My Calamity Jane

Book 0: Lady Janies

by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, Jodi Meadows

Genres: YA Fantasy; YA Werewolves & Shifters; YA Romance

Synopsis

Hold on to your hats: The authors who brought you the New York Times bestseller My Plain Jane, which Booklist praised as "delightfully deadpan" (starred review) and Publishers Weekly called "a clever, romantic farce" (starred review), are back with another irreverent historical adventure.

Welcome to 1876 America, a place bursting with gunslingers, outlaws, and garou—better known as werewolves.

And where there are garou, there're hunters: the one and only Calamity Jane, to be precise, along with her fellow stars of Wild Bill's Traveling Show, Annie Oakley and Frank "the Pistol Prince" Butler.

After a garou hunt goes south and Jane finds a suspicious—like bite on her arm, she turns tail for Deadwood, where there's talk of a garou cure. But rumors can be deceiving—meaning the gang better hightail it after her before they're a day late and a Jane short.

In this perfect next listen for fans of A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, bestselling authors Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton bring their signature spark to the side-splittin', whopper-filled (but actually kind of factual?) tale of Calamity Jane.

Release date: May 18, 2021

Publisher: HarperTeen

Print pages: 544

Sample

PROLOGUE

Listen up, y’all. We’re gonna tell you the story of Calamity Jane. You might have already heard of CJ—she’s one of the most famous names of the Old West. She was quite the character, if you believe the stuff that was written about her in the dime-store novels and newspapers of the day. They say she dressed up in britches like a man, shooting and swearing with the best of them; that she was a Pony Express rider, a stagecoach driver, a pioneer, a scout for the US Army, a spy, a showgirl, and the love interest of many a notorious gunslinger. “The Heroine of the Plains,” they liked to call her, and if all this wasn’t exactly true, well, it made a good story, so Jane never did try to set the record straight.

Historians, for their part, claim that in “reality” Calamity Jane was an illiterate, foul-mouthed alcoholic. They paint her as a lone wolf, a wanderer, a perpetual screwup who eventually drank herself to death and died alone and friendless, a tragic end after a lifetime of self-destruction. Not exactly a happily ever after.

We, your faithful narrators, think Jane had a good heart and deserves a better ending, so (as usual) we have a different tale to tell. Hold on to your hats, because we’re going to take you back to 1876.

Now, we want to warn you that the America of this tall tale doesn’t exactly resemble the history books. We’ve improved upon it, naturally. We changed people’s names when it suited us, combined a bunch of guys named Bill into one, and messed around with dates and ages. As we do. In our story, Calamity Jane’s been working in a theatrical production called Wild Bill’s Wild West (say that ten times fast). The show was one part demonstration—sharpshooting and rodeo-type tricks—and one part storytelling, in which Wild Bill Hickok, America’s first gunslinger and all-around stone-cold badass, thrilled audiences with accounts about his great adventures hunting garou.

If you’re not familiar with the term garou, we can hardly blame you. It’s an old word, derived from garolf, which had been, over centuries, modified from yet another, even older word: werwulf.

You see where we’re going with this.

The garou had always been around, but they were good at hiding in plain sight. A garou looked like a human, walked and talked like a human, and really was a human . . . most of the time. But in 1876, garou bites were on the rise. There were whispers of an evil garou gang known as (wait for it) the Pack, which was headed up by a mysterious figure called (you guessed it) the Alpha. Understandably, the US government was concerned about all these people getting turned into werewolves, so they hired Wild Bill Hickok and his posse of undercover garou hunters to bring the Alpha to justice, a job that would lead to one of the wildest adventures in the history of the Wild West.

That brings us to the three not-so-typical teenagers this story is really about: a dashing young feller trying to follow in the footsteps of his famous father, an ambitious-but-charming sharpshooter determined to prove herself, and a hotheaded but tenderhearted girl who’s fixin’ to get tangled up in a few dangerous plots of her own.

Get ready to meet the real Calamity Jane.

 

Part One – Cincinnati

(In which things get a little hairy)

JANE

As usual, they caused a ruckus when they came to town. Wild Bill liked to make an entrance. He led the group right down the center of Main Street, Bill riding way out front on his gleaming black horse, Jane and the rest following behind. Within minutes of their arrival the streets had flooded with onlookers, staring and pointing and exclaiming things like, “Wowee, that there’s the Wild Bill Hickok,” and “He’s the best sharpshooter in the West—no, the world,” and “A genuine hero, he is!”

Bill waved grandly to the bystanders, tipped his hat at the ladies, and swept back the edges of his billowy black coat to reveal the matching pair of engraved, ivory-hilted, silver-mounted .36
caliber revolvers strapped to his hips.

“That Wild Bill’s shot over a hundred men,” Jane overheard as they approached a gaggle of boys on the stoop of a barbershop.

Folks tended to exaggerate when it came to Bill.

“Well, I read in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine that he killed ten garou in a single fight,” said another boy. “With only six bullets in his gun!”

Jane heard an incredulous snort and glanced over her shoulder at the two men riding behind her: Charlie Utter, Bill’s business partner, and Frank Butler, Bill’s son. It was Frank who’d given the snort.

Jane crossed her eyes at him.

Frank responded by cupping his hand under his armpit and making fart noises.

Jane pantomimed vomiting.

Then Frank turned his head and pretended (at least we hope he was pretending) to slowly stick his finger up his nose.

Jane coughed to cover her laugh. Dang, he’d got her.

“Stop it, you two,” Charlie barked. “So help me I will turn these horses around.”

Jane sighed and swiveled to face forward again.

“Nellie, look!” cried a lady in a pink dress. “That’s Frank Butler, the Pistol Prince.”

“Oh! Isn’t he handsome?” breathed a second woman.

“So handsome,” agreed the first. “He’s even more handsome in real life, don’t you think?”

They must have missed the nose-picking. Jane peeked over her shoulder again at Frank, who weren’t so comely as all that, even if he did comb his hair regular and have all his teeth. Still, she’d never be able to think of Frank in any romantical way.

“You see the white dog riding on the special seat behind him?” continued the woman in the pink dress. “That’s George the Poodle. He’s part of their show.”

“I simply adore a man with a dog,” cooed the second girl.

From his perch, George gave a low growl. Jane agreed. This part was just so stupid, dandying up and promenading through town to get gawked at and fussed over.

“Hey!” a young man yelled out from the door of a bank. “Ain’t that Calamity Jane, the Heroine of the Plains?”

Well, maybe it wasn’t so stupid. That word did have a nice ring to it: hero-eene.

“Nah,” scoffed another fellow. “That can’t be Calamity Jane. She’s not pretty enough.”

Jane could instantly feel them looking her up and down. She knew she’d never be what a man would think beautiful; her shape was downright squarish, both body and jaw, her face burned and freckled from the sun, her hair dark and tangly as a stack of black cats. But a recent article in the Chicago Tribune had described Calamity Jane as “a lovely, spirited waif,” which had given folks certain erroneous expectations.

“That’s a girl wearing man’s breeches who’s riding with Wild Bill Hickok,” argued another man. “It’s got to be Calamity Jane.”

“I guess you’re right.” The first man laughed loudly. “Huh. She ain’t much to look at, is she? I can see why they call her ‘calamity.’”

Jane’s face burned. She should brush it off—she knew that— but instead she brought her horse to a stop alongside the bank and fixed the men with a stare. They fell silent.

What she wanted to do was spit. Jane was an excellent spitter, and it would be thoroughly satisfying to send a clean arc of spittle right onto the face of the rudest man.

“Jane,” came that warning voice behind her—Charlie, again. Gawl-darned Charlie, who disapproved of Jane spitting. It was bad for business, he always said.

Charlie spoiled all her fun.

So Jane swallowed down the impressive loogie she’d been working up (which we commend her for, as your narrators, but ewwww), cried “Yah!” and galloped ahead.

“You cain’t lose your temper,” Charlie scolded her later as they saw to the horses at the livery. “It reflects badly on the show.”

She nodded dully. “I didn’t. I won’t.” But she knew she probably would at some point. She’d never been skilled at holding back her temper, a trait she’d inherited from her hotheaded ma, God rest her soul.

“Folks can be mean as snakes, I know.” Charlie finished oiling Wild Bill’s saddle and gave Jane a sympathetic smile. “But at least they know your name. That’s good, Janie. That’s what we want. Recognition. Notoriety.”

Charlie was always working on the fame thing—how to get it, how to keep hold of it once they got it, how to turn it into profit. Sometimes it was easy to forget that being their manager was only a cover for Charlie’s true occupation: he was a Pinkerton detective.

(A little background information, dear reader, about the Pinkertons. By the time of our story, the Pinkerton agency was the largest private law enforcement organization in the United States. Pinkerton agents were mostly hired by businessmen to protect their interests, but they also served as bodyguards for Abraham Lincoln, spied on the Confederate army, and worked as “private eyes” sent to investigate crimes before we had the FBI. That last part brings us to Special Agent Charlie Utter, who’d been assigned to track the notorious garou known as the Alpha. Charlie’d been on the job for less than a year when he bumped into Wild Bill Hickok—who claimed to be retired from garou hunting but actually was an undercover US Marshal tasked with bringing down the Alpha. It made sense for the two of them to team up and start the Wild West show as an excuse to move from town to town, gathering intel. And the rest, as we like to say, is history.)

But the Alpha’s trail had gone cold months ago, and even though being Bill’s business partner was only a cover, today Charlie was all about the show. He pulled a tall stack of papers out of a box. “Be a dear, Jane, and put these up around town.”

Jane scowled. “It’s Frank’s turn.”

“Frank’s off with his adoring public, I’m afraid.”

“Simpering ladies, you mean,” Jane scoffed.

“It’s good for business.”

“I guess.”

“You know what else is good for business?” Charlie added good-naturedly. “You putting up these flyers.”

“All right.” She sighed and took the stack from him. “But you owe me.”

He smiled. “Fine by me.”

The trouble wasn’t in people knowing or not knowing her name, Jane thought as she made her way back toward the main street with a hammer and a pocketful of nails. The trouble was that they knew her name but they didn’t know her. Right now, for instance, people passing by assumed she was a man and didn’t give her a second glance. They didn’t think to themselves, Now there goes a genuine heroeene.

“Hey, mister.” Jane felt a tug at her sleeve and jerked back reflexively, but it was only a kid, come to beg, by the looks of it. Dirty face. No shoes. “You got a penny to spare?”

She dug in her pocket, produced two nickels, and handed the coins over. Not so long ago, she’d been that kid, doing whatever she had to do to fill her empty belly.

The boy took the money and ran off down the street without even thanking her. He’d never know that he’d been face-to-face with the famous Calamity Jane.

If you want to know the truth, dear reader, Jane wasn’t sure she wanted to be famous. She was good at the hero-type things, if she did say so herself (and she did, quite regularly). But celebrity had come on her accidental-like, and she’d rolled with it, because she didn’t have much in the way of options as a woman. It would be enough for her, she thought, to lead a simpler kind of life, get a bit of land someday, a small cabin to call her own, some horses to raise and sell, and a few people she could call friends, maybe even family.

She trudged up to a post and nailed the flyer to it, narrowly avoiding pounding her thumb. The word family was like a burr in her heart—it pained her to think on, but she kept thinking on it all the same.

She’d had a family once.

She walked to the next corner and absent-mindedly nailed up another flyer. Before she’d set off to make something of herself (at the tender age of eleven, we should mention), she’d left the youngest of her siblings, Hannah and Sarah Beth, in the care of a Mormon family in Salt Lake City. Her brother Silas had died of a fever earlier that year, another thing Jane tried not to think on. Lena and Lige, who weren’t much younger than Jane, had gone to a boardinghouse. She sent money back when she could, which wasn’t near often enough.

She hoped they all had shoes.

“Look out!” Right then, Jane was nearly run over by a passing carriage. At the warning she jumped back in the nick of time and ended up sprawled in the dirt in the middle of the street, the flyers strewn around her.

“Consarn it!” she blasted after the retreating carriage. “Watch where you’re going, why don’t ya!”

“Oh dear. Are you all right?” came a sweet voice.

Jane squinted up at the figure who was suddenly standing over her, silhouetted by the sun. The girl was wearing a white dress with lace at the collar. She had fair-colored hair and eyes and a pair of black wire spectacles perched delicately on her nose.

She was the prettiest thing Jane had ever seen.

“Gosh almighty!’ Jane blurted. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Oh. Well. Thank you,” the girl said in an amused tone. “Here, let me help you up.”

Jane stared at the unblemished white-gloved hand the girl offered. She jumped to her feet.

“No harm done to me,” she said. “Thanks.”

Together they bent to gather up the flyers, which were a bit dusty but all right. As they finished retrieving them the girl straightened and read the paper in her hand out loud: “‘Come one, come all, to Wild Bill’s Wild West! Tales of Wild Bill Hickok’s Most Terrifying Adventures with Outlaws and Garou! Exhibitions of Peerless Sharpshooting and Trick Shots by the Pistol Prince, Frank Butler! Wondrous Feats with the Bullwhip, Performed by Calamity Jane, the Heroine of the Plains!’” The girl pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Oh my goodness. You’re Jane, now, aren’t you?”

Jane waited for the girl’s eyes to sweep over her and find her wanting, but the girl only smiled.

“Yep,” Jane said at last. “That’s me. Most days, anyway.”

“I’m glad to meet you,” said the girl. “I’ve been most eager to make your acquaintance since I heard you were coming to Cincinnati.”

Jane nodded. “Uh, likewise.”

The girl laughed. “I’m Miss Harris.” She held out the gloved hand again. This time Jane took it and shook it gently.

“Jane,” she said. She thought it best to omit the Calamity part.

“Now that we’ve officially met, I hope I will be seeing more of you,” said Miss Harris. “I’ve read all about you.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like you’re only sixteen.”

“That’s not true,” scoffed Jane. “I’m twenty.” (In truth, she was seventeen, but she always lied about her age. It suited her for folks to think she was older than she was, and she was so tall and brawny that they always believed her.)

“I see,” said Miss Harris. “Well, in any case, I think it’s admirable, what you do.”

Jane scratched at her head. “I am decent with the whip.”

“What I mean is, you don’t let your gender define you,” Miss Harris continued primly. “You walk about in men’s clothes and go adventuring just like a man. You’re not limited by the constraints of your sex. You’re perhaps the most daring and progressive woman in America, and I find you fascinating.”

Jane felt her face redden. “Uh, why, thank you, miss.” She found herself suddenly tongue-tied. She glanced up at the sky, where the sun was almost directly overhead. “Shoot, look at the time. I better scoot. Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” said Miss Harris.

It was nice, thought Jane as she walked away. This kind of thing usually happened to Frank, not Jane. She’d never had an honest-to-goodness admirer before.

“Well, shucks,” she whispered to herself.

* * *

She was almost finished putting up the flyers when she became aware that she was being followed by a man she didn’t know. Jane took off her hat and wiped her brow as if she were catching her breath, and surveyed the man from the corner of her eye. He was shorter than she was by almost a head. Young, maybe twenty at most. She could take him.

She crossed the street for no good reason but to confirm that he’d cross the street after her. Which he did. She walked for a spell, then stopped. So did he. She started walking again, faster. He sped up, too. She broke into a jog and then ducked around a corner, upon which she stopped and spun to wait for the fellow. When he turned the corner, she grabbed him by the front of the shirt and bashed him into the side of the building. With her other hand she presented her six-shooter. It wasn’t a fancy one like Bill’s, but it would get the job done.

“What business do you have with me, sir?” she asked politely.

It took him a moment to answer, seeing as the wind had been knocked out of him. Then he smiled broadly, which caught her off guard. He did not have particularly good teeth.

“You’re Calamity Jane,” he panted at last.

“What’s it to ya?” she replied.

“I’m Jack McCall. I got a message for Wild Bill Hickok,” he said, still smiling at her. “It’s about them woofs.”

 

FRANK

“I simply adore a man with a dog,” the blonde girl gushed.

Frank had heard the same girl say the same thing earlier, when they’d been riding into town. But he didn’t mind the repetition in the least.

“Do you?” He smiled, and three out of the four beautiful women gathered outside the theater pretended to swoon.

“Oh yes. Dogs are so cute,” the blonde said. “And clever. I so admire cleverness. You’re probably clever too, aren’t you, Mr. Butler? Or should I call you Frank?”

He didn’t get a chance to answer, because another girl said, “Oh, Mr. Butler, how do you shoot so well?”

“Lots of practice—”

But the third girl moved in.

“Is it Mr. Butler, or do you prefer Pistol Prince?”

“I—”

“Oh, Mr. Butler, your poodle is so adorable.”

To which George replied with a growl, and all the young ladies backed off a step.

“I’m so sorry,” Frank said. “George is afeared of the ladies.”

I am not scared of ladies, thought George indignantly. I’m a brave dog.

See here, reader, Frank could hear the thoughts of animals—dogs, mostly, but sometimes wolves, wild cats, and the occasional angry badger. It was a skill he didn’t advertise, for reasons we’ll explain later.

Frank patted George’s head. “I think you’re a brave boy, George. The bravest.” It wasn’t so much that George was scared of women, it was more that he just didn’t like them, plain and simple . . . and utterly mysteriously, because Frank adored them.

“Awww!” cooed all four ladies in unison. “Poor George.”

George sniffed with disdain.

Overhead, the sun crawled toward noon, so Frank put his hands out, palms down in a calming manner, and said, “Thank you for your much-appreciated attention, ladies, but I have to prepare for the show.”

“We’ll be there,” said the brunette.

“And we welcome your attendance,” Frank said.

George growled, as if to say he would welcome anything but their attendance, and Frank nudged him with his knee.

“Toodleloo,” sighed the blonde.

“Same to you,” Frank replied.

The crowd of women reluctantly dispersed, and Frank ducked into the theater.

Why do you talk to them every time? George looked up at Frank, his dark eyes curious.

“Well, it’s part of my job.” Frank scratched the back of George’s head. “I like talking to the ladies. I like ladies.”

More than me?

“Of course not.”

George huffed as if he weren’t sure he believed Frank and trotted over to a crate filled with props. But you don’t like like them, George thought. Not any of those ladies.

“I like them fine.” Frank followed George to the crate and used a crowbar to pry off the lid. “But town after town, they all start to blend together.” He carefully removed the paper-wrapped mirrors (for trick shots) and glass balls (for shooting). “It would help if you weren’t so mean to them,” he added.

I growl because they’re not the right mate for you.

Frank coughed and almost dropped one of the glass balls. “Excuse-a-what?”

“Hey there, partner.” Bill came in, walking stiffly. “Need some help?”

“Sure.” Frank gave one last eyebrow raise to George, and then he and Bill set up the targets and other props. It all had to be placed just so, because in a sharp-shooting show where bullets were flying, attention to detail was crucial. Frank handed George an empty whiskey bottle, and the pooch took it and placed it on a pedestal on the opposite side of the stage.

Is this right? George asked.

Frank nodded. The bottle was for Jane’s bullwhip act. She was so good with a bullwhip, she could . . . well, your narrators don’t want to spoil it for you. You’ll have to wait for the show.
Frank paused in the center of the stage, the familiar buzz of pre-show anticipation filling him. And for that one small moment, he let himself imagine that show business was all he did.

The heat of the lights on him.

His gun in his hand, the bang of each perfect shot.

The audience gasping and cheering and calling his name.

“Frank Butler!” they’d cry. “Hooray for the Pistol Prince! Frank! Frank! Frank!”

He drew in a deep breath. Even the smell of the theater was something special, like velvet and sawdust and dreams.

“Frank!” Bill stepped in front of him. “Son, are you listening to me?”

Frank blinked a few times. “Sorry, I was lost in thought, I guess.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“The show,” Frank admitted. “Do you think that someday—after we catch the Alpha, of course—the show really could be our job, not just a cover?”

Bill shook his head. “I’m tuckered out, kid. After we catch the Alpha I’m going to retire. For real this time. From garou hunting and from show business, too.”

“Oh.” Frank felt a pang in his heart. “Maybe we could take a vacation,” he suggested. “Rest up, then find a permanent place somewhere to do the show. A theater. Heck, maybe even this one.”

“Nah,” said Bill. “I’m done. You know it’s not only me I’m thinking about. I’ve got Agnes waiting for me.”

Oh yeah. Bill was married now. It was hard to remember sometimes.

A few months back they’d been doing a show in Cheyenne when Bill had run into an old flame named Agnes Lake. Agnes was in show business, herself. She owned a circus. She also walked the tight rope and trained the fiercest lions, tigers, and bears. (Oh my!) Bill was instantly smitten with her all over again, and in an impromptu move no one (or certainly not Frank) saw coming, Bill asked Agnes to marry him, right then and there, and she’d said yes. The honeymoon hadn’t been long, since the gang still had shows to do and the Alpha to hunt, but ever since they’d left Cheyenne—and Agnes—Bill had been talking of settling down. Even so, today was the first time Bill had ever said the word retire like he actually meant it.

Bill patted Frank’s shoulder. “I’ve had my time in the sun. But just because I’m done doesn’t mean you are. The show must . . .”

“Go on,” pressed Frank.

“Right. The show must go on. Without me.”

“Yeah, well, then I’ve got some pretty big shoes to fill,” Frank said glumly. It was hard to imagine Wild Bill’s Wild West without Wild Bill. How could the show really go on without the world’s greatest showman?

Bill chuckled and lifted a boot to go alongside Frank’s. “Not so big as all that, see? You’ll be a natural at it, son. I know you will. In fact, why don’t you take over the show from now on, manage things, get a feel for it?”

Frank’s breath caught. “What about Charlie?”

Bill pshawed. “He’s a Pinkerton. Not a showman. I’m sure he’d rather focus on the Alpha. You think you can handle it?”

“I can do it,” said Frank.

“Good. Can you finish setting up on your own?” Bill asked.

“Of course,” Frank said.

“I’m gonna head back to the hotel and get us squared away on that end.”

Frank watched him go. George sat at his feet.

It’s good to think about the future, George thought.

“Maybe,” Frank said. “But what if, when Bill leaves . . .”

The show falls apart? George supplied.

“Thank you for your confidence. I was going to say suffer, but sure.” Frank scratched George’s ears.
George’s tail thumped.

Frank sighed and turned back to the set, which was almost finished. He missed the days when it was just him and Bill, going from town to town, living hand to mouth. Well, more like gun to bull’s-eye.

From the beginning, life was always an adventure with his dad. Bill’s family farm had served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and then Bill made a name for himself by joining the antislavery Free State Army of Jayhawkers, where he served as a bodyguard for General James H. Lane.

He fought in the Civil War and left Frank in the care of a family in Ohio. Those years were the longest of Frank’s life, the longest he’d spent without his dad.

When Bill returned from the war, he vowed to never leave Frank for more than a couple weeks at a time. The two went on the road again, and Frank noticed that people along the way started to recognize his father. His gunfighting abilities had granted him even more fame.

But it was Bill’s encounter with a bear where his legendary status really rose. The bear surprised him on the road, and Hickok shot it. The bear didn’t die, and the two wrestled until Bill used a knife to slit the bear’s throat.

Frank was with him at the time, hiding behind a tree, watching his dad in amazement.

As Bill’s star began to rise, so did the threats against him. The man who killed the Wild Bill Hickok would stand to gain fame and possibly fortune.

Bill spent the next few years teaching Frank the ins and outs of a nomadic life, all the while dodging bounty hunters and opportunistic thrill seekers who wouldn’t mind seeing Wild Bill dead by their hand.

Then, a few years back, Bill left for a scouting trip, and when he returned, he had a little girl in tow. Jane, her name was.

Jane took to their lifestyle like a fly takes to sugar. When Charlie joined up a couple years later, their gang felt complete. They had a good thing going, here. And now it seemed like they were all about to go their separate ways.

“I don’t know if I can carry it alone,” Frank murmured to the rows of empty seats.

George lay on the floor and put his chin against the wood. Don’t worry. I’ve been living this nomadic life for a while now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s— George’s ears pricked up. Mail wagon!

Frank could barely hear the hoofbeats outside. George barked enthusiastically for a few minutes, and then settled down again.

“You’re a good watchdog,” Frank said. I know, George replied. The mailman is dangerous, but I’ll protect you.

“Thanks. So what’s the one thing you’ve learned?”

What one thing?

“The one thing you’ve learned after your nomadic life?”

I don’t remember.

“Frank!” came a shout from the theater entrance. “Fraaaaaank!”

It was Jane. She ran down the aisle, spitting as she went.

“Try not to spit on the paid seats,” Frank called.

“I have news.” Jane put a hand up and leaned over, gasping for air.

George whined and cocked his head, and Frank walked to the edge of the stage so she didn’t have to yell.

“Jane, what is it?”

“You gotta come right now to Bill’s . . .” She lowered her head again, still struggling to catch her breath.

“Room?” Frank guessed.

Jane nodded.

“But, the show—”

Jane shook her head. “It’s a garou emergency!”

Once Jane, Frank, and George got to Bill’s room, Frank realized Jane’s definition of the word emergency was a bit looser than his own. His was more like, a burning building or garou attacking children.

What he found was Bill, standing next to a man who looked vaguely familiar.

Frank glanced at Bill to get a sense of his old man’s feelings about the stranger, and found the holsters of those beautiful ivory-handled pistols clipped. Bill didn’t believe they were in danger here, or the clips would have been off; it made for a faster draw. Not that Bill shot as much these days—his eyesight wasn’t the greatest anymore—but the clips worked as a secret code between father and son.

“Frank, this is Jack McCall,” Bill said. “He claims he is a garou hunter.”

“Woof hunter,” Jack McCall said.

Woof hunter was a term lone vigilantes often used. Frank had a hard time taking them seriously.

“I was gonna hunt ’em by myself,” Jack McCall boasted, “but then I heard y’all were comin’ into town.”

“Going to take who on?” Frank asked.

McCall ignored him. “Is your whole gang here?”

“Everyone but Charlie, but we can fill him in later. He’s in charge of this outfit.”

“But, I thought . . .” Jack pointed at Bill. “I thought you was in charge.”

Jane took off her hat. “Bill’s what you might call the face of the operation. Charlie’s the head.”

Frank nudged her. “Isn’t the face part of the head?”

Jane shoved him back. “I think you’ve been sniffin’ too much perfume, pretty boy.”

“Are you two . . .” Jack McCall let his words trail off and grinned.

“Ew, no,” Jane said, lurching away from Frank.

“You don’t have to be so dramatic about it,” Frank said. “Sorry, Mr. McCall. Please tell us about the”—he sighed—“woof.”

“Well, I came into some information that the foreman at the old P and G factory is a super bad woof,” said Jack McCall.

“That’s interesting news,” said Bill. “But I’m afraid I’m retired from garou hunting.”

McCall gazed thoughtfully at Bill. “A woof hunter ain’t never retired, is he?”

Bill didn’t answer.

“Besides, this isn’t some insignificant woof,” added McCall. “This here’s the Alpha.”

The group went still. The general public was not aware of the existence of the Alpha. People were terrified enough by the thought of a regular werewolf, without adding a werewolf supervillain to the mix.

Jack McCall puffed out his chest. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m in the know about the Alpha.”

“How do you know that this man—this foreman at the P and G factory—is the Alpha?” Bill asked slowly.

McCall scratched at the back of his neck. “Well, I don’t know know, exactly. I heard—through my various woof-hunter sources—that he’s a leader in the Pack. A big boss. Like top tier. So I reckon he’s probably the Alpha. And then I reckoned that if I’m gonna go up against the Alpha, maybe I need to bring along the best garou hunter in the world. That being you, Mr. Hickok, sir.”

“I see. What’s the man’s name?” Bill asked.

“Mr. Badd. He’s super bad.”

“His name is Super Bad?” Frank asked. “What were his parents thinking?”

Jane snorted.

Jack McCall looked confused. “No, I’m just telling you how bad he is, but also, his name happens to be Badd, but spelled with two d’s.” His face broke into a smile again.
Frank realized where he’d seen Jack McCall before—playing poker, in one of their previous towns. Possibly St. Louis? He didn’t remember the place for sure, but he definitely remembered that smile, the constant show of teeth, and how he hadn’t been able to tell whether Jack McCall was bluffing.

“Hmm,” Bill mused. “I read something in the paper this morning about a series of strange disappearances at a factory. If it’s the P and G, they could be missing because they’ve been turned.”

Frank scoffed. “Who would turn a bunch of people in the same place? It would draw too much attention. The Alpha would know better than that.”

Bill narrowed his eyes. “You’d think.”

“We should go check it out,” Jack McCall said.

Frank’s pulse sped up. “But what about the show?”

“The show will go on as scheduled,” Bill said. “We still have a few hours. Keep an eye out the window for Charlie. When he gets back, we’ll investigate the factory.”

While Bill continued asking Jack McCall questions—mostly about how he came by all this information—Frank leaned on the window frame and gazed outside. If this Mr. Badd fellow did turn out to be the Alpha, and they caught him tonight, that’d be it. Bill would retire. Frank would inherit the show.

Everything would change.

He spotted a blond girl down on the street in front of the general store, looking at her reflection in the glass. She was one of the girls from earlier—the one who adored a man with a dog—all prim and proper and pretty. She was pinching her cheeks when a stagecoach came by, splashing mud onto her fancy dress. She shrieked like she was mortally wounded, so loudly the shopkeeper rushed out to see what was the matter. The girl sobbed and gestured to her soiled dress. The shopkeeper put his arm around her and ushered her into the store.

Frank sighed. Maybe George had a point. None of these girls were right for him. But what girl would be? She’d have to be the type who didn’t mind life on the road, and who didn’t mind guns, and who got along with George. That seemed like a tall order.

He caught sight of Charlie coming up the front steps. “Dad,” Frank said, interrupting whatever his father had been saying to Jack McCall. “Charlie’s back.”

“Good,” Bill growled. “Get your things. We’re going Alpha hunting.”