by Cynthia Hand
He was suddenly so much taller than Annie. He could have picked her up with one hand if he wanted to, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to tear the saloon apart, and then tear this godforsaken town apart, and then burn it all to the ground.
But he knew he couldn’t. He simply stood there, at a loss for what to do, as his rage slowly melted into devastation.
Wolf-Frank loped over to the body and collapsed next to it. He put his arms around Bill’s shoulders, laid his head on his father’s chest, and stayed like that for a few moments.
Then he raised his head, arched his back, and howled.
THIRTY-SIX
Annie
All the hairs on Annie’s arms stood up as Frank’s howl carried through the No. 10 Saloon. Then, it was quiet, and Frank bent low over Mr. Hickok once again, sobbing.
It was the worst thing Annie had ever seen. The body. The wolf. The way blood dripped from the table and dotted the fallen cards.
Everything was horribly, horribly wrong, and she didn’t know how to fix any of it.
“Frank?” Her voice was small. “Frank, are you—” Not all right. There was no all right.
But Frank’s shoulders stiffened and he pulled upward, head cocked as he listened to her voice.
She tried to crush the trembling out of it. “Frank, when people get here, you can’t be like this.” They would haul him away to face the “cure,” as they had Jane.
Annie swallowed a lump in her throat. He’d been so good at hiding it. He’d demonstrated such incredible control over his wolf that she wouldn’t have ever guessed if he hadn’t told her, but here he was: a wolf howling with grief.
“I know what you’re going through,” she murmured. It was true. She’d been the one to find her father when the snowstorm faded. It hadn’t been a bullet that killed him, but still she understood the heart-stopping disbelief, the agony of hoping to wake up from this nightmare . . . Cautiously, she approached Frank. “I know it hurts,” she said, avoiding looking directly at Mr. Hickok. “I know it hurts, but you need to change back, and we have to—”
The door flew open, slamming on the wall. Seth Bullock started in, saying, “What’s all this—” but he stopped short when he saw the garou and the body.
Wolf-Frank jumped to his feet and spun, growling at the intruder as Annie staggered backward. His fur stood on end.
“Consarn it!” shouted someone coming up behind Mr. Bullock. “What’s going on here? Another garou?”
By now, wolf-Frank’s claws had burst through his boots and were digging into the floorboards of the saloon. His grief was terrible to watch. Quickly, he shifted back and forth, human then wolf again, like his body couldn’t decide which shape would more effectively bear this sadness.
“Stay where you are.” Annie fought to keep her voice level as she moved to stand between Frank and the gathering audience. “Don’t come in here.” They’d only make the situation worse; they’d use guns with iron bullets, which would merely annoy Frank into mauling them, and then there’d be more dead bodies in Deadwood, and no amount of talking or bribing would persuade the townsfolk to spare Frank or Jane.
“I’ll wait right here,” said Mr. Bullock, moving to cover more of the doorway. “Back away, everyone. Slow steps. That’s right.”
Annie faced Frank, whose hackles were still high, and that low growl was rolling through the room like distant thunder.
“Hey, big guy.” Annie held out her hand and met Frank’s eyes. Wolf eyes, but still his somehow, too. “Sun’s gettin’ real low.”
“Still hours ’til sunset,” muttered someone outside. “How long’s this girl been drinking?”
Annie ignored the audience, keeping all her focus on Frank as he reached out one paw. She traced a line down his inner wrist. “There we are,” she murmured. “Sun’s gettin’ real low.” That last part was just in case. One couldn’t be too thorough when there was a giant garou within striking distance.
But Frank was finally beginning to calm. The tension in his shoulders eased, the fur lay flat along his body. And slowly, so slowly, the shape of his face began to shift.
Then, with barely a warning of screams outside, another garou burst through the wall and howled.
Then Frank howled.
All the hairs on Annie’s arms stood at attention once more.
The two garou stared at each other, then Jane’s eyes shifted beyond Frank to where Mr. Hickok’s body lay. Immediately she became human again, gazing at Mr. Hickok. For a moment, she seemed frozen. Then she walked straight to the bar and took up the nearest bottle.
Five long gulps and she slammed the bottle back onto the counter, gasping.
Annie jumped a little.
But Jane just stood there, staring at the body like she didn’t believe her eyes.
Annie glanced between Frank and Jane, the former still in his wolf form, slinking around uncertainly, while the latter listed back and forth as the alcohol hit her all at once.
“Jane,” Annie said, stepping toward her friend.
“Maybe you shouldn’t get so close,” suggested one of the men outside. “She could bite your whole head off.”
“Jane,” Annie said again. “I think you should sit down.”
“I’ll kill him.” Jane’s voice was unusually soft. “I’ll find him, and I’ll kill him.”
“Jack McCall, you mean.” Annie matched her friend’s tone.
“Yeah, I mean Jack McCall.” Jane closed her eyes. “I saw him running, and the whole town running after him. He did it.”
“Lots of folks saw it,” said Mr. Bullock from the doorway. “Whole room full of people here, some at the bar, some playing poker, and all of them seeing Jack McCall shoot Wild Bill. Just shouted ‘Take that!,’ shot the gun, and ran out of here like he knew what kind of heck was going to rain down on him after that.”
“I saw him try to steal a horse,” another man said. “But he startled it, and it bucked him off before he’d got into the saddle.”
“Then he ran,” added another. “And everyone went running after him.”
Frank growled, and Jane looked ready to follow him back into her wolf shape.
“Wooo,” Annie breathed. No one outside moved as the two garou settled down again, and slowly, Frank began to shift back into a human.
He was on all fours, arms shaking as he struggled to hold himself up. He was, Annie thought, still too close to the body. Just a glance out of the corner of his eye might send him back into despair-filled howling. She edged toward him and rested her hand on his shoulder.
“Come this way.” She nodded toward Jane, who’d turned to the bottle again. She didn’t drink as quickly as before, but Annie could almost see Jane’s liver quivering in horror.
Frank didn’t move. Barely seemed to breathe.
“This way,” Annie said, and at last he nodded and let her help him.
“Why?” Frank asked. “Why?”
But they knew that, too. Jack McCall had done it for Swearengen.
“My ma did this.” Jane slammed the bottle onto the bar again, startling everyone. “She told him to do it, and like a no-good, slimy smiling, cure-peddling, lying lowlife, he did it. I may not be able to—” Jane swallowed hard. “Some people might be untouchable here, but he’s not. And I’ll—” Again, the alcohol seemed to get the better of her as she swayed and staggered backward. “I’m going to kill him.”
With that, she transformed and threw herself through the wall again, creating a second wolf-shaped hole in the No. 10. Everyone outside scattered out of her way.
Annie moved quickly. First, she darted around to the business side of the bar and grabbed the shotgun that the bartender kept back there; she didn’t know much about saloons and bars, but if stories had prepared her for anything, it was the fact that there was always—always—a shotgun behind the bar. Then, she hurried for the door, but all the people who’d moved for Jane were now pressed against the holes and door again, looking at Annie like they couldn’t imagine
what she intended to do.
“Make way!” she yelled. “Get out of my way!”
But they didn’t pay her any mind. Several tried to squeeze themselves in to get a look at the body of Wild Bill Hickok. The rest kept crowding and scrambling and generally being in her way.
“Everybody move!” The booming voice belonged to Frank, but she’d never heard him speak with such volume. Then she realized he was halfway back into the wolf and had started woooing under his breath.
Nevertheless, it did the trick. The crowd parted at once, freeing Annie and Frank to run after Jane.
The presence of a garou running through Deadwood was causing a stir. People screamed and called for someone—anyone—with silver bullets, and at the sight of Annie with her stolen shotgun (which she fully intended to return with a thank-you note), they moved aside, assuming she was garou hunting.
“I don’t see her,” Annie panted.
Frank pointed. “That way!”
Together, they took off down the road, running at top speed until Frank’s running-induced asthma caught up with him and he doubled over, gasping. “Come on,” Annie said. “You’re a wolf.”
So Frank picked himself up and they ran again, and finally Annie caught sight of the large garou in a shredded white top and brown skirt.
She was clawing at the door to the butcher shop.
“Good girl.” Annie stopped next to Jane and put her hand on her friend’s . . . arm wasn’t quite the right word, but neither was foreleg. “He’s in here?”
Jane yipped.
“I can smell him,” Frank agreed. “He reeks of fear.”
Annie tested the door handle. Open.
Jane plowed in first, with Annie and Frank behind. It took a moment for Annie’s eyes to adjust to the gloom of the shop, but Jane and Frank had no such problems. They went ahead, leading Annie to the back room where Jack McCall huddled under one of the counters.
Frank turned into a wolf. Then, both he and Jane stalked forward and growled so deeply that Annie could feel it through the floorboards.
McCall shuddered. “Please don’t kill me.”
Annie hefted her shotgun.
“Or, yeah, if you’re going to do it, do it fast.”
“Like you did Mr. Hickok?” Annie glared and aimed at him. The lowlife. The murderer.
Frank and Jane prowled around the room, glancing back every now and then to see what Annie was doing.
“I know what I did was wrong,” wheedled Jack McCall. “I know I deserve to go to prison for the rest of my long life.”
Annie glanced at Frank, then Jane. Both of them looked ready to maul the man, but she couldn’t let them do that—not as garou. She was maybe the only one in any position right now to think about the consequences of their actions.
The shotgun felt heavy in her hands. She could do it, though. She could do it quickly, before the wolves struck, and with relatively minor consequences. No one in town would blame her for executing a murderer. It was, after all, how things were done in Deadwood.
But she’d made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t use her skills to hurt people, and no matter what this man had done, she was not the person to decide what his punishment should be. Wasn’t that all part of the problem of Deadwood, anyway? People deciding they were outside the law, that they could do whatever they wanted?
No, she couldn’t be part of that system. She wouldn’t kill McCall—even though he was bad, even though he’d murdered someone she cared about.
“You’re under arrest,” Annie said.
“What?” Jack McCall looked up.
She glanced at Frank. “Wooo.”
He snarled at Jack McCall again, then lunged, and for a heartbeat or two, Annie thought he wouldn’t listen—that his pain was so great he couldn’t control it anymore. But Frank only snapped at the man, pulling back just before his teeth connected with flesh, and shifted back into a human.
He shoved Jack McCall against the wall. “You’ll go to prison, all right,” he growled. “But I wouldn’t count on it being a long time. You murdered Wild Bill Hickok. My father. The most famous gunslinger in the country. I’d say you’ll hang for this.”
Jane growled her agreement as she shifted back into her human form. “How do you feel about angry mobs, Jack McCall?”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Jane
Night fell. Jane stood in the middle of Bill’s empty room back at the Marriott, quietly taking stock of all she’d lost. Outside the window, the normally boisterous town had gone silent. She lifted her bottle of whiskey and drank deep, but the liquor was hardly taking the edge off her grief. From the moment she’d laid eyes on Bill on the floor of the No. 10, her body had felt heavy as lead.
She glanced around at Bill’s things where he’d left them: his soap and razor at the washstand, the strap of leather he used to sharpen the blade, pen and paper laid out on the desk, a letter that Jane could not read but that read, “Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife—Agnes—and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore.” She fingered his shirts hanging in the wardrobe—those dandy shirts she liked to give him grief about. Then she sat down on the edge of his bed and took another swig of the whiskey.
She’d tried to warn him. But it hadn’t been enough.
There was a knock at the door, like someone rapping the inside of her skull. “Calamity Jane, I must speak with you,” came a voice.
“I got no comment!” Jane yelled. “Let me be, gawl-darn it!”
The knocking continued, though, until she finally got up and opened the door. On the other side was a very nervous Mr. Marriott, the owner of the hotel. He tipped his hat and tried to smile.
“Miss Calamity, I heard you were in here. I hope you’re getting by all right, considering,” he said, like this was a social call. “How . . . are you?”
She held up the bottle. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”
He nodded. “I hate to bother you, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Now normally we’d be quite happy to have someone of your . . . celebrity . . . as a guest of our hotel, but as it is—”
“What, am I not famous enough for you anymore?” she bellowed.
“Oh no, you’re plenty famous. But you’re an outlaw now,” Mr. Marriott said. “You’re hiding out here, aren’t you? We can’t have that.”
She snorted. “How can I be an outlaw if there ain’t no law in Deadwood? And even if there were, what, ezactly, was my offense? You tell me that. So the papers say I’m a garou. So what? Is being a woof a crime in Deadwood?” She took a step toward Mr. Marriott, looming over him. “Go ahead. Tell me you don’t want woofs in your establishment. Say it to my”—she burped— “face.”
Mr. Marriott tried to keep his composure, which was difficult considering the state of Jane’s breath. He cleared his throat. “I have no quarrel with garou. My mother-in-law is a garou, in fact, and she’s a pleasant lady . . . most days. But you, Miss Calamity, you haven’t paid the hundred dollars you owe for the cure. Ms. Swearengen’s saying that’s as good as theft. There’s a reward posted for your capture.”
“The cure didn’t work!” Jane burst out. “Why should I pay for something that didn’t do me no good?”
“Nevertheless, Ms. Swearengen says you’re to be locked up unless you pay up,” said Mr. Marriott. “Around here we have to do what Ms. Swearengen says. Plus you broke our town’s best jail.” He tried to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry, but technically you’re a fugitive. You should go straighten it out with Swearengen. Or just . . . go.”
Jane took the deep breath she was going to need to tell him exactly where he could stick that hundred dollars, but Mr. Marriott had one more piece of business to see to. “Now, I don’t wish to be insensitive,” he said with a cough, “but Wild Bill Hickok will obviously not be requiring the use of this room any longer.” He gave her a sympathetic
smile. “I am sorry about that, too, Miss Calamity. I know it comes as a powerful loss.”
His sympathy was more unbearable than any cruelty could have been. The fire of anger left her. “You don’t know anything.”
“Quite frankly, ma’am, I’m sorry to see you go,” Mr. Marriott continued. “But we need the room, so as soon as you can be on your way, I’d appreciate it. And . . . here.” He picked a box up from beside the door. “They brought this over from the Number Ten.”
He held out the box to her. Inside was a familiar black hat, a folded billowy jacket, and—her breath caught—a pair of pretty silver .36 caliber pistols with ivory handles.
“Thank you,” she managed gruffly. “Give me a minute, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
After Mr. Marriott was gone, she took the box over to the bed and sat down beside it. With trembling hands she drew the coat into her arms and smelled it, and it was all Bill—hair pomade and tobacco, the overwhelming scent of his cologne, behind which she could detect a hint of gunpowder and wood shavings and . . . blood.
“Dang it, Bill,” she breathed.
She might have cried then, but she was all cried out. Instead, she took another swig of whiskey and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then investigated the box again, feeling a flash of gratitude toward Mr. Marriott. He could have sold all of this for a tidy profit—anything that had belonged to the Wild Bill Hickok would be considered the most precious of memorabilia now. Jane knew that a few blocks away folks were lined up all down the street outside the No. 10 Saloon, waiting to see Bill’s body on display. Folks were already calling the hand of cards Bill had been holding (aces and eights) the dead man’s hand.
Bill wasn’t a man anymore. He was now only a legend.
Jane sighed and picked up one of the pistols, smoothing her thumb over the ivory handle. Suddenly, she smiled. She was remembering, see, an afternoon some three years back in Wyoming Territory and a fourteen-year-old girl named Martha Canary.
It had been three years after the death of her father. Martha’d pretty much been constantly on the move then, going from town to town, picking up cash by whatever means necessary, sending it back to her siblings. That day she’d been working at the Cuny and Ecoffey Hotel near Fort Laramie, taking bags and cleaning rooms and whatever needed doing, when at two o’clock in the afternoon, on a Sunday, no less, who should appear but Wild Bill Hickok.
