My Calamity Jane Read online

  “Oh,” Frank said, and then he turned away.

  SIXTEEN

  Jane

  Jane booked it back as fast she could to the hotel. All she was thinking about now was that poor kid who’d tried to kill Charlie, the tremble in his voice when he’d said his life was over. It made her want to hide away forever.

  It also made her want to drown her sorrows.

  She burst into her room, crossed to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and drew her pocketbook out from underneath her spare set of underpants. Inside there was ten dollars. She stared at the wrinkled money, thinking of Bill’s rules for becoming a werewolf.

  DON’T BITE ANYBODY. Her belly rumbled at the word bite. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday. She should get a hot meal. She’d feel better with food in her stomach.

  BEWARE THE MOON. It was going to be a full moon in a couple of days. She should buy a length of chain.

  BE MINDFUL OF YOUR TEMPER. She should have the hotel people draw her a bath. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had one. The warm water might soothe the churning mess of anger and fear inside of her.

  PROTECT THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE. Her fingers closed around the bills. She could eat, buy a chain, have a bath, and still have plenty to send to her sister in Utah. Make sure the little ones still had shoes.

  Go off by herself, as Bill always suggested to the bitten.

  Jane swallowed. She wasn’t ready to go. The wolf hadn’t taken over, not yet. She’d only seen a bit of fur so far. And colors playing tricks on her eyes. And those weird dreams. Nothing serious.

  She could hold it off.

  She stuffed her pocketbook down the front of her shirt and headed for the door.

  “Fill her up, Johnny,” she said a few minutes later at the hotel bar.

  The barkeep poured her a whiskey. She lifted the glass to her lips and closed her eyes.

  “Stop!” cried an indignant voice. “Stop it at once!”

  Huh? Jane opened her eyes. On the other side of the room, near the front desk where folks were checking in, a young woman was struggling to retrieve her carpetbag from the grasp of a large, broad-shouldered man.

  “Come on, missy,” the man was saying. “I’ll take it up to your room for you. It’s too heavy a burden for a peach like you to bear.”

  “I can handle my own property, thank you very much,” said the girl primly, pushing her glasses up on her nose.

  Jane recognized her at once. It was Miss Harris.

  The man still had hold of the lady’s bag. Then he leaned close to her and took a sniff of her lace collar.

  “You smell . . . purty,” he said.

  Miss Harris blinked. “I have no desire to be sniffed at by a strange man. Now, if you would kindly relinquish my bag—”

  “As you wish,” said the man. “But I just wanted to ask you—”

  He didn’t get the obviously indecent proposition out before he was interrupted by the slash of Jane’s whip cutting across his knuckles. The brute dropped the carpetbag, howling in pain, and swiveled to see who had dealt the blow. In a flash Jane was up in his face, the business end of her pistol under his chin.

  “Hello, there,” growled Jane. She cocked the gun.

  “I’m sorry,” the brute said immediately. He had surprisingly fresh breath. Still, Jane didn’t stand down. She kept close (which was easy, really, with the fresh breath) and locked her eyes with his.

  “I think it’s time for you to apologize,” she said, and then realized that he had, in fact, already apologized. “To the lady, I mean.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “Now I’m going to take a step back, and you’re going to light on out of here, and you’re not going to come back, ever.”

  He whimpered. “Ever?”

  “Oh dear . . . ,” Miss Harris said.

  “Ever,” Jane said, then pushed him out the door.

  Then she turned back to Miss Harris with a smile, entirely pleased with herself. She’d gone and saved the day. Again.

  Miss Harris looked weary. “I suppose I should thank you for rescuing me,” she said. “But . . .”

  “Oh, that’s great,” groaned Mr. Frost from behind the front desk. “Now I have to find a new bellhop.”

  “I was only trying to ask about her perfume!” came the brute’s voice from outside the door. “Is it lemon verbena?”

  “. . . I didn’t need rescuing,” finished Miss Harris.

  “Oh,” said Jane. The entire place was staring at her. “I thought you were . . .”

  “I know,” Miss Harris said gently. “It was kind of you. Shall we go . . . someplace . . . else?”

  That was a terrible idea, considering. But Jane nodded. She paid her tab with the barkeep (even though she hadn’t had a chance to drink the whiskey he’d poured her), Miss Harris stopped off at her room to deposit the fateful carpetbag, and the two of them wandered about the city for a while until they found a charming restaurant along the river. Jane had never eaten at a charming restaurant by the river before. She found it suited.

  “So,” Miss Harris said when they were settled at a table. “How have you been?”

  “I’ve been better,” admitted Jane. “But I’m still fighting the good fight.”

  “As we must,” said Miss Harris.

  They chatted back and forth, ate a supper of roast chicken and greens, and drank sweet tea. By the time they got to the apple pie, Jane had told Miss Harris all about traveling west on the Oregon Trail when she was eight, and she had learned that Miss Harris was from Boston, where her father had hoped to make a go of it as a tailor, but then he’d died in a smallpox epidemic and left poor Miss Harris—whose Christian name, it turned out, was Edwina—all alone to fend for herself in the big bad world.

  “I survived on the kindness of strangers,” she said a bit sadly.

  “And now here you are,” Jane said, patting Edwina’s hand on the table in a gesture meant to be comforting.

  “Yes. Now I’m here.” Edwina turned her hand over and took Jane’s, just briefly, mind you, but it was definitely another Moment, Jane thought, before they both pulled away.

  “My pa also died,” Jane admitted with a cough. “I was eleven.” She did not go into the details, of course, but she told Miss Harris—Edwina—about the strain of becoming so suddenly responsible for her five younger siblings.

  “Whatever did you do?” Edwina asked.

  “This and that. I tended children, cleaned hotel rooms, washed and pressed laundry,” Jane said. “And I dressed as a boy sometimes and shoed horses and helped with branding and roping cows and rode for the mail, whenever I got the chance. I was better at the boy jobs, plus they paid more.”

  “How resourceful of you.” Edwina was impressed, it seemed, and not at all judgmental that Jane had tricked people into believing her to be a boy. But then of course Edwina would know all about the advantages of posing as male.

  After the meal had been cleared away, the two of them stood. “You’ve been good company for me today,” Edwina said. “I’m so glad you assaulted that bellhop.”

  Jane blushed. “Should I escort you back to the hotel?”

  “That would be wonderful.”

  Jane led them on a meandering route along the riverbank. They were almost back when she had a thought. “Why are you staying at the Bevis House now? Don’t you live here in Cincinnati?”

  “Oh, no,” Edwina said with a smile. “I’ve only been here for a few weeks, working.”

  “The P and G factory story,” Jane guessed.

  “Yes, among others.”

  “And what have you found out?”

  Edwina laughed brightly. “Oh, you want me to tell you about it?”

  “Maybe we can help each other,” Jane said. She wanted to give this girl something nice, like a flower or a fancy watch, but she could guess that the thing Edwina liked best was information. Maybe it was possible to give her only a little of what Jane knew. Heck, maybe what Edwina had discovered c
ould help Bill and the group.

  Edwina nodded. “Maybe. I know you were involved. I know Wild Bill made an arrest, which means he’s still a marshal, isn’t he?”

  “I got no comment about Wild Bill,” Jane said. “But I was there, and the man arrested was a Mr. Badd.”

  “Yes, yes, he was the foreman at the factory,” Edwina said, nodding because she obviously already knew all of this. “He was also a garou who bit dozens of his workers, many of whom are still missing. But he’s not really the person of interest in this story, is he?”

  “Nah, there’s somebody higher up, right?” Jane agreed. A boss. The man in the top hat. And he—the top hat man—would lead them to the Alpha.

  “I suppose that’s true, and that does indeed interest me, but I meant you,” Edwina said. “Are you a garou hunter, Jane? On top of being a show-woman and an inspiration to women everywhere?”

  Jane met the girl’s inquisitive eyes, and then stared off at the river. “I don’t know what I am, these days,” she admitted. “I’m still figuring that out.”

  “I think you’re a marvel,” pronounced Edwina.

  Jane blushed again. She had never blushed this much in her life. She didn’t know what it meant, but Edwina was such a nice girl, the nicest Jane had ever met, even counting Annie, who was pretty nice but also talked far too much and was bossy. Edwina, though, was like a china pitcher in a glass case—she seemed to shine with a certain kind of fineness.

  “Edwina—” Jane started, but then a growl rolled out of her, unbidden. She tried to play it off as a belch, which was only slightly less embarrassing.

  Uh-oh.

  “Call me Winnie,” Edwina said, as if she didn’t notice.

  “All right,” Jane said. “Winnie. Can I ask you—” But she couldn’t finish the sentence on account of a scratch in her throat. She held up a finger and walked a few steps away, where she proceeded to cough violently.

  “Jane? Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Jane answered, but it came out more like a bark. She nodded that she would be okay, she just needed a moment to hack up a lung.

  Finally she gagged, and then dry-heaved, and then out of her mouth popped a disgusting brown mass of . . . something.

  “Oh dear, you should really watch how much you are chewing,” Winnie said.

  “Right,” Jane said, staring at the lump on the boardwalk. Jane couldn’t remember the last time she’d chewed, let alone swallowed that much tobacco. She had a sinking sensation of what it really was.

  A hairball.

  “I do apologize, Miss Harris,” she murmured.

  “You had no control over it. Let me fetch you some water.”

  Winnie slipped into a general store, and Jane sank down onto a bench. She put her face in her hands and felt a tuft of hair on her jaw.

  Hair. On her face. Hair.

  Oh, consarn it, Jane thought. Not now!

  Winnie dashed back with a ladle of water. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks.” Jane gulped down the water, grateful to get rid of the hairball taste. Then she stuck her furry chin into the collar of her shirt and walked back toward the hotel, at a much faster pace this time. The bellhop, reinstalled, it seemed, eyed Jane warily from the doorway.

  “I better leave you here,” Jane said. “I got someplace I gotta be.”

  She was sitting at the bar again when Bill found her, Frank and Annie both trailing him, wearing their guns and looking antsy. Jane wondered if she’d messed up and there was a show tonight. She was pretty sure there wasn’t. But then she wasn’t altogether sure what day of the week it was.

  “Good grief, Jane, you look terrible,” said Frank. “It’s barely even five o’clock.”

  But she was actually feeling somewhat better. There was no hair on her chin anymore. No hairballs working their way up her throat. No hair sprouting between her toes. She was back to the usual amount of hair.

  She lifted a glass to toast him. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  Bill stilled the glass before it got to her mouth. “We know who the man in the top hat is. I’m going to need everybody when we go to arrest him.”

  That perked Jane right up. “Arrest him? When?”

  “Now,” Annie said brightly, like she had never been more ready for anything. “We’re going right this minute.”

  “Simmer down,” Bill said. “You’re here to observe, not get into the action.”

  Jane jumped to her feet. “I’m in.”

  She wasn’t drunk, but Frank put his arm around her anyway, like she needed the support, which she thought nice but unnecessary. “Who is it?” she whispered as they swerved out onto the street. “Who’s the top hat man?”

  Frank cleared his throat. He seemed uncomfortable. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  “I’m pretty sure I will.”

  “It’s George W. C. Johnston,” Annie burst out, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. “The mayor!”

  SEVENTEEN

  Frank

  “The mayor,” Jane said incredulously.

  “Turns out moonlight does have a smell,” Annie said, “and Mr. Hickok recognized the pairing with peppermint from the shooting competition.”

  Frank shoved his hands into his pockets and remained silent.

  “Well, what do you know,” Jane said. “Frank, you okay? What’s wrong?”

  Frank smoothed the frown off his face. His conversation with Annie kept rolling over in his mind, made worse every time she looked up at him with those bright eyes and flashed a smile, as though they were best of friends now—or maybe more. He’d wanted to be more, and for a short, magical time, Frank had thought that Annie was the one. Until it became glaringly obvious that she hated wolves.

  Hated him. She just didn’t know it yet. (Frank was a garou, in case you didn’t catch that in his last chapter. He’d been one ever since he could remember.)

  “Frank?” Jane pressed.

  “Yeah.” He pushed a false cheer into his voice. “It’s good news. I’m just figuring out how we’re going to handle him quietly.”

  “Or kill him loudly,” Annie said. “Lest we forget, he’s probably responsible for turning lots and lots of people into bloodthirsty wolves.”

  An eager light shone in Annie’s eyes. Frank had to look away.

  Bill put his hands out. “All right. We have no evidence of that. Plus, we need to interrogate him.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Now, I’ve arranged a meeting with the mayor under the pretense that we have some information about the night at the candle factory.”

  “But we do have information,” Jane said. “Why would you tell him that?”

  “Because if he knows who Charlie is and who he works for, then he knows who we are, and he knows we still hunt garou. But he doesn’t know that we know who he is.”

  “That’s a lot of knows,” Frank said, because that kind of commentary was expected of him. His heart wasn’t in it, though.

  “So if he thinks we have information we want to share, then he won’t be wanting to ambush us and kill us,” Bill said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “When we get there, we’ll place him under arrest. Then we’ll interrogate him.”

  “But if we know he’s turned a bunch of people—and killed people—why wouldn’t we kill him?” Annie asked, sending another dagger through Frank’s heart.

  “That’s not how we do things,” Bill said, a disappointed-teacher tone in his voice. Then he addressed everyone else, too. “No one’s drawing unless it’s absolutely necessary, understood?”

  Frank and Jane nodded. Annie stared at Bill, seeming to deliberate, but finally, she nodded, too.

  “Let’s go,” Bill said.

  Jack McCall met them outside the hotel, even though no one had invited him or even warned him that they were going somewhere. How the heck did this guy always know where to find them?

  “Hey, guys! Where are we going?” he asked brightly.

  Frank rolled his eyes. “
We’re going to practice for the show.”

  McCall frowned quizzically. “There’s no show tonight.”

  What, did he carry around a schedule?

  Jack McCall pointed his finger at Frank. “You guys are doing . . .” He looked right and left and then cupped a hand next to his mouth. “You know, a woof thing.”

  “Of course we’re not,” Jane said. “We’re doing the opposite of that.”

  “So then you won’t mind if I come with ya.”

  “Oh, we mind,” Frank said.

  McCall frowned. “I guess that’s okay. I have plans to meet that reporter, Buntline, for a drink.”

  Alarm rolled through Frank. The last thing they needed was McCall telling a reporter his own version of what happened at the P & G. What did he know about it anyway? He’d gotten scared and had run off, not doing anything useful. But they didn’t need any of it in the papers.

  “Fine,” Frank said, blowing out a long breath, “you can tag along, but don’t get in our way.”

  The group departed for the mayor’s house.

  It was darker than it should’ve been for five o’clock. Thunder clapped as the gang stood at the entrance of the mayor’s mansion.

  Bill raised the knocker and banged it on the large oak door.

  After a few moments, it opened, creaking loudly, and there stood a butler wearing a drab uniform and an even drabber expression.

  “You know, you can grease them there joints,” Jane told him.

  He looked her up and down and didn’t answer.

  Jane jerked her head toward Bill. “Wild Bill Hickok, here to see the mayor.”

  The butler gave a single nod. “The mayor is expecting you.”

  The gang started forward, but the butler put up his hand. “He is only expecting Mr. Hickok.”

  “Mister, we’re all coming in.” Jane pushed the side of her jacket out of the way and let him get a look at her gun.

  “If you’ll follow me,” the butler said, turning around and raising a lantern. It was weirdly dark inside, but Frank figured maybe that was because of the dark skies outside, and the dark wood paneling on the walls.

  The butler led them down a hallway and into a parlor. “Please sit. The mayor will be along in due time.”