Heyes' Story

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Kid said he wrote down his story because one day, after he's parted from this earth, he wants folks to realize that even outlaws have a little good in them. That got me to thinking that he might have a valid point and it also got me to thinking that I didn't want my partner outdoing me in the annals of history. Now I don't want to just go repeating everything the Kid said so I'm gonna try to take my account in a different direction.

Hannibal Phineas Heyes. Getting saddled with a moniker like that was almost a guarantee that my life was not going to be easy, and I took a lot of teasing when I was in school during those farm boy years. Things didn't get any easier when Kid started school a couple of years after me cause here he was, this little pipsqueak coming to my defense. Now everybody knew we were cousins so I guess it stood to reason he would stand up for me but, at our ages, two years made a big difference is size and strength and I'd end up fighting twice as hard just to keep the Kid from getting hurt. But that did seal a bond between the two of us as we both learned early how to watch the other's back.

I always excelled in school. Arithmetic came easy to me because I've just got a naturally calculating mind, and for someone who loved to read, history was just a dream come true. It wasn't just learning dates and facts that interested me. I always wanted to know the whys and what-fors about people and events in history and the teachers were always loaning me extra books to read. I guess that's where I developed my love for books and my genius for planning and strategy.

I always just breezed through those two subjects. I will admit that penmanship was not my best subject. I think that's because it's hard for my hand to keep up with my brain sometimes, so I write real fast and it tends to look more like chicken scratch than good, cursive writing. Even today Kid has trouble reading my writing sometimes.

Those orphanage years were hard for the both of us. I think a lot of that had to do with how we became orphans and ended up there, but almost all the boys had the same tale to tell as Kid and me. So, I think our troubles also stemmed from two things that maybe the other boys didn't have before they became orphans. The first thing was the tight bond that Kid and me shared. We'd been depending on each other for years and I think that might have kept us both from trusting the teachers and maybe even the other boys. We knew we didn't need them cause we had each other.

The second thing was that we both came from parents that wanted us well prepared for life. They didn't coddle us when we was growing up, but they also always made sure that we could depend on them to teach us how to be independent and self-sufficient. Like when Kid showed not just an interest, but an honest talent with a gun, his pa took the time to help him hone that talent, and my pa always made sure there was books in the house that sparked the imagination or pushed me to want to know more.

I think it was a combination of all these things that pushed me toward the outlaw life. Leading a gang of outlaws is no easy task, and it took the both of us to lead the Devil's Hole gang so well. I always found that planning a robbery was far more challenging and rewarding than actually doing the robbing, though I did enjoy the spoils of my labor just as much as all the other fellas. And Kid was a master of control. He never once hollered at any of the men. All they needed to see was a look, or hear a quiet, even toned command and they knew they'd better comply, or they'd be dealing with the consequences. Kid never abused that talent, but he always knew just when to use it.

Kid's right about the amnesty. We shouldda let that dream die, but I guess we was both too stubborn and each of us was too worried about letting the other one down. We got caught and escaped more times than I even want to recall and again, it was the combination of genius planning and sharp shooting, and maybe a little silver tongue thrown in that got us through those times.

Speaking of my silver tongue, I actually credit that to the Kid. He's more the quiet type by nature and he can go hours without ever saying a word, and I think I learned to ramble on just to keep a conversation going. Talking helps me think and stay focused, too. I do think that sometimes all my talking just rattles him, but he admits that it does make him nervous if I'm quiet for too long.

I was surprised that he offered an explanation about why we changed our names, and we gave that a lot of long, hard thought before making that legal. But then we realized that we've actually used a lot of aliases over the years; names like Grant and Gaines, Hotchkiss and Rembacker, Smith and Jones, Brandon and Slurry, and a few others, too. So, we decided that being as we're the end of the family tree for the names Curry and Heyes, changing our names wasn't much different than changing our clothes. Kid summed it up best when he said nobody cares what clothes a man wears until they start to smell bad.

So I guess our stories aren't that much different, but I bet our lives would have been if we hadn't lived them together. My guess is that they both wouldda been shorter. Kid's reputation with a gun would have spread far and wide even without the outlaw status. As for me, well there have been more than a few poker games that I might not have survived without Kid there to watch my back.

Oh, and as far as Kid not remembering much from our farm boy years, I know those memories are all locked up in his head somewhere cause sometimes he talks in his sleep and I know he's having a conversation with his pa, or maybe even seeing his ma spit a watermelon seed in his dreams. He may not remember them when he's awake, but he remembers them in his dreams sometimes, and I think that might be best because he's not just remembering from years gone by.

He's living those memories in his dreams.