Pneumonia

By Avoca

Heyes was bone tired: he didn’t seem to have a muscle that didn’t hurt; he plastered a smile on his face and opened the door to his hotel room.

His partner lay under a mound of blankets in the bed on the right. Heyes heard the cocking of a gun.

“It’s only me, Kid.” He said as he closed the door behind him.

“Sorry.” Kid Curry said as he emerged from under the blankets. He didn’t get a chance to say anything further as a bout of lung wrenching coughs filled the room.

Heyes was beside Curry’s bed in an instant, taking the half full glass of water from the ancient beside table and holding it to his friend’s lips.

“Just sip, don’t say anything.” He crooned, Curry swallowed the liquid, grateful that he didn’t have to hold the glass. After a few swallows the coughing subsided.

“You look awful.” Curry said as his eyes swept over his friend’s face.

Even in the dimly lit room it was clear that Heyes looked haggard and the three day beard growth didn’t disguise the lines of tiredness etched in his face and round his eyes.

Heyes smiled, “You’re not looking too good yourself.”

“Well I’ve had croup but you’re working yourself to death.”

“Pneumonia, you have pneumonia and it ain’t some quack like Chauncey Beauregard saying that, it was a real doctor.”

Curry leaned back and decided to change the subject.

“How did it go?Did you have any problems? D..”

“Whoa! Kid, slow down, everything went fine and I have enough money for the buy in.” Heyes stood straight and grinned. “It’s late, I’m going to get some sleep and over breakfast we’ll talk it through.”

Curry looked as if he was going to say something but instead he nodded, Heyes woke to find his partner shaving at the wash stand. The room was bright with natural light. He closed his eyes and debated the merits of returning to sleep but he realised that was not an option as his mind had already begun to form poker hands. He sat up. Curry removed the towel he had tucked into the neck of his henley and used it to dry his face as he turned towards Heyes.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I’ll have a quick shave and then we’ll go and have some breakfast.”

Twenty minutes later the duo entered the only restaurant in Grantsvale and sat at a table at the back of the room near a stone fireplace in which a fire burned brightly. Immediately they were approached by a middle aged grey haired woman who beamed at them.

“Joshua, I’m glad you’re back, I couldn’t get Thaddeus to eat hardly anything for the last three days, no matter what I sent to his room.”

“Now Ang, I ate. I just couldn’t do justice to your fine meals and big portions.”

The woman smiled. “Well I’m glad you felt up to leaving your room but you still look mighty pale to me. You, boys are my favourite customers and I sure will miss you when you move on but I gotta tell you bad weather is coming and Thaddeus you need to go somewhere warmer before it arrives.”

Over Ang’s hearty breakfast which neither man could finish the partners discussed their plans or, as Curry pointedly called it ‘your plan to get us out of Grantsville, one of the coldest places on earth’.

“I have six hundred dollars so I’ll use five hundred for the buy in to the monthly high stake poker game in the saloon and we’ll use the other hundred to pay our bills here and buy tickets for the train leaving the day after tomorrow. With any luck we can get out of town before the weather turns bad and the snow comes. I’ve been figuring it out, Kid we should have enough money after the game to take connecting trains south and be in Santa Pedro by the 5th of December, we can spend Christmas there and rest up.” Heyes took a sip from his coffee cup.

“I still have fifty dollars from the money you left me so we should be all right. Now I want to hear how things went with delivering those deeds. I don’t like it when we split up for jobs.” Curry’s voice trailed off as a bout of coughing shook his frame.

Ang was beside the table in an instant putting a glass of water in front of Curry. “Drink that, Thaddeus and where is the medicine that Doc Finlay gave you?”

She sighed and turned to Heyes. “Joshua, don’t let Thaddeus fool you, he needs to go to see the doctor again. He’s looking better than when you boys rode in but he is far from well.” She patted Curry’s hand and moved away.

Heyes studied his partner. “I’m not going to ask you how you managed to spend only ten dollars since I left on that last job,but when we leave here we are going straight to the doc’s place and don’t bother arguing with me because right now I’m mite proddy.”

Half an hour later the partners were back in their hotel room.

Heyes lifted the glass from beside Curry’s bed and taking a brown bottle from his pocket he poured three drops of the amber liquid into it and filled it with water from the pitcher.

“Drink it.”

For the briefest moment Curry looked like he was about to argue but he capitulated and drank the liquid, grimacing as he did so.

“Heyes, it makes me groggy and I want to be in the saloon tonight for that poker game.” He removed his gun belt as he spoke and lowered himself on to the bed, putting his gun under the pillow before he tugged his boots off.

“Kid, listen to me. You need to take this medicine so that you will be well enough to travel the day after tomorrow. You can get some sleep now while I buy the train tickets and you don’t need to be in the saloon tonight. It’s a friendly game, we have already checked that out so all you need to do is concentrate on getting better .”

“We’ll discuss it later.” Curry said, yawning.

Heyes pulled the bed cover up higher and tucked it in around his sleepy partner.

Heyes stopped at the bath house and paid extra to have fresh warm water in his tub. After that he called to the train station and bought the tickets for the first leg of their journey. He wanted to make the trip as easy on his recovering partner as possible so he planned to take the train south to Louisburgh, spend the night there take another train the next morning bringing them further south to Rushwood, spend a night there and then take a train to Wyattville where they would have to take a stagecoach to reach the quiet town of Santa Pedro. The town was about ten miles from the Mexican border and the Sheriff was an old friend of Lom’s. The partners had visited the town once before for a meeting with Lom Trevors and had met Sheriff Ramsey so they knew they would be relatively safe there for a few weeks while Curry regained his strength.

Heyes went to the Mercantile to get a few necessities for the planned trip. He gathered what he needed and approached the counter.

“Do you have any warm travelling blankets?” he asked the bald headed shopkeeper.

“We do indeed.” The shopkeeper disappeared through a door behind the counter and emerged holding a few brightly coloured blankets. “These are the best we have, they are not cheap but they are warm and I always say you have to pay for quality, yes siree. These will sell out soon, as the snow is coming.” The man laid the blankets out on the counter.

Heyes lifted one of them up. It felt soft and warm, it would be perfect for his partner as they travelled.

He put it back on the counter. “I’ll take it.”

The shopkeeper beamed. “You have good taste, sir, but then so does your friend.”

“My friend?”

“Yes sir, the young fair haired man. He didn’t look terribly well when he came in about three days ago. He bought some bullets and he spotted some books that had just arrived and he picked the most expensive, a lovely little volume. Let me think, why, it was ‘Life on the Mississippi’ by that Mark Twain fella. I commented on it and told him I admired a man who reads as I don’t have much time for such things what with the store and all. I remember his answer, it stuck in my mind, because he was coughing badly and I thought he was going to pass out, but he recovered and told me he rarely read and the book was a present.” The man stopped and looked at Heyes. “Oh my! I hope I haven’t ruined a surprise or anything, my wife is always telling me that I talk before I think.”

Heyes shook his head. “No, you haven’t ruined anything.”

Heyes sat in the saloon, drinking a beer. He had tipped the bartender and had found out more details about the poker game that he hoped to join that night. It sounded good natured and the regulars, who were all large ranch owners, had no problem with a visitor sitting in provided they had a stake of five hundred dollars.

Heyes turned his thoughts to his partner. They had been busy over the last few weeks but busy wasn’t necessarily profitable, in fact they had ended up much further north than they intended with winter closing in and their last job together had been to deliver two wagon loads of farm and cattle equipment to a large ranch about ten miles north of their current location. The weather had been awful with stinging rain alternating with biting cold winds. Curry had taken ill but had managed to hide it for several days from his distracted partner.

Looking back, Heyes knew it was his preoccupation with money and logistics that had blinded him to how ill Curry was. They had managed to deliver the wagons to an ungrateful rancher and were on the journey south when Curry had all but fallen from his horse. Heyes had been lucky to get him to the hotel in Grantsvale and their luck had held as the town’s only doctor was smart and experienced. Heyes still felt a chill when he recalled what the doctor had told him.

“Son, your young friend is seriously ill, he has a very bad case of pneumonia and I reckon another few hours in the saddle and I wouldn’t have been able to save him.”

Heyes had stayed beside Kid’s bed for several days and at last the doctor pronounced that his patient had turned the corner but he was still far from well. Heyes had got to know Ang, the local restaurant owner, during that time as Doctor Finlay arranged for her to call to the hotel with food and warm drinks. Heyes smiled, Ang had taken one look at a sleeping Curry and all her latent motherly instincts had kicked in. Kid had that effect on women, older ones wanted to mother him and younger ones. Well! Heyes wouldn’t go there.

He finished his beer and returned to the hotel. Curry was still sleeping and Heyes once again tucked the blanket around the younger man. He lay on his own bed and began poker games in his mind, eventually drifting into a light sleep.

The partners ate dinner before they made their way to the saloon. Neither man ate very much which upset the good hearted Ang. Curry appeared to be feeling better and he hadn’t experienced any prolonged bouts of coughing since he had woken up in the early evening. Heyes had spent the meal trying to dissuade his partner from attending the saloon for the poker game but a stubborn Curry refused to be swayed.

The poker game got under way and proved to be as friendly as the barkeeper had said. Heyes realised the ranch owners were all competent players and two of them were good enough to give Heyes some food for thought. He didn’t spot any cheating and he was beginning to enjoy himself but he would have been far happier if his partner wasn’t propped at the bar sipping a beer and refusing the come on lines from a very pretty working girl. A break of half an hour was called for the players so that the privy could be used and for some catching up between the ranch owners. Heyes used the opportunity to talk to his stubborn friend.

“Kid, you’ve seen it for yourself. It’s a nice peaceful game so why don’t you go back to the hotel and let me concentrate on my cards and not have to worry about my partner collapsing at the bar?”

“All right. ‘Night Heyes.”

The game resumed and Heyes turned his full attention to the cards in his hand but not before he pushed away a small niggle at how bad Kid must be feeling to leave without an argument. He needed to win and win big to ensure they had enough funds to get to Santa Pedro and stay for at least a month in order for his partner to recover his strength.

EPILOGUE

The train gave a long whistle as it pulled out of the Grantsvale station. Heyes was glad they were leaving as the temperature had fallen quite dramatically overnight. A tearful Ang, had assured them that a snowstorm was imminent , as she hugged both of them when they had breakfasted for a last time in her restaurant. There weren’t many passengers on the train so the partners had some room to stretch out.

Curry was hunkered down on the seat in front of Heyes, pulling the collar of his jacket up.

Heyes reached into his carpet bag and pulled out the blanket he had bought for the journey.

“Here Kid, take this it might keep you warm, it’s a mite early for Christmas but I think you need it now.”

Curry took the soft blanket and sighed with contentment as he felt the warmth it supplied. He reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a leather bound book.

“Merry Christmas, Heyes, here’s something for the journeys ahead. Thanks and not just for the blanket.”

Heyes patted his partner’s shoulder. No more words were needed.