He was on his own, at last. He struck off for a town about twenty miles away, one his folks seldom visited. That he only had two dollars plus change to his name didn’t worry him one bit.
Nor did the possibility he might run into hostiles or outlaws or wild beasts. If it happened, it happened. He never worried about what might be. All he cared about was what he was doing at any given moment. The here and now.
In the town Willy set eyes on his first saloon. It brought to mind the times he’d stolen a sip from his pa’s whiskey bottle. Marching in, he smacked down a coin and demanded a glass. He half-thought the bartender would quibble about his age, but no.
The next day Willy took a room at a boardinghouse, and there went the rest of his money. He looked around for work but couldn’t find any until he stumbled on a man who took pity on him. The man was heading up into the Tetons to hunt elk, and said he’d pay Willy to help handle the packhorses, and later to help carve the elk up and tote the meat down to the town butcher. The butcher paid five cents a pound for elk meat and then sold the meat to his customers for thirteen cents a pound.
Willy figured the work couldn’t be any worse than back on the homestead. Since he didn’t own a horse, the hunter let him ride one of his. In addition to the three pack animals and the horse he’d loaned to Willy, the man rode a fine bay with a handsome mane.
Willy liked that bay. He liked the man’s rifle, too, a Winchester. And the man’s skinning knife. And the man’s saddle. By the time they’d reached the mountains, Willy couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it would be if all of that were his. A daring notion crept over him. He fought it for a while, out of worry over being thrown into prison for the rest of his days.
Then came the night Willy lay staring at the stars. He remembered the hen he’d strangled and buried and no one ever found her. It had worked for a chicken, so why wouldn’t it work for a man? The idea excited him so much that when he couldn’t stand to lie there any longer, he got up, took a rock, and bashed in the brains of his unfortunate benefactor.
Willy spent the rest of the night by the body, marveling at what he’d done. With the break of day, he’d dragged the body into the woods and buried it good and deep. The digging took hours but it was worth the effort to ensure no one ever found it.
A week and a half later Willy rode into Cheyenne on the fine bay and sold the other horses. He was flush for the first time in his life, and went on a spree to celebrate.
Willy had found his calling. Some liked to farm and some liked to do clerk work or be barkeeps or carpenters or barbers.
Willy liked to kill.
17
THE PRESENT
Alonzo Pratt was unhappy. Several times during the long, hot afternoon he’d tried to get Jenna Grissom to open up to him, and she refused. When he asked what her life was like growing up with an outlaw for a father, she glared and snapped and said it was none of his affair. When he inquired as to why she was riding with a pack of notorious two-legged wolves, she growled that she was tired of his questions. He tried a couple of more times but she clammed up.
Now the sun was dipping toward the horizon and had set the western sky ablaze with bright splashes of red and orange. Birds were winging to their roost. It wouldn’t be long before the deer came out to graze and the meat-eaters that fed on them would be on the prowl.
Alonzo was on the lookout for a place to camp. He preferred a place well hidden from unfriendly eyes, whether man or otherwise. Every few minutes he’d rise in the stirrups and scan the prairie. The sight of a string of hills to the southwest was promising. “We’ll make for there,” he announced, and pointed.
Jenna didn’t respond.
Alonzo twisted in the saddle to look at Jacob Stone. The old man hadn’t roused or let out a peep since they’d started out. Alonzo was growing concerned the lawman would die on him. Not that he should care. It wasn’t as if they were friends or anything. A fluke of circumstance had thrown them together. That was all.
“You’re worried about him, aren’t you.” Jenna broke her silence. It was a statement, not a question.
Oddly pleased at the throaty sound of her voice, Alonzo replied, “He’s a good man, deep down. There aren’t a lot like him around these days.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Jenna said. “But I’m surprised you’d say a thing like that.”
To keep her talking, Alonzo asked, “Why?”
“Because you’re a lawman, too. And I thought all lawmen have to be pretty decent at heart since they devote themselves to upholding the law.”
“That they do,” Alonzo said, feeling a flush of guilt at how he was deceiving her.
“I admire you for that.”
His guilt deepening, Alonzo said, “I’m nothin’ special.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jenna said, gazing off across the plain. “I’ve seen how the other side lives. The lawless side. Those who don’t care who they hurt. Who take what they want, and the rest of the world can go to Hades. And I have to tell you, I’m so sick of it, I could scream.”
Alonzo was about to inquire as to why she rode with her father if that was how she felt, but he bit it off so as not to anger her by prying.
“When you’ve seen the dark side of human nature, you appreciate the good in us that much more,” Jenna continued.
“That’s awful . . .” Alonzo struggled for the right thing to say, “deep for someone so young.”
“Posh and poppycock,” Jenna said. “It’s not how old we are. It’s the things we’ve done. Or had done to us.”
Alonzo wondered what she meant by that. He was holding their horses to a walk just so they could go on talking even though they might not reach the hills by dark. “I reckon that’s true. The things that happened to me when I was young helped to make me who and what I am.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” Jenna said. “Where are your folks?”
“Dead.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
“Just me.”
“Same here,” Jenna said. “I’ve often wished I had siblings. It would make the burden easier to bear.”
“Burden?” Alonzo said, and hoped he hadn’t made another mistake.
“Of being the daughter of one of the most ruthless men on the frontier,” Jenna said with anguish in her voice.
“That’s him, not you,” Alonzo said.
“He’s my father.”
“So? He’s the outlaw, not you. Why do you beat yourself over it when it’s plain to me that you’re as good a person as Deputy Stone, there?” Alonzo said. When she didn’t answer, he glanced over and saw she was studying him with a peculiar expression on her face. “What?” he said. “Did I upset you again?”
“No, not at all.”
Was it Alonzo’s imagination, or had her cheeks flushed pink?
“That was a nice thing to say, given that you don’t know me all that well.”
Alonzo smiled and boldly said, “Whose fault is that?”
Jenna gave a mild start, and to his immense relief, she grinned. “I had that coming, I suppose. I haven’t been very friendly, have I?” She didn’t give him a chance to reply. “But if you were in my shoes, you’d understand. I’ve gone through, pardon my language, hell these past few months. I started out with the best of intentions but I was deluding myself. We do that, don’t we? When we want something badly enough?”
Alonzo didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about. “There’s not a lot in life I’ve really cared about.”
“Except the law, of course.”
“Oh. Yes,” Alonzo said.
“You’re smart to put your trust in that and not in another person. The law doesn’t let you down. It doesn’t destroy those close to you. It doesn’t take your heart and break it into little pieces.”
More confused than ever, Alonzo sai
d, “You sure talk fancy.”
“Do I? I had a good education. I was sent to St. John’s Grammar School for Girls when I was eleven and was there until I was eighteen. I might have gone on to a university but I needed to settle something first.” Jenna paused. “Then there’s the money issue.”
“You’ve had a lot more schoolin’ than me,” Alonzo was embarrassed to admit.
“Bought with blood.”
“How’s that again?”
“I’d have gladly traded all my schooling for an ordinary life. A normal father, a mother, a home, friends.”
“I never had much of that.”
Jenna glanced at him sharply. “Me, either. That makes us kindred spirits, doesn’t it?” And for the first time all day, she smiled at him.
Alonzo grew warm all over. It was silly, but he did. “It’s nice we have somethin’ in common.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Jenna said.
After that, she grew silent. Alonzo was disappointed but he had made some headway in knowing her better and he looked forward to spending the night with her and perhaps learning more. It was funny that he only thought about talking to her. Were she a saloon dove, he’d have other things on his mind.
Alonzo derailed that train of thought before it could leave the station. She wasn’t that kind of woman.
The sky faded from blue to gray. Somewhere a coyote yipped, and far off another replied.
They reached the hills just as darkness fell. Alonzo assumed the lead. There was scant cover, grass mostly, and no sign of water. Luck was with them, though, and they came on a small hollow between two of the hills. It would shelter them from the wind, and they’d be next to invisible in the night.
“We’ll camp here.”
Jenna offered to help, but Alonzo asked her to sit by Jacob Stone while he stripped and hobbled their horses, gathered brush, kindled a fire, and put a pot of coffee on. He hadn’t thought to shoot anything for supper. Fortunately, he had plenty of supplies on his pack animal. Stone had joshed him about it, but he’d rather whip up corn biscuits than shoot and skin a rabbit. He was mixing flour with water from his canteen when he caught Jenna giving him another odd look. “What?”
“You can cook, too?”
“I have to eat, don’t I?” Alonzo said. “And you haven’t tasted it yet. I’m not the world’s best.”
“Who is?” Jenna stretched and tilted her head to the blossoming stars. “It’s a beautiful night.”
Alonzo hadn’t noticed. He added salt to the pan and did more stirring, and tried not to think of how her bosom had pressed against her shirt.
“I can’t believe we made it through the whole day,” Jenna remarked. “I was sure they’d have caught up by now.”
“They?”
“I told you. Willy Boy and whoever is with him. It could be all of them, for all I know.”
“We’re safe here,” Alonzo assured her. “They can’t see our fire.”
“You picked the perfect spot.”
Alonzo was going to tell her it was purely by accident, but didn’t. What harm was there in her thinking he was good at this?
Extending her legs, Jenna crossed them, then leaned back. All day she had been as tense as a fiddle string but now she seemed to be relaxed and actually enjoying herself. “Can I ask you something, Deputy Grant?”
“Call me—” Alonzo was about to say “Alonzo,” and caught himself. “Robert.”
“What are your plans, Robert? For your future? Do you intend to be a lawman forever?”
“Not hardly,” Alonzo said. As soon as he was shed of Jacob Stone, he’d impersonate someone else. Maybe a parson.
“Is that all the specific you can be?”
Alonzo shrugged. “I haven’t ever planned my life out. I take each day as it comes, and survive the best I can.”
“I had a plan but it hasn’t worked out. I was foolish. I thought that deep down everyone is basically good at heart, and that if I appealed to that goodness, I could bring about a miracle.” Jenna laughed coldly. “It’s sad how we cling to hope when there isn’t any. How we dream impossible dreams and delude ourselves into believing they can somehow become true.”
“There you go with your fancy words again,” Alonzo said. “Does this have to do with your pa?”
“I’m sorry for being so secretive,” Jenna said, “but yes, it does.”
“Ah,” was all Alonzo said. He’d learned his lesson about prying.
Jenna drew her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her chin on her knee. “It’s like this, Robert,” she said softly. “My mother ran out on my father when I was seven. She just up and left him. For another man, no less. He was never the same after that. It twisted him, inside. Made him mad at the world and everyone in it. He lost his job and took to drinking, and the next thing, he held up a store for spending money.”
“I’m sorry,” Alonzo said when she paused, for lack of anything else to say. She didn’t appear to hear him.
“It was all downhill from there. Some others joined up with him and they robbed a stagecoach and later a bank in Stockton. Suddenly half the lawmen in the state were after him, and he took me to live with his brother and his brother’s wife in Sacramento.
“I was nine. I remember holding my aunt’s hand and waving to my father as he rode off with Alacord and Ginty and some of the others, and wishing with all my heart that I could go with him. That was the last I saw of him until about a year ago.”
Alonzo stayed quiet. He was afraid to interrupt for fear she would stop.
“My uncle and aunt are decent, hardworking people. She’s a seamstress. He’s a clerk. They never had any children of their own and treated me as if I were theirs. It was their idea to send me to St. John’s Grammar School. I never thought to ask where they got the money. Or, for that matter, about how they paid for my clothes and whatnot over the years. I assumed it came out of their own pocket and purse. Then one day they came to visit and my aunt let it slip that nearly every penny they’d ever spent on me had come from my father.”
Half a minute went by and she didn’t go on. Eager to keep her talking, Alonzo said, “Did that surprise you?”
“It shocked me. I hadn’t seen him or heard from him since that day he rode off. I’d assumed he’d forgotten all about me. That he’d left me to fend for myself and didn’t want anything more to do with me. But no. He’d been providing for my upkeep the whole time.” Jenna’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I convinced myself he must truly care. That all those years, he was thinking about me and missed me as much as I missed him. I cried for joy, I was so happy.”
Thinking of his own father, Alonzo said, “I always wished my pa thought more of me.” Maybe then his pa wouldn’t have drunk himself to death and left Alonzo alone in the world.
“Something else we have in common,” Jenna said. “It explains why, as soon as I graduated, I set out to find him. By then he’d left California. My uncle and aunt didn’t know where he was. They’d get a letter from time to time with money for me, but never a return address. All I had to go on were accounts I’d read in the newspaper.”
“Yet you found him.”
“Eventually. My aunt knew of a cousin’s of Burt Alacord’s. The cousin lives in Kearney. I sent him a letter and he wrote back that Burt paid him visits now and then, and he’d let Burt know that I wanted to see my father. Six whole months went by, and finally I heard from him. My father was willing to meet with me. I couldn’t get to Nebraska fast enough, I tell you.”
She would have gone on, but just then the horses raised their heads and pricked their ears. Alonzo heard the same thing they did; a guttural growl from out of the darkness. Placing his hand on his Colt, he turned—and an icy sensation rippled down his spine.
On the rim of the hollow, eyes gleamed.
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.
Guns on the Prairie Page 13