“Any ideas on how to get us out of this?” Jane struggled against the chains that bound her against Frank and Annie, the three of them back to back on the floor of the broken stagecoach. “Should we wolf out and see what happens?”
“No. We absolutely cannot wolf out right now,” answered Frank sternly.
Jane examined the length of chain wrapped tightly around her wrists. There wasn’t much wiggle room there. “Yeah, I guess that could make our hands pop off or something. Good call, Frank.”
“The chains are around Annie, too,” Frank explained. “If either of us became garou-sized, we’d crush her.”
From behind them Annie made a muffled sound. (A few minutes ago Annie had insulted Jack McCall about a certain lack of hygiene she noticed as he was chaining them up, so he’d stuffed a filthy handkerchief into her mouth to stop her yapping.) Jane reckoned that Annie was probably trying to say something like, “Yes, I agree, no wolfing out, I’m quite fond of my ribs, thank you,” or “Well, drat,” which she’d been saying a lot lately. Right then the door of the stagecoach opened, and Al Swearengen leaned in.
“I hope you’re comfortable,” she said.
“Go to hell,” Frank growled. His shoulders seemed a little bigger. Jane nudged him.
“Remember your wooo,” she whispered. “No woof, right?”
Swearengen put a hand to her chest as though she were deeply offended by Frank’s sass. “Now, now, we mustn’t be uncivil. You’re still angry at me over the death of Wild Bill, and I suppose I understand. It’s a terrible thing when a man murders someone you love, isn’t it? But the manner in which he died, well—Jack McCall lacked finesse, I admit, but the way I see it, your father got exactly what he deserved.”
Frank glared at Swearengen. “Pretty soon the entire country will know you’re a monster, a murderer, and a fraud. You won’t be able to show your face anywhere. It’s only a matter of time before you’re caught.”
Swearengen tsked her tongue. (This is a Western, remember. The villain always has to have a moment to twirl his mustache—and if Swearengen had still been sporting a mustache, she would literally have twirled it at this point.) “If there’s one thing I’m good at in this world, it’s reinventing myself,” she said cheerfully. “I may be down, but I’m not out. But, all right, dear, go ahead, underestimate me. Your father did, too, and you see where that got him.”
Annie made another muffled noise, which sounded vaguely like, “You won’t get away with this.”
Swearengen smiled. “I already have gotten away with it. You have cost me my stagecoach, which is a delay, I’ll admit, a minor annoyance. But soon we’ll be on our merry way again. On that note . . .” She turned to Jane. “This is your last chance to be sensible, my darling. Cease your foolish association with these show business people.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Come with me. Accept your place by my side, with your family.”
Jane held her gaze. Then she drew herself up as far as the chains would allow and said, “These people are my people. They’re my family. My place is with them.”
“Then you’re no daughter of mine,” Al Swearengen said coldly.
“If that’s how it is.” Jane nodded. “I don’t really want to be your daughter no more.”
Al looked sad, so much so that Jane almost regretted saying such harsh words. Then the older woman lifted a gloved hand to stroke Jane’s cheek.
“You always were a stubborn, stupid girl,” she sighed. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I’m afraid I must bid you a fond farewell. And, as I can’t have you thwarting my plans again, I’ll leave you with a parting gift. Goodbye, my dear.” She stepped back, and Jack McCall came into view. The man grinned and placed a crude bomb made of dynamite and an old-fashioned alarm clock down on the floor of the stagecoach. He made a production of setting it for five minutes.
“Oh, but before I go, would you mind signing this for me?” Jack McCall pulled out a small leather-bound book and flipped through the pages until he found a blank one. He tried to hand it to Jane. “It’s not every day you get a chance to get the signature of Calamity Jane, now, is it? And the Pistol Prince, too. And, what was your name again, miss?”
Annie squeaked and made a sound that could have been a muffled “Annie Oakley.”
McCall shoved a pen into Jane’s hand. She spit in his face. She only had something like four minutes and fifty-five seconds left to live, and she was determined to make it count. “Go to thunder, Jack McCall.”
He wiped his face on his sleeve, all the while smiling that creepy smile of his. “All right, be that way. Bye, Jane.” He shut the door of the stagecoach and jogged away from it (quickly, as the time was literally ticking away here—they now had four minutes and fifty-one seconds before they’d all be blown to kingdom come). Jane could hear Swearengen and McCall some distance away discussing which of the horses—Frank’s, Annie’s, or Jane’s—they should take for the remainder of their escape.
Frank dropped his head and groaned.
Jane thought it might be time for prayer. “Lord,” she said, “whatever I’ve done to piss you off, if you could get us out of this and somehow let me know what it was, I promise to rectify the situation.”
Annie made a noise like a determined little grunt, but other than that, nothing happened. At least it would be over in four minutes and forty-one seconds, Jane thought. Forty. Thirty-nine.
“Any ideas for how to get out of this now?” The chains were chafing Jane’s wrists something fierce. Frank’s wrists must have also been chafing. But he had other things on his mind.
“Annie,” he kept saying, “Annie, hang in there. This isn’t the end.”
Jane begged to differ.
Annie didn’t respond. She was probably going crazy about that dirty handkerchief, Jane reckoned, what with her whole cleanliness-is-next-to-godliness bit. But now they were about to die in a pretty messy fashion, so Jane figured it was all relative.
“I’m so sorry about the dirty handkerchief in your mouth,” Frank said, coming to the same realization. “If we could get out of this mess, I’d get a chance to tell you how I really feel about you. And maybe you’d feel the same way. And then we could get busy growing old together. We could have the whole thing. The porch, the rocking chair, our guns side by side on the wall, George at our feet.”
Annie didn’t answer, though if Jane knew Annie (and Jane felt she knew Annie pretty well after all they’d been through), Annie likely had a lot to say about such a declaration.
“Well, I guess this is goodbye,” Jane declared mournfully, as this was obviously a time for speeches. “Annie, it’s been real nice knowing you. Frank, I guess you know this, but you’re like the brother I never had. I mean, I had a brother. I have one, actually. Did I tell you that I have a brother and three sisters, back in Salt Lake City? Swearengen said she was going to send for them in Deadwood, but of course now that won’t happen seeing as how she has to change her identity again, and I’m about to be killed. I always dreamed that someday, somehow, I’d be able to send for them myself and we could all be together again, with some land, maybe, some horses. It sure was a pretty dream. I wish it could have come true. But, oh well.”
“That’s nice, Calam.” Frank turned his attention back to his deep and abiding feelings for Annie. “Annie,” he declared. “I’ve never been happier than the time I’ve spent with you . . .” He sighed. “I wish I could hear your voice one last time.” He sighed again. “Annie, this might not be the appropriate time, or place, but would you consider . . . I mean, would you do me the honor of making me—”
“Geez, Frank, this is not the appropriate time,” Jane interrupted. “How about when you’re alone and maybe facing each other and when you’re definitely not about to get blowed up in the next three minutes and twenty-nine seconds?” She could hear that bomb ticking, ticking, ticking away.
“As I was saying,” Frank said, again ignoring Jane in favor of Annie. “The minute I met you, I thought, Wow, what a girl! And I still think that, Annie, every time I see you.”
Then he and Jane both yelped, because right then Annie popped up in front of them, ungagged and unchained.
“Good news! We’re saved,” she announced.
“But how . . . ,” Jane stammered. “When . . . ?”
Quickly Annie began to free Frank and Jane. “Many Horses and Walks Looking are here,” she explained, pointing to the opposite door of the stagecoach, where, indeed, the two girls were standing watching them. “When I didn’t show up where I said I’d meet them, they got worried. They tracked us here and saw that we were in trouble. Then they picked the lock here with one of my hairpins, and I shimmied out of the chains.”
“Thank you,” said Frank to the Lakota girls. “You two are lifesavers.”
“Don’t mention it. I mean that,” said Many Horses. “Don’t ever.”
“Any time,” said Walks Looking.
“Wait, you want to help us?” Jane said, scratching at her head. If this was true, she was going to have to rethink those stories she’d told about battling the Sioux all this time, as part of her being the hero-eene of the plains. Clearly it weren’t so heroic to fight them, after all. She’d have to set the record straight.
“Yeah, don’t ask me why,” said Many Horses wryly.
“Stop it. Annie’s our friend,” admonished Walks Looking, smiling at Annie.
“What about the bomb?” asked Frank, which seemed like a more pertinent question.
“I disabled it,” said Annie brightly. “It was only a matter of carefully disconnecting the dynamite from the detonation device. First I cut the white wire, then the blue, then the yellow with black stripes. But everyone knows it’s always the red wire you have to be really careful about. I ripped that one out, not cut it. Cutting it would have killed us all. It was simple, really.”
(You, reader, may be wondering how Annie knew which wires to cut and in which order, especially since movies that depict those kind of bomb-disarming scenes had not yet been invented. But as you know by now Annie was ingenious and resourceful, and although we, the narrators, really don’t know how she knew about the wires, we have since researched disabling bombs, and we can verify that, as usual, Annie was very, very right.)
Annie smiled triumphantly.
“Wow,” Frank breathed.
“Now all we have to do is catch up to my ex-ma and that no-good, murderin’, cowpie-lovin’ Jack McCall,” said Jane.
This turned out to be easy enough, as Swearengen and McCall were still working out the horse situation.
“I don’t want that one,” McCall was saying as Frank, Jane, and Annie quietly snuck out of the stagecoach and worked their way around the back side. “It nodded at me. That’s weird.”
“Well, make up your mind,” sniffed Swearengen, already astride Bullseye (crud, she was even stealing Jane’s horse) and ready to go. She glanced back at the stagecoach. “The imminent explosion is bound to attract attention.”
“But the brown one looks grumpy, and it walks funny,” complained McCall.
Next to Jane, Annie stifled her gasp of outrage at such an insult to Charlie’s horse.
Frank met Jane’s eyes and pointed at Bullseye.
She understood him completely. Al Swearengen was a horse’s ass.
But then Frank was mouthing something.
The guns, she finally picked up on the fourth or fifth attempt, after Frank quietly pantomimed shooting with a rifle and Annie nodded and smiled and pointed at Bullseye’s butt again. Where, tucked into a saddlebag, Jane finally noticed Annie’s rifle poking out.
The plan, she understood then, was to get the guns. Which made sense, considering. And of course she should be the one to do this, since she was the stealthiest of the three of them. Jane moved silently forward toward her ex-mother and the horse. She could be like a shadow lurking in the corner of a darkened room. She could be a crow gliding through the silent air on a moonless night. She could—
“Quick!” barked Swearengen. “Someone’s coming.”
They all turned toward the road, where, sure enough, the sound of hoofbeats was fast approaching, maybe some kind of backup, Jane thought hopefully, but this was also bad because turning to look in that direction caused Swearengen and McCall to see Jane standing right there.
“Hey!” yelled Jack McCall.
“Look out!” yelled Frank.
“Why can’t you ever stay where I leave you?” yelled Swearengen.
“Get me a gun!” yelled Annie at the same time.
It was too late. Jack McCall had his pistol out lickety-split. He cocked it and aimed it at Annie’s head. The group froze, except for Walks Looking and Many Horses, who were still in the stagecoach for some reason. Something to do with the bomb?
“Well, drat,” Jane tried out. “Nope. That won’t do at all. Well, crud.”
“I’m rethinking our decision not to kill you earlier,” Annie said primly, wagging a finger at McCall as he stepped toward her, the gun still trained on her head. “I was trying to be accepting because you’re a garou, and I wanted to be sensitive to your experience, but I think you may simply be a bad dog.”
“Kill them,” said Swearengen, lifting her own gun and pointing it at Jane. “I’m done with these games. Let’s kill them all and be done with it.”
This was really going to happen this time. Here it was: the meeting of the Maker. The kicking of the bucket. Giving up the ghost. Being called to a better place. Resting in peace. The end.
But then came a loud, horrible noise.
It was a whistle—a high-pitched noise that instantly made Jane’s head feel like it was about to pop like a balloon. She screamed and clapped her hands over her ears, but it didn’t block out the sound. The noise went on and on and on. It was hard to make sense of anything—but she saw Jack McCall writhing about on the ground like he was also in the same kind of pain. She saw Frank and Al Swearengen clutching at their ears as well, everything else forgotten. Her eyes focused on Annie, who was standing up straight like she alone didn’t hear the terrible whistling, staring off down the road.
“Put ’em up,” said a low and gruff, distinctively male voice. There was the undeniable click of another gun being cocked.
“I said, put ’em up,” came the voice again, a familiar voice that, even though Jane was half wild with the agony of the infernal whistling, made her cry out in amazement and wonder and sheer, incredulous joy.
Everybody, Swearengen and McCall, Frank and Annie and Jane, even, lifted their hands into the air.
The whistling faded.
Then Wild Bill Hickok himself stepped out of the shadows.