18

BACK THEN

In Cheyenne Willy began to associate with what churchgoing folk would call “hard cases.” In a seedy saloon, a scarred, foulmouthed and foul-smelling specimen of humanity struck up an acquaintance, and it turned out to be Three-Fingered Jack Barnes, an outlaw of some small repute, who made his living, if you could call it that, robbing homesteaders. It was Three-Fingered Jack who first called Willy “Willy Boy.” Willy resented being called a “boy” but Jack was so unpredictably violent that he didn’t make an issue of it, and before Willy knew it, everybody knew him as “Willy Boy.”

Together with a man called Campton, they robbed and stole to their cruel hearts’ delight.

Willy took to practicing with his Colt every chance he got, and discovered he had a knack as a shooter. He was quick and he was accurate. Not as quick as Burt Alacord, who he met later. But quick enough that he was talked about, and feared. It didn’t hurt his reputation any that he gunned down two men in a span of two months.

The first shooting affray involved a loudmouth by the name of Zeke Evans. It happened in Coulton, Kansas. Zeke was Willy’s age, and when he was drunk, which was often, he talked too much and too loudly and liked to push others around. He made the mistake of pushing Willy, and Willy told him to go for his six-shooter or shut the hell up. Evans went for his six-gun and never cleared leather.

The next gun affair was in Deadwood. Willy was playing cards and caught on that a gambler who went by the handle of Brodie was cheating. He called Brodie on it. The gambler flushed with anger, pushed his chair back, and stood. Parting his frock coat to reveal an ivory-handled Colt on his hip, he told Willy that he was a damn liar.

Willy pushed his own chair back as the other players and those nearby scrambled away. “If you’re hankerin’ to die, jerk that pistol, you son of a bitch.”

Willy was surprised at how calm he felt. Brodie was supposed to be a bad hombre to tangle with.

“Take back what you said and I won’t have to,” the gambler told him.

“I saw you slip a card out of your sleeve. When you’re dead, I’ll pull that sleeve up and see what else is under there.”

“You asked for it, boy,” Brodie growled.

“That’s Willy Boy, to you,” Willy said.

For tense moments the two of them stood motionless. Then Brodie’s hand flashed. Unlike Zeke Evans, he cleared leather, but his six-shooter wasn’t quite level when Willy fanned a shot into Brodie’s forehead, putting an end to his cardplaying days. And sure enough, when Willy peeled that sleeve back, he found an arm rig with several more cards. Some of the other players patted him on the back and thanked him for exposing the cheat.

Willy was more interested in that ivory-handled Colt. No one objected when he helped himself to it. And to the gambler’s poke. And to a watch with a silver chain.

The body was hauled out and buried on Boot Hill.

After that, Willy was generally considered hell on wheels. He’d walk into a saloon and sometimes people would point and whisper. He ate it up with a spoon. The notorious Willy Boy Jenkins. That was him.

Then came the fateful day that Willy, Three-Fingered Jack, and Campton came upon a farm in eastern Nebraska.

“This one looks right prosperous,” Three-Fingered Jack remarked as they sat in their saddles surveying the well-ordered fields and the white farmhouse and red barn.

“Let’s go help ourselves to whatever they’ve got,” Campton said, and scratched an armpit as he liked to do.

Willy hadn’t cared one way or the other. It was just another robbery to him. He’d trailed after the other two as they approached the front porch.

Three-Fingered Jack had a trick he was fond of. He’d ride up to his intended victims, smiling and acting friendly, and when he had them off-guard, he’d throw down on them and do as he pleased.

A burly farmer came out and stood with a shotgun in the crook of an elbow. “Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded.

Drawing rein, Three-Fingered Jack went into his act. He smiled and held his hands out from his sides to show he meant no harm. “We were hopin’ we could water our horses.”

“There’s a pump yonder,” the farmer said, and nodded toward it. “Help yourselves.”

“We’re obliged, mister.” Three-Fingered Jack rested the hand with three fingers on his saddle horn. “Nice place you have here.”

“Thanks to hard work and the Lord’s blessing,” the farmer said.

Three-Fingered Jack rested his other hand on his hip above his holster. “Any chance we could get a meal as well as the water? We’d pay for some honest-to-goodness home cookin’.”

“Pay or steal?” the farmer said.

“Beg your pardon?”

“You oughten to have spread your hands like you just did,” the farmer said. “I could count your fingers.”

Three-Fingered Jack stiffened. “So?”

“So my boys and me belong to the Farmer’s Association, and the Association has sent out word about you to all its members. You’ve robbed a lot of farms and homesteads. They warned us to be on the lookout for anyone with three fingers. My boys and me figured the odds of you ever showing up at our place were slim, yet there you sit.”

“You keep mentionin’ your boys,” Three-Fingered Jack said.

The farmer smiled and pointed at the overhang.

Willy looked up and did some stiffening of his own. Both of the second-floor windows were open, and at each crouched a young man with a double-barreled shotgun to his shoulder.

Three-Fingered Jack jerked as if he’d been slapped. “Now, you just hold on, mister. You have me mistook for someone else.”

“I doubt that,” the farmer said. “There aren’t that many gents with only three fingers on their left hand. Heard you got the other two chopped off in a bar fight.” He leveled his own shotgun at Jack. “We can do this easy or we can do this bloody.”

“The hell with this,” Campton snarled.

“Behave yourself,” Three-Fingered Jack said. “They have us dead to rights.”

“They’re farmers,” Campton said in contempt.

“Those hand-cannons don’t care who squeezes their triggers,” Three-Fingered Jack remarked. “This close, we’d be splattered to Kingdom Come.”

“That you would,” the farmer said.

“I won’t be taken,” Campton said. “I won’t spend time behind bars.”

“You don’t have a choice, outlaw,” the farmer told him.

“Like hell I don’t.”

“Campton, no, damn you,” Three-Fingered Jack said.

Willy had never cottoned to Campton all that much. The man was slow between the ears. Campton proved exactly how slow by clawing for his six-shooter.

A shotgun in an upper window blasted, and half of Campton’s head exploded into fragments.

With an oath, Three-Fingered Jack went for his own revolver.

The farmer and his son in the other window cut loose simultaneously, each with both barrels. Their buckshot caught Three-Fingered Jack in the chest and blew him apart. The impact sent what was left of him catapulting to the ground.

Willy did the only thing he could; he wheeled his horse and fled. The thing that saved him was that the farmer and both sons had emptied their shotguns and needed to reload. Willy was at a full gallop, hunched low, when the next shot boomed, and missed. Lashing his reins, Willy Boy rode like a madman. Another shot was thrown his way and he heard the buzz of lead but was miraculously spared.

Willy didn’t shed any tears over Three-Fingered Jack. Before the month was out, he had moved up in the world.

He became a member of the Grissom gang.

THE PRESENT

Alonzo Pratt wasn’t much good at telling one set of eyes from another. The creature on the rim was big, that much was obvious from the size. That it was a meat-eater also became obvious when it uttered a great, rumbling growl that caused the horses to nicker in fright.

“What is that?” Jenna gasped.

Alonzo fumbled for his Colt. He was half-sitting on it and had to shift to draw. As he brought it up and thumbed back the hammer, a hand fell weakly on his forearm.

“No,” Jacob Stone said.

Alonzo didn’t take his gaze off those terrible eyes. He was relieved that the old lawman had come around at long last, but upset at his timing. “What are you doin’?” he said, shaking Stone’s hand off. “It might attack us!”

“Don’t shoot unless it does. And be sure when you squeeze. If you wound it, you’ll only make it mad.”

Alonzo could barely hear him, Stone spoke so quietly. “What if I fire into the air? Will it run off?”

“It might and it might not. You can’t predict with cats.”

“Cats?” Alonzo said.

“It’s a cougar.”

“Are you sure it’s not a bear? Those eyes are awful big.”

“You see how they slant?”

Now that the lawman mentioned it, Alonzo did. He’d never seen a mountain lion, or a bear, for that matter, this close before. He’d have to take Stone’s word for it. “We do nothin’, then?”

“The smell of our horses likely drew it in. Our fire will keep it away. Wait a minute and you’ll see.”

“I don’t know,” Alonzo said uncertainly. He still liked the idea of firing into the air.

“Listen to your partner,” Jenna said. “He should know.”

“Who in the world?” Stone said. Apparently he’d just noticed her.

Alonzo was only interested in the cougar. The thing crouched there, glaring and hissing. Was it making up its mind whether to attack? Cougars were supposed to be incredibly swift. If it rushed them, he doubted he could bring it down before it reached them. Better to wait, as Stone suggested.

Time crawled on claws of tension until the big cat uttered another growl. Then, with astounding speed, it spun and was gone, vanishing into the night as silently as it came.

Alonzo let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and let down the hammer on his Colt. “Thank you, God.”

“Don’t blaspheme, son,” Stone said.

“I was serious.” Alonzo slid the Colt into his holster. Only then did he turn to Stone.

The old lawman lay on his back with his hands on his chest. He wasn’t as pale as before, and had stopped sweating so profusely.

“Welcome back to the world of the livin’,” Alonzo said, pressing his palm to Stone’s brow. “Your fever’s broke. You’re on the mend.”

“Let’s hope,” Stone said. He was staring at Jenna. “How long was I out?”

“A day or so,” Alonzo said. “We’re on our way to North Platte to have the sawbones tend to you.”

“I’m still waitin’ to hear who this young beauty is,” Stone said, giving her a weak but friendly smile.

“Deputy Marshal Jacob Stone,” Alonzo said with mock gravity, “I’d like you to meet Miss Jenna Grissom.”

Stone blinked. “Grissom, you say? Are you any kin to an owlhoot by the name of Cal Grissom, young lady?”

“He’s my father,” Jenna said.

“The hell you say!” Stone exclaimed, then frowned. “Pardon my language, ma’am. I don’t ordinarily cuss in front of women.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Jenna said. “I’m used to it after the months I’ve just spent in the company of those who ride with him. Their language at times was downright foul.”

“You don’t say.” Stone looked at Alonzo. “You sure are somethin’, do you know that?”

“What did I do?”

“I’m unconscious for a while and I wake up to find you in the company of a lovely gal who just happens to be the daughter of the very outlaw we’re after. You must be one of those born to luck.”

Alonzo thought of the loss of his parents, and the orphanage, and his years of impersonations. “If I am, it’s news to me.”

Stone turned back to Jenna. “I have a hundred questions for you, Miss Grissom. But they’ll have to wait. I’m as puny as a kitten, and could use somethin’ to drink and some food.”

“Leave that to me,” Jenna said, moving to the fire. “I helped my aunt nurse my uncle when he was sick and know just what to do.”

“Bein’ shot with an arrow isn’t the same as bein’ sick,” Alonzo said.

“Are you a doctor now?” Jenna said.

Jacob Stone chuckled.

Jenna commenced to fill her tin cup with water from Alonzo’s canteen. “I know what I’m doing.” Sliding on her knees over to Stone, she gently cradled his head in her hand and tilted the cup to his lips. “Here. Take it slow. Sip. Don’t gulp.”

“I’m in your debt, ma’am.”

“You’re not sipping.”

Alonzo sat back. It bothered him, her treating him as if he were useless. It bothered him more that he cared what she thought.

“Has there been sign of more Sioux?” Stone asked between swallows.

“Not a lick,” Alonzo was glad to report.

“It’s not the savages you need to worry about,” Jenna told the old lawman. “As I’ve been trying to impress on your partner, my father and his killers must be after me by now. And if they catch us, you two are as good as dead.”