My Calamity Jane Page 9

  “Thank you.” She pocketed her prize and turned to Mr. Butler. “You’re a fine shot, sir. It was an honor.”

  “The honor is mine, Miss Mosey. I’m not afraid to admit that I underestimated you.” He smiled and shook her hand, holding on a tad too long. “I won’t make that mistake again.”

  A thrill shot through Annie. She had to admit (only to you, dear reader) that she liked the way his hand felt around hers.

  Mr. Butler glanced down at George, who was sitting between them. George gave Mr. Butler what some might call a meaningful look.

  Annie, however, didn’t notice, because she was busy noticing the way Frank ran his fingers through his hair.

  “I know, I know, you like her.” Mr. Butler looked up from George. “I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t say something now. And worse yet, George will never forgive me.”

  “Oh?” Annie couldn’t stop the smile bubbling up. “Then you’d better say it.”

  Mr. Butler pressed his hand against his heart. “Miss Mosey, will you marry me?”

  Annie stood there in shock. Had he been talking to her mother?

  Around the crowd, the cheers for Annie’s victory became cheers of encouragement. “Do it!” someone shouted. A few folks whistled.

  Annie scoffed. Then she scoffed again for good measure. But there was a gleam in Mr. Butler’s eye, and a playful turn to his mouth. She decided to go along—at least for now. “Why, Mr. Butler. It takes more than a shiny gun and a cute dog to impress me.”

  Mr. Butler’s charming smile widened. “I understand. A lady such as yourself must keep her standards high. I hope I get the opportunity to prove my worth.” With a flourish, he kissed her hand. Then he led her toward the back of the stage, where Mr. Hickok and Jane were climbing up the stairs. “We’ll see about the show. It’s not actually up to me.”

  “Mr. Hickok had his chance, but he sent me to you,” Annie said. “Remember?”

  Before Mr. Butler could respond—although Annie assumed he agreed—they reached Mr. Hickok and Calamity Jane.

  Mr. Hickok stuck out a hand to shake hers. “That was some fine shooting.” He looked at her appraisingly. (Annie was, as we’d say today, freaking out a little inside.) “I didn’t think I’d see the day where someone outshot our Frank here.”

  “Thank you,” Annie said, forcing confidence into her voice. “I’m glad you noticed, because I wanted to talk to all of you about becoming part of your posse.”

  No one said a word, so she kept talking.

  “I’ve more than proven myself. I know I can be an asset. I can shoot an apple off anyone’s head. I could probably shoot ten apples off ten people’s heads with one bullet.”

  Mr. Hickok stroked his mustache. “Your talent is undeniable,” he said, “but you’re just a girl.”

  Both Annie and Jane gasped in outrage.

  “That doesn’t make sense at all,” Annie huffed.

  “Yeah, that’s bull puckey!” cried Jane. “She shouldn’t be restricted by the restraints of her sex.”

  Everyone looked at Jane, confused.

  “I agree with Jane,” Annie said. “Plus, I already know your secret—”

  “What?” Mr. Butler asked. “What secret?”

  “Yeah,” Jane added. “We don’t have no secrets. None at all.”

  Annie smiled warmly. “Oh, it’s all right! You don’t have to worry. I won’t tell anyone else that you still hunt garou.”

  “Oh,” Jane said. “That.”

  Annie nodded. “See? I already know. So now you don’t have to worry about me finding out the hard way. I also know you’re hunting someone called the Alpha, although I’m not quite sure what that means, but I’ll find out, and you won’t even have to tell me—unless you want to, of course, and I’d appreciate it, but I also want you to know that I can fend for myself.”

  “Mercy,” said Mr. Hickok.

  Jane stared at her. “Did you breathe in there at all?”

  “No,” Annie said, but she wasn’t out of breath. She could speak the longest sentences of anyone in her whole family.

  “And how did you come by this knowledge?” Mr. Hickok asked in a low voice.

  “Through simple investigation.” She wasn’t quite willing to admit she’d followed them into the candle factory the other night. “I always thoroughly research a place of employment before I apply for a job. So I know that you still hunt garou,” she said firmly. “I can prove it.” (Reader, in no way could Annie prove it, but she’d learned something about bluffing at poker, and she figured this was a good time for a bluff.)

  Mr. Hickok glanced around at Mr. Butler and Jane. “If you knew about hunting garou, you’d know that the hunt is no place for a girl.”

  “Excuse me?” Jane said loudly.

  Mr. Hickok waved her off. “You know what I mean.” He turned back to Annie. “We wouldn’t want you getting hurt, my dear.”

  Annie’s jaw tightened. A series of unbidden memories flashed through her mind. A dark winter night, losing feeling in her toes and fingers as she watched smoke rise from the chimney of a ramshackle cabin.

  The burning in her face, after her captors had slapped her.

  The smell, almost like a dog but so much darker and deadlier; the thought of it made the hair on her arms prickle. (And her nose itch.)

  In spite of the hot summer sun beating down on the shooting grounds, Annie shivered. “I can handle myself with garou, sir. It was me who— I have some experience with— Just give me a chance.”

  Mr. Butler, who’d been listening quietly all this time, raised his hand. “We should vote on it.”

  “I vote yes,” Annie said immediately.

  “You don’t get a vote.”

  Ouch.

  “Well, I vote yes,” said Jane. “Because I don’t like nobody telling anybody what she can or can’t do on the basis of being a girl.”

  “And I vote yes,” Mr. Butler said. “A woman who can shoot like Miss Mosey would be a huge draw to the show. People will come for miles to see her perform.”

  “I vote no,” said Mr. Hickok gruffly.

  “Two to one, then.” Mr. Butler’s eyes smiled at her. Not that Annie was spending all that much time noticing his eyes. (They were brown with lighter flecks, framed by long dark lashes, and had a sort of warmth to them that would make anyone’s heart squeeze.) “Looks like you’re in.”

  “Wait a second,” Mr. Hickok said. “I voted no, so she’s not in. Because my vote is the only vote that really counts.”

  “That’s not fair.” Mr. Butler stared at Mr. Hickok. “Besides, you put me in charge of the show, so that means my vote is the only vote that really counts.”

  Mr. Hickok didn’t get to respond, though, because Jane had started shouting.

  “The system is rigged!” She slammed her fist on the railing. “The system is unfair! One person one vote!”

  Mr. Butler stepped toward Mr. Hickok. “Dad, come on. You either trust me to handle the show, or you don’t. And I think Miss Mosey is the right choice. For the show, obviously. We can see about the garou stuff.”

  Mr. Hickok gave Mr. Butler a long, searching look, and then shrugged. “All right. She can join the show, but she’ll need training.”

  “I’ll help her,” Mr. Butler said, maybe too quickly.

  “Me too,” said Jane.

  “How does ten dollars a week sound?”

  “That sounds more than fair. Thank you, Mr. Hickok,” Annie said. “You won’t regret this decision.”

  He glanced at Mr. Butler, and his expression softened. “When can you start?” he asked Annie.

  Her heart soared. “How about now?”

  “How about tomorrow?” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting.

  Annie smiled. She loved winning. “That’d be just fine.”

  THIRTEEN

  Jane

  Jane dreamed of the moon. She was standing outside her parents’ shabby house in Salt Lake City, and a huge yellow moon was rising against the sky
line, so bright it hurt to look on. She felt strange, her limbs heavy, her skin hot and tingling under her clothes. She could barely resist the urge to strip naked right there in the middle of the street and run . . . somewhere.

  Martha, said the moon. Come.

  Yeah, the moon was talking to her. That was new.

  Come on, it said, and the voice reminded her of her ma’s, actually, in those rare times that her ma had been in a sweet temper and spoke soft to her. Jane felt like she knew where the moon wanted her to go, someplace far off from where she was now, toward a thing, she thought, and not away.

  Her gaze was drawn again to the window of the house. She saw her sister Lena there, a scraggly little girl in braids, feeding Silas at the table. Her throat tightened at the sight. Her eyes prickled. She hadn’t seen Lena in five years. Silas was dead. Ma was dead. Pa was—

  Don’t dwell on it, Martha, advised the moon. Just come.

  Jane nodded and turned away from the house. If the moon knew her real name, she supposed she should listen. She pulled her shirt over her head, let it fall to the ground, stepped out of her pants, and removed her socks and shoes. Her feet looked funny, long and oddly jointed, hairier than usual. The moon, as it beamed down on her wearing only her undershirt and drawers, filled her with strength. She was sure she could run forever, under this moon. She took a deep breath and filled her lungs with the light. Her body ached to run.

  “No,” she heard from behind her, the rough-edged voice of her pa. He was dead, too, but this was a dream. His hand grabbed down on her shoulder so hard it burned into her flesh. She heard the slosh of the whiskey bottle he’d always kept.

  “Get in there, girl,” he said, and pushed her toward the house.

  She woke up. Someone was knocking on the hotel room door. (This happened a lot in Jane’s life, being awakened by knocking, and dang, but she never got to be the one who knocks.) Jane groaned and flopped over onto her stomach.

  “Go away!” she blustered in the direction of the door. “I’m asleep.”

  A pause, and then more knocking.

  “Consarn it, go away!”

  No such doing. If anything, the knocking got more insistent.

  She threw off the sheets and lurched to her feet. Happily she discovered that she was already wearing boots. And a shirt. She wasn’t sure where her pants had gone. She grabbed the wool blanket from the bed and tried to wrap it around her waist. Then she stumbled over to the door and heaved it open.

  “Oh good, you’re up.” It was the crack-shot girl from the shooting competition, the one Frank was mooning over like a lovesick puppy. What was her name, again?

  “I’m Annie, the newest member of your show,” the girl said. “Good morning!”

  “I don’t see what’s so gawl-darned good about it.” Jane had a taste in her mouth like she’d had supper with a coyote. Had she gotten herself sloshed last night? She didn’t think she had. She swallowed queasily. “What can I do for you, Miss—”

  “Mosey,” provided Annie. She crossed over to the window and opened the curtains, flooding the room with light. “And I’ve been wondering what to call you. Is your Christian name Calamity, or Jane?”

  “My Christian name?”

  “Your first name. Like mine is Annie. Well, actually, my Christian name is Phoebe, but no one but my mother uses it. My sisters thought Phoebe was too fancy, and I’d walk around putting on airs with a name like that. So it’s always been Annie.”

  “I don’t go by my real name, neither,” Jane murmured. Martha, come, she thought. She must have gotten drunk last night, to have such a dream as the moon talking at her.

  “Oh, I see,” Annie said. “Why’d you change it?”

  Jane rubbed at her eyes. “I guess there came a time when I had to leave my other name behind.” An image from that fateful day swam up in her head, Bill sitting down next to her on the street in Fort Laramie, asking her name. “I needed a fresh start, was all.”

  Annie looked puzzled. “And you chose to start fresh as . . . Calamity Jane?”

  “Nah, just Jane at first. I got the Calamity later, when I saved Captain Egan from certain death in a skirmish with the Sioux a few years back. I saw him fall from his horse, struck by an arrow, so I turned around real fast and rode back to him, and then lifted him up on my horse and rode him to safety. And because of that he said—later, after he’d recovered some, of course—‘I dub thee Calamity Jane, the Heroine of the Plains.’”

  (Um, reader, we should mention that this entire account with Captain Egan was a fabrication—a stretcher, Jane would have called it—and it didn’t even really make sense. But that was the official explanation she’d come up with a few years back, and it was a pretty good whopper, so we’ll let it slide. For now.)

  “That’s an amazing story,” Annie said.

  Jane nodded. “You can call me Jane. Frank calls me Calam sometimes, but I don’t like it much.”

  “All right. Jane. I bet you’re wondering why I’m here so bright and early.”

  Jane had been wondering.

  “Mr. Hickok says that I am to room with you from now on,” Annie continued. “So here I am, all ready to move in.” She crossed quickly back to the door where she dragged in a trunk and gun case that Jane hadn’t noticed before, then glanced a bit worriedly around the room. “Um, may I have the bottom three drawers of the dresser, and some space in the armoire to hang my dresses? I have quite a bit to unpack. I like to be prepared, you see. Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it. That’s my motto.”

  “Uh, sure. Go right ahead.” Jane did not have much in the way of extra clothing or lady things. It all fit in a jumble in the top drawer, in fact.

  “Wonderful.” Annie slung her trunk onto the extra bed and unpacked it, hanging and smoothing her dresses, folding each item carefully into thirds and stacking them upright, so she could see all the items in the drawers. She had a lot of blue and yellow, a bit of green, and not nearly as much red or pink as Jane had expected. Wait, was that dress pink? Jane rubbed her eyes.

  “Why are you putting your clothes like that?” Jane asked.

  “Because it sparks joy,” Annie said.

  “Huh?” said Jane.

  Annie scooped a pair of pants off the floor and handed them to Jane like an offering. “Now, Jane, if it’s not too much trouble, I’d like you to show me the ropes.”

  Jane kicked off her boots and struggled to fit her legs into her breeches. There didn’t seem to be enough leg holes for the number of legs she had. “Ropes? I don’t often use ropes. Unless I need to tie something up.”

  “I was being metaphorical.” Annie grabbed Jane’s pants from her, whipped them in the air once to straighten them out, and then returned them. “You volunteered to train me, remember? I thought we could start this morning.”

  Jane considered the request as she shimmied into the pants. She still felt . . . strange, and she suspected it wasn’t from the drink. She was sweating, and her skin had that unsettling tingly feeling. “Um, sure I could. But maybe later? I think I need to get me some hair of the dog.”

  Annie rubbed her nose. “That sounds unsanitary. If you’re feeling unwell, some fresh air might help. My father always said that the best way for a person to feel better is to move about out of doors, get the blood flowing.” She nodded as if she were agreeing with herself. “But perhaps if you’re too sickly to go out, we could stay here and talk.”

  Jane stared at her, aghast. “Talk? You want to talk . . . more?”

  “If we’re going to be working together and living together, we should get to know each other.”

  “We should get a move on.” Jane put her boots back on and tied her mass of unruly dark hair into a ponytail. Then she crammed her hat down onto her head, grabbed her gun and whip from the nightstand, and headed a bit unsteadily for the door.

  “A move on to where?” Annie asked eagerly.

  Jane shrugged. “I guess I’ll show you the ropes.”

&n
bsp; “This here’s Black Nell, Bill’s horse,” she said a few minutes later, pointing to the biggest stall, where Nell stood knocking her front hooves impatiently.

  Annie stepped forward with her hand out, wanting to touch. “She’s a beauty.”

  Jane pulled her back before the girl could get bit. “She’s wild, that one, what you’d call undomesticated. Won’t stand for nobody but me or Bill.”

  Annie reached out anyway, and Black Nell pushed her big velvety nose into the girl’s small hand. Within a few minutes the horse was actually nuzzling her. It was unsettling. Jane ushered Annie down a stall, where two horses were standing, tails flicking. “This here is Charlie’s horse, and we call him, uh, Charlie’s horse, and that one there is Ed, Frank’s horse. Frank likes to call him Mister Ed. He’s a clever one.”

  Ed stuck out his face and gave a cordial nod, almost like a bow.

  “Oh, but aren’t you such handsome fellows,” cooed Annie to the horses. “How do you do?”

  “The horses cain’t talk,” Jane said gruffly, and moved them down a stall again. “This here’s Bullseye. She’s mine. She’s gotten me out of many a scrape riding for the Pony Express.”

  Annie turned to stare at her with wide eyes. “You’ve actually been a rider for the Pony Express? For real?”

  “God’s own truth.” Jane nodded. “I were one of the best, if I don’t mind saying so. I used to ride some of the most dangerous stretches of road in this here America, but I never had any trouble. Any road agents thereabouts knew I never missed a shot, and they didn’t bother me.” (Again, reader, this was not exactly the truth. Or even a little bit the truth.)

  “You never miss a shot?” Annie smiled. “You only used the whip in the show.”

  “Charlie says the show needs variety. And I’m the best with the bullwhip, but I’m an ace with a gun, as well,” Jane bragged. “I never miss unless I mean to.”

  “I don’t, either,” said the girl.

  “Well . . . good,” Jane said. “I suppose we’ll get along well enough, then.”

  “What was it like,” Annie asked quietly, “fighting the Sioux?”