“Wha—? How?” Jane stumbled backward. She obviously hadn’t practiced talking with her mouth in snout form, which was not an easy skill. “You,” she got out with great difficulty. “Woof?”
Frank pushed her inside and closed the door behind them. He locked it and turned to face her. “I’m the same Frank you know,” he assured her. “But yes. I’m a garou.”
Her eyes, which were still recognizably Jane’s eyes, widened. “Me . . . ,” she said slowly. “Too.” Then she let out an agonizing wolfy howl.
Frank rushed over to introduce Jane to the Wooo. He grabbed her hands in his. “Wooo,” he said softly. “Say it with me, Jane. Woooooo.”
She met his gaze. “Wooo?”
He nodded. “Wooo.”
They woooed together for a few minutes, exhaling in unison, until the hairs covering their bodies shrank back into their skin, and their claws retracted, and their slobber . . . well, stopped slobbering. And once they were both human again, and once Frank had wrapped a blanket around her (to cover up her lady bits), Jane sank to the floor.
“I know,” Frank said, sitting down beside her. “I know.”
“How’d you figure it out?” she asked.
“I saw you talk to a dog.”
Jane pulled the blanket more tightly around her. “He told me the funniest joke about squirrels. There was this one, see, who didn’t save up acorns for the winter, and he—” Her mouth dropped open. “You can talk to George!”
(Where was George, anyway? We haven’t seen him since they encountered Annie on the street two chapters ago. He was probably off picking her flowers or something. But George could take care of himself.)
“Yes,” Frank said. “Sometimes being a garou comes in handy.”
Jane looked unconvinced. “Since when?”
“Since always. Oh you mean, since when have I been a garou?”
Jane snorted. “’Course that’s what I mean! Why else would I ask ya?”
Now she was sounding more like the old Jane.
“For as long as I can remember,” Frank answered.
“What, and you didn’t tell me?” A long, curly hair popped out of Jane’s knuckle.
“Jane, please stay calm. We need to talk as humans.”
“Wooo,” Jane said. The hair went away.
“Good,” Frank said. “You’re getting it.” He took a deep breath. “You know that story Bill tells of him rescuing a baby from a garou attack?”
“Yeah,” Jane said. “What about it?”
“He skips a part.”
Her brow furrowed. “What part?”
“Bill changes the story so he reaches the baby first. Guess he wishes he had, you know? But the truth is that the garou got there first.”
“Oh, rocks,” said Jane. “Did the garou eat the baby up?”
Frank closed his eyes. “No. I’m the baby, Jane.”
“You’re a baby and a garou? That don’t make no sense.”
“Okay, let’s try this again,” Frank said patiently. “I was a baby, when I was younger.”
“Yes. Go on,” Jane said.
“And my family got eaten up by a garou.”
Jane looked stricken. “Ah, Frank, I never knowed that.”
“I know,” Frank said. “That’s why I’m trying to tell you.”
“But you’re a garou.”
“Correct. You’ve got it. I’m a garou.”
“I don’t follow,” said Jane.
Maybe the third time would be the charm. “I’m the baby who Bill saved from the garou that night. But I’d already been bitten before Bill got to me. But he took me in anyway.”
It was quiet. Then Jane said, “Bill ain’t your real pa?”
Frank swallowed. “He’s the only pa I’ve ever known. That’s real enough.”
“I can’t believe you never told me that,” Jane said in a hurt voice.
That was a pang to Frank’s heart, because he’d already felt so guilty for not sharing his secret with her. “I’m sorry. Bill thought it would be best if no one else knew that I was . . .”
“You told Bill but not me?!”
“Yes, Jane!” Frank yelled. “Bill’s the one who saved me! Try to keep up!”
Then he had to wooo for a minute.
“Sorry,” Jane said after he’d calmed down, shaking her head as if to clear it. “My head’s so muddy right now. You don’t even want to know the day I’ve had.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “What happened?” he asked.
“I said you don’t want to know.”
“But I do want to know. After you put some clothes on.” He waited, back turned, while Jane got dressed, and then sat with her on the bed. “Tell me.”
Her lip quivered. “I . . .”
“Yes, Jane. I’m listening.”
“I just got . . . I . . .”
Oh, rocks. She clearly had just got the “cure,” and now she was in thrall, like poor Jud Fry on the train, and she couldn’t talk about it.
“I just got my first kiss!” she blurted out.
That was not what Frank had expected her to say. “What?”
She sighed. “It was really nice, too. But now my life is over. My first kiss is probably going to be my last.”
Frank was momentarily distracted by the thought of his kiss with Annie. Which had been, in a word, amazing. But then he remembered that this wasn’t about him. “Why would it be your last kiss, Jane?” he asked.
Jane shook her head. “Right afterward, I found out that she—I mean, that writer, what’s his name, Edward Wheeler—knows I’m a garou. And he’s gonna publish a story about it.”
“What?” Frank said. This time, a hair sprouted out of his elbow. “Does he know who you are?”
“I think that is what you might call the hook of the story,” Jane said bitterly. “The hero-eene of the plains is a garou.”
“Well,” Frank said, “there’s got to be something we can do. I’ve met Mr. Wheeler. He seemed like a reasonable fellow. I’ll talk to him.”
“Bad idea,” Jane said immediately. “I don’t want you to do that. You know what Bill says: Writers can’t be trusted.”
“Maybe Bill could talk Mr. Wheeler out of it,” mused Frank.
“Don’t you see? That’s even worse,” Jane said. “The Wild Bill Hickok, world-famous garou hunter, was stupid enough to employ a garou. That, as Charlie would say, would be bad for the show.” Her jaw set. “I’m not draggin’ Bill farther through the mud.”
“But—”
“I said no!” Jane interrupted.
Frank held up his hands. “Okay. Wooo. Wooo with me, Jane.”
“I don’t need to wooo.” Jane stood in a superhero pose: hands on hips, chest out. “There’s only one course for me, Frank. I need the cure.”
Frank rubbed his eyebrows. “Yeah. About that. I’ve got some bad news.”
“I don’t know if I can take any more bad news,” Jane said. “So just give me the good news.”
Frank felt a pit in his stomach. “I don’t have any good news.”
“Shoot. Well then, give it to me straight.”
“Jane, the cure—”
“I know it’s a lot of money,” she said before he got out more than a few words. “But maybe that don’t matter. I’ve got connections, you see.”
“It’s not that. The cure doesn’t work.”
She stared at him. “Sure it does. I’ve seen it.”
“I don’t know what you’ve seen,” Frank said. “But the cure’s a fake.”
“What?” She scowled. “No. You’re—You’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong. There is no real cure for the garou. You’re going to have to learn to control it. But I’ll help you. And Bill will teach you, the way he taught me.”
Jane’s right arm shifted, sprouting hair and claws. “I don’t need to be taught to control it,” she said hotly. “Some people would even say it doesn’t need to be controlled.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
She really started to wolf out again then. Frank held up his hands. “Jane, calm down. Wooo.”
“I don’t want to wooo!”
“Jane, your neck is covered in fur,” he pointed out.
“I don’t care! I’m getting the cure!”
“The cure is fake!”
“You lie!” Jane roared.
“I don’t!”
“How do you know?” Jane’s left arm shifted, too.
“Thorough investigative work!” Frank exclaimed. “Wooo,” he said to himself. This conversation was really starting to test his own control.
“I don’t believe you! I believe Al Swearengen!”
“But Al Swearengen is the villain of this story,” Frank said. “It’s so obvious.”
“That’s impossible,” argued Jane. “Al Swearengen is my mother!”
The words reverberated through the room. Frank’s eyes widened. “What?”
Jane’s hands balled into fists. “Besides that, she’s an innocent garou, who was relentlessly hunted her entire life! She told me.”
“I don’t know about any of that,” Frank said dazedly. “But Swearengen is not who you think she is. If you’ll let me explain—”
“You know nothing, Frank Butler!” Jane cried.
With that, she jumped toward the window and smashed clean through it.
Why can she never use the door? Frank wondered.
Of all of Jane’s problems, there was only one Frank felt that he was capable of solving.
He went from hotel to hotel, asking for a guest named Edward Wheeler, and finally hit pay dirt at the Checkmate Hotel. Mr. Wheeler was staying in room 203.
But when Frank knocked at room 203, a petite blond woman answered.
“Can I help you?” She looked strangely familiar, but he couldn’t place her.
“Um, hi, I’m looking for Edward Wheeler,” Frank said.
She tilted her head and studied his face. “And what do you want with him?”
“I need to talk to him about a matter of urgent . . . um, urgent matter.”
“Mr. Wheeler isn’t here right now,” she said. “But if you’d care to leave a message after this sentence . . .”
Frank’s shoulders sagged. “Please just tell him to . . . not print the article, about a girl named Jane.”
The blond woman frowned. “I’m sorry,” she said in a soft voice. “But whatever Mr. Wheeler was set to print, it’s already being printed. From what I know about the business, there’s no way to stop the presses.”
Frank closed his eyes and sighed. “Thank you for your time.” He tipped his hat and turned away.
“Is she okay?”
Frank turned back. “What?”
“This Jane of yours. Is she all right?”
Frank sighed. “Not really.”
He trudged around Deadwood until he located Bill, who was watching the Gem from across the street, his expression cloudy.
“I been pondering over what to do about our Alpha problem,” he said when Frank came up beside him.
Frank gazed up at the Gem. “It’s worse than we thought.”