you ever want to abuse anyone yourself?"

"No." There was no hesitation in Heyes' answer. Nor did Stephen dispute it. And the word "want" was vital here – the doctor wasn't asking only about physical facts.

"Then how did you cope with the abuse?"

There was a pause. Heyes said. "I don't understand the question."

Now it was the doctor who was thrown. "After this had happened, and when you knew it might continue, how did you go on?"

"I don't understand. Go on doing what?"

"Living."

Heyes paused, considering, remembering what he had tried so hard, and usually successfully, to forget. "I couldn't give up. I had Jed depending on me. And I wasn't going to let those bastards get the better of me. We ran away from the home a bunch of times – trying to get away. To get out. To take control."

Heyes paused. He looked into the doctor's pale eyes. At length he asked his own question, "Have you ever been . . . treated like that, Doctor?"

"No. I've never committed a felony, either."

"Really? So you link the two?" Heyes sounded as if he was really interested in the answer – in trying, at long last, to understand himself better.

The doctor spoke anxiously, advancing a theory, "Don't you link what you suffered with what you did later?"

"Yeah, I guess I do. I hope I do. I hope I wasn't born an inherent criminal." The former outlaw spoke almost to himself, in search of his own answers.

The doctor asked, with a soft tone he had not used previously. "And do you think that a history of loss and suffering is also why your cousin turned to crime?"

Heyes hardly knew what to say that might save his cousin from being brought into this. "I . . . I don't know. I guess so. Or imitating me, the older one. I tried to get him to stay straight. I tried to protect him, when I went bad."

"Why did you think you could protect a boy only slightly younger than you were, when you couldn't protect yourself?"

Heyes spoke with anger at his past self. "I was older. He was my responsibility. I tried. I should have kept him straight."

"Mr. Heyes, you are only human. You were put in an impossible situation. Rationally, you couldn't have protected your cousin, could you?" Now the doctor's empathy was plain.

But Heyes was in too much pain to notice the change of Stevenson's attitude. "I should have kept him clear. But when I was doing so well at thieving, and getting in the papers, he wasn't going to miss it. I should have done more to keep him away from me."

"You did your best. You were angry?" Now the doctor seemed almost trying to help Heyes rather than merely to question him.

The former outlaw looked at the doctor in surprise. "Yeah, I was. Real angry. . Very angry. For a long, long time. For the fifteen years I was a criminal. I already told you that."

Stevenson's voice showed that he felt for his subject. "You were angry about all the different abuses? And the losses? And the hunger?"

"Yes, yes, and yes." Heyes' voice was hardly about a whisper.

"And yet, you've never murdered. You've never wanted to?"

This was an important subject – the former outlaw was glad to elaborate, to make all this clear. "I've wanted to kill some people – I felt I had good reason. But I knew it was wrong. I couldn't do that to other people, like they did to the people I loved. I couldn't stand the thought of knowing I'd caused that kind of suffering to men, and to their families. I couldn't stand to be hated the way I hated the men who killed our families. I never killed - even in self-defense until that one day when I was getting the Kid out of that place they had him tied up. I hope to goodness I never have to do it again. It's a terrible thing to do." Heyes thought of Deborah's question the day before – about how refusing to kill in self-defense had marked him. "I saw a lot of murders, but I never did it myself."

"Never? Really?"

Suddenly, Heyes was sweating again. He didn't have to tell this man about the time he had goaded his partner into killing. He didn't have to. He was a superb liar. He could cover it up. A line of sweat was running down his forehead and into his brown eyes. He kept blinking involuntarily.

"Never?" The pale eyes seemed to probe Heyes' most secret heart. He felt the lie showing like blood leaking from a wound he wanted to keep secret from someone tracking him.

Heyes answered with growing vehemence. "Never. But I . . . people have died because of me. Because I didn't stop it. And because I . . . I manipulated someone into doing something that turned out to be deadly. And I won't ever let it happen again. Never. That's why I had to leave crime and criminals behind forever. I can't stand it. After our parents were killed, and after what I saw when we were stealing - I couldn't ever be like that. It makes me sick. I can't do it. I won't do it."

Stevenson reached across the table toward the subject of his questions. "Calm down, Mr. Heyes. No one wants you to kill. No one want you to murder. You are quite correct - it is wrong."

The former outlaw was flustered. He struggled to get himself back together. "I know that. Of course, I know that. I'm sorry. It's a sore subject. In fact, you've got a real instinct for my sore subjects."

The doctor was not apologetic, but he factually stated. "It's my job. I have to know what you reveal under pressure. We have to know. I'm glad you haven't raised a hand against me."

"I wouldn't ever do that. I'm not a violent man." Heyes' brown eyes were angry.

"You could be." The doctor observed calmly.

"No. You're wrong. Not me. Never." Again, Heyes had to gather himself. How could mere words be so hard to endure?

"Other men in your old line of work judge others by how brutal they can be, don't they?"

Heyes was surprised to encounter such understanding in this easterner. "Yeah. Those guys despised me and the Kid. We were proud of that."

"You looked down on the brutal criminals? You were better than they were?"

The former outlaw did not hide his pride. "Yes. We did look way down on them. We were much better and we still are. I hope I'll be a good professor. I know the Kid makes a really fine sheriff."

"I don't doubt it. If he's as skilled as they say, and if he is a decent man like you are, he would be excellent at the job." Heyes looked up in surprise. The doctor had given him a complement. Stevenson went on, "It must be hard for him, though, to arrest former associates."

"Yes. He's up to it. Would you like to meet him?" Heyes startled himself by volunteering this.

The doctor looked up. "I would, but I don't picture myself getting the opportunity."

"You don't think he'd come visit me if I worked here? Or you don't think there's any chance that Harvard will ever hire me?"

Now the doctor was a little flustered himself. "That's not what I said. The decision isn't mine. I'm here to find out what problems you might bring with you to the classroom and office. And what good points. So I must ask, why did you decide you wanted to teach college? It seems a long way from your previous experience."

This was a subject on which the aspiring professor was well prepared. "I've always taught, actually. I taught the Kid a lot – to shoot, I tutored him on school subjects. And I taught a lot of our gang members to read, to write, to do simple math, to read maps and charts – the skills I needed them to have. And, since I have needed so much help myself, after I got shot in the head, I wanted to be able to do that kind of helping myself. Charlie Homer, my advisor at Columbia, is the kind of man I admire. I want to be able to teach and help people as he's helped me."

"I can see that. If you can't lead a gang, you can be the leader in a classroom. Being a helper puts you in a position of power, if a different kind of power. And a good teacher is undeniably a leader, a person of importance. So being a teacher puts you back on top. Is that what you're after?" Stevenson clearly felt he had discovered something.

Heyes nodded. "That's at least part of it. You're right – I like to be in charge. I like to have power. Is that wrong? And if I can use my power to help, like the people who have taught and helped me, what's wrong with that? Teaching well helps give me back my self-respect after I lost a lot of it. Being able to lecture, to teach, to lead, is . . . I don't know how to put it."

"Healing? Empowering?" The doctor volunteered.

Heyes thought for a second. "Yes. That's a good way to put it. It makes me feel better. It makes me proud. I can hold up my head again. And I enjoy being with a bunch of interesting young guys, hearing their ideas, helping them forward."

Stevenson asked, gently, "So, do you feel that you are healed?"

The former outlaw answered thoughtfully, "I don't know. The past isn't always on my mind these days like it was once. Unless someone like you makes me think about it."

The doctor said, "I think back to your talking about your sense of humor, the jokes between your partner and yourself. And just the joy you got out of winning out over the law and the rich companies you stole from. Perhaps you were also distracting yourself from your pain?"

Heyes felt his way as he spoke. "I guess so. What's wrong with enjoying life? Just because you've been hurt doesn't mean that pain is all there is. I enjoy beauty – art, music, beautiful places out West. I like good company and a good joke. I've got a wonderful wife and some fine friends, now. There's a lot that's good in my life. And I like sharing the good stuff – the ideas – the excitement I find in math. To me, it plays out like a story. I get to be the author. I enjoy that. And it's a real thrill when I can think of something new that people in my field appreciate. It was great to publish that article and have mathematicians be impressed, learn from it. If my work could save lives, that would be the best." By the end of this little speech, Heyes hoped he had taken his questioner back where he wanted him – back to academics and away from stealing.

Heyes was wrong, again. "But you also have a lot of responsibility you didn't have when you were stealing?"

The former outlaw nodded. "Well, yes. But then again, when I was stealing, I had a gang depending on me. And the law chasing me, and bounty hunters which is something else again. Low beasts, bounty hunters are. Now, my life is a lot better when I'm taking care of a family. But it is a lot of worry, that's true. I really need a good job. This one or another one – I need something I can depend on. So my family can depend on me."

"Yes, you do need a job. It is imperative," observed the doctor.

Heyes was glad to feel that this eternal torment of questions might be nearing its end. "Yes. Getting good work preys on my mind, but that's no news to you. So, have I answered your questions? Do you know what the board wanted you to find out?"

"Yes, I think so. They had a lot of questions. But, in most of all, they asked me to answer a particular question."

"What question?" Heyes took what he knew was verbal bait.

The doctor answered with every appearance of complete openness. "The board asked me to determine whether you are trustworthy, whether you might be danger any way. And most of all, whether you were a psychopath. Are you familiar with the term?"

"No." Heyes only knew it didn't sound good.

"That's not surprising. It's a very new term, even to specialists in the field. It means a person who is criminally insane - a person with a greatly reduced ability to empathize with others and to care about the impact of his actions. A person who doesn't feel guilt." Absurdly, the doctor laughed like donkey braying.

"What's so funny?"

The doctor was serious now. "That anyone would seriously think you, Hannibal Joshua Heyes, were a psychopath. I read your application letter and I heard about your work in the flood at Black Rock. Just from that, without even meeting you, assuming you really wrote the letter and really did what we heard about, it is perfectly obvious that you are about the farthest thing possible from a psychopath. And meeting you makes it far more obvious. It's clear that you care very much about your impact on other people. You have your troubles, due to your violent past, but you deal with them. The faculty's worst fears are utterly unfounded."

"I'm glad to know that. So you'll tell the faculty and the board that I'm normal?" The former outlaw asked hopefully.

The doctor shook his head. "Normal? Certainly not."

Heyes was uneasy again, when he had thought he was in the clear. "What? You just said . . ."

"I said you weren't a psychopath. I will certainly communicate that fact to the board and professors on the committee emphatically. But I would never term you merely normal. For you to experience what you have experienced and then to accomplish what you have accomplished, much less what you can and will yet surely accomplish, is without doubt extraordinary. I do not have the expertise to know if you are a genius in your own field. That has nothing to do with my errand here. But I do think that you are an impressive character. You are very resilient. And a decent man. Not a saint. Far from it. But you strike me as what they call a good guy, despite it all."

After the emotional wringer he had been through, Heyes was surprised to find himself in a perfectly normal conference room sitting across from a man who had just said something nice to him. It took a moment before the aspiring professor could manage to say. "Thanks."

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In the Louisville sheriff's office, Kid Curry was having his own interview.

"Mr. Curry," asked the nervous, slender Mrs. Jones in agitated tones, "why did you offer to teach my boy Thaddeus to shoot? That was no business of yours. I think that was most unprofessional of you, as a law man. Even a new lawman who used to do evil."

The sheriff waited patiently for the lady to finish her rant while he sat at his desk in his office. In her worn black mourning dress, she paced up and down as she spoke, much like Heyes often did when he was worked up.

Curry spoke gently, "Mrs. Jones, please do sit down. Take it easy. I didn't offer your boy nothing. He was delivering a telegram and he asked me to teach him. He said he'd never had nobody - anybody to teach him." The sheriff was trying to improve his English, but at this late date it was a struggle.

"Did he tell you why?" The lady sprang out of her chair with her blue eyes full of fury blended with pain. "Did he tell you how his father was killed when he was just a little boy?"

Curry kept his voice calm in the face of Mrs. Jones' panic. "He said his Pa had been killed by a gun. He didn't give details. He said you didn't like guns and I don't blame you."

Mrs. Jones turn furiously on the sheriff, "I hate guns! I never want my son to touch one, ever. Why do you insist on his doing so?"

The Kid spoke softly, trying to be as comforting and calming as he could to a still grieving widow. "I don't insist on it, Ma'am. I never met him before he delivered that telegram. He's the one who wants me to teach him. When he asked me, I said I'd think about it, but only if you said yes. If you don't want him taught, then I won't teach him."

"So you won't try to tempt my son to play with guns?" Finally, the lady was starting to listen to the sheriff.

Now the sheriff sat up straight and gave his own little lecture, as filled with passion as anything his partner had ever said. "I would never, never get anybody to play with a gun. I swear that, Mrs. Jones. Guns ai – aren't toys. They're dangerous. I got good reason to know that. I've been shot a few times and I've lost friends. My own Ma and Pa were killed with guns. Men – boys – people – should know how to deal with guns safely. And that means, if they ain't trained and serious, to leave 'em alone. Anybody who ain't trained shouldn't touch a gun, not ever."

"I agree." Mrs. Jones stopped ranting and looked carefully at the sheriff, for the first time. Her voice was calmer. "You really aren't trying to get my son to mess with guns?"

The sheriff was deadly serious. "I'm not, Ma'am. If your son is starting to be curious about guns, though, I'd recommend to you that you think about it real serious. He ought to learn gun safety. If he tries to mess with guns and don't know what he's doing, he or somebody else could get hurt or worse. If he knows how to keep from hurting anybody, it could save a life – or more than one."

Mrs. Jones considered this. "I won't have a gun in my house, I tell you!"

The Kid said, "You don't have to have a gun. I could lend him one so he could learn enough to be safe."

The protective mother was startled. "You could? You could teach him to be safe, even if we don't own a gun?"

The sheriff nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. It's better that way. Then he don't have a gun around tempting him when he don't know enough. He shouldn't have a gun unless there's somebody in the house to make sure he handles it right. And it don't sound like you'd want to do that. Once he was trained up enough to shoot for practice, he could practice with me and my deputies at our range. He could use one of our firearms. We'd keep a close eye on him, and then put the firearms away where he can't get at them between times."

Mrs. Jones sat silently for a moment. "Well, let me think about it, sheriff. It sounds like knowledge might be safer than ignorance."

Curry's voice was soft and as un-threatening as he could make it. He didn't want to mess this up. "It often is that way, Mrs. Jones. I got taught that when I was real young."

"And who taught you, Mr. Curry?" The widow was curious, since the sheriff had just said he had lost his parents when he was very young.

"My partner. He's my older cousin. He looked after me when I was a boy and our families was killed." The sheriff watched the lady with care, hoping mentioning Heyes wasn't a mistake.

Sure enough, her reaction was angry. "You mean that awful Hannibal Heyes?"

"He ain't awful, Ma'am. He's a good man. If he can get somebody to believe that and hire him, he'll be teaching college one of these days. He does mathematics." Jed's voice was proud.

This got Mrs. Jones' attention. "Teach college? Is that a fact? Well, well. Who would have thought it? I'll consider what my son asked you about, Sheriff. And thank you for speaking to me. I appreciate your respecting my wishes."

"You'll let me know what you decide? Thaddeus seems like a good boy."

Mrs. Jones' voice was full of love and concern. "He is, Mr. Curry. I just want to keep him that way. And alive."

"I got reason to know it ain't easy to raise a boy, Ma'am, especially without a man in the family."

"You are right there, Mr. Curry. I appreciate your understanding." The woman had transformed since she had stalked angrily into the office only minutes before.

The sheriff thought a little soft soap might help his cause even more. "And I appreciate yours, Mrs. Jones. You come and see me any time. I could use some advice from you, as a good mother. My wife's gonna have a baby this fall."

The widow smiled. "So I had heard, Sheriff. I wish you well with your family."

The sheriff smiled gently. "Thank you. I hope your family stays well, too."

Mrs. Jones went out to find her son standing awkwardly on the porch of the sheriff's office with his telegram office uniform cap in his hand.

"Well, Ma? Can Mr. Curry teach me?" the boy asked eagerly, but evidently without much hope.

The lady spoke slowly, considering at the words came out. "I'm thinking about it, Thad. He strikes me as a very good man. And a gentle man, who cares about other folks. I didn't expect that of a man who used to rob people. But it seems he has a good side. His partner, his older cousin, has reason to be proud of him. We'll just see, Thad. Give me a chance to think."

"Yes, Ma. Thanks for talking to him. I'll let you think. Now I got to go do my chores." The boy's eyes were shining with anticipation.

Mrs. Jones smiled as she said, "Yes, young man, you do."

Curry heard the two walking away down the boardwalk. He sat and thought about what it would be like to be a father. And he thought about how important it was to avoid being shot by the Teasdales or anybody else. He wanted to be around to be a good father to his own children. And he hoped Heyes could stay safe, too, to be a father to his, and a teacher to other people's sons and daughters.

That night, as they ate dinner at the table in the back room at Christy's Place, the Kid mentioned the episode to his wife. "Who ever thought I'd be teaching, honey?" asked the sheriff. "I thought that was just for Heyes."

Cat snorted over her roast chicken. "Since when, Jed Curry? Take credit where it's due. You've always taught the folks here at Christy's how to do what you need them to do. And you teach your deputies, neither one of them yet twenty years old. And when you're a father, you'll be doing plenty of teaching, I hope."

"Thanks, honey," said the sheriff with a smile. "I guess I never really saw it that way. But I had better be ready, when that baby gets here."

"You had better be, Pa Curry," said his wife. She gave him a peck on the cheek before getting up to check on the steaks she was cooking for hotel guests. "I trust you to be ready."

"Thank, love," said Jed Curry. "Nobody much ever trusted me before you came along. Nobody but Heyes, and nobody else trusted him, neither. I didn't think anybody ever would feel that way about us. It's real nice to be trusted, nowadays. It's respect and it ain't easy to earn. Mrs. Jones seems to be thinking she might be able to count on me. My deputies lean on me. Even the mayor here says he trusts me, and most of the businesses seem to. But for you to have faith in me – that means the most of anything."

"Silly man. I married you, didn't I? Of course I trust you. I'd trust you with my life. And with my children." Cat put her arms around her husband where he sat at the table. He leaned his head against hers.

Historical Note-

Psychology was in its infancy in 1891, but it was already being taught at Harvard at that time. Dr. Stevenson is an invented character, and his method of questioning Heyes is purely invented for dramatic purposes. I have no idea how a late nineteenth-century psychologist would proceed, and I seriously doubt that one would be involved with an academic interview for a candidate outside of his own field. The word psychopath was, so far as I can discover, introduced in the late nineteenth century.

The battle of the loosened saddle cinches really did happen – between a certain pair of actors on the set.