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Heyes pressed up against the counter, keeping his voice low.
The Kid was still occupied in the hotel dining-room and he was visible leaning over the back of a certain Miss o’Grady’s chair. Being flirtatious, mainly because she was.
“What’s the name of this feller?” Heyes muttered sotto voce to the desk clerk. Not two seconds ago he’d been busy settling the room account. Now, a few idle words of gossip from the clerk later and his heart was hammering fit to bust.
“Damned if I can remember... something eye-talian.” The desk clerk wafted a vague hand.
“But, you just heard about him, right? You haven’t actually seen him?”
“No, nobody’s seen him round here. Some stranger passing through told us.”
Heyes thought about this for a moment and then breathed a small sigh of relief. Why, this eye-talian fellow maybe didn’t even exist. His existence was maybe what they called an apocryphal tale.
The Kid glanced up at that moment and caught Heyes looking at him. He was slightly drunk, his face lit by good humor, but when he saw Heyes, a veritable beam of sunshine passed over his features. Heyes got warm around his middle. It really didn’t matter that the Kid was being flirtatious with Miss o’Grady. Damned fool couldn’t help himself, and clever Miss o'Grady evidently relished such meaningless fun. The beam told Heyes everything he needed to know, and he smiled right back. Kept smiling even after Curry went back to his flirting.
***
The view from Devil’s Hole was kind of pretty at sundown, although the cooking hadn’t improved any. And neither had the journey to get there.
“We heard,” said Kyle conspiratorially, laying one hand on Heyes’s shoulder and the other on the Kid’s shortly after they'd arrived. He drew their heads towards him minutely. “We heard there’s a gunslinger out there who’s real good.”
Heyes felt the sudden skitter of his own pulse. As much as Kyle was in the habit of talking nonsense which he’d normally discount, he felt an unpleasant dry-mouthed sensation. Damn. It was never a good idea coming back to Devil’s Hole - rarely did anything helpful come of it.
Kyle tightened the grip on the Kid’s shoulder meaningfully. “And I mean real good. They say...” and here he glanced about as if he was afraid of being overheard, “that he’s about the fastest draw that’s ever been seen.”
Kid Curry jerked himself straight. “Yeah, well we’ve all heard that before, Kyle,” he said. Heyes gave him a close look and then nudged Kyle.
“Go on,” he said, “he’s about the fastest draw that’s ever been seen. So just who is this feller? And where is he?”
“That’s a good question, Heyes. Name’s Mandini, Mancini, something high-falutin' like that. He’s from Wyoming and he’s got an ambition.”
“An ambition?” Heyes asked. The Kid was looking out down the mountain as if he was completely uninterested.
Kyle nodded. “Yep, everywhere he goes he tells folks he wants to find Kid Curry and challenge him.”
“What?!” Heyes screeched.
The Kid turned his head to Kyle to see if this was a joke. He made a disgusted face at Heyes.
“Yep, and it’s not just big talkin'. Spends all his time practisin', so they say. And he’s gettin' better all the time. So they say.”
“So they say,” Kid Curry mocked. “Just who the hell is this 'they' you keep talking about, Kyle?”
“Them!” said Kyle, a little wounded at Curry’s disbelieving tone. “People!”
“I don’t like the sound of this, Kid,” Heyes said. “Do you?”
“Oh Heyes, we’ve heard tales like this before. This’ll be like all the rest, some greenhorn with a big mouth who can shoot pretty straight and pretty fast, and keeps getting told by jackasses that he’s a bigshot who could be famous.”
“Yes, but this tale is everywhere,” Heyes said.
“It is?” The Kid’s summer-sky gaze became piercing.
Heyes looked a little abashed. “Well, I uh, heard it in that town we just left. A couple of times. From different people. And I uh heard it in Tucson.”
“You didn’t see fit to tell me?”
“Well I was hoping it was just like you said, some greenhorn with a big mouth. But I think this might be for real.”
“They say,” Kyle said, “that he’s coming to find you.”
“Oh, really,” Kid Curry said.
“Oh, shit,” said Heyes.
***
The door banged impressively when Heyes came in from his morning walkabout round their next town.
“We’re leaving, right now,” he announced.
The Kid, full-length on top of the bed in the most comfortable hotel they’d stayed in for weeks, opened his eyes. Last he’d heard, this town was just the kind of nice, quiet, place where they could hole up for a little while and plan their next move.
Heyes picked up Curry’s gunbelt from the back of the chair and launched it across the room at him. The Kid only just got a hand out in time to stop it taking his head off.
Deeply pained he jerked himself to sitting. “What in hell's eating you, Heyes?” he demanded.
“Time to go.”
Heyes had picked up his saddlebag, dumped it on the bed, and was now hauling belongings out of the drawer and stuffing them in. Curry just watched him, fingering the smooth leather of his gunbelt.
“Not until you tell me why.”
“Kid, just get your ass off the bed and get your stuff.”
He didn’t look like he was joking. Curry was never sure how to handle Heyes when he was running crazy about something. It was a stretch, from the calm and teeth-grindingly logical Heyes of most days, to the twitching bundle of nerves he saw before him.
“Heyes,” he said as if he was talking to a rabid dog that might just turn on him. “What’s going on?”
Heyes snapped his head round. “Mancini is what’s going on,” he said. “He’s here, in town!”
Curry got both feet to the ground. A peculiar rushing sensation went pouring through his veins.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. One hundred per cent absolutely, completely sure. And we have to go. He knows you’re here. That’s why he’s here. And that gets us both into a whole mess of trouble.”
Kid Curry stood. “I’m not going to be run out of town, Heyes,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” Heyes stopped in his manic packing and stood up straight too. There was three feet of yawning space in between them.
“I’m not going,” Curry repeated.
Heyes released an indulgent snort. “Yes, because of course you’re going to stay here and confront him. Or no, wait a minute. I got it. You’re going to stay here and let him confront you! It’s going to be Danny Billson all over again isn’t it?” Curry was surprised at his daring. Heyes knew he wasn’t supposed to allude to the incident in any way, no matter how obliquely, and he certainly knew he wasn’t supposed to actually say the name out loud.
“Danny Billson all over again,” Kid Curry repeatedly thoughtfully.
“Forget I said that, all right?” Heyes put in swiftly, but of course such things could not be unsaid.
“I don’t know anything about this Mancini feller,” Curry said. “I don’t know if he’s like Danny or not. And you know what’s very strange, Heyes? He doesn’t know anything about me either. Just that he wants to kill me and be known as the man who outdrew Kid Curry.” He shrugged in mystification.
“Sounds like a madman,” muttered Heyes, “You really shouldn’t encourage him, Kid.”
“Not leaving town because of him, Heyes,” said the Kid, stubborn. “Not.” He pursed his lips, began to buckle on the belt. “You should go maybe.”
“Oh, I’m going all right,” Heyes said. “What the hell would I stay for? To call the doctor?”
“Well I’m touched at your faith in me.”
“I mean the other feller!” Heyes was back-pedaling again. “I mean I might have to call the doctor for the other feller!”
Curry settled the belt on his hips. “Uh-huh.” He looked to the door. “You leaving right now?”
Heyes looked a little sulky. “Depends,” he said.
Kid Curry was aware that he was followed out of the room and down the stairs. In the street outside the hotel all was quiet. He looked over his shoulder.
“He’s waiting at the saloon,” Heyes supplied. “You don’t need to go and rile him all up, Kid. If you won’t leave town, at least just... act normally.”
“I am acting normally.”
As if pulled by an invisible string, Curry walked down the steps on to the hard-packed earth of the street and began walking up towards the saloon. He felt a little sick but heard Heyes’s steps on the boardwalk behind him, keeping pace. It was a comfort. As was the mutter.
“And to hell with the amnesty?”
Curry squared his shoulders, spoke quietly as he walked. “Sooner we deal with this, sooner it goes away and we can concentrate on the amnesty.”
“We? The sooner 'we' deal with it?”
Kid Curry carried on walking, the saloon drawing nearer and nearer. And he could see Heyes out of the corner of his eye, keeping right in step.
A man was sitting on a chair outside the batwings.
Young, dark, beautiful gun.
Kid Curry sighed. He expected days like this to come ever more frequently. And damn.There were an awful lot of people around.
“Did you want to talk to me?” he called out.
The young man rose to his feet. He was poised and graceful, dressed as if he he lived comfortably within the law. Yep. Everything about him looked fit and fast and confident.
The people on the street and on the boardwalk began to move away as the man came down the steps.
“You’re Kid Curry,” he said. There was triumph on his face. Utter certainty. “You’re a gunman and an outlaw and you’re wanted. And, unless you surrender to me, I’m going to draw on you and shoot your thieving ass full of holes.”
The Kid cocked his head slightly to one side as if puzzled by the whole concept.
“Listen, I don’t know who the hell you are, mister, but if you’ve been following me and my partner around thinking you were following Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry, then I’m afraid we’re going to have to disappoint you. My name is Thaddeus Jones. I’m not a gunman, or an outlaw. And I’m not surrendering to you.”
“You gonna draw on me then, you lying sonofabitch?”
He might look good, but he didn’t have many manners, Kid Curry thought.
***
It was when Curry hadn’t even flicked the slightest look across at him that Heyes knew all was lost. If there had been the slightest hesitation, the Kid would have made one last check with his partner, would have given Heyes one last chance to persuade him to act otherwise with the sheer force of his pleading look.
But he hadn’t.
Two shots had rung out almost in concert. The first from a gunman at the top of his game, the second a response from a helluva good shooter knocked just the right amount of off-kilter by a bullet passing close to his head. Those dual sounds had assaulted the ear and sent folk running.
“Oh, my God,” Heyes had breathed, stumbling across open ground, dropping to the dirt, hands trembling out of control. “Oh God, oh God.”
“Shoulder,” Kid Curry had puffed up at him, already woozy. “Jus’ my shoulder. S'all right, Joshua, jus' my... shit that hurts.”
In the background Mancini was making a lot of noise. Heyes didn’t know if he was crowing or protesting. Either way, the sheriff wasn’t very impressed at the trouble he was causing.
The doctor wasn’t either, once he’d gotten his newest patient tended and strapped up and settled.
“Seemed pretty sure,” he said, “that eye-talian feller. Pretty damned stupid, too, if he thought he was taking on Kid Curry.” He tutted, incredulous.
Heyes looked down at the bed. Fever was bubbling up, but didn’t seem too bad yet. The Kid’s face was all white and wan and innocent, his eyes closed. Heyes ground his teeth. He was going to have a few words to say to Sleeping Beauty when he decided to wake up.
“Yup,” the doctor went on. “Quite a show out there. I wasn’t sure what in hell I was looking at. First I thought that Mancini was crazy, then I thought maybe he was right and we really did have Kid Curry in town, and then I realized that just wasn’t possible. Mr. Jones is damned lucky. He drew faster than the other feller, I reckon. Missed him by a goddamned mile, though. Heh! Now the real Kid Curry wouldn’t've missed that shot. He's something else, so I heard.”
“You’re right,” Heyes said through his teeth. “Kid Curry wouldn’t have missed that shot.” He frowned a little. Sure wished those eyes would open up now. “Mr. Jones'll be all right though, won’t he?”
“Reckon. Long as he takes it easy. You able to sit with him, Mr. Smith? Figure he’ll be troubled a little by the fever and all.”
“I’ll sit,” Heyes said.
The doctor’s bag snapped shut. When the door closed, Heyes sat down. For a while he just stayed still, watching the twitching lashes. Then he reached out a quiet hand.
“You missed,” he said, testing the heat with his still-bloodstained palm. A reluctant smile quirked his lips. “You shot, and you missed.” The smile deepened. “Good miss, Kid.”
He shuffled his chair closer still to the bed.
Kid Curry might well be the fastest gun in the west.
But Thank the Lord, Thaddeus Jones certainly wasn’t.
-the end-