Alias Smith & Jones: The Story of Two Pretty Good Bad Men

by Sandra K. Sagala

  Maybe Valparaiso was not the Vale of Paradise its name implies. Around 1867, after being there about five years, they ran away and, at age fifteen, pulled their first job, “which didn’t seem all that different from everything [they’d] seen going on the past five years,” while the Civil War raged around them. Many soldiers home from the war, jobless and unable to adapt to civilian life, turned to crime as a way to make a living. Curry, who learned to shoot before he could shave, may have already put his marksmanship talents to use. A year later, when Curry was about sixteen, Artie Gorman took the ruffians under his wing. By then they had been in enough trouble that, had he not, they wouldn’t have made it to seventeen.

  After Artie set them on the straight and narrow, or at least taught them self-preservation if they would decide to follow a life of crime, they turned to honest work. Driving cattle on the Chisholm Trail in 1873-74, they would have started the herd in Texas where they met Joe Horner, later known as Frank Canton. Horner had his cattle rustling career going in 1874. The boys made some money at trail driving but spent hard days in the saddle and no doubt caroused in the Kansas cowtowns at trail’s end, a typical cowboy experience for twenty-two-year-olds. When asked in later years what they do for a living, the answer frequently is “as little as possible.” It’s likely that the hard days on the trail were enough to convince them of the comparative ease of an outlaw’s life, except when he was running for it. Train and bank robbing beckoned with lucrative rewards, not to mention the “glamour and glory” of being an outlaw.

  It is here that we need to separate the cousins in order to make sense of Heyes’s story of the first gang he rode with. It was led by Jim Plummer, as Heyes informs Curry (and the viewers) when they meet his former leader using an alias in Wickenburg. Heyes also tells Curry that he was the “champeen tracker” in southern Utah, something Curry evidently didn’t know and has trouble believing, given Heyes’s lack of talent in a hunt for wild cats.

  While separated, Curry, at least, traveled extensively. He had been as far as Philadelphia though he didn’t remember it fondly, recalling not much about the city except it was “kinda dusty.” When the two encounter a loud-mouthed drover in a Porterville saloon, the bully didn’t know Heyes, but recognized Curry who was “one jump ahead of a posse” when he saw him near Fort Griffin, due west of Fort Worth, Texas. Because speculation is the only way to make sense of some traits or “facts,” we shall assume that Curry learned to fast draw and practiced it frequently during the separation. In Wickenburg he continues to practice just to keep his skills up. His weapon serves them both well and in a third of the episodes he faces another man’s gun. He rarely draws first and even announces that fact to his opponent. He never shoots to kill but the sight of Curry’s gun cocked and ready to fire deters a man reaching for his own. Only the demand for justice for Seth provokes Curry enough to pull the trigger against Danny, the smiler with a gun.

  As for Heyes’s movements, he has never been east of the Mississippi river, but he may have stood on its banks wondering what went wrong after a failed attempt to rob the Mercantile Bank in St. Louis. In his rejection of Mrs. Fielding’s claim that he represents the average western man, he implies a love for the west and a sense that he’s seen quite a bit of it.

  Heyes mentions that he grew up on a farm, but presumably he was sent to school and probably did quite well, given his intelligence, cunning, and inventive mind. He skipped the Latin courses, evidenced by his stumbling over incommunicado in the pilot episode and daydreamed through grammar class, not learning the difference of usage between don’t and doesn’t. Perhaps he learned his manners at his mother’s knee or at school as well. In several instances, with a gentle nudge, he reminds Curry of his. It’s proper form to remove one’s hat in church and to stand when greeting a lady for dinner. The etiquette and gentility served him well in cons where he needed to act as a gentleman from Baltimore or a wealthy silver mine owner. He obviously loves to read and is the first of the two to pick up a stray newspaper. In devouring Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, Heyes discovers a valuable detection tool and uses the knowledge to save a friend from a murder charge.

  If Heyes had been a twenty-first century student, he would have excelled on the debate team. Curry recognizes, and generally accedes to, Heyes’s silver tongue. This gift for being able to “talk himself out of a tiger’s belly” comes in handy when he needs to convince Harry Wagoner there’s a bomb in the money bag; when he convinces Ribs to make a deal with Curt Clitterhouse; and when he talks Sarah Henderson into returning to her husband. As Curry is equally fond of pointing out, however, sometimes Heyes’s tongue is not so silver. He fails to get Fred Philpotts to recant his lie about being Kid Curry and his long-winded diatribe to bounty hunter Joe Sims fails to create any doubt in Sims that he’s got the wrong men.

  Nevertheless, Curry frequently turns over the thinking and planning to his partner. When the Kid does attempt to come up with a solution to their current dilemma, Heyes reminds him that they’ve had a pretty good arrangement wherein he does all the mental work. Curry does not appear to be as well-read as his cousin, wondering who the man behind the alias “Mark Twain” might be. Heyes does give Curry credit for having read Tom Sawyer three or four times but diminishes the praise with an observation that, as far as being able to spout a philosophy, Curry is “somewhat inarticulate — you might even say stupid.” Because of the circumstances, Curry does not deck his partner, but if looks could kill…even though Curry himself admits, “I'm not much of a talker. More of a man for action than words.”

  Giving up any semblance of being law-abiding, Heyes, in his early twenties, became leader of the Devil’s Hole Gang, a position he held for seven years, taking over from Big Jim Santana. A year into his leadership, the cousins re-unite, Curry joins the gang and becomes Heyes’s right hand man. Presumably with the gang, they emptied the latest model safe, a Pierce & Hamilton 1878, in Denver’s Merchants’ Bank and in the bank in Wichita but couldn’t do it by manipulating the tumblers. They are sadly familiar with the workings and “un-robbable-ness” of Brooker 202 safes in St. Louis, in the Farmer’s Bank in Fort Worth and the one in the train car. Heyes had to invent a new way to open them and came up with the dangerous but effective method of using nitroglycerin and a Bryant pump to create a vacuum to blow the doors open. This method worked fine for stationary safes in banks. Dynamite was the method of execution for those hauled in railroad cars. The train in the pilot was not the first they had stopped. On one occasion, they hit a train at Emeryville, and twice stopped the gold train headed to and from the Denver mint.

  After the failed attempt to open the safe in the pilot and tired of being chased by posses, Heyes and Curry express interest in Miss Birdie’s flyer on amnesty. Deciding to “get outta this business,” they consult former outlaw-turned-sheriff Lom Trevors. They ask for and receive his help in convincing the Wyoming governor of their good intentions. Lom introduces them to Miss Porter as Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, conferring on them their aliases by which he will know them in the future.

  For having performed with such excellence throughout their criminal career, enough to make them “the two most successful outlaws in the history of the West,” it is peculiar that only the law in Wyoming wants them. This may be simply because that’s where the Union Pacific Railroad, Wells Fargo, and Western Cattlemen’s Association filed their charges or where the court convened to try them in absentia for their crimes. Wyoming, unlike other states and territories, had no statute of limitations at that time, so they are quite sure if they are captured and extradited to Wyoming, a twenty-year jail sentence awaits them. Viewers never learn whether this was the customary sentence handed down in Wyoming to robbers, or if they had been legally tried and convicted and managed to escape prison. The latter seems less likely because they are still on the loose, even after speaking directly with the governor.

  The governor required that they stay out of trouble for one year in order to be considered for amnest
y. The first year was about 1880 because in “How to Rob a Bank in One Hard Lesson,” Heyes is forced to nitro a Pierce & Hamilton ’78, the latest model, something he had also done “a year and a half ago” while still outlawing. Their probation stretched to three or four years as evidenced by their spending a winter in the cabin in “Night of the Red Dog,” several weeks mining with Danny Bilson and Seth, and two Fourth of July celebrations over the course of the series. During that time, they encountered some historically familiar men. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were well-known names in Tombstone, Arizona, from 1879 to 1881 during which time the boys accompanied their friend Georgette there for her debut as a chanteuse and regrettably attracted the attention of the famous marshal. After Doc Holliday left Tombstone because of “the shooting trouble,” undeniably a reference to the OK Corral gunfight in October 1881, the boys run into him again in “The Ten Days That Shook Kid Curry.” Joe Horner put his rustling career behind him, served some prison time, escaped, and fled to Wyoming. There he changed his name to Frank Canton and became, not only a respectable citizen, but sheriff of Johnson County, an office he holds when the boys wander into town. Curry is “pushing thirty,” in 1885, when they retrieve Zulick from Mexico in time for his inauguration as Arizona governor. 1885 is also the year when Francis Warren served his first short term as territorial governor of Wyoming.

  After meeting with Governor George W. Baxter in hopes of furthering their amnesty chances, they agree to do a favor for him which takes them to the Red Sash Gang’s hideout. Because it’s so remote, they don’t learn the news until they return that President Cleveland replaced Baxter with Thomas Moonlight. That happened on January 24, 1887, specifically dating “The Day the Amnesty Came Through” and making it clear that the boys had been, and would continue to be, trying to stay out of trouble for a very long time. In fact, when devising how best to abscond with Zulick from the Mexican mining camp, Heyes studies the layout but can’t come up with a plan. Curry encourages him to pretend that Zulick is like money in a bank, what’s the best way to get him out? It had been so long since he had to use his bank-robbing talents that Heyes is stumped.

  To paraphrase a Biblical quote Curry may have known, “by their acts shall you know them.” Despite having dabbled in outlawry for many years before deciding to go straight, they were not all bad. The only thing we really know about their character in the early years is that they never killed anyone.

  They are not always carefree and affable, however. Hannibal Heyes has a definite dark side. Shortly after they’ve committed themselves to seeking amnesty, they are confronted with the dilemma of what to do about members of their former gang. Do they let their past associates be slaughtered by a force of Bannerman men in lieu of revealing their own connection to them? Curry is sure the amnesty is not worth that big a price, but Heyes really has to think about it for awhile. If dealing with friends proved to be a catch-22, seeking revenge for Seth’s death in “Smiler with a Gun,” was a no-brainer for him. Though Heyes liked to think “there’s a little bad in everybody,” he saw full-blown evil in Danny Bilson. Since nothing would bring Seth back, Heyes wanted to take Danny for everything he had stolen from them. It can be argued that he goaded Danny into a gunfight with Curry, secure in the knowledge the Kid could beat him.

  On the other hand, friendship is important to Heyes. Their investigation into the Touchstone bank robbery becomes as much an effort to learn what happened to Billy and Caleb as it is an attempt to clear their own names. The knowledge will offer some peace of mind to Billy’s mother, their old friend Jenny. Heyes’s concern and loyalty for his partner goes without saying. His despair at seeing Curry falsely accused of murder by the Santa Marta alcalde prompts him to come up with a miracle to clear him. And as much as it pains him to do it, he resorts to robbery and deceit to rescue Curry from kidnappers Lorraine and Janet, and Amy Martin and Willard Riley. While Doc Beauregard is engrossed in playing poker, it is Heyes who nurses Curry when he falls sick. More than once Heyes takes Curry under his wing. At least three times he attempts to stop Curry from violence. He warns him in the Porterville saloon not to get involved because he can’t back up his smart-aleck retorts. In Big Bend, he’s willing to start a fistfight with the Kid, even before breakfast, to prevent him from instigating another encounter with bully Joe Briggs. In “The Girl in Boxcar #3,” he stops Curry from delivering a punch, this time to Attorney Greer. However, because Greer so deserves it, he delivers it himself.

  Heyes — the devious and more thorough schemer of the two — has faith in his own talents. Once he puts his mind to something it usually happens. He will succeed in getting the amnesty, a fact Curry acknowledges. More than once Curry suggests they separate, recognizing Heyes’s forthright approach to his less sure one. But, as Heyes points out to banker Chester Powers, Curry has one solid virtue — he listens to Heyes. Heyes has a talent for being able to judge a person’s character. His instinct tells him that trusting Sheriff Clitterhouse may not be the wisest course of action and, to his dismay, he’s proven right. Luckily his judgment of Judge Hanley is equally sound, reinforcing his conviction that “trust is something people have to earn.”

  Kid Curry’s single-mindedness and care for his friend is similarly evident when Heyes is in danger. Coming up behind the mountain man who shot and wounded Heyes, Curry would have killed the man if he made a wrong move. Similarly, believing Heyes dead of a gunshot wound to the head, Curry fanatically pursues the enforcers of the Wyoming Cattlemen’s Association and, frustrated at their being out of range, fires into the air in a flamboyant show of anger. The other drover watches Curry with awe. Only wounded, Heyes remarks to Cress, “You ought to see him when he really gets mad.”

  Curry too is concerned for others. Even after Joe Sims, the self-proclaimed professional bounty hunter, captured them, tied them up and gave every evidence that he was serious about turning them in for the reward, Curry talks Heyes into shooting into the lynching party to free Sims. When they’re forced to walk through the desert with Seth, it’s Curry who takes the lead in keeping the old man upright and walking.

  For being a confirmed fast draw, Curry is a different man when the weapon is not in his hand. He’s insecure about their chances for amnesty, positive he will slip back into old habits and that Heyes has a much better chance at it. When things do go well, he’s nervous, assuming it’s only a temporary silver lining in a thundercloud. This puts him more on alert, a trait Heyes appreciates, knowing that, with senses sharpened, Curry will watch out for both of them. Curry would argue it is Heyes who sets the mood. “I know you, Heyes, you can’t take it when things are going good. It makes you nervous and your being nervous makes me nervous.” Perhaps because he is still a Kid, even if in name only, in each of the episodes where Heyes and Curry encounter children, Curry has the most interaction. While Heyes would rather ease into the morning, Curry joins Beth and Bridget Jordan for some fancy shooting. He appreciates their rifle shooting talents while agreeing with their mother that girls shouldn’t play with handguns. Little Tommy Cunningham in Wickenburg would like to learn pistol proficiency but Curry wisely refuses to teach him, believing that, by the time the child grows up, people won’t be wearing guns on their hips any more. Tommy Tapscott, charged by his mother to hold a rifle on the boys in the wagon, drops it when the wagon wheel hits a bump in the road. Curry stomps on the downed rifle and, for an instant, sees a way to escape. At the sight of Tommy’s frightened face, however, he removes his foot from the gun so the boy can retrieve it.

  The boys are about equal in luck, both good and bad, with women. Over the course of the series, Curry charms Grace Turner and Michelle Monet, Margaret Chapman and Charlotte Austin, to name a few. Heyes beguiles Grace but also has romantic moments with Amy Martin, Julia Finney and Beegee. They have deep-rooted, though not always amiable, connections with Clementine Hale and Georgette Sinclair, whose own past stories suggest they’ve known Heyes and Curry a long time and consider them more long-lost family than paramour
s. More often than not, women feature in one of their scams.

  When it comes to relationships, talents, and foibles, in the end Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry represent Everyman. They exhibit anger, fear, intelligence, insecurity, faith, sophistication and naiveté, concern and peacefulness to varying degrees in disparate situations. During a fishing trip, they have time to relax. Pondering their situation, they wonder how their upbringing led them to where they are now — wanted dead or alive with a $20,000 bounty on their heads. If things had been different, instead of being bank and train robbers, they might be earning honest money as bank guards or train conductors. But then viewers would hardly tune in to watch. In one script Heyes tells Curry, “You know, Kid, I’m beginning to really admire you. You got depths I never expected.” [4] Viewers might echo his sentiments about the whole of Alias Smith and Jones.

  The Devil’s Hole Gang. Courtesy of Chris Fimple

  The Devil’s Hole Gang visits the set of Planet of the Apes. Courtesy of Chris Fimple

  Ben Murphy as Kid Curry. Sagala collection

  Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  Kid Curry’s Wanted Poster.

  Hannibal Heyes’s Wanted Poster.

  Jerry Ohlinger’s Movie Materials Store

  Courtesy of Ben Murphy

  Chapter 3

  The First Season: Amnesty? For You Two?

  January 5, 1971-April 22, 1971

  First Season Credits (1970-71)