The Cousin Heyeses

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Being A True History Of How There Came To Be Two Hannibal Heyeses And What Followed: In Which The Famous Duo Became a Trio, Then a Duo Once Again, And Added Cuba To Their Plans

by Brenda Lee Barclay Reed

Chapter the First

Two pairs of eyes watched alertly as the town’s doctor used his stethoscope to commune with lungs and heartbeat. Then they exchanged a quick glance of amusement. Each man knew the other was remembering that long, long winter when they had been snowed in at the gold miner’s cabin.

But the blue eyes quickly returned to anxiety and gleamed slightly with the Kid Curry’s fears. The brown ones faded to the weariness that had captured them for weeks.

It was a deep January night in the Old West. Outside, snow fell and filled the streets of a town that had nothing to boast but a railroad spur. Men made their noise as they walked into the nearby bar or reeled back out. The rooms on either side of this bedroom held snorers of operatic loudness, who almost made the walls rattle. It was a small boarding house without much show, and the wind cut through the badly chinked walls and made the curtains move uneasily. There were four quilts on the bed and three pillows behind the man to raise him up and ease his cough. Money was running out, but he didn’t know it.

Hannibal Heyes watched from the bed as the doctor lifted the scope from his chest. It dangled around his neck like the question mark on the question they hoped he would answer. But Heyes’ interest dissipated into a powerful tiredness. He began to close his eyes, then opened them wide. He had to make the effort to pay attention. The Kid would listen to it all. But could the Kid build a plan on what the doctor said? Heyes thought how his long illness meant they were in desperate need of a good plan. Something that would keep them out of a Wyoming jail and in the running for amnesty from the Governor.

But tonight Heyes was especially tired, and his attention wandered to the quilt on his bed. The pattern seemed familiar, little red and white triangles chasing around. Had his mother had one like it at home before she was killed? The thought made him look away, just in time to hear what the doctor said.

Tell me what happened.” The doctor was young, the only one in this small town. He was, however, caring and perhaps competent, and his black leather bag seemed to hold everything in the world that a doctor might need. Now he sat back in his chair and fixed his gaze sympathetically on the man whom he understood was Joshua Smith. It seemed to say, You’re a stranger, maybe a drifter with a rough story, but I will doctor you just the same.

I fell off a horse,” Heyes took a slow breath, then let it out. He paused and his eyes flickered to Kid Curry’s face.

He fell off a horse, Doc,” the Kid said. “And broke his arm.”

It’s better,” Heyes stretched it out to show. “In fact, I wouldn’t trade it for a new one.” Lucky it hadn’t been his gun arm. Suddenly he bent forward in a fit of hoarse coughing. When it was over, the Kid eased him back on the pillows, and the doctor listened to his lungs again.

Curry looked with dismay at his friend’s white face. “A doctor fixed his arm up, and we moved on. We kept it to short days because it hurt him to ride. Then he got this fever and cough. And it just kept getting worse. The arm got better, but finally, he couldn’t ride at all.”

The doctor asked with disbelief, “You traveled in winter on horseback with a man who had just broken his arm?”

Curry thought — Yes, because everyone keeps getting too nosy — just like you’re doing! He felt the sudden, now familiar anger and frustration. “We had to get somewhere by a certain date. Missed it.”

A job,” Heyes added quietly, ever ready to improve a story.

They glanced at each other and smiled. The doctor looked from one to the other. “And what did you do then? Where did you stay?”

A little house about a half-day’s ride from here.” The Kid answered. He almost laughed at this description of the deserted shed they’d found. Too late he realized the doctor would know every house in the area.

Whose house?” the doctor’s timing was perfect. “I know every house in this area. I haven’t heard about strangers bunking with anyone.”

The Kid winced. This was why Heyes always did the talking!

Doc, it was a shed.” Heyes spoke very low to keep the cough at bay. “I couldn’t go on, so we stopped. Don’t tell us what we should have done.”

The doctor tilted his head as if to show his question really hadn’t mattered much. “All right, so how did you get here if you couldn’t travel?”

My friend tied me in front of him and we rode in leading my horse.” Heyes’ eyes were bright now and sparked with resentment. “Don’t you—.” But the cough got him again.

They settled him again, and the Kid ordered, “Don’t talk. It makes you cough.”

Heyes just grinned weakly, “I have to talk. It’s my nature.”

Curry finished up the story. “I sold our horses and gear, moved my friend into this room, and here we’ve been.”

“Why did you wait until now to call me?”

Curry shook his head. How did you tell a doctor that seeing him was risking twenty years in jail? So you did it only when there was something you must know?

The doctor rose and put his hand on Curry’s shoulder. He spoke softly, “Mr. Jones—” and motioned for him to follow into the hall. As the Kid turned, responding as easily to his alias as to his real name, he glanced back and was surprised to see Heyes staring at the quilt. The wind tore around the building again, and when the Kid felt the icy draft, he turned and tucked Heyes under the bedding. After a second’s thought, he was inspired to put Heyes’ black hat on his friend’s head to keep him warm.

“I feel stupid with my hat on in bed,” Heyes murmured, already half-sleep.

“Yeah, well, you look stupid.”

Heyes smiled and sighed. His eyes closed. The Kid turned to follow the doctor, who stood in the doorway. A lot rested on what this guy was going to say next.

Curry came back in a few minutes, grim and quiet. He saw his partner was asleep. So reluctantly he took off his boots and outer clothes, and stood shivering in his long underwear. It was so cold in the room that he reached for his own hat and put it on. He turned to the bed — no fancy room with two beds and brass bedsteads and a big warm fire for them now. It was one bed, rope hung, and with a mattress that seemed to be filled with bramble.

Though his teeth were starting to chatter, Curry took off his hat and examined it. It was time to get Heyes a new one, that thing on his head looked like a dead skunk. Sleeping in it could only help. The Kid saw no reason, however, to spoil his own; he liked a good hat. He put it back on its peg. Then the Kid eased under the covers, pulled them over his head, and wondered if he should thank Heyes for warming the bed all day.

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