ASJ Fanfiction: Chapter 20 (The End)
Warning: this fic contains graphic descriptions of a gunshot wound, along with medical procedure. Don’t read unless that sort of thing is interesting to you.
Hannibal Heyes is gunned down by a dry-gulcher on his way back to his hotel room. He and the Kid stumble into a time portal and wind up in the present day, just in time to nearly be run over by a passing car.
Chapter 20
Hannibal Heyes stepped through the rainbow-tinted “doorway” and immediately knew he was home. For one thing, the sidewalk in the alley was plain dirt. He smelled horse and cow and dung and a hint of vomit from behind the saloon. There were no mechanical honks or beeps or wails from the street beyond. He looked up - the stars were in their accustomed positions. Assuming this was the same night they’d left, they’d only been gone a few minutes.
He stayed behind the Kid, clutching the carpet bag in his off hand and his pistol in his right. If there was going to be trouble, Jed would take care of it before Heyes even had a chance to aim, but Heyes was ready if there were more than one assassin.
His chest still ached, but he ignored it and concentrated on spotting Chinese assassins in the darkness behind the hotel. Something moved behind him and he whirled, but it was only Sam coming through.
“See anything?” Sam whispered. His voice cracked. “Damn, but it’s dark here.”
“No darker than usual,” Heyes whispered back. “The Kid’s got front. You and I need to take the back. You go left and I’ll go right. Meet up at the front of the hotel.”
“Don’t shoot ‘less they’re pointing a gun at you,” the Kid whispered over his shoulder.
Heyes stepped to the right, scanning the darkness of the alley. He saw nothing moving, but there was a doorway ahead, at the side of the doctor’s office. Anybody could be camped out there. They wouldn’t be seen until they pulled the trigger.
He ducked over to the office wall, plastering his back against it and sliding over toward the door. He heard nothing. The Kid passed the doorway. The click of a pistol hammer sounded from the left, at the corner of the hotel.
Heyes whirled, but the Kid was between him and the sound. Jed’s pistol was already aimed and firing. A grunt sounded from the darkness ahead. A shot zinged off the doctor’s office door. The Kid fired again. A body tumbled into the dim light streaming from the hotel’s front window.
“That’s two,” the Kid muttered. “Sam, you got any idea how many might be out here?”
Heyes could hear Sam swallow hard. “I’m afraid not.” His voice wobbled. “We usually send teams of one or two, but I’m not sure how many the Chinese might have sent.”
“That’s just dandy. Stay behind me.” The Kid strode to where the body lay. Without dropping his aim, he kicked it hard. Either the fellow was dead, or he was an expert at playing possum.
Heyes crept up behind the Kid and picked up the pistol that had dropped from the gunman’s hand. It was an old Army model from the 1870s. No wonder it hadn’t killed him immediately. Older pistols just lacked the velocity of a modern gun. Well, modern meaning 1886. For a moment, Heyes wondered if he could have slipped a futuristic pistol past Sam’s notice.
Sam now crowded close to Heyes. “Is that man dead?” He whispered.
“Maybe. Stay behind me.”
“I’ve never actually seen anybody get killed before.” Sam’s voice wobbled again.
Heyes turned his head. Sam’s pistol was visibly wavering. The man was likely to shoot one of them instead of the enemy if he kept that up.
“Don’t tell me,” Heyes whispered. “This is your first real mission, isn’t it?”
“Well -“
“I asked you not to tell me.” Heyes plucked the Colt from Sam’s lax grip. “Why would they send a greenhorn on a mission like this? You could get shot.”
“I begged them to send me. I know more about the Wild West than anybody else in the office.”
“Keep your voice down.” Heyes pocketed Sam’s Colt. “And stay behind me.”
“Both of you keep out of my way,” the Kid whispered sternly. “Heyes you already got shot once. You do it again and I’m likely to bean you myself.”
Heyes crept along after the Kid. He felt a tug at his shirt sleeve and whirled again.
Sam. “We should try to find poor Dave. He’d be nearby.”
The Kid spoke over his shoulder. “We should get Heyes into the hotel room so he don’t get shot again.”
“The hell we should.” Heyes glared at his partner’s back, knowing the Kid could feel it. “We’re going to help Sam find that other agent. Then we’re going to have a beer. Then I’m going to go to the room and lie down.”
They crept through the alley until they reached the front of the hotel.
“Where would that Dave fellow even be?” The Kid asked, glancing left and right across the street.
Sam tugged at Heyes’ sleeve again. “The newspaper for tomorrow said that two bodies were found near the livery stable. Maybe one of them was him.”
“What about that guy back there?” Heyes yanked his sleeve from Sam’s grip. “He looked pretty dead to me.”
“But that happened after we read the newspaper. This is all new time being laid down.”
The thud of footsteps on the wooden sidewalk alerted them. The Kid held up a cautionary hand and moved out of the way of the sheriff and his deputy.
“We heard shots,” the sheriff said, giving the three of them the eye.
“Fellow tried to bushwhack us,” the Kid replied, pointing his pistol at the ground. “You’ll find him back there beside the hotel.”
“There’s probably another one near the saloon,” Heyes put in. “We think the two of them were together.”
“And what were the three of you doing to get bushwhacked?” The deputy gave them a suspicious glare.
Heyes raised his carpetbag. “Honest, officer, all we did was win the poker game. They must have been sore losers.”
The Kid, without holstering his pistol, took a step toward the livery stable. “We’re going to look for another friend of ours. They might have gotten him before they came for us.”
The sheriff nodded. “Ralph, go along with them. I’ll check out the alley.”
“Be careful,” Heyes said. “We don’t know how many of them there are.”
“Careful is my middle name.” The sheriff drew his pistol and headed down the dark alley.
The Kid led the way to the livery stable, across from the hotel. Ralph, the deputy, drew his weapon and tagged along. As they drew near the stable, Heyes hear muffled thuds from inside. A restless horse kicking the stall? Or something more sinister?
The Kid entered first, of course. Always let the security expert scope out the area. The deputy, not knowing this fact, shoved into the stable after the Kid. If there was another Chinese agent in there, Ralph was going to get shot.
In fact, there were no further gunshots. The Kid stuck his head back out of the livery door, a grin on his face. “I think Sam’s going to be right pleased at what we found.”
Heyes and Sam entered the stable to find Ralph untying a tall, wiry fellow with a thick mustache. The man also had a large knot on his forehead. The deputy removed a handkerchief from the other man’s mouth.
“Dave!” Sam yelled, dashing across the room. “We thought you were dead.”
The other agent tugged the ropes off his legs and rose to wobbly feet. “I would have been as soon as those two finished their mission and didn’t need me any longer.
He glanced at Heyes and Curry and his eyes widened. “Is that --?”
Sam hurriedly interrupted. “Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones took care of your two assailants. Are you sure there were only two of them?”
Dave continued to stare at Heyes and Curry. “They never indicated that there were others. And the one that hit me over the head was bragging, so he’d have said if they had more help.”
Dave was even taller than the Kid, though thinner. He was dressed like a typical cowboy: wool trousers, a faded work shirt and vest, boots with spurs - and a hat he located in the stall behind him and clapped onto his head. “I reckon I owe you three my life.”
The Kid holstered his Colt. “I reckon we can go get that beer now.”
Over a corner table in the saloon, the Kid voiced a valid concern. “Are we gonna have to be on our toes the rest of our lives? You think they’re gonna send more agents to try and murder us?”
Dave shook his head. “Once we thwart an attempt, the Chinese usually turn to something else. They know we’re going to be watching you two now, and it’s not worth the risk to them.”
Heyes glanced around the room suspiciously. “You got some sort of machine that’s going to be watching our every move?”
Sam sighed. “You two picked up entirely too much knowledge in that hospital. No, we’re not going to bug you. We’ll just read the newspapers and magazines and make sure the two of you fulfill your destiny.”
“Which you ain’t going to tell us about,” Heyes muttered sourly. His chest was starting to ache. And he wasn’t entirely certain he was supposed to be taking these pills with a beer. Maybe he ought to read over those instructions Etta had shoved into his bag.
“We can’t change history.” Sam held out a hand. “And we can’t let you keep those replica Colts either. We’ll walk you two back to your room.”
Heyes and the Kid handed over their pistols.They’d have to get a new derringer in the morning, to replace the one Deputy Burton had confiscated. For now, they should be safe enough in the hotel room. And Kid Curry with a derringer was better than any two men with regular pistols.
Sam and Dave did walk them back and nothing untoward happened. The sheriff was waiting in the hotel lobby. The four of them had to give a statement, but with Dave’s testimony, the sheriff was convinced that it was some sort of plot to dry-gulch the lot of them, for whatever reason. Dave stuck with Heyes’ story of unhappy poker losers and claimed the fellows were originally going to hold him hostage until they got their money back.
“They must have decided it’d be easier just to loot your bodies,” the sheriff said, clapping his hat back onto his head and heading for the door. “You fellows were really lucky you heard them coming.”
Heyes put a hand over the bandage on his right side. They’d been lucky all right. Luckier than a couple of owlhoots ought to have been. Whatever they were supposed to do must be something spectacular.
***
Epilogue:
“My God!” The portly gentleman in the tailored suit put a hand to his face. “Mr. Heyes, if you hadn’t knocked me out of the way, that runaway team would have mowed me down.”
Heyes put out a hand to help the man back to his feet. “Think nothing of it, sir. My partner and I were just in the right place at the right time.”
“Thank God we were all three speaking at the crime symposium.”
Heyes exchanged a glance with the Kid. “It was quite a coincidence, wasn’t it? Are you still thinking of running for a second term of office?”
Grover Cleveland stared at the loaded freight wagon, its horses now stopped by oncoming traffic. The driver had caught up to his team and was leading them back to the loading dock.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I now feel that it’s my destiny to do so.”
Hannibal Heyes is gunned down by a dry-gulcher on his way back to his hotel room. He and the Kid stumble into a time portal and wind up in the present day, just in time to nearly be run over by a passing car.
Chapter 20
Hannibal Heyes stepped through the rainbow-tinted “doorway” and immediately knew he was home. For one thing, the sidewalk in the alley was plain dirt. He smelled horse and cow and dung and a hint of vomit from behind the saloon. There were no mechanical honks or beeps or wails from the street beyond. He looked up - the stars were in their accustomed positions. Assuming this was the same night they’d left, they’d only been gone a few minutes.
He stayed behind the Kid, clutching the carpet bag in his off hand and his pistol in his right. If there was going to be trouble, Jed would take care of it before Heyes even had a chance to aim, but Heyes was ready if there were more than one assassin.
His chest still ached, but he ignored it and concentrated on spotting Chinese assassins in the darkness behind the hotel. Something moved behind him and he whirled, but it was only Sam coming through.
“See anything?” Sam whispered. His voice cracked. “Damn, but it’s dark here.”
“No darker than usual,” Heyes whispered back. “The Kid’s got front. You and I need to take the back. You go left and I’ll go right. Meet up at the front of the hotel.”
“Don’t shoot ‘less they’re pointing a gun at you,” the Kid whispered over his shoulder.
Heyes stepped to the right, scanning the darkness of the alley. He saw nothing moving, but there was a doorway ahead, at the side of the doctor’s office. Anybody could be camped out there. They wouldn’t be seen until they pulled the trigger.
He ducked over to the office wall, plastering his back against it and sliding over toward the door. He heard nothing. The Kid passed the doorway. The click of a pistol hammer sounded from the left, at the corner of the hotel.
Heyes whirled, but the Kid was between him and the sound. Jed’s pistol was already aimed and firing. A grunt sounded from the darkness ahead. A shot zinged off the doctor’s office door. The Kid fired again. A body tumbled into the dim light streaming from the hotel’s front window.
“That’s two,” the Kid muttered. “Sam, you got any idea how many might be out here?”
Heyes could hear Sam swallow hard. “I’m afraid not.” His voice wobbled. “We usually send teams of one or two, but I’m not sure how many the Chinese might have sent.”
“That’s just dandy. Stay behind me.” The Kid strode to where the body lay. Without dropping his aim, he kicked it hard. Either the fellow was dead, or he was an expert at playing possum.
Heyes crept up behind the Kid and picked up the pistol that had dropped from the gunman’s hand. It was an old Army model from the 1870s. No wonder it hadn’t killed him immediately. Older pistols just lacked the velocity of a modern gun. Well, modern meaning 1886. For a moment, Heyes wondered if he could have slipped a futuristic pistol past Sam’s notice.
Sam now crowded close to Heyes. “Is that man dead?” He whispered.
“Maybe. Stay behind me.”
“I’ve never actually seen anybody get killed before.” Sam’s voice wobbled again.
Heyes turned his head. Sam’s pistol was visibly wavering. The man was likely to shoot one of them instead of the enemy if he kept that up.
“Don’t tell me,” Heyes whispered. “This is your first real mission, isn’t it?”
“Well -“
“I asked you not to tell me.” Heyes plucked the Colt from Sam’s lax grip. “Why would they send a greenhorn on a mission like this? You could get shot.”
“I begged them to send me. I know more about the Wild West than anybody else in the office.”
“Keep your voice down.” Heyes pocketed Sam’s Colt. “And stay behind me.”
“Both of you keep out of my way,” the Kid whispered sternly. “Heyes you already got shot once. You do it again and I’m likely to bean you myself.”
Heyes crept along after the Kid. He felt a tug at his shirt sleeve and whirled again.
Sam. “We should try to find poor Dave. He’d be nearby.”
The Kid spoke over his shoulder. “We should get Heyes into the hotel room so he don’t get shot again.”
“The hell we should.” Heyes glared at his partner’s back, knowing the Kid could feel it. “We’re going to help Sam find that other agent. Then we’re going to have a beer. Then I’m going to go to the room and lie down.”
They crept through the alley until they reached the front of the hotel.
“Where would that Dave fellow even be?” The Kid asked, glancing left and right across the street.
Sam tugged at Heyes’ sleeve again. “The newspaper for tomorrow said that two bodies were found near the livery stable. Maybe one of them was him.”
“What about that guy back there?” Heyes yanked his sleeve from Sam’s grip. “He looked pretty dead to me.”
“But that happened after we read the newspaper. This is all new time being laid down.”
The thud of footsteps on the wooden sidewalk alerted them. The Kid held up a cautionary hand and moved out of the way of the sheriff and his deputy.
“We heard shots,” the sheriff said, giving the three of them the eye.
“Fellow tried to bushwhack us,” the Kid replied, pointing his pistol at the ground. “You’ll find him back there beside the hotel.”
“There’s probably another one near the saloon,” Heyes put in. “We think the two of them were together.”
“And what were the three of you doing to get bushwhacked?” The deputy gave them a suspicious glare.
Heyes raised his carpetbag. “Honest, officer, all we did was win the poker game. They must have been sore losers.”
The Kid, without holstering his pistol, took a step toward the livery stable. “We’re going to look for another friend of ours. They might have gotten him before they came for us.”
The sheriff nodded. “Ralph, go along with them. I’ll check out the alley.”
“Be careful,” Heyes said. “We don’t know how many of them there are.”
“Careful is my middle name.” The sheriff drew his pistol and headed down the dark alley.
The Kid led the way to the livery stable, across from the hotel. Ralph, the deputy, drew his weapon and tagged along. As they drew near the stable, Heyes hear muffled thuds from inside. A restless horse kicking the stall? Or something more sinister?
The Kid entered first, of course. Always let the security expert scope out the area. The deputy, not knowing this fact, shoved into the stable after the Kid. If there was another Chinese agent in there, Ralph was going to get shot.
In fact, there were no further gunshots. The Kid stuck his head back out of the livery door, a grin on his face. “I think Sam’s going to be right pleased at what we found.”
Heyes and Sam entered the stable to find Ralph untying a tall, wiry fellow with a thick mustache. The man also had a large knot on his forehead. The deputy removed a handkerchief from the other man’s mouth.
“Dave!” Sam yelled, dashing across the room. “We thought you were dead.”
The other agent tugged the ropes off his legs and rose to wobbly feet. “I would have been as soon as those two finished their mission and didn’t need me any longer.
He glanced at Heyes and Curry and his eyes widened. “Is that --?”
Sam hurriedly interrupted. “Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones took care of your two assailants. Are you sure there were only two of them?”
Dave continued to stare at Heyes and Curry. “They never indicated that there were others. And the one that hit me over the head was bragging, so he’d have said if they had more help.”
Dave was even taller than the Kid, though thinner. He was dressed like a typical cowboy: wool trousers, a faded work shirt and vest, boots with spurs - and a hat he located in the stall behind him and clapped onto his head. “I reckon I owe you three my life.”
The Kid holstered his Colt. “I reckon we can go get that beer now.”
Over a corner table in the saloon, the Kid voiced a valid concern. “Are we gonna have to be on our toes the rest of our lives? You think they’re gonna send more agents to try and murder us?”
Dave shook his head. “Once we thwart an attempt, the Chinese usually turn to something else. They know we’re going to be watching you two now, and it’s not worth the risk to them.”
Heyes glanced around the room suspiciously. “You got some sort of machine that’s going to be watching our every move?”
Sam sighed. “You two picked up entirely too much knowledge in that hospital. No, we’re not going to bug you. We’ll just read the newspapers and magazines and make sure the two of you fulfill your destiny.”
“Which you ain’t going to tell us about,” Heyes muttered sourly. His chest was starting to ache. And he wasn’t entirely certain he was supposed to be taking these pills with a beer. Maybe he ought to read over those instructions Etta had shoved into his bag.
“We can’t change history.” Sam held out a hand. “And we can’t let you keep those replica Colts either. We’ll walk you two back to your room.”
Heyes and the Kid handed over their pistols.They’d have to get a new derringer in the morning, to replace the one Deputy Burton had confiscated. For now, they should be safe enough in the hotel room. And Kid Curry with a derringer was better than any two men with regular pistols.
Sam and Dave did walk them back and nothing untoward happened. The sheriff was waiting in the hotel lobby. The four of them had to give a statement, but with Dave’s testimony, the sheriff was convinced that it was some sort of plot to dry-gulch the lot of them, for whatever reason. Dave stuck with Heyes’ story of unhappy poker losers and claimed the fellows were originally going to hold him hostage until they got their money back.
“They must have decided it’d be easier just to loot your bodies,” the sheriff said, clapping his hat back onto his head and heading for the door. “You fellows were really lucky you heard them coming.”
Heyes put a hand over the bandage on his right side. They’d been lucky all right. Luckier than a couple of owlhoots ought to have been. Whatever they were supposed to do must be something spectacular.
***
Epilogue:
“My God!” The portly gentleman in the tailored suit put a hand to his face. “Mr. Heyes, if you hadn’t knocked me out of the way, that runaway team would have mowed me down.”
Heyes put out a hand to help the man back to his feet. “Think nothing of it, sir. My partner and I were just in the right place at the right time.”
“Thank God we were all three speaking at the crime symposium.”
Heyes exchanged a glance with the Kid. “It was quite a coincidence, wasn’t it? Are you still thinking of running for a second term of office?”
Grover Cleveland stared at the loaded freight wagon, its horses now stopped by oncoming traffic. The driver had caught up to his team and was leading them back to the loading dock.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I now feel that it’s my destiny to do so.”