Guns on the Prairie

by David Robbins

  “Puny,” Stone said. “And hot.”

  “You must have a fever. Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.”

  “Thank you, son.” Stone smiled, and closed his eyes.

  “He called you ‘Robert,’ ” Jenna said.

  “So?” Alonzo pried at the bandage to peer under it. The wound didn’t look infected, but what did he know? He wasn’t a doctor.

  “You told me your name was Alonzo.”

  Alonzo thought quick. “That’s my middle name,” he fibbed. “I like it more than Robert. My last name is Grant.”

  “Robert Alonzo Grant,” Jenna said, rolling the words on her tongue. “A good, strong name.”

  Examining the bandage, Alonzo said, “Why do names mean so much to you?”

  “I suppose it’s because I’ve never been very proud of my own.”

  “Why not?”

  Jenna lowered her rifle, although not all the way. “We’ll call it an accident of birth and let it go at that.” She glanced into the woods to the north. “Less talk. You don’t want to be here when the Grissom gang comes.”

  “You’re on the run from those outlaws?”

  Instead of answering, Jenna rebutted with, “Is your favorite food molasses, by any chance?”

  “It’s apple pie, if you must know.” Alonzo looked at her. “Why are the outlaws after you? What can I do to help?”

  “There’s nothing anyone can do,” Jenna said, rather sorrowfully. “Please. You really must hurry.”

  “This bandage is stiff with dry blood,” Alonzo mentioned. “I need to clean it before I retie it.”

  “What are you waiting for? You’ll be as dead as those Indians if you don’t quit flapping your gums and finish up.”

  Rather than use the water from his canteen, Alonzo went to the spring. He dipped the bandage in and wrung it out but it didn’t come clean so he dipped it in the water a second time.

  Jenna had followed, and was watching and pacing. “Are you going this slow just to aggravate me?”

  “You think awful highly of yourself.”

  “Hurry,” Jenna said, and stamped a foot.

  Returning to the fire, Alonzo rewrapped Stone’s wound. The old man’s skin was hot to the touch. If Alonzo had to guess, he’d say Stone’s temperature must be a hundred, or more.

  Since Stone couldn’t ride, Alonzo had to tie him to his saddle. That took a while, Jenna fidgeting the whole time.

  “Finally!” she exclaimed when he stepped back. “Now off you go.”

  “Not without you,” Alonzo informed her. “Where’s your horse?” He figured she had left it in the trees when she snuck up on them.

  “I’m not going.”

  Alonzo thought of the things he’d heard about the Grissom gang. “You can’t stay here. What if those outlaws get their hands on you?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re comin’ with us,” Alonzo declared, “and I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “You can’t force me to.”

  Alonzo had an inspiration. “Sure I can.” He tapped his badge. “I’m the law. I can make you come for your own good.”

  “Listen,” Jenna said, and to his surprise, she stepped up and placed her hand on his chest and looked him deep in the eyes. “I know what I’m about. Trust me when I say they won’t harm a hair on my head. You and your friend, though, they’ll do things to you. Unspeakable things. I once saw Willy Boy Jenkins cut off a man’s nose and ears, and that was just the start. So please. Climb on your horse and light a shuck while you still can.”

  “Not without you.”

  “Damnation, you’re stubborn.”

  “Deputy Stone, there, would tell you that ladies shouldn’t cuss,” Alonzo tried to make light of her annoyance.

  “I’m no lady.”

  Alonzo looked her up and down. “I don’t believe that for a minute. You don’t dress like a lady but there’s somethin’ about you.” Something that plucked at him in a way he’d never experienced.

  “We can’t stand here all day arguing.”

  “Then fetch your horse and we’ll go.”

  “Men!” Jenna said. “If I don’t go, your deaths will be on my head, and I don’t want that. Wait here.” Turning on a heel, she stomped toward the woods, her fist clenched in anger.

  Alonzo smiled. He looked forward to her company, and to learning more about her. He did some pacing of his own until she reappeared leading a dappled mare with a star on its forehead. She had slid her rifle into the scabbard and now her right hand rested on her Colt.

  “Are you sure I can’t talk you out of this?” Jenna said.

  “What kind of lawman do you take me for, that I’d let you fall into the clutches of those outlaws?”

  “If this has to be, then let’s get riding,” Jenna said resignedly. She glanced to the north once more. “They’re close. I feel it in my bones.”

  Alonzo asked her if she would lead his packhorse while he led Stone’s mount, and she agreed. They headed south. As they emerged from the woods he spied buzzards circling above the grass not far away. The two dead Sioux, he reckoned, and reined wide to avoid the bodies.

  Jenna hardly gave the buzzards any notice. She was more concerned about what was behind them. “Thank God we’re out of there.”

  Alonzo debated where to take her. The sodbuster’s was nearest, but if the Grissom gang was after her, it would go hard for Hiram and Hortense. The next logical place was North Platte. It shouldn’t take more than five or six days if they pushed, and if Jacob Stone held up.

  For over an hour they rode hard over pristine prairie.

  Alonzo snuck glances at Jenna when he thought she wasn’t looking. He liked a lot about her; her face, her hair, those pouty lips, the way she carried herself.

  They came to a ribbon of cottonwoods bordering an even smaller ribbon of water, and Alonzo drew rein to rest and water their mounts. He carefully lifted Jacob Stone down and laid him on his back.

  Jenna joined them.

  “Is there anything more you’d care to tell me about the Grissom gang and why they’re after you?” Alonzo tried one more time.

  “No.”

  Alonzo wouldn’t let her off that easy. “For that matter, what are you doin’ out here in the middle of nowhere all by your lonesome?”

  “Who says I was?”

  “What then?”

  “You pry and you pry,” Jenna said, and sighed. “Very well.” She faced him. “The reason they’re after me is because they want me back.”

  “They took you captive and you escaped?”

  “No.” Jenna’s features grew dark with shadow. “I’m Cal Grissom’s daughter.”

  16

  Only then did Alonzo recollect Deputy Stone saying something about a girl being seen with the Grissom gang during their last couple of robberies. “That stage and the Unionville Bank? That was you?”

  “You heard about those, did you?”

  Alonzo absently gestured at Stone. “He told me. Most every lawman in these parts must know by now.”

  “They were bound to, I suppose.” Jenna moved to the old lawman and stared down at him. “So he’s your partner, is he?”

  Alonzo realized she was trying to change the subject. “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is and he isn’t.” Alonzo refused to let her distract him and said, “Tell me more about how you helped rob a bank and a stage.”

  “All I did at the bank was hold the horses,” Jenna said. “The stage, he made me tag along. To show me the kind of work he does. If you can call robbing and killing work.”

  “He bein’ Cal Grissom, your pa?”

  “Who else?” Jenna lightly nudged Stone with her toe. “I’ve never seen a lawman this old before. How old is he? Ninety?”


  “Almost,” Alonzo said, and got back to what interested him more. “What kind of father forces his daughter to break the law?”

  “My pa has been breaking it since I can remember. It’s all he knows how to do. His way of life, you might say.”

  “He can always stop,” Alonzo said.

  “Not him. To tell you the truth, I think he does it because he likes it. Sure, he could have taken an ordinary job anytime. But ordinary isn’t for him. He likes the excitement, the thrill.”

  “Of bein’ shot or hung?”

  Jenna grinned halfheartedly. “He’s the great Cal Grissom. He’ll never be caught, or so he likes to say a lot.” She sighed and turned. “As fathers go, he’s next to useless.”

  “Then why were you with him?”

  “Now you’re getting personal,” Jenna said, and walked off.

  Alonzo would have gone after her but just then Deputy Stone groaned and stirred and opened his eyes. The old lawman looked about him as if confused, then focused on Alonzo.

  “Deputy Grant? Where are we? What’s goin’ on?”

  Alonzo hunkered. “You’re sickly. Infection has set in, I reckon. I’m doin’ the best I can but I’m no doc.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’m takin’ you to North Platte,” Alonzo informed him. “You did say they have a sawbones there?”

  “They do, yes,” Stone said. “Doc Haywood. I met him a couple of times. He’s been around almost as long as me. Knows his stuff.” Stone licked his lips. “I could go for a swallow of water right about now.”

  “Have as much as you want,” Alonzo said, rising to get his canteen. He noticed Jenna watching him intently, and wondered why. She was still watching when he finished tilting the canteen to Stone’s mouth and the old lawman had closed his eyes and drifted off again. “What?” Alonzo said.

  “That was kind of you.”

  “He’s hurt. He needs the help.”

  “Is that why you became a lawman? Because you like to help people?”

  Alonzo hesitated. He didn’t want to lie to her, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t tell her the truth. She clearly didn’t like outlaws much, and he was a lawbreaker. “Helpin’ folks comes with the badge.”

  “A decent man is rare these days.”

  “There are a lot of decent folks around,” Alonzo said, and almost laughed at how ironic it was for him, of all people, to say that.

  “In California there were a few,” Jenna said.

  “Is that where you’re from?” Alonzo guessed. Stone had told him that’s where Cal Grissom got his nickname.

  Jenna nodded.

  “You’re a far piece from home.”

  “Don’t I know it. From home and my relations, such as they are, and everything else I’ve ever held dear.”

  “Then, again, why are you here?”

  “I told you. That’s personal.”

  Alonzo was growing impatient with her. “How am I to get to know you better if you won’t open up a little?”

  “Why would you even want to know?”

  “You’re pretty. You’re smart. You have spunk. I like you.” The words were out of Alonzo’s mouth before he could stop himself. Since no real lawman would say such a thing, he sought to cover his mistake by adding, “And it’s as plain as the nose on your face that you’re in trouble and need help.”

  “You really think so?”

  “You said the Grissom gang is after you. Of course you need help.”

  “No. I meant, do you really think I’m pretty?” Jenna said, sounding incredulous that he could.

  Alonzo answered honestly. “You’re about the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

  Her cheeks blossomed pink and a shy sort of smile curled her flower-petal mouth. “No one has ever called me that before except Willy Boy Jenkins, and he doesn’t count.”

  Then and there, Alonzo felt a dislike sprout for someone he’d never even met.

  “If you won’t talk about yourself, tell me more about him.”

  Jenna’s face darkened. “Willy Jenkins? He’s about the same age as you and me. Beyond that I don’t know a lot except that he has a dark soul. He hides it, the full darkness, but it’s always there, lurking under the surface.”

  “I never heard anyone described that way.” Alonzo sensed there was more she wasn’t saying. “What else?”

  “He took a shine to me. I did nothing to encourage him except be friendly, but he did anyway. He’d have forced himself on me, I suspect, except my father would have flown into a rage. Then there’s Burt.”

  “Alacord?” Alonzo said. “How does he figure into this?”

  “He’s the nicest of the bunch,” Jenna said. “And the only one I’d call a friend. If he thought Willy Boy was out to harm me, he’d shoot Willy dead without batting an eye.”

  “You sound fond of him.”

  “I suppose I am. He’s easy to like.” Jenna paused. “You’d have to meet him to understand. He’s not like any outlaw you’ve ever met or heard of. He’s easygoing, and laughs a lot. It’s easy to be friends with him.”

  Alonzo recalled how Alacord had joked and grinned and generally treated him nicely.

  “Burt Alacord would never harm me. I know that in my heart,” Jenna had continued. “He’d let me go, I think, if I asked him, no matter what my father wanted.” She bit her bottom lip, then said, “Willy Boy is another matter. If he caught us together, you and your partner would be dead and I’d face a fate worse than death.”

  Alonzo was taken aback. “A fate worse than death” meant only one thing. An act so vile, not even most outlaws would commit it. “He wouldn’t.”

  “Haven’t you been listening?” Jenna said. “If Willy Boy thought he could get away with it, he’d violate me in a heartbeat.”

  “I wouldn’t let him,” Alonzo declared.

  Jenna smiled. “That’s sweet of you. But I doubt you could stop him. When he puts his mind to something, he doesn’t let anything stand in his way. That badge of yours? It’s nothing to him except a target to shoot at, and believe me when I say he’d put the slug dead-center.”

  “He doesn’t scare me.”

  “He should,” Jenna Grissom said.

  BACK THEN

  William Bartholomew Jenkins was born on a cold and blustery winter’s morning in Wyoming Territory. His mother liked to tell everyone that he came into the world wailing and fussing, and he had been complaining ever since.

  From the earliest Willy could remember, there wasn’t much about this world that he liked. Life was dull and pointless, a daily drudgery of chores and more chores. At night he’d fall into bed exhausted and sleep the sleep of the dead until the cock crowed and it was time to get up and do the same chores all over again.

  Willy hated it. He hated that his folks were homesteaders. The land they’d chosen had a lot of trees, but little else. Clearing the land took forever. It was brutal, backbreaking work, and Willy loathed trees to this day.

  He loathed chickens, too. Every morning it was his job to go to the coop and collect the eggs, and every morning one or another of the hens would peck him and squawk and raise such a fuss, he wanted to strangle it. His ma always said that was strange, the hens acting up like that, since they never acted up for her or his pa.

  And don’t get Willy started on cows. Day in and day out, he’d had to milk theirs before the sun came up, and then bring the pail inside so they’d have fresh milk for breakfast. Willy hated the critters. Cows were big and dumb and smelly. If he didn’t squeeze their teats just right, they were prone to kick him. He’d have gladly shot them but he liked the pastries and puddings and cakes his ma sometimes made, and she needed milk for that.

  By the time Willy was ten, he’d come to several conclusions. The first was that his pa was working himself to death, for nothing. Their small cabi
n and the land it sat on wasn’t worth a life spent at hard toil. His father’s only enjoyments consisted of their meals, and sitting in a rocking chair and smoking his pipe in the evening after all the work was done.

  As for his ma, she worked just as hard at feeding them and washing and drying their clothes and whatnot. The high point of her life was their once a month visit to the nearest settlement where she’d spend hours paging through the catalogues at the general store, dreaming dreams that would never come true.

  Willy’s second decision was that he refused to waste his life the way they were wasting theirs. As soon as he was old enough, he’d go off and find a better way. There had to be more to life than drudgery.

  Willy’s third insight, he kept to himself. It had to do with what he’d learned about himself at an early age. One evening when he was six, he’d gone to the barn to feed their horse and heard mewing. One of their cats, a gray mouser, had a new litter of five kittens.

  Puny things, and blind, to boot. He’d picked one up and seen how weak and helpless it was, and in disgust, had thrown it at the wall. The splat of its body and the smear of blood made him laugh. He’d laughed so hard, he picked up another and this time set it on one side, hiked his leg, and stomped it to death. The mother cat became agitated and caterwauled so he left the rest be and threw the bodies out in the brush. But it gave him food for thought.

  Not a month later a hen pecked him as he was collecting eggs, and it infuriated him. Seizing hold of its neck, he’d strangled it to death, the hen flapping and thrashing all the while. A peculiar pleasure coursed through him. When the hen finally went limp, he stood there caked with sweat, and trembling. To cover his deed, he buried the body and told his parents he saw a coyote take her.

  From then on, Willy couldn’t get enough of killing things. He never did it quick if he could help it. He liked for the animals to suffer. The more he hurt them, the more pleasure he felt. It got so it became a need he couldn’t resist.

  Shortly after his fourteenth birthday, Willy decided enough was enough. His homesteading days were over. He bundled his few belongings into a blanket, tied the blanket to a pole, and in the middle of a warm summer’s night, he slipped from their cabin and never looked back.