At the moment, Jenna was answering yet another of the lawman’s many questions.
“I really don’t know a lot about him, Deputy Stone.”
“You must know somethin’. You’ve ridden with them for months, you told us.”
Jenna sighed. “All I can tell you is that Spike Davis isn’t his real name. Yes, he’s Prussian. A disgraced nobleman, from what I can gather. He doesn’t talk about it. In fact, he stays aloof from the others. They don’t like him much and he doesn’t like them, except for my father. For some reason, my father and him get along fine.”
“Why would that be?”
Alonzo had listened to enough. Most of the morning was gone and he’d hardly gotten to say ten words to Jenna. “Why are you badgerin’ her about the outlaws? Isn’t it enough that she got away from them?”
“When I come across a gold mine, I tap the vein,” Stone said.
Alonzo hadn’t the slightest notion of what that meant, and said so.
“By Miss Grissom’s own admission, she’s a member of the Grissom gang. She helped rob a bank. She helped rob a stage. That makes her an outlaw, the same as them.”
“Wait? What?” Jenna said.
“The law has been after Cal Grissom for years now,” Stone went on to Alonzo. “It would help if we could learn more about them. Their backgrounds and their habits, and such.” He nodded at Jenna. “This little lady knows things about them no one else does, and I aim to pick her brain. It could be she’s the key to corralin’ Grissom and his bunch once and for all.” Stone paused. “I should think that you’d be as interested as me in learnin’ all we can. You are a deputy, after all.” He said that last almost mockingly.
Alonzo caught himself. He kept forgetting that he must act like a lawman, not as he normally would. “Of course I’m interested.”
“You sure don’t act it,” Stone said, but then he grinned and winked. “I can savvy why, though.”
“You do?”
“A pretty gal like her. I was young once, Deputy Grant.”
“Hold on,” Jenna broke in. “Get back to that business about my being an outlaw. I’m no such thing.”
“Oh, really?” Stone said. “Did you or did you not take part in the robbery of the Unionville Bank?”
“I held the horses, but . . .”
“And did you or did you not take part in holding up the stage to—”
“I did,” Jenna interrupted. “I’ve made no secret of it.”
“Then, as I told my partner days ago, we’re to put you under arrest. You’ll be duly charged and put on trial, and who knows? The judge might feel kindly toward you and only give you five or six years.”
“Years!” Jenna gasped.
Alonzo suspected that Stone was scaring her on purpose. Maybe to get her to open up about the outlaws.
“My partner never mentioned this to you, little lady?” Stone was telling her. “All the time I was out to the world?”
“He did not,” Jenna said huffily.
“Awful lax of him,” Stone said. “But now that I’m back on my feet, him and me can get on with the business at hand. Namely, puttin’ a stop to your pa and his pack of man killers.”
“I’m all for that,” Jenna said.
“Your own pa?” Stone said skeptically.
“He was never much of a father,” Jenna said. “He left my mother. He abandoned me.” She stopped, and her eyes moistened. “When I learned he’d paid for my schooling, I had high hopes that maybe he really cared. I had this hope, this dream, that we might reconcile.”
“Wishful thinkin’,” Stone said.
“What a mean thing to say,” Jenna snapped.
“I agree,” Alonzo said. He keenly resented how the lawman was treating her.
“I’m only speakin’ the truth, son,” Stone said. “I heard missy, there, say she was eight when Grissom left her with her aunt and uncle. That’s a lot of years between then and now. And Grissom never once looked her up. So what if he paid for her schoolin’? It’s plain as can be that he wanted nothin’ to do with her.”
Alonzo could see that Jenna was close to tears. “Damn it, Stone. Quit upsettin’ her.”
“Who’s the senior lawman here?” Stone countered. “I’ll do as I please, and you’ll back me because that’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“I’m sorry,” Alonzo said to Jenna, and frowned. “My partner doesn’t give a lick about anything except the law.”
“That’s all right,” Jenna said softly. “He has a point about my father. I’d hoped it wasn’t the case. Hoped that, deep down, my father cared for me as much as I still cared for him.”
“Even after he abandoned you?” Jacob Stone said.
“He’s my father,” Jenna said. “I had to be certain. I had to see with my own eyes. If I’d stayed in California, I’d have always wondered.”
“Some doors are better left closed.”
“I know that now,” Jenna said sadly. “But you do what you must. If you feel you have to arrest me, go ahead. I don’t care anymore. My dream has been crushed, and it doesn’t matter what becomes of me.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Alonzo said.
“Leave her be,” Stone said. “It’s sunk in, the trouble she’s in. I feel sorry for her. I truly do. And I’d like to help her, if I could. But that depends on her.”
“What would you have of me?” Jenna said, adding, “As if I can’t guess.”
“Information, missy,” Stone said. “Anything and everything about your pa and those with him. In return, I’ll put in a good word for you with the judge, and maybe get you off easy.”
“Why don’t I help you take them into custody while I’m at it?” Jenna said with obvious sarcasm.
“You know,” Jacob Stone said, rubbing the stubble on his chin, “that’s not a bad idea.”
“You’re joshing me,” Jenna said, aghast.
Jacob Stone smiled broadly. “Not one little bit.”
20
BACK THEN
Within a month of joining the Grissom gang, Willy knew he’d made the right decision.
Cal Grissom had a lot to do with it. He used his head, for one thing. More than Three-Fingered Jack ever did, more than Willy, more than anyone Willy ever met. Cal planned every robbery out in fine detail, never leaving anything to chance. Willy was also pleased to find out that Grissom wasn’t bossy by nature; he always asked for something to be done, and like the rest of their wild bunch, Willy came to like doing whatever Grissom wanted. Their leader had a way about him. Grissom was more refined than they were, and, Willy had to admit, more intelligent.
The only complaint Willy had, and he couldn’t really call it that since Grissom never let it affect how he ran things, was Grissom’s drinking. The man sucked down coffin varnish like there was no tomorrow. Cal would start in as soon as he woke up, with a few chugs of whiskey. By noon he’d have downed half a bottle. By nightfall, another half. Then he’d sit around their campfire, talking and drinking, until he turned in about midnight. At daybreak he’d start in all over again.
Willy had never seen anyone drink so much. Two bottles a day was more than most could handle. The incredible thing was, Grissom never showed it. He never passed out, never got tipsy, never so much as slurred his words. He drank and he drank and he drank some more, and it might as well be water for all the effect it had.
None of the others seemed to mind. They took it in stride, so Willy did, too. He did talk to Burt Alacord about it one day as they were crossing a prairie lush with wildflowers. Up ahead, Grissom tilted a bottle to his lips and gulped.
Without thinking, Willy said to himself, “I don’t see how he does it.”
Burt Alacord happened to be riding behind him and gigged his palomino alongside Willy’s mount. “He’s a marvel—that’s for sure.”
“Ho
w long has he been doin’ that?”
“Drinkin’? Since I’ve known him,” Burt said. “If you ask him, he’ll say he likes his liquor. But he does it to forget.”
“Forget what?”
“Not what. Who. He had a wife once, and he has a daughter in California he misses somethin’ fierce. The booze numbs the pain.”
“The pain of what?” Willy said.
“If you’re ever a father, you’ll understand.”
Willy hadn’t thought much more about it. He was having too grand a time.
Thanks to Grissom, his poke stayed fuller than it ever had.
As for the others, Willy would never admit it, but he liked Burt Alacord the best. Alacord was easy to get along with, which was peculiar, given that he was supposed to be a two-gun terror. The man went around grinning at the world and everyone in it, as if life were a private joke only he appreciated.
Weasel Ginty was the opposite. Weasel was as tightly strung as barbed wire, and had the disposition of his namesake. He grumped about everything. But he was a fair hand with a six-gun, he was fond of Cal Grissom, and he practically worshipped Burt Alacord.
Ira Fletcher was the oldest of them, by a good fifteen years. He wore a Dragoon revolver that he’d owned since he was old enough to tote a firearm. He refused to switch to a newer, lighter model, no matter how much he was teased. “When you find somethin’ that works, you stick with it,” was how he justified his obsession.
Tom Kent hailed from the northeast, from Maine or Connecticut or someplace like that. He’d worked on a whaling ship when he was young. The sea lost its luster when he’d nearly drowned, so Kent came west. Somehow or other he wound up on the wrong side of the law. He wore a revolver but he was partial to knives that he said were made in Italy. Double-edged and perfectly balanced, he favored them over his revolver.
Neither Fletcher nor Kent gave Willy any trouble. To them, Willy was a “brother wolf,” as Fletcher liked to call everyone, and they accepted him as one of their own.
That left the Prussian.
On first meeting him, Willy thought Spike Davis was ridiculous. There was that metal helmet with the spike, for starters, and how the man went around as if he had a broom shoved up his backside; back straight, shoulders squared, stomach tucked in.
Alacord mentioned that Davis had once been an officer in the Prussian army but had to leave because of a scandal.
Spike Davis helped Grissom plan their robberies. That military background of his came in handy.
About a year to the day after Willy threw his lot in with them, trouble struck.
It started with Grissom announcing he was going off to visit a cousin, and he’d be back in a week. He took Burt Alacord and Weasel Ginty along, but no one else.
Grissom had visited his cousin before. Whenever they were anywhere near Kearney, Nebraska, off he’d go. Willy learned that the cousin sent money to Grissom’s daughter somewhere in California. Curious, he’d tried to find out more and was warned by Ira Fletcher that it wasn’t healthy to stick his nose into Grissom’s private affairs.
“What will he do? Draw on me?” Willy scoffed.
“No, Cal will ask Burt to draw on you, and that will be that,” the old outlaw replied, glaring. “Or the rest of us will jump you and stomp you into the dirt.”
Willy became aware that Tom Kent and the Prussian were giving him hard looks. “Prickly much?” he tried to make light of it.
“You listen, boy, and you listen good,” Fletcher said. “We have a great thing goin’ with Cal. None of us amounted to much on our own. With him to lead us, everything always goes smooth. We live as we please, and we stay one step ahead of the law.”
“I know all that.”
“Then know this,” Tom Kent said, fingering the hilt of one of the knives at his waist. “We won’t let anyone spoil it. We look out for Cal. We make sure nothing ever happens to him.”
“All I did was ask a damn question,” Willy said.
“One too many,” Fletcher said.
“Ja,” the Prussian chimed in.
Willy smiled and held up his hands. “Simmer down, for God’s sake. For what it’s worth, I agree. I never had it so good as I have with Cal.”
“That’s nice to hear,” Fletcher said.
“He’s the only one of us who matters,” Kent said.
“Ja,” the Prussian said again.
Willy put Grissom and his daughter from his mind. For about six months all went well, then one day Cal and Burt and Weasel rode off to Kearney again, and when they returned, they weren’t alone.
Jenna Grissom was with them.
Willy was astounded. So were the others. Cal introduced her and said she would be with them a spell, and they were to treat her like a proper lady, or else. Burt Alacord stressed that point by placing his hands on his Colts and declaring that anyone who gave her trouble would answer to him.
The threat notwithstanding, that was the last thing on Willy’s mind. He wanted nothing to do with her. Women were trouble. Everybody knew that. Grissom was wrong to let her come. He wanted to say something, but like everyone else, out of respect for Cal, he held his tongue.
She was nearly always in her father’s company. She ate when he ate, slept near him, rode beside him when they were on the trail. Hardly anyone except her father got to talk to her.
Which was why it surprised Willy considerably when he fell in love with her.
THE PRESENT
Alonzo Pratt was falling in love.
As the three of them wound toward North Platte, Alonzo was stirred by feelings he’d never imagined he would feel. All his years of wandering, he’d had no interest in women. Now and then he’d dally with a dove in a saloon, but that was the extent of it.
Alonzo never hankered for a wife and a home. The life he led, marriage was out of the question. It was something other men did, normal men, not him. He had it settled in his mind that he’d never marry.
So it shocked him to his marrow when he began to feel things for Jenna Grissom, and after only a couple days of her company. It was little things at first. He liked sitting with her around the fire at night and talking for hours on end. He liked riding by her side during the day.
He found himself admiring how pretty she was—her sparkling eyes, her fine hair, her lithe grace when she moved. He especially liked a throaty purr that came into her voice now and then when she was most at ease. It tingled him down to his toes.
Alonzo tried to shrug it off. He told himself that he was being ridiculous. That the only reason he liked her so much was because he’d never been in the close company of a woman for so long. He sought to shut his feelings out, and couldn’t. When he woke up in the morning and saw her, it was as if there was a second sun.
Alonzo thought he was doing a good job of hiding it. But one evening, as he was hobbling their horses toward sunset and Jenna was preparing their supper, a shadow fell over him and he looked up.
Deputy Jacob Stone had his hands on his hips and was slowly shaking his head. Except for a slight limp from his wound, the old lawman had fully recovered from the arrow in his thigh.
When Stone didn’t say anything, Alonzo asked, “Why are you starin’ at me like that?”
“I’ve never seen it to fail.”
Alonzo had noticed the lawman giving him odd glances now and then but didn’t know why. He finished with the hobble for his packhorse, and stood. “Is it a secret, or am I supposed to pry it out of you?”
“Put a young gal and a young fella together and it will happen every time,” Stone said.
“You’re takin’ the long way around the bush.”
“Don’t play innocent,” Stone said. “You’re smitten. You’re in love with her, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you pop the question when we reach North Platte.”
“You’re loco,” Alonzo said. “I h
ardly know her.”
“That’s your head talkin’,” Stone said. “It’s the heart that counts. And the heart wants what the heart wants.”
“Where do you come up with this stuff?”
Stone glanced toward the fire, where Jenna was putting coffee on. “Listen, son. It’s none of my affair but I need to have my say anyway. I don’t blame you for fallin’ for her. She’s right pretty, and as sweet a gal as I ever came across. She has a good, practical head on her shoulders, and that’s rare for anyone, male or female.”
“Is this goin’ somewhere?”
“Don’t give me sass. It’s you I’m lookin’ out for.”
“This should be good.”
“Damn it. Hear me out.” Stone realized he’d raised his voice and lowered it again. “You’re a deputy federal marshal. You have a career ahead of you. A long one if you stick with it.”
Of the few regrets in Alonzo’s life, impersonating a lawman was now at the top of the list. Never, ever, ever again.
“The gal yonder is the daughter of the worst criminal in the territory. If you become involved with her, you risk your badge, your career, everything.”
“That’s what has you in a dither?” Alonzo said, and almost laughed.
“I had the same decision to make when I was about your age. Should I or shouldn’t I hitch myself to a female. And do you know what I decided? That a lawman’s life isn’t any life for a gal who wants a husband and kids and all the rest. We’re always on the go. The deputies I know who are married? Their wives hardly ever see them. Their kids grow up without fathers. Is that the kind of life you want to give her?”
“I’m not you,” Alonzo said.
“You wear a tin star, the same as me,” Stone countered. “Believe me when I say I know this law life inside-out, and I’d never inflict it on anyone I cared for.”
“Is that all you have to say?” Alonzo wanted to go over by the fire and be with Jenna.
Stone did more head shaking. “I’m only tryin’ to do you a favor. Spare you havin’ your heart broke.”
“I appreciate that. But what makes you think I’ll stay a lawman forever? Given my druthers, if I have to make a choice between my badge and her, I’ll pick her every time.”
Guns on the Prairie Page 15