FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Drena Hills

"If you are going to judge the book by its cover,

read the first page, it may surprise you."

-

Suzanne Harvey

EXCERPTS FROM NEW YORK TIMES'S BEST SELLER

HEYES AND CURRY: THE LEGEND AND THE MEN

HARCOURT PUBLISHING

1893

"My first impression of them?" Lom Trevors threw his hat on the table and snorted. "You sure you can print that in a family newspaper?"

He sat down and his dark eyes bore into me as he considered how much and what he would tell me. At 48 Marshall LomTrevors was an enigma of contradictions. Soft spoken, he fit easily into polite society and yet there was still an edge to him, a sliver of danger that hinted at what once was or might still be again.

"They know about this right? Ever since that amnesty thing came through they spend more time dodging you folks than bullets." He exhaled still not comfortable. "All right, first impressions."

"I met Heyes first. I was all ready a member of the Devil's Hole Gang under Big Jim Santana. Jim and I never really saw eye to eye, I guess there was some rivalry there or Jim thought there was, so I pretty much kept to myself."

"I drifted into robbing, not a conscious thing, just got too hungry one day and got a chance not to be and I took it. Never was comfortable at it and I only lasted a few years before getting caught. Heyes always said I wanted to get caught so I would have to quit, maybe he was right, he was always was a might too perceptive at reading people."

"I remember I was sitting in front of the bunkhouse when he rode in with Jim. Wise man always checks out the newcomers even if they are a green boy of 17. He looked younger, skinny as a rail back then and that dark hair flopping in his eyes; men tended to dismiss him. But they were wrong. I watched him as he got off his horse. His eyes missed nothing. He took in everything and everyone, but it was a clever study, you couldn't tell he was doing it unless you looked hard and watched long.

"I sensed he'd learned the hard way how to look out for himself and was never gonna make the mistake of being caught off guard again."

"Jim brought him over and introduced him. Most of the men just stared at the hand he offered, Carlson just spit and walked away. But I guess I rose and took it and he smiled grateful for the courtesy.

"I offered to show him the bunkhouse, where things were, where things shouldn't be. I guess I felt sorry for him, just a kid, starting out that young."

He grimaced, "Me worried about Heyes, he could have run the country then."

He took a sip of water and continued.

"He ended up with the bunk under me, not sure how it happened, I guess I made one of the boys move. I'm not usually that interested in the new men, but Heyes had a kind of lively intelligence I was starved for. When I saw him pull a book out of his saddlebag I practically jumped him asking what it was.

"We soon discovered we both had a love of reading that did not endure us to the rest of the gang. I had taken the ribbing in short bits before decking the man taunting me and telling him next time I would feed him the book. Men left me alone pretty much after that. But Heyes was immediately fair game and I thought for sure we were gonna have problems."

He leaned back and grinned at the memory, "That was the first time I ever saw Heyes work a room. I swear snake oil salesmen and politicians weren't even in his league and he was just a kid. I remember Carlson made some smart aleck remark about another bookworm and Heyes just turned and flashed that grin. You ever saw that smile? If you know him you take a step back, if you don't you just get caught in it like mouse with a snake."

"Well he's suddenly on about what he learned in books, bringing the men over to the table and picking up a pack of cards to demonstrate. All the time he keeps moving, light, easy, on the balls of his feet, making every man feel like he's given them a wink that they are the one he really wants to talk to. And he does talk," he groaned, but then grinned impressed. "But not annoying, he has this way of using his voice so you can't wait to hear what comes next. Saw a man hypnotized once. Fella doing it was a rank amateur next to Heyes."

"Well he ends up doing this card trick and pulling the card out of Kyle's pocket. Durndest thing I ever saw, realize now he set it up earlier knowing he'd need a clever way to break the ice. Men just laughed, slapped him on the back and accepted him like a mascot. He seemed young and innocent and no threat, just like he wanted them to think he was."

"But you gotta understand he knew before he entered that bunkhouse what he was going to do, what was going to happen. He's always six steps ahead of everyone else in the room. And don't even think about asking to play chess with him, its embarrassing."

"Big Jim liked him though, I think he almost felt paternal about him in a greedy use him for all I can sort of way. And Heyes, he was starved for someone else to look after him so for a time it worked."

"Santana began taking Heyes aside for walks to discuss plans and I noticed our operations started getting slicker and smarter and bigger. Gang noticed too and they started thinking less of Heyes as a mascot and more as a man they could come to with a problem or an idea."

"Naturally this ruffled a few feathers. Carlson especially took a disliking to him and I kept waiting for the day it came to blows. But Heyes he had a way with people, and he'd avoid a confrontation if at all possible. I figured at first it was because he was young and small and scared, not much of a fighter. I was dead wrong. He just needed something he considered worth fighting for. That's when his cousin showed up."

***************************

"The first time I saw Jed Curry I thought he couldn't be more than 13. He was skinny like Heyes and at the time his clothes didn't fit well and made him look young and lost. Women loved it, he could have any girl in any saloon we visited and at first the gang just dismissed him like some stray pup that had come in out of the rain."

"I think his not having trouble first off was due mostly to how well Heyes was liked or at least respected by then. Heyes sort of got him settled, and kept him in the background while he got the feel of things. They were close, you could see that right off, in fact a change came over Heyes that was startling when they were together. It's like he relaxed, let his guard down, I got the feeling the only time he felt safe was when his cousin was nearby. Kid helped him stop thinking about surviving and dream and it benefited us all. Heyes's plans got sharper and cleverer and we started making some serious money."

As for Kid, I liked him right off. He's got a natural easy way about him and he doesn’t think twice about pitching in or offering to help if you need it. Course you can take advantage of that and naturally somebody had to push it."

"We'd all just got back from hoorahing a town, Kid and Heyes strolled in last. They'd gotten him some new clothes and it gave him a more striking look and someone mentioned he walked like a cougar on the prowl. Well he'd got a new gun, always was going off alone to practice, but at this point none of us really knew the prodigy we had living among us, except Heyes who came back from a practice looking pale and more than a little worried right after he got there."

"Well Blakely yelled to Kid to see to his horse. And he might have done it, but he was all excited about that gun and couldn't wait to go out and try it and he said he couldn't and started to walk away. Blakely was a bad one; they hanged him in '74. He was mean drunk or sober and like an idiot he made an issue of."

"I can see it all in slow motion now, just like the day it happened. Blakely yelled for Kid to freeze, said nobody turned their back on him. Kid, he turned real unhurried and faced him, hands on his belt. I remember from the corner of my eye seeing Heyes leave the leader's cabin having reported in and slamming the door, started running trying to get there.

"Blakely went for his gun, but he didn’t even clear leather. I swear I have never seen a man that fast in my entire life and in that young boy's form it was twice as stunning. Shot Blakely's holster clean off and across the courtyard. Place just went dead silent. Blakely looked like he was gonna be sick."

"Heyes reached his partner and stood beside him gun out daring anyone to try anything else, but wasn't a man in sight who had that much courage."

"Santana got real mad, him and Heyes yelled for hours. He wanted Kid to leave and Blakely to stay; a lot of the other men did too. I remember finding Kid sitting out by the backwash looking miserable. He said he felt like he'd let his cousin down. I got an indication of how close those two were that day. The look on Heyes's face when he heard that shot and he didn't know what had happened."

"Kid told me a bit more about them both that day. He needed someone to talk to and I was there. He mentioned the way their parents died, how much he owed Heyes for looking after him. Even talked a little about why they had split up and how good it felt to be back together. But he would have left that instant if Heyes had asked him too or he felt he was doing him harm."

Heyes found us and said everything was fine. Blakely was leaving. I knew then how much influence Heyes had and how valuable Jim thought of him. When Kid sort of stumbled over apologizing for causing trouble and asked Heyes if he wanted to flatten him. Heyes got this real funny look on his face and said, 'I'd have flattened you if you'd let yourself get killed you idiot.'

"Course that's not to say they didn’t fight. Close as brothers, they fought like brothers. I came out many a time to find them tumbling down in the dirt settling something and enjoying themselves immensely when it was over. But a man learned quickly you couldn't sidle up to one by picking on the other, even when they were mad as hell at each other. We all learned that at that pancake incident."

He grinned, "Okay that's what I've come to call it over the years, I bring it up every now and then when I wanna annoy them with how good my memory is."

"They'd come back from town not talking to each other about some stupid thing or another and it came to a head at breakfast when both of them dived for the last pancake. Tarnation you think they had the last scrap on earth the way they faced off across that table both with a fork in it and neither one backing down."

"Only thing that prevented a fight was Heyes got called back to see Jim about something and he left slamming the door. Everyone sort of waited to see what Kid would do, but oddly he just went back to eating, leaving the pancake where it was with two forks stuck in it. Well one of the men, trying to get on his good side, picked it up and went to put it on his plate, but Kid, he merely looked up and his eyes got all icy and he said, 'Leave it, ain't mine."

"He then scraped back his chair picked up his dishes and left. Well Heyes he comes back ten minutes later and sees the pancake and gets this loopy half smile on his face and he goes over and puts it on his plate and eats it. Same man sniggers to Heyes about him showing Kid and Kid being afraid of him and I swear the way Heyes looked up made my blood run cold."

"I'd only had an inkling up to that point at how dangerous a man Heyes was, but as this fella kept going on about Kid he suddenly found himself slammed up against the wall with a strength that slender frame had only hinted at. 'I don’t take kindly to people bad mouthing my partner' was all he said, but the way he said it, hell I backed up."

He then just walked out and I didn't see the two of them again until dinner. I guess it was the first time they'd run back into each other and they sat across from each other neither saying much to anyone and then it happened again, they both went for the last piece of chicken. Everyone froze and I watched fascinated as their eyes met and finally Kid grinned and Heyes grinned back and picking up the drumstick tossed it to him. The two could communicate without saying a word, saved their lives more than a few times, not to mention mine."

**********************************

"To this day I don't know what went wrong. Mostly it was because Jim was getting cocky and started thinking the brilliant plans Heyes came up with had been his and we took a train without the proper advance work. All I know is the posse came from out of nowhere and I felt this bullet slice through my leg."

"In those days we didn't split up until it got necessary, but Jim had no problem leaving a wounded man, luck of the game and I started falling back until the posse soon had me."

"Sheriff really wanted Jim, so when two men in the back offered to take me back to town he agreed and the rest of posse left us. It was then I looked up to see the two grinning faces of Heyes and Curry, complete with deputy badges smiling down at me."

"Seems when they saw I was wounded they managed to slip away and fall back and then in the boldest move ever, join the dang posse! Kid, he'd picked up a couple of deputy badges in some adventure and Heyes had taken to carrying them with them thinking they might prove useful sometime and boy did they. They just pinned them on and fit right in since the group was your usual mixture of strangers and town folk rousted into action."

"Still they took a big chance doing that for me, could have been caught themselves. I think that's why they were so successful as leaders, the men knew they'd be there for them."

"I lost contact with them two years later. My sister wrote me, her husband died, needed help with the farm, so I left to give her a hand. I had been out of outlawing for a couple of years when I was recognized and arrested. Town was pretty upset. I was married by then, even thinking of running for sheriff, I'd helped out so much and they just couldn't believe it."

"Fortunately Mr. Porter and the Judge thought prison would be a waste on me and when sentencing came up I was released on probation. I thought it was a miracle. It had a lot more to do with one smooth talking outlaw who had heard about me being arrested and slipped into visit the Judge in the dead of night to explain all this to him. I didn't hear about this until last year when Judge Perkins passed on. Heyes didn't even cash it in when he came looking for amnesty for him and Kid. It was just something he did for a friend and never considered anything back in return."

"He's my son's godfather, Lord knows what he's teaching him, but I guess every boy needs one bad sheep in the family to make life interesting. I gotta confess when they came looking for amnesty I had my doubts. Not because they were bad man and couldn't change, but because they were so darn good at what they did."

"It is nothing short of hard asking a man to give up something he does that well. Kid confessed one trip he felt Heyes would make it, but he had doubts about himself being able to stay out of trouble. He thought maybe they should split up, give Heyes a better chance. He didn't realize he was Heyes's chance. As long as Heyes had someone to see was all right he'd keep fighting and beat it."

"I'll never forget the Governor's face when he met those two. I guess he was expecting a couple of ruffians and they walk in all spiffed up smiling like choirboys. Next thing I know Heyes is explaining how to handle a land grab problem to his cabinet and Kid's got them invited for Sunday supper. By the time we left Heyes could have asked for and gotten a Lt. Governship and Kid had the Governor's wife close to adopting him."

"So there you have it, my first impression."

He paused at my question, "Have they changed since the amnesty?"

He tried not to smile as he growled, "Hell no, they still get into twice the trouble a normal man can and don't get me started on some of their so called adventures, make the dime novels look tame."

"People tell me the west is tame. All the outlaws are dead or reformed, civilization gone done and taken over. But I got news for them. Heyes and Curry will always be outlaws; no scrap of paper can change a man's nature. They are still wild, stubborn, dangerous men and nobody is ever gonna 'reform' them, no woman and certainly no man. They are trouble pure and simple and it don't matter how big the smile or sweet the words when you see them coming best turn and walk the other way."

He stopped and finally let a small smile escape. "Course some of us don't have the sense to do that." He stood up and picked up his hat and before turning added. "Sort of give a body hope for himself!"