One Year

by Allie

"You think it's worth it?" Curry lay on his back, staring at the night sky, full of stars. Yeah, it had sort of been his idea, but Heyes had run with it.

Maybe they were wrong. But maybe they weren't, and this was the best thing they'd come across yet: a way out of the jail sentence or death sentence awaiting all men like them.

Heyes, on his own bedroll two feet away, rolled on his side. "Kid, we've been on the run before. And if it works, we'll never have to go on the run again. One year. What's one year?" He was silent a moment. "You havin' doubts?"

The Kid frowned, trying to marshal his thoughts. Away from the relative safety of Devil's Hole? No jobs to pull, and no cash, either? "We'll be poor," he said at last, although that wasn't the all of it.

Heyes smiled. "Kid, we've been poor most of our lives. What's one year?"

Curry frowned. That was true enough, but there was more. He couldn't think of how to put the rest: the vulnerability that went with being neither a citizen protected by the law, nor an outlaw on the run from the law (with an outlaw's resources and comrades), but something in between.

Curry, at last, smiled back. Heyes was right, it was worth a try.

What was one year?