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Summer 1873
Jenny looked out over the countryside that fine evening in early summer, sitting in her backyard on the outdoor chairs, the cool breeze lifting wisps of hair to tickle her neck. She could finally relax after a busy day in the heat of the building. The sun was dipping to the tops of buildings casting long shadows to refresh and cool her tired body. Her eyes closed as she slouched deeper into the chair, then quickly opened again. A rider was approaching, at a very slow pace.
Is that? Could it be? Lord, he looks like a beaten dog!
"Hannibal! Oh, you poor boy! Come to Jenny!" Her arms opened wide to receive him and hug away his troubles.
Heyes couldn't even manage a smile for her, so drained he was. He nearly dropped from his horse and, though he had been a man since he was fifteen, he almost shed tears feeling Jenny's comforting arms around him. He didn't want it to end except he was ashamed of his filthy body and rank clothes and pulled away. "So good, so good seeing you, Jenny." His dimples gave a try.
"Lord, what happened? You hurt?"
"No, just my pride, Jenny. My false pride. No real loss."
"Harry! HARRY!" His face appeared in the screen door of the kitchen. "It's Hannibal! Cold beer and food, quick! In that order!"
"Here, sweetie, sit with me. Want to tell me?"
Hayes looked ashamed to tell her. "Not now, Jenny. Alright?" He sat at the table, removed his hat, ran his fingers through his hair and set his hat further back on his head, his dark hair exposed in front.
Jenny always liked that look, he seemed so vulnerable, like a boy playing at being a man. But she knew, a woman always knew, this is a man. She could overlook the age difference, if she wasn't committed to her son...
"Sure, sure, honey. I'll get beer and food in you first. Then you'll have a cool bath. How's that sound, sweetie?"
"Heaven on earth, Jenny."
Harry returned with a pitcher and two glasses of beer. Heyes nodded his thanks, grabbed the glass and drank it straight down. Jenny refilled it immediately. Harry brought a bowl of buffalo stew and Heyes dug in like a starving wolf defending his carrion. He glanced up at Jenny once between mouthsful and saw a tear in her eye. "Jenny, it's not that bad."
"Sure, sweetie. Had enough to eat?"
"For now. Too exhausted to eat. I could use more beer, please."
"Here you go. There will be more upstairs in your room. You can drink while you bathe. Leave your clothes outside the door and they'll be clean and fresh in the morning."
Heyes stood, then bent and kissed her on the cheek. "What would I do without you?"
She patted his arm. "Your room, Number Four. Bath will be right up."
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Heyes sat in the cool, clear water of the tub, a glass of beer in hand and full pitcher on the chair. He looked across to the bed where Jenny had placed the tin of letters from Jeddie, almost an entire year of letters unread and unanswered. Shame kept him in the tub more than the cool water his body so needed, shame for having been so duped, immense shame for having neglected Jeddie for it. How could he have been so blind?
The Plummer Gang had implemented 'The Heyes Plan' to perfection. The safe on the payroll train was quickly opened by Heyes and thirty thousand dollars counted out! Heyes congratulated Plummer on his information, clapping him on the back and Plummer smiling like a boy at Christmas.
Then, "Posse!" came the call from Emmet. Can't be! Heyes checked his pocket watch. No one can know, the train's not been held up long enough to warrant a posse.
"Does it matter right now, Heyes?" Plummer asked? No, it was time to leave, and fast!
They rode out, the posse hard on their trail so they split. Plummer with the entire take. "Lead 'em west, boys, I'll meet you back at the hideout in three days!" He smiled greedily. "Thirty thousand dollars, boys!"
And they split up as ordered, the entire posse following the thirteen men. Maybe they didn't notice the one set of tracks heading south. They split again, Dixon leading seven and Heyes the others, meeting at the cabin.
Three days later, four days later. They went in search of their leader wondering if he'd been injured or captured. Tracked him until they lost the tracks after a five-day torrential rainfall. Heyes and twelve others. It was pretty apparent what had happened, at least to Heyes. But they turned on him.
"YOU'RE in on this! You and Plummer been plannin' this from the start! Tell us where you're meetin' him!"
"Hold off, now, boys." Dixon wasn't going to let this go any further, as he was the furthest it could go. "Heyes couldn'ta been in on it. I seen no signs him and Plummer were workin' together. And he's been here with us since Jim split, hasn't he? Who's been in town except Jim while me and Heyes worked the plan with all of you?"
"And how did the posse know to come when the train wasn't stopped long enough?" Heyes pointed out. His eyes grew dark as he recalled Plummer rushing him out of the box car ostensibly to avoid capture.
Angry shouts turned to grumblings, then to silence as the men realized the extent of their leader's betrayal.
It was hard, very hard for Heyes to admit. He'd been so proud of himself for the work he'd done. He'd put aside his responsibility to his cousin all this time to be the nominal leader of a gang, for one job. Proud of Plummer's praise in taking the lead in the plan. Now he understood why Plummer gave him the encouragement.
Heyes turned away from the men and gazed out over the countryside. One word summed it up. One word summed up Hannibal Heyes. He spoke it out loud.
"Chump."
Heyes rode out of Plummer's hideout and kept riding, having no goal, he just needed time and space to sort out his mind.
Maybe Jeddie's right.
He found himself on the Santa Fe trail and headed east into Texas and followed the rails south, coming on a massive herd of longhorns being headed north. He signed on with trail boss Red Nelson and completed a turn on the Chisholm Trail to Fort Hays, Kansas. And he kept moving and kept eating dust until he found himself nearly falling out of the saddle in Jenny's back yard that evening.
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Heyes lay on the bed, now his bed at Jenny's, naked, covered to his waist by a cool cotton sheet, his head and shoulders supported by two pillows against the headboard, a pile of envelopes from Jeddie on his flat torso. He randomly picked one and opened it.
Dear Hannie,
We buried Frenchie today. Smallpox came through the fort and took five of us. I didn't get sick at all. I wish you were here to talk to.
Captain Roberton got a new assignment for me. I'm transferring to Fort Mifflin by Philadelphia. It's a fort for the army corps of engineers and Captain Roberton thinks I'll do well learning from them but my primary duty is fort enforcement. I will travel mostly by steamboat, Arkansas to Mississippi to Ohio rivers. There are military paddle steamers that carry personel all up and down the rivers there are so many forts along them. I leave when the next transport ship arrives near the end of March.
Hannie I feel so tugged. All when we were on patrol last year I saw the open country and wanted to head Brazen out over it and give him rein to run, be free again to ride. Where I want and when I want. Like we used to. Remember when we were on the Santa Fe Trail? And we could go west to California or east to a big city? Or up to Denver or even south. We stood right there and we just had to choose.
Sergeant Quinn saw me looking off and said - Ye have the Irish Wanderlust laddie and ye have it bad!- Well, maybe I do, Hannie. But I'm army bound for Philadelphia.
I will do what you said and get a bank account. I hope this next assignment is exciting and makes the year go fast. I want to get out and get free again. I miss that so much. And my cousin.
I hope that no letters from you for almost a year don't mean something bad for you. I been doing all this so we could get a stake for a horse ranch or something and get ahead and hope we can still do that. I wish you were here. I wish we could talk.
Your cousin,
Jeddie
Heyes put his hand to his face and wept.
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