My Calamity Jane Page 6

  “Yes,” Bill said, “I heard a baby cry, and so did those garou. It was clear by the way they were lookin’ that they’d had no idea there was a baby in that cabin—that those pioneers had not two children, but three—and that the ma and pa had hidden their baby when that gang of garou came. And as I looked around at the beasts surrounding me, I knew I had to find that child before they did.”

  The paper wolves fluttered as though they were running, and Bill was running too, and everyone in the audience leaned forward.

  “It was a race for the child,” Bill said as they all moved toward the cabin. “But the garou weren’t going to let me get there first. One ran ahead, and I tried to keep up, but garou are faster and stronger than a mere human. I knew it would take all my skill, all my daring, to get there first—and then a garou jumped me.”

  There was a tussle, and the audience was one part tense breathing and one part nervous laughing (because it was a paper garou, after all) as Bill battled the garou and then: “Bang!” he cried, and Frank released the paper garou to drift to the floor.

  “Just then, another garou came for me, and another!” Bill spun and shot—“Bang, bang!”—and both wolves dropped. “But the fourth wolf, the one that had gone ahead, was getting away. I ran with all my strength, following him into the cabin.”

  Behind Bill, Jane opened the cabin set to reveal a quaint room with a cold fireplace.

  “We could both hear the baby crying, the garou and I.”

  Bill waited, and George didn’t miss his cue this time; he made that baby-crying whine again.

  Frank maneuvered the last paper garou to leap toward the sound. Bill aimed, fired—“Bang!”—and the garou went down.

  The audience cheered as Bill holstered his pistols and bent over the stage’s trapdoor. Everything went quiet as he reached in and drew a small bundle.

  “I got to the babe first,” Bill said with just enough volume to carry into the audience. “And when I picked him up in my arms, he stopped crying because he knew he was safe—that I would never let anything happen to him again.”

  On cue, George stopped whining, and Bill glanced over at Frank. They shared a look, like they did every time Bill told this story, and then Bill turned back to the audience. “That child lives, even now.”

  The whole crowd whooped and cheered as Bill strode off the stage, the bundle still in his arms. Frank and Jane hurried to clear the cabin set—and close the trapdoor—and then it was Frank’s turn. He felt his shoulders relax.

  Frank was the best trick shot this side of the Mississippi, and by that, he meant either side of the Mississippi. This was where he shined. He shot a glass ball from across the stage, sighting using a mirror, with his back turned. He shot a bottle that was right next to him by ricocheting the bullet off a metal plate in the rafters of the theater. He had a woman from the audience pick a playing card—the ace of hearts—put it in a vise, and shot straight through the tiny red heart from ten yards away.

  The crowd cheered wildly.

  And then he introduced the Calamity Jane.

  Jane stomped onto the stage, carrying her bullwhip over her shoulder and a pistol on her hip. “Evening!” she called. “I’m gonna do some tricks now. You want to see some tricks with the bullwhip?”

  “Yeah!” cried the crowd.

  Jane uncurled her whip and leveled a glare on the corked empty whiskey bottle George had placed earlier that day. “Have any of y’all seen a cork popped out of a bottle by a whip?”

  “No!” came the shouts.

  She drew her arm back, whipped it forward, quick as a lightning strike, and . . . the bottle clattered to the floor.

  Frank’s breath caught. Jane never messed up like this.

  “Whoops.” Her face went red. “I was just practicing that time. The sun was in my eyes.” The crowd laughed. “Let’s try that again, shall we?”

  George trotted across the stage and replaced the bottle on the stool.

  Jane’s eyes trained on the bottle. She exhaled slowly. Then with one loud snap, she removed the cork from the bottle—without breaking the bottle.

  The audience applauded enthusiastically, but Jane wasn’t finished yet. She snapped her bullwhip to the right and to the left, and then she snapped it toward the bottle again. The bottle flew up to the rafters, and Jane stepped forward and caught it as it came down. Then she picked up the cork and placed it on her own hat. She flicked the bullwhip, and the cork went flying while her hat stayed in place.

  Frank clapped right along with the audience.

  Jane smiled and bowed. Her part was done. “Now for the fi-nal-ee,” she said. “Mr. Frank Butler will shoot an apple off George’s head!”

  George went to one side of the stage and sat calmly while Jane steadied the apple. The audience leaned forward in anticipation.

  Frank took aim with his rifle. He held George’s gaze. There was nothing but trust in his dog’s brown eyes.

  Frank squeezed the trigger. A shot rang out across the theater. The apple flew into the air, a neat hole through its center. George yipped and grabbed the apple in his mouth. “Frank! Frank!” the crowd cried. “The Pistol Prince!”

  Frank waited for George to bring the apple to him, as usual, but the dog hopped off the stage and darted into the crowd.

  “George, come,” Frank called. But instead George trotted over to a girl in the front row and deposited the apple at her feet.

  She reached down and picked up the apple. “Why, thank you!”

  Frank squinted through the lights to get a look at her. She wore her hair down, while most young ladies pinned theirs up, and her dress wasn’t the fashionable type, those huge silk gowns with sweeping bustles in the back. This girl wore a plain dress made from a simple blue cotton, but it fit her slender form perfectly.

  “Here, boy.” Frank tried again. “Bring me the apple.”

  George stayed right where he was.

  The girl rubbed the dog’s head. “What a good boy!”

  Oh gosh, she was asking to lose a limb, but George licked her hand and then . . . laid his head in her lap.

  Frank glanced over at Jane. Her mouth was hanging open in astonishment. Bill, too, seemed baffled.

  The girl looked up and caught Frank’s eye again. “Your dog has excellent taste.”

  “Yes, he does,” Frank replied, and bowed to her with an exaggerated flourish, as if George’s behavior was meant to be part of the show, because he didn’t know what else to do.

  The audience clapped and clapped. Jane stepped to one side of him and Bill to the other for the curtain call. Frank took their hands, and the three of them gave a final bow.

  “You up for poker after?” Bill asked as the cheering started to die down.

  “Yes, sir,” said Frank. The two of them played poker most nights after the show. It relaxed Bill, and always provided Frank with extra pocket money.

  “Good, good,” Bill said quietly. “I need to do some thinking on this business with the Alpha. Poker will help.”

  Poker always helped, Frank believed.

  “You gotta schmooze with the ladies first, though,” Jane reminded him. “They’re already forming up a line to meet you.” She made her voice higher pitched and tried to flutter her eyelashes. “Oh, Frank! You’re so manly we can’t stand it! Whatever shall we do?” He expected her to keep on ribbing him, but she seemed to remember something sorrowful, and her grin faded.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

  “It’s not like you to miss your mark, Jane,” commented Bill.

  “Nothing. I’m fine.” She let go of their hands and stalked off the stage and out the side door.

  Frank shrugged at Bill. George finally returned to Frank’s side, wagging his tail and panting like nothing was out of the ordinary.

  “What was all that about—with the girl in the blue dress?” Frank said out of the side of his mouth as he waved one final time to the audience.

  Did you smell her? George thought.
<
br />   “Of course not. When would I have had a chance to smell her?”

  I like her, sighed George.

  NINE

  Annie

  Obviously Annie was the girl in the blue dress. You expected that, didn’t you? (Whoooo’s a good reader?) After the show she waited outside by the door with all the other young women—or, rather, stood slightly apart from them while they fawned over Mr. Butler, requesting his autograph and asking when he planned to take them out for supper. One even went so far as to ask whether he had plans tonight.

  It was all so scandalous. Not a single one of those girls had chaperones. Or it should have been scandalous, because this was a wild level of impropriety she was witnessing with her very own eyes, but instead, Annie felt something akin to a thrill. Such independence and forthrightness these women displayed. They simply asked for what they wanted. Which was, apparently, Mr. Butler.

  “Do all the young ladies of Cincinnati travel about without chaperones?” Annie quietly asked Mr. Frost.

  “It depends on the young lady,” he replied.

  “Hmm.” Annie watched Mr. Butler sign autographs and flirt with every single young woman who approached him. He was handsome, that much was undeniable. He had an easy smile, and was good with a gun, but what stuck in Annie’s mind was the way his dark eyes trained on his target with such an intense focus it’d made her catch her breath. With a stage presence like his, it wasn’t hard to see why all those girls liked him. Annie kind of liked him.

  Then she went back and erased that liking, because she was here for a job, not a man.

  “Do you think now is the best time to ask him about the job?” Mr. Frost checked his pocket watch.

  “Yes, I’m going to ask him now. Any minute.” Annie continued studying Mr. Butler as he worked his way through the press of young women.

  A warm body bumped against her right leg and rolled onto the ground, and when she looked down, she found George the Poodle resting on top of her feet, his tail thumping happily as he gazed back at her.

  “Hello, handsome.” Annie would have bent to pet him, but he had both her feet pinned, and she couldn’t bear the thought of displacing him. She’d always been good with animals, even the ones that made her sneeze. “But you don’t make me sneeze,” she whispered. “You’re a good boy.”

  George yipped and rolled over, giving her a chance to kneel and pet him properly.

  “Well,” said Mr. Butler as the crowd of young ladies finally dispersed. “If you don’t mind—I mean, that’s my dog there—I hate to break this up, but I have somewhere to be?”

  Annie stood and smoothed her dress. “Why, Mr. Butler, it’s nice to finally meet you, too.” She smiled widely. “Where do you have to go?” Goodness, she was being almost as forward as those other ladies.

  “Poker, but I can cancel.” He offered a lopsided grin, and Annie’s heart performed a small flip. Gosh, he was cute.

  But it was probably part of his act, so she kept her expression neutral and cocked her head. “Why would you do that?”

  “Oh.” His grin faltered. “Did you just want an autograph?” He pulled out his pencil.

  “No.”

  The grin fell a little further as he put his pencil away. “In that case, I’m afraid I’m not sure what I can do for you.”

  “You can give me a job.”

  “A job.” He arced an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” she said. “You have one. I want one, too.”

  “You want a job.” He looked ridiculously (and some might say adorably) confused.

  “That’s what I said. Try to keep up, Mr. Butler.” She couldn’t stop her smile.

  He laughed. “All right. Can we start over? What did you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t. But I’m Miss Mosey, and this is Mr. Frost, my chaperone.”

  “Yes, Mr. Frost and I have met. We’re staying at the Bevis House.” The men shook hands anyway. “Well, Miss—”

  “Mosey,” Annie reminded him.

  “Miss Mosey, I’m afraid I’m not in any position to hire people.”

  She nodded. “Naturally I asked Mr. Hickok first, but he told me that you were the manager for the show now. He said I should ask you.”

  Mr. Butler coughed. “We don’t usually stay in one place for very long, and we’re not looking for an assistant.” He glanced between her and Mr. Frost again, as though he couldn’t understand why a fancy hotel owner would be chaperoning someone like her. “But thank you for your interest, I suppose.”

  “I’m not an assistant,” Annie said. “I’m a sharpshooter.”

  Mr. Butler studied her more closely, making her skin flush all over as he took in her dress and stockings and buckled shoes. “You don’t look like a sharpshooter.”

  “What does a sharpshooter look like?”

  He coughed. “Um, me, I suppose.”

  “And me.” She grinned as George bumped against her leg again. “Really, the only thing one needs to look like a sharpshooter is a gun.”

  Mr. Butler seemed at a loss for words.

  Annie sighed impatiently. “Truth be told, Mr. Butler, I came to Cincinnati to see your show and to make sure I really wanted to join.”

  “And have we passed muster?”

  Annie shrugged. “I’ll consider your offer.” In truth, she’d very much enjoyed the show, and she’d found his sharpshooting skills quite impressive. It didn’t hurt that they also went around having adventures in candle factories.

  The corner of his mouth lifted like he was trying to suppress a smile. “Wait, did I offer?”

  Annie waved that away like it would be merely a formality.

  “So you want to join the show, now that you’ve seen it. Because you’re a sharpshooter,” Mr. Butler said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Have you ever even held a gun?”

  “Yes, Mr. Butler, I have. How do you think I’ve fed my family?”

  Mr. Butler looked down at his feet. “I really thought you might just want to have dinner with me,” he said. “Because my dog likes you.”

  “Maybe I should have dinner with your dog.”

  It might have been Annie’s imagination, but George seemed to sit up straighter.

  Mr. Butler gave an amused snort. “I think I’m doing this all wrong.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “I think what you meant to say was, ‘Why yes, Miss Mosey, we do have a job opening for you.’”

  “Nooo,” he said slowly. “I don’t think that’s what I meant to say.”

  “You should know,” she went on, “that I’m a better shot than you.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Is that so?”

  “That’s so,” she said. “I’ll prove it if you allow a demonstration.”

  Something sparked in his eyes. She wondered if he was used to being challenged—if after every show there was some fool who blustered that he was a better shot than the Pistol Prince. “I’d love to,” he said, “but I’m busy tonight.”

  “When will you be available?” she asked in her most professional tone.

  “Um,” Mr. Butler said eloquently. “I really must be going. Miss Mosey.” With that he tipped his hat at her and hurried across the street toward the saloon, taking his cute (and nonallergenic) dog with him. He probably thought Annie wouldn’t follow him there.

  Annie’s eyebrows squeezed together in consternation. First the theater, and then a saloon? Her mama would be shocked.

  But her mama wasn’t here.

  Annie turned to Mr. Frost. “I’m going in after him.”

  “What?” Mr. Frost looked nervously at the saloon door. “Why? He said no.”

  “He said um,” Annie reminded him. “Which isn’t the same thing as no. He will say yes, once he understands that he needs me for the show.”

  “Miss Mosey,” Mr. Frost said, his tone all reasonable, “perhaps your family is right. Perhaps the Wild West show isn’t the place for you.”

  Annie shot him a look, one that always scared her yo
unger siblings into doing what they were told, but Mr. Frost wasn’t Sarah Ellen or Huldy or John. He just smiled.

  “I’m only asking you to think about it. The theater is no place for a lady.”

  That was exactly what Grandpap Shaw had said before Annie left, while Mama stood quietly in the background, her silence as good as agreement.

  Well, they were wrong.

  True, the theater was rather dangerous. Upon entering the Coliseum, Annie had noted all the gas lamps, the curtains, the flammable props—and the disturbing lack of safety precautions. For example, there were no fire curtains, or fire exits, or axe cases marked “In case of emergency, break glass.” There wasn’t even a clear path to the front doors, to help people safely exit the building. In fact, Annie had rather felt she was risking her life simply by walking in.

  But there was only one thing that really made Annie nervous, and she hadn’t seen any real garou at the show. All that was to say . . .

  “The theater is a place for a lady, if a lady is inside it.” Annie glared up at Mr. Frost.

  Mr. Frost sighed.

  “I’m going to be part of that show,” she went on. “You’ll see.” She knew she could do it. She just needed someone to believe in her.

  The hotel owner sighed again and glanced at the saloon, bright with lights and noisy with laughter and music. “Very well. What can I do to help?”

  Annie grinned and judged the distance between here and the saloon. “It looks like you have about fifteen—maybe sixteen—steps to teach me how to play poker.”

  TEN

  Jane

  Having returned to the saloon again pretty much the moment the show was over, Jane made an unfortunate discovery: she was out of cash. She didn’t have so much as two nickels to rub together.

  “I’ll do some dishes if you can spot me a drink,” she informed the barkeep.

  He shook his head, and his eyes judged her. “That’s not how it works here, sir.”

  He didn’t recognize her. Good. Charlie disapproved of public drunkenness. It was bad for business, he said. (It seemed to Jane that everything she liked to do was bad for business.) But Charlie wasn’t here now, was he?