“Has anyone seen my gun?”
Annie pushed through the crowd, searching for the familiar Kentucky long rifle, but it could have been anywhere by now. Dozens of people crowded the street, and it seemed entirely likely that someone had kicked the rifle into a pigpen, or even picked it up to claim it as their own. It was a nice rifle, although probably mostly nice to her, what with the sentimental value.
“Heeeere, gun, gun, gun,” she called, and then walked smack into her gun and the mustache bending to pick it up. (There was a man behind the mustache, but it took her an extra second to see him.)
“Excuse me!” said the mustache.
“Excuse yourself! That’s my gun.” Oh yes (oh yes) they both reached for the gun (the gun the gun).
Annie got it first, hugging the rifle to her chest like it was a lost puppy that didn’t make her sneeze.
“Are you all right, miss?” The man behind the mustache (it was as big as a push broom) looked to be in his late twenties, and though his face was mostly dominated by that mustache, she thought he had the look of a politician or a businessman. That was, he had cunning eyes and a quick smile, the kind that wanted everyone to trust him.
“Fine,” she said, even though it was a lie. “I’m busy. I have to stop the cure.”
“Why?”
“It’s not a cure. It’s—” Annie threw her free hand in the air. “Never mind. I have to go. Thanks for not stealing my gun, Mr. . . .”
“Bullock,” he said. “Seth Bullock. And if you ever need mining hardware, I have a tent—”
“You’re the man with the toilets.”
“You’ve heard of me!”
“I’ve heard of your toilets. Good luck with that.”
“Thanks, Miss—”
“Annie Oakley.” Then she was gone, her gun finally in hand. Of course, at the theater door, the guards demanded her gun, saying she couldn’t go in without disarming.
“Argh!” But she carefully handed her gun over, because the only other choice was not helping Jane at all. “I’ll be back for this,” she warned in her most withering tone. “And if it’s not here when I get back, I’m blaming you.”
The man, not withered at all, shrugged. “Enjoy the show.”
“You too!” Annie said automatically, and then died a little inside when she remembered that (a) he wasn’t going to see the show, and (b) she wasn’t there to enjoy anything.
Face burning with anger and humiliation, Annie pushed her way through the crowd of shouting, swearing, and smelly townsfolk. Somehow, over a hundred of them had crammed into the theater in a matter of minutes, and now they were all jeering at Jane on the stage, locked in the cage. Shoes, tomatoes, and rocks flew at her, most bouncing off the bars to be picked up and thrown again. But a few sailed between the bars and hit the girl inside.
Jane was trembling. Oh, she tried not to show it, but Annie could tell that fear and adrenaline were flooding through her friend. If Jane really was a garou, then it wouldn’t be long before she showed it.
Two other figures were standing on the stage. One Annie knew: Jack McCall, the man who’d been in Cincinnati with them, who’d always seemed to pop up at the worst time.
The other could only be Al Swearengen: tall with black hair, and the sort of smile that said she owned this place, this mob, this whole town. She even had a top hat, and we all know how Annie felt about people in top hats.
With a shiver, Annie hurried to Frank’s side. “I don’t even know what to say about all this.”
Frank’s jaw clenched. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“It’s just,” Annie went on, “Jane is suddenly a garou, which I only found out a little bit ago from the newspaper, and now she’s up there getting rocks thrown at her.”
Frank gave her a side-eye. “Sounds like you do know what to say.”
“Not really,” Annie said. “I’m babbling because I’m scared. What are they going to do to her?”
“Nothing good.” Frank’s expression didn’t soften. “She didn’t tell anyone she’d been bit. You weren’t the only one she was hiding from. But given how you’ve felt about garou, is it really a surprise she saved you for last?”
“I found out from the newspaper,” Annie reminded him.
“Right. So maybe she didn’t intend to tell you at all.”
That stung, but Annie figured she deserved it. She’d given Jane no reason to feel safe. “I’m sorry,” Annie whispered.
Frank didn’t respond.
“But what are we going to do?” Annie looked from Frank to Mr. Hickok. “How can we stop this?”
“We can’t,” Frank said. “Not without making it worse for her.”
Then, on the stage, even without Annie and Frank trying to help, the situation actively got worse: Swearengen produced a whip, like the one Jane used. Maybe it was Jane’s whip.
“Oh no,” Annie breathed.
Crack. The bullwhip lashed on the cage bars. “You all know Calamity Jane as the Heroine of the Plains,” Swearengen said. “And I’m certain you’ve all heard by now that she’s my own daughter.”
A collective gasp sucked all the air out of the theater. Lots of people had known, yes, but hearing it again—and seeing the two of them like this—was a shock. And for Annie, who hadn’t known because she’d been wandering around the Black Hills and reuniting the sisters, it was a punch to the gut.
“Swearengen is Jane’s mother?” She could barely get the words out.
Frank kindly didn’t remind her that Jane didn’t have to tell Annie everything that went on in her life, or even anything.
“Because Jane is my daughter,” Swearengen went on, “I need to set an example for everyone else. And I need to set an example for Jane, as well.”
The crowd roared, booing and cheering with equal fervor. Booing for Jane, cheering for what they knew was coming. Annie felt sick. How could a mother do this to her daughter? Never, not in a thousand years, not even with all the disagreements they’d had before Annie left, could Annie imagine her own mama betraying her in this way.
“I can cure her,” Swearengen said. “I want to cure her. Then she can go back to being a productive member of society.”
Horror crept into Annie as the whip cracked again, missed the bars, and hit Jane instead. She screamed and lurched to the other side of the cage, but there was nowhere to run. “Ma, please! Let me loose!” Jane cried.
No one listened.
“Day after day,” Swearengen said, “you’ve seen demonstrations of real garou being cured of the affliction from which they suffer. The affliction that terrorizes entire towns.”
The crowd threw more random objects at the cage.
“And now we will cure Calamity Jane from this affliction. Wolf by wolf, we will cure the West of this plague.” Swearengen whipped the cage again, then strode toward Jane, danger in every step. “Do you want to be cured of this plague?” she asked.
For the first time, the audience grew quiet, waiting to hear what Jane would say.
Jane pulled herself up tall, clenched her jaw, and stared at Swearengen. “No.”
Everyone in the crowd gasped. Calamity Jane had admitted—in front of everyone—that she was a garou. And she wanted to stay that way.
“Well,” said Swearengen, “I’m afraid what you want doesn’t matter. You’re my daughter, and you don’t get to make your own decisions yet. You’re also a garou, and that means you’re a threat to society. You have no choice.”
The crowd cheered in agreement, and Annie swayed with wanting to be sick. How could anyone do this to another person? To someone who’d never hurt anyone? To her own daughter?
Swearengen turned to the audience, speaking in the way a lecturing teacher might. “The cure works best if the wolf understands that she’s dangerous and desires to be cured. I believe that Calamity Jane wants to be cured. She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Jane pressed herself against the back of the cage. “You don’t have to do this,” she cried.
“Wooo,” Frank said under his breath. “Remember your Wooo.”
“What was that?” Annie asked.
Frank looked over like he’d forgotten she was there. “What was what?”
“You said wooo.”
“Oh.” He glanced at Jane again. “It’s how I control the wolf—and how I tried to teach her to do it. Saying wooo helps calm the mind. Sometimes I imagine a setting sun, too, because it’s peaceful.”
Annie bit her lip and gazed at Jane. “Can she do it?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “This is so much pressure.”
The whip cracked again, closer to Jane.
Frank woooed some more, and then Annie joined in. “Woooooo.”
But Jane was shaking inside the cage, her whole body rocked with fear and sudden change. Her face elongated, her feet grew, her arms bulked and tore the sleeves of her white top. Brown fur erupted from her face and arms and legs.
Jane was a wolf.
Annie gasped. She didn’t want to be as shocked as she was, but in reality, she’d seen only a few garou before—the Wolf family, the two in the candle factory, and almost the mayor—and those wolves had all been tormenters or strangers. Not someone she cared about. It was easy to think they were evil, but now, she saw only her friend—albeit a much bigger and hairier version. It would have been terrifying if Annie hadn’t realized that Jane was simply scared.
“Oh, Jane,” Frank whispered. “Poor Jane.”
Annie started to touch his arm, to offer him strength, but he shifted away from her and she let her hand fall down to her side once more.
Inside the cage, Jane snarled.
Swearengen nodded at McCall. “It’s time.”
McCall produced a rod with a loop on one end, and quickly, he dropped the loop over wolf-Jane’s head and dragged her toward the side of the cage.
“No!” Annie yelled, stepping forward, but no one could hear her over the cheering crowd.
Frank took her shoulder and drew her back. “We can’t do anything.”
Annie wished she hadn’t given up her gun. She could have shot the whip out of Swearengen’s hand, or the rod out of McCall’s. She could have shot the hinges off the cage to open the door and let Jane free.
“We have to stop this,” she said. “We have to say something.”
“Maybe the serum won’t work,” Frank said, although he didn’t sound very hopeful. “It didn’t work on Walks Looking, remember?”
Annie shook her head. “Walks Looking told me how hard it was to resist, and I don’t want to insinuate mean things about Jane but—”
“Swearengen is Jane’s mother,” he finished. “It’s going to be hard for Jane to resist when there’s probably a big part of her that wants to be with her mother.”
Annie’s heart sank. “Yeah.”
That’s when another man stepped onto the stage, a familiar figure in a long black coat. Everyone went quiet.
Annie looked to where Mr. Hickok had been standing a minute ago, to confirm that he didn’t have a surprise twin running around Deadwood.
“Wild Bill Hickok.” Swearengen touched the brim of her hat in greeting. “I’m honored you’re so interested in the cure that you had to come see it up close.”
Jane gave a faint growl, but she no longer fought; she’d strangle herself if she did.
“I’m here to put an end to this,” Mr. Hickok said. “This business is no good.”
The crowd gasped.
“You’re going to put an end to Calamity Jane yourself?” Swearengen glanced at Mr. Hickok’s empty holsters. “How do you plan on doing that?”
Mr. Hickok shook his head. “Of course I’m not going to hurt her. Calamity Jane hasn’t harmed anyone in this town.”
“She’s harmin’ us just by bein’ what she is,” said a man in the audience.
“Yeah!” someone shouted.
“Well, now wait,” another man shouted. “This is Wild Bill Hickok. Maybe we should listen to what he says.”
A few people muttered, and someone in the back shouted, “Can I have your autograph?”
“This isn’t the USA, and you have no jurisdiction here,” Swearengen said. “This is Deadwood, and Deadwood takes care of its own problems.”
Lots of people nodded.
Annie pushed her way through the crowd. People might listen to Mr. Hickok because he was famous, but they were scared of Al Swearengen.
“You and I both know there’s no cure for the garou,” Mr. Hickok said evenly, “not because it’s incurable, but because it’s not a disease. It’s not a problem that needs to be fixed.”
A few miners and shop owners looked at one another and grumbled.
“Isn’t it?” Swearengen grinned, showing the points of her eyeteeth. “After all, it’s transmitted through a bite—through blood and saliva. It gives people chills and fever, and forces them to involuntarily change shape every month. That sounds like a disease to me. A very dangerous disease that needs curing.”
Annie was in no position to agree or disagree with those claims, but it seemed incredibly hypocritical of Swearengen to make declarations like that, given that she was a garou, too, and sending her minions out to go make more. If there was a garou plague—and that was a big if as far as Annie could see—then Swearengen was the source of it.
But the crowd was shouting out their agreement, calling for an end to all the wolves. They booed and tossed more things at Jane. A hand clamped on Annie’s shoulder. She jumped and spun around, but it was Frank. He’d followed her to the fore of the crowd, although his eyes never left the players on the stage.
“Thanks to me,” Swearengen went on, “dozens of people have been cured of their garou disease. Thanks to me, the world is a safer place.”
Mr. Hickok shook his head, slow and thoughtful even as the jeers continued to rise. “You, ma’am, have been pulling the wool over these people’s eyes.”
“Ain’t no sheep in Deadwood,” said McCall.
Before anyone could speak another word, Swearengen turned up the syringe and plunged it into Jane’s arm.
“No!” Annie and Frank surged forward, but it was too late. The liquid pushed into Jane and that was that.
Everyone waited, watching the cage as the serum flooded through Jane.
“How long is it supposed to take?” Annie asked.
Frank shook his head. “I don’t know.”
They stood there, in the middle of the audience, watching as wolf-Jane howled and shook the bars of the cage, trying to escape, and as the minutes wore on, a dangerous grumble spread throughout the audience.
“It’s not working,” a man said.
“She’s still a wolf,” observed another.
“What if Wild Bill was right?” asked a third, but he was quickly shouted over.
“Down with wolves!”
Annie and Frank glanced at each other. Of course the “cure” for being a garou wasn’t working, but what about the important part? What about the mind control?
Swearengen shook her head, deepening her voice. “Unfortunately, we have a difficult wolf,” she said. “Remember, they don’t all want to be cured. Some wolves love chaos.”
The crowd booed.
Swearengen looked at Jane. “Come, dear. You know you want to be cured. You must become human again. So we can be together.”
Jane growled and rattled the bars of the cage.
“Now, Jane. You should turn back to a human for what happens next.”
Annie held her breath.
Jane lunged at Swearengen, growling loud enough to make Annie’s stomach knot. This was the test. The real test.
“Turn back into a human,” Swearengen commanded, but Jane roared and reached through the bars, claws sharp and gleaming. She didn’t change back.
A fist loosened its grip around Annie’s heart. Jane wasn’t enthralled. She was still in control of herself.
Unfortunately, Swearengen knew it, too. She turned to McCall and nodded slightly. “Well, if she doesn’t want to do what she’s told, then we have no choice. Calamity Jane is a danger to society. And what do we do with folks who are a danger to society?”
“We toss ’em in the clink!” McCall said.
“Lock her up!” shouted the mob in frenzied unison. “Lock her up!”
“Stop all this,” said Mr. Hickok. “It’s not a crime to be a garou, and Jane didn’t commit a crime.”
Swearengen shot him a look of murder. “This land is lawless, except for the law we make. Besides, I gave her the cure in good faith that she’d pay for it once she saw the light, but now I’m out a hundred dollars.”
“She’s a crook!” McCall yelled. “She didn’t intend to pay for the cure!”
That sent everyone into a frenzy.
As the chanting of “lock her up” intensified, Annie wanted to vomit. There was no reasoning with these people. They were all crashing toward the stage, taking the loop on a stick, and grabbing at the cage. Jane jerked back in horror, but it was too late. The loop went around her neck and they dragged her out of the cage.
“Shame!” someone shouted. “Shame!”
“We need to stop them!” Annie turned to Frank.
He pulled her close to keep her from being crushed by the mob. “How do you propose doing that? This isn’t a room full of people right now. It’s a room full of monsters.”
Annie pressed her cheek to his chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’ve been a monster.”
He didn’t say anything. Maybe he didn’t hear.
After several minutes of people yelling and screaming and hauling Jane out of the theater, the only people left were Annie, Frank, and Mr. Hickok. Swearengen and McCall had led the charge to the jail, probably hoping to keep the residents of Deadwood as angry as possible.
“We should have stopped them from taking her,” Annie said. “We could have.”
“How?” asked Mr. Hickok. “At least they can’t do lasting harm to Jane, not without silver.”
Not all harm was physical, Annie wanted to say. Jane would remember this moment for the rest of her life. But Frank looked so distraught she didn’t dare make it worse.
“How could Swearengen say those things about wolves?” Annie whispered. “Being a wolf herself, I mean.”
Mr. Hickok sighed. “She’s a con man. Woman, I guess. And those kind of folks like to project what they are onto other people, to make themselves look like the good guy. So Jane’s a danger to society because Swearengen is. And wolves are a plague on this world because Swearengen knows that’s what she is.”
Annie bit her lip. “And now she has Jane.”
“We’ll get Jane out of there,” Mr. Hickok said. “Don’t you worry. I’ll get the money to pay for her release.”
“How?” Frank asked. “We spent all our money getting here.”
“I have some,” Annie said. “Not a hundred dollars, but enough to get us started.”
Mr. Hickok nodded. “Good. Now, both of you make yourselves scarce.” He glanced at Frank. “Last thing we need is someone finding out about you, son. You need to be careful—more careful than ever.”
“I will be.” Frank summoned up a smile.
Mr. Hickok touched Frank’s shoulder, squeezed, and then turned and strode out of the building.
Annie looked up at Frank. “Are you—” Not okay. She couldn’t ask if he was okay, because he clearly wasn’t. “Do you want to talk?” she asked instead.
“Not right now,” he said. “Can we just sit together for a bit?”
She hauled herself up onto the edge of the stage and patted the place beside her. He followed, and when she reached for his hand, he was already reaching back.