A tree Grows in Brooklyn Heights
(Not so much humorous as insightful)
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While curled up on the sofa watching one of her favorite 1940's movies Kate heard the all too familiar coded knock on her front door. Tossing back the afghan and pushing the 'off' button on the remote, Kate padded her way to the front door and opened it wide. She had expected to see her two favorite outlaws, but one had traveled solo.
"Where's Heyes?" Kate asked as she ushered Kid into the house and closed the door behind her.
"Umm, busy," Kid replied and pulled off his hat.
Kid's demeanor was far more low-key than usual which told Kate something of some concern was on Kid's mind. "Well, sit down and tell me what's on your mind. Would you like a beer?"
Kid nodded and Kate disappeared into the kitchen, returning moments later with an opened bottle of whatever lite beer had been on sale last week. She handed him the bottle and sunk into a chair near the sofa to await whatever bombshell Kid was about to drop. When nothing appeared to be forthcoming, Kate leaned in closer to the cowboy and rested clasped hands between her knees.
"So, what's up?"
"I wanna stay here," Kid replied and followed up with a sigh of relief for having gotten a heavy weight off his shoulders.
"Here? With me?" Kate asked.
"Not necessarily with you but, I appreciate the offer," Kid replied quite seriously. "Just… here, in your time."
Kate pulled her hands apart and sat back in her chair. "I see," she replied.
"Something the matter with that?" Kid asked.
Without addressing his question, Kate posed two of her own. "Why do you want to be in my time and, did you and Heyes split up?"
Kid shook his head. "No, nothing like that. It's just that, well my time has come and gone, you know? Your time is almost a hundred and fifty years beyond mine."
A look of some concern spread across Kate's face, and she shifted once again in her chair. "I still don't understand," she confessed.
"I'm… I'm… I'm the end of the line. The Curry bloodline just stops in the nineteenth century."
"Oh, I see now," Kate replied, knowing she had no encouraging words to offer.
Kid took the last gulp of his beer and stared at his hat resting in his lap. "I'm the only hope of keeping the Curry name from passing into oblivion."
"Kid, where's Heyes right now?" she asked gently, knowing the partner had to somehow be connected to Kid's sudden concern about the Curry lineage.
"He's… back in my time," Kid replied without looking up from his hat.
"With a woman?"
Blue eyes filled with a sadness raised to meet Kate's and he nodded.
"Is the relationship serious?" Kate asked.
Again, Kid nodded.
"Are there wedding bells in his future?"
"Maybe but, I ain't worried about Heyes and me, if that's what you're thinking. We'll always be partners."
"Then, why don't I get you another beer and you explain to me exactly what it is that's on your mind."
Kid nodded eagerly. "A whiskey might be more helpful."
"I always keep a bottle on hand just for you boys," Kate said with a reassuring smile. "You want something to eat to go with it?"
Kid shook his head. His decline of food further confirmed his dark state of mind.
A couple of minutes later Kate returned with a double shot of whiskey and Kid took a courage building gulp.
"Like I said, even if Heyes gets married, it won't change our partnership," Kid said emphatically. "But if he does get married… well, there'll likely be a Hannibal Heyes Junior one day."
"And you don't want to be outdone?"
Kid shook his head. "I just don't want the Curry's to be forgotten."
"What makes you think you won't get married one day?" Kate asked.
Kid tapped the gun and holster strapped to his waist and tied at his thigh. "This."
"And you're thinking maybe in my time…?"
Kid nodded. "It can pick up where it left off," Kid replied. "Just… a hundred and fifty years later."
Kate bit down on her lower lip as she decided just how to best explain the error of Kid's rationale.
"Kid, you see that mirror on the wall?"
Kid nodded.
"Go over there and look in the mirror."
Confused by the request, Kid set his glass on the table and got up and walked across the room. When he looked into the mirror, Kate saw his head jerk slightly.
"I don't see nothin," he told her.
Kate got up and crossed the room to stand beside him. Seeing Kate's reflection in the mirror Kid's jaw dropped and his eyes widened.
"Is this some kind of trick?" he asked.
Kate wrapped an arm around his waist and shook her head. "No trick. I'm sorry."
Kid sighed and his head drooped. Kate's arm dropped to her side as Kid returned to the sofa and reached for the shot glass and downed the contents, ignoring the burn in his throat.
Suddenly Kate was struck with an idea. Turning her back to the mirror, she folded her arms across her chest and studied the fictitious man drowning in his sorrows.
"Kid, didn't your father have a brother who lived in Philadelphia?"
Kid nodded.
"Did he have any sons?"
"Maybe. I don't recall. I was three when he died."
"Well, I can't promise you anything, but I have an idea. Why don't you go in the kitchen and pour yourself another drink and I'll join you there in a minute."
Still terribly depressed, Kid nodded and headed into the other room.
Moments later Kate entered the kitchen and set her laptop computer on the table. She pulled a chair around so she could sit beside Kid Curry, then she opened her laptop.
"There is a website for Fanfiction writers that provides background information about every TV and movie fictional character ever created," she told him. "It helps writers with time periods, super strengths, personal information, things like that.
Having no idea what she was telling him, Kid simply nodded and began wondering if he had come to the right place for help.
"Alexis, family history of Alias Smith and Jones character Jedediah "Kid" Curry," she said.
"Who are you talking to?" Kid asked.
"Kid Curry, born Jedediah Curry in Lawrence, Kansas on July 17, 1855," a voice from nowhere replied.
"Who is that and where is he?" kid demanded.
"Alexis, pause," Kate said and turned to Kid. "That is just an automated voice produced by an audio animation program. It's not a real person, and you can make it sound like any voice you want. I have mine programmed to sound like you."
"That doesn't sound like me," Kid replied.
"A person's voice never sounds the same to that person as it does to everyone else. Mine sounds higher to me than it does on a recording."
"But…, you can make it sound like anyone you want?" Kid asked.
"Pretty much," Kate replied.
"How about my pa?" Kid asked.
"I'm not sure, but I'll try," Kate told him. "Alexis, use the voice of Seth Curry, father of Jedediah Curry."
"I have no audio reference to Seth Curry," Alexis replied.
Kate thought for a moment, then offered Alexis instructions. "Use Jed Curry's voice as a reference and apply a thirty-year age and tone inflection alteration."
Moments later Alexis again spoke with some minor yet notable changes in the voice. "This is most likely the intonation and reflection of the voice of Seth Curry."
Kid gasped and pushed his chair back from the table. "That sounds just the way I remember my pa's voice," he whispered.
Kate gave Kid's knee a gently pat. "Shall we continue with that voice?"
Kid nodded and pulled his chair back up to the table.
"Alexis, show us the family tree of Jedediah Curry."
A few moments later a generational family tree appeared on the screen. Kate reached up and touched the screen with her thumb and index finger and the names grew smaller, but the number of generations shown expanded. Kid squinted and deep wrinkles formed on his brow as his head leaned in toward the screen.
"How did you do that?" he asked in amazement.
"It's a touch screen. I can move the image about and when I find what I'm looking for, I can make the image bigger so it's easier to read."
"It's like magic," Kid replied.
"More like an encyclopedia at your fingertips," Kate explained.
Kate located Seth Curry but moved the image around to go back a couple of generations.
"Here we go," she said and enlarged the screen. "Here is Cillian Curry, your great grandfather, born in Kilkenny County Ireland in 1772 and died in Kilkenny in 1827. Here's Sean Curry, your grandfather, born in 1794 in Kilkenny. He arrived in New York Harbor in 1815 and died in Lawrence, Kansas in 1862, and your father, Seth born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1823 and died in Lawrence, Kansas in 1863."
Kid nodded and watched Kate again move the images on the screen, then enlarged the area that provided more information about Seth.
"Your father had an older brother, also named Sean who was born in New York City in 1819 and died in Philadelphia in 1858."
"I was three and that's when we made the trip to Philadelphia." Kid told Kate. "For the funeral I s'pose. I don't remember much about that except that Philadelphia was dusty."
"Your Uncle Sean had two boys. One was a stillbirth, and that child was named Patrick. The other was born in 1856 and… according to this, his name is Jeremiah and… he lived in Brooklyn Heights."
"New York?" Kid asked.
Kate shook her head, "Ohio."
Kid stared at the screen and reading all the information Kate had just recited. "You mean, I've got a cousin in Ohio?"
Kate looked at Kid and nodded with a wide smile on her face. "In your time, yes you do."
"Alexis, tell us about Jeremiah Curry," Kate ordered.
Kid listened as the very familiar voice provided them with the background of Jeremiah Curry.
"Jeremiah Curry, born in 1856 to Sean and Nora Aine Fitzpatrick Curry in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lived in Brooklyn Heights, Ohio with his wife and two children, Joseph and Jedediah."
"Alexis, how big was Brooklyn Heights, Ohio in 1886?" Kate asked.
"Brooklyn Heights was an unincorporated community of two hundred and seven people and was primarily a farming community."
"So, he's a farmer," Kid reflected aloud.
Kate knew she could provide Kid with more details of Jeremiah and his family, but Kid was suddenly quite intrigued and caught up in the moment, his timeline moment rather than the historical information Alexis could provide. She decided if he wanted that information now, it was up to him to ask.
Kid looked at Kate with raised eyebrows as his head nodded toward the screen.
"You want to ask it something?" Kate asked and Kid nodded. "Go ahead and ask," Kate encouraged him.
Kid opened his mouth to speak, then paused and glanced at Kate hesitantly but she again smiled and nodded her head.
"Alexis, tell me about Seth and Rebecca Curry," Kid said opting not to pursue any additional information about Jeremiah who, in 1886, was still alive in Brooklyn Heights.
Alexis began listing the family history of Seth and Rebecca Curry using the voice that sounded so familiar and comforting to Kid. Kate watched as Kid closed his eyes, seeing nothing and hearing only the sound of his father's rich baritone voice with an occasional hint of an Irish accent he had naturally picked up from his own parents. Kate could tell the Kid was far more lost in the sound of the voice than of the words spoken.
But the moment his own name was mentioned, Kid's eyes flew open. "Stop," he commanded.
"Why did you tell Alexis to stop?" Kate asked.
"Because he knows my entire life and… and I don't think I'm ready to hear what I ain't yet lived."
Realizing this was likely the same reason he had not asked more questions about Jeremiah, Kate placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You know, Alexis can tell you if there are children in your future. To Alexis, your future is now history," she said as gently as a warm summer breeze.
Kid reached up to the comforting hand on his shoulder. "And if there's not, I don't think I want to know that; not yet anyway."
"Do you need another drink?" Kate asked.
"No, but I think I'd better be going. Heyes is likely wondering where I am."
"Okay," Kate whispered. "But if you ever want to do this again…."
Kid shook his head. "Sometimes it's best not to know. Besides, I know there is a Curry lineage now, through Jeremiah. Maybe Heyes and me will even go pay him a visit when I'm back in my time."
"I hope you do, Kid."
"Kate…, hearing my Pa's voice like that…. I don't know how to thank you for that."
Kate smiled. "Any time, Kid. Anytime."
And then he was gone, and Kate's hand was now stationary in the air where Kid's shoulder had been just moments before. She dropped her hand to her lap and sighed a slow, long breath of air and feeling the sadness she knew he bore relentlessly.
Kate looked at the computer screen and knew she had a choice. Kid had chosen not to know his future. Now it was her turn to decide just how much she wanted to know. She took another deep breath and raised her eyes toward the mirror on the wall.
"Alexis…. Continue."