“You’re only sayin’ that because the notion is so new,” Willy said. “Give it time to sink in.”
Jenna suddenly lunged at the reins to her mare, seeking to wrest them from his grasp, but he yanked them away.
“Behave,” Willy said.
“If I had a gun, I’d shoot you,” Jenna fumed. “And I’ve never shot a soul in my life.”
“That’s your anger talkin’. You’ll get over it,” Willy predicted. “A month from now, we’ll be two peas in a pod.”
“A month from now you’ll be dead, courtesy of my father. Or if he doesn’t kill you, Burt will.”
“What’s Alacord to you?”
“A friend. Which is more than I can say about you.”
Willy had listened to enough. “Let’s keep goin’. Remember what I told you about hollerin’. You ride, and you keep quiet, and everything will be fine.”
Jenna raised her hands in appeal. “Wait. Please. I’m begging you, Willy. Don’t do this. It can only end badly.”
“I’ve made up my mind,” Willy truculently declared. “I’m takin’ you off to the Black Hills. There’s not much law there, for one thing. For another, there’s plenty of easy pickin’s, what with the mines and boomtowns and such.”
“There are also a million Sioux.”
“We’ll fight shy of those red devils.” Willy used his spurs and tugged on her reins. “You’ll see. You and me will be good together. We’ll go to Deadwood first. I hear it’s wide open. No marshal or nothin’. A place like that, a man like me can make somethin’ of himself.”
“All you’ll have to do is kill everyone who stands in your way,” Jenna said sarcastically.
“Exactly. That includes your pa and Burt Alacord and those lawmen, too, if they come after us.”
“I hope they do,” Jenna said.
25
Alonzo couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring himself to admit that he was impersonating a lawman. Given how devoted Jacob Stone was to the law, the deputy might arrest him on the spot.
Instead, Alonzo squatted by the fire and drank coffee and tried not to think of how he’d rather be in the saddle, flying to the rescue of Jenna Grissom.
“What’s wrong now, son?” Stone asked.
The way Alonzo saw it, everything that could go wrong already had. Willy Boy Jenkins abducting Jenna was just the latest in a long string.
“Cat got your tongue?” Stone said, smiling.
Alonzo’s conscience pricked him. The old man was only trying to help. “It’s nothin’.”
“Then there is somethin’. And I reckon I know what it is.”
“You’re worried sick about that pretty gal you’re sweet on. That must have been quite a shock, Willy Boy takin’ her like he did.”
“The outlaws were shocked, too,” Alonzo said.
“Dumber than a stump, that Willy Boy,” Stone said. “Cal Grissom will be out for his blood, and those others are as loyal to Grissom as we are to our badges. Burt Alacord in particular.” Stone chuckled. “That’d be a sight to see, Alacord goin’ up against Willy Boy. I know who I’d put my money on.”
“Burt Alacord,” Alonzo guessed.
“So long as they go at it straight up,” Stone said. “Willy Boy’s the kind who might decide it’s smarter to back-shoot Burt and go on livin’.”
“Poor Jenna,” Alonzo said.
“I knew it.”
“Leave it be. For my sake.”
“Sure,” Stone said.
Alonzo could only force down a little bit of stew, as worried as he was. He drank coffee instead.
Stone wasn’t in any hurry. He took his time eating. When Alonzo remarked that molasses moved faster, Stone grinned. “You need to learn to relax more. I was a bundle when I was your age, and experience taught me that frettin’ never does anyone any good.”
“Easy for you to say,” Alonzo grumbled. “You probably never loved anyone.”
“That was cruel,” Stone said. “I did, in fact. A gal down in Texas. I thought she was the prettiest female who ever drew breath, and I wanted her to be mine. I even got down on bended knee, like folks say men should do.”
“And?” Alonzo said when the old lawman didn’t go on. This was an unexpected side to Stone, and he’d like to learn more.
“Here I sit, an old bachelor.”
“She said no?”
“She did,” Stone said. “And yes, I asked her why.” Sadness etched his many wrinkles. “She told me that she cared for me a lot. Enough that she could have said yes if it weren’t for the badge on my shirt.”
“She didn’t like lawmen?”
“Not as husband material, no. She said she’d spend every minute I was gone worryin’ over whether I’d make it back. A lawman is a target for every badman out there. Her exact words. And she didn’t want that, thank you very much. She wanted a husband who could walk out the door without bein’ shot.” Stone stopped. “It might do you to consider that, your own self. Could be your Jenna feels the same as my gal did.”
“Jenna Grissom isn’t mine,” Alonzo admitted, as much as he’d like her to be. “And not all women are the same. A lot of lawmen have wives and families.”
“The lucky ones.”
They fell silent again. Alonzo stood and impatiently tapped his foot while Stone took his sweet time drinking the last of his coffee.
“You’re doin’ this to get my goat,” Alonzo complained.
“I’m doin’ this so we can ride all night and all day tomorrow if we have to,” Stone said.
“Then let’s go.”
“You shouldn’t let your emotions get the better of you,” Stone advised. “Emotions lead to mistakes, and mistakes lead to dead.”
“I swear,” Alonzo said.
Stone swallowed, and sighed. “I could use more, but we’d best fan the breeze before you bust a gut.” He stood. “Happy now?”
Alonzo started to turn toward their horses. “I’ll be happy when . . .” He didn’t get any further. Shock rooted him.
“Well, hell,” Stone said.
Not twenty feet away stood Ira Fletcher, his big Dragoon revolver held firmly in both hands. He had already cocked it, and his finger was curled around the trigger. “Don’t so much as twitch.”
“I didn’t expect this,” Stone said.
“Hands in the air, both of you,” Fletcher commanded.
Alonzo complied, but Stone raised his with all the speed of a tortoise while asking, “What are you doin’ back here, Ira?”
“Cal’s doin’,” Fletcher said. “He realized he made a mistake not bringin’ your horses. Can’t blame him, though. He was too worried about his gal to think straight.”
“So he sent you to fetch them,” Stone guessed.
“Mister,” Fletcher said, falling into a crouch. “If you don’t get those hands up right quick, I’ll put a hole in you as big as a dinner plate.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” Stone said, and finally elevated his arms.
Fletcher sidled around behind them, that big Dragoon rock-steady. “Stay still, and I won’t blow your spines in half.”
“You’re all heart,” Stone said.
“You have a mouth on you, don’t you, old man?”
“I’m annoyin’ everybody tonight,” Stone said.
Alonzo felt his Colt lifted from his holster and heard a thud when it was tossed to one side.
“Now it’s your turn, oldster,” Fletcher said, moving behind Stone.
“Who are you callin’ old? You’re not much younger than me.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alonzo saw Fletcher relieve Stone of his Colt and cast it away.
Fletcher came around in front of them once more, only now he was closer.
“What did you say your name was again, old man?”
“St
one,” Stone said. “Deputy Jacob Stone.”
“You’re as old as Methuselah,” Fletcher said. “What are you doin’, runnin’ around the countryside after outlaws like us when you should be whittlin’ on a rockin’ chair somewhere?”
“I’m so tired of hearin’ about my age,” Stone said wearily. “It’s not how many years you’ve lived. It’s how you’ve held up. It’s what you can do. And I can still do my job.”
“Not for much longer,” Fletcher said in an ominous tone.
“Am I to gather you don’t aim to take us alive?”
“Why bother?” Fletcher said. “We were fixin’ to kill you both anyway. And you’d only slow me in catchin’ up to the others.” He bared a mouthful of splayed and uneven yellow teeth. “I ain’t killed me any lawmen in a while. This will be fun.”
* * *
Cal Grissom was a seething volcano of rage and worry. His daughter, his only child, his pride and joy, had been taken by a desperado who had no scruples about snuffing wicks. Burt Alacord was faster on the shoot, but Willy Boy Jenkins was the true killer of their bunch. When he wanted to, Willy could be downright vicious.
And now Jenna was at Willy’s mercy.
As he led his men deeper into the night, Cal told himself that he should have known something like this would happen. His life never went smooth for long. Something always came along to spoil things.
His boyhood had been wretched. His pa was a beater; beat his ma, beat him, beat their dog and their cat. Sometimes Cal was beat for doing things he shouldn’t. Other times, Cal suspected his father had beat him for the hell of it.
His pa was a drinker, and whenever his pa was deep in his cups, he’d get around to taking off his belt and give Cal a lashing. His ma, too, received her share, although not with the belt. His pa would slap her silly, smack her and smack her until she was on her knees sobbing, begging him to stop.
Later, his ma up and ran off, and that was the last they saw of her. Cal took that as a hint, and ran off when he was old enough to make it on his own. He met a woman and fell in love and married her. They had Jenna. All was right with his world, or would have been except for one thing.
Cal was as fond of liquor as his pa. He drank like the proverbial fish, and his wife didn’t like that. One day he came home and found a note saying she’d had enough and gone off with another man, someone who hardly ever took a nip. A friend of his, the bastard.
That was bad enough. To make it worse, his wife had the audacity to leave Jenna with him. That never made any sense to Cal. Why leave their daughter with the man she accused of drinking himself into an early grave? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for her to take Jenna with her?
After that, Cal drank even more. He went around in a perpetual stupor until one night, sitting at the kitchen table with a half-empty bottle in front of him, he looked over at Jenna, barely out of her swaddling clothes, and had a rush of insight that made him cover his mouth with his hand to keep from screaming.
Cal realized he wouldn’t be any better for her than his pa had been for him. Not that he’d use his belt on her. He’d never do that, not in a million years. But he couldn’t stop drinking, no matter how he tried. And it wouldn’t do for his daughter to be raised by a lush.
The hardest thing Cal ever had to do was take Jenna to his sister and ask her to raise the one person in the world he truly loved. She and her husband balked until Cal assured them that he’d send them money, as regular as clockwork.
Riding off that night, Cal’s heart broke anew. He drank and he drank, and ran out of money, so he robbed a store. He liked to think the alcohol made him do it. One thing led to another, and inside of a year he was a wanted outlaw.
Cal was never without a bottle yet somehow he continued to function where most men would have passed out. He got a reputation, ironically enough, for having a good head on his shoulders. Other outlaws were drawn to him, and looked up to him as their leader. Burt. Weasel. Ira. And others.
Cal knew he was a marked man. Sooner or later his luck would run out. The law would nab him or he’d be shot fleeing a bank, and that would be that. Outlaws seldom met peaceful ends.
Cal didn’t care. He had nothing to live for. His life became an endless repeat of drinking, riding, and robbing. He drank half a bottle for breakfast and more throughout the day. He reckoned that eventually the liquor would kill him if nothing else did.
Then a miracle occurred. His little girl came back into his life. Jenna sought him out, all on her own. She wanted to be with him, wanted for them to be a father and daughter again. It was his innermost, most secret wish, come true.
As usual, though, his slice of heaven on earth didn’t last. Jenna made it plain she’d like for him to give up the owlhoot life. She wanted the two of them to go off somewhere no one had ever heard of the Grissom gang. They’d assume new names and start over. Have a whole new life. Together.
Most fathers, Cal figured, would leap at the chance. To his dismay, he found he couldn’t. It should have been an easy decision. His daughter versus “a life of crime,” as the newspapers called it. How could he not agree?
Jenna was terribly upset, and Cal didn’t blame her. He’d wrestled with the issue for days, until, out of the blue, Jenna up and left. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d crushed her dream. Ruined the whole reason she came to see him.
And now this.
Jenna, taken captive by Willy Boy Jenkins.
Cal recalled how friendly Willy Boy had been to her, how they’d talked and ridden together at times. He’d never once sensed there was more to it than friendship, especially on her part. Willy taking her had to be entirely Willy’s idea. Burt said he’d seen ropes on her wrists as Willy Boy was leading her off, which was all the explanation Cal needed.
Jenna. His sweet, wonderful Jenna. Cal nearly choked on his rage. Rage so strong, it made his head hurt. Rage so potent, it smothered his need for drink. A feat nothing else had ever accomplished.
Cal didn’t lose his head entirely. After a couple of hours of hard riding he slowed to a walk to give their horses a breather. When one of his men came up alongside him, he didn’t need to look to know who it was.
“How are you holdin’ up?” Burt Alacord asked.
“How do you think?”
“I always reckoned that boy might be trouble someday.”
“Rub salt in the wound, why don’t you?”
“Sorry,” Burt said.
“No, I’m sorry,” Cal said. “I shouldn’t take it out on you. I trusted him, and I shouldn’t have. My instincts failed me.” His features hardened. “But do me a favor, if you can. Ask the others, too.”
“Anything.”
“When we catch up, I don’t want him dead right away. If it’s at all possible, take him alive.”
“You’d like to whittle on him some? Maybe break a few bones? Make him die screamin’ in pain?”
Cal smiled in pleasurable anticipation. “Would I ever.”
26
Federal Deputy Marshal Jacob Stone had been held at gunpoint a few times before. Even once was one time too many. The worst had been a drunk who nicked his ear with a slug fired at his nose. Fortunately the jackass couldn’t hold his revolver steady if his life had depended on it. Which it had.
To say it hadn’t rattled him would be a lie. A drunk and a cocked pistol were a deadly combination. Drunks were like bears, unpredictable as could be.
Ira Fletcher wasn’t drunk. He was stone sober, and his flinty eyes glittered at the prospect of doing them in. He couldn’t seem to make up his mind which of them to shoot first. He pointed that big Dragoon at Stone and then at Robert Grant and then at Stone again.
“Shouldn’t it be youth before age?” Stone said, earning a sharp look from young Grant.
“What’s that?” Fletcher said, raising his head. “You want me to shoot your partner before I
shoot you?”
“If you don’t mind,” Stone said.
“Well, I’ll be,” Fletcher said, and laughed. “You hear that, boy?”
“I heard,” Grant said angrily.
“I reckon this old goat ain’t ever heard of standin’ by a friend through thick and thin,” Fletcher said, and cackled.
“I’m surprised at you,” Grant said to Stone.
“We do what we have to, son,” Stone said.
“How many times do I have to tell you to quit callin’ me that?” Grant exploded. “I’m not your son and never will be.”
Fletcher cackled anew. “I could eat this up with a spoon. I never have liked tin-toters. Were it up to me, you’d all drop dead.”
“So you could do as you please, robbin’ and killin’ folks to your heart’s content,” Stone said.
“What of it?” Fletcher said. “It’s human nature to prey on those weaker than you. Animals do it all the time.”
“We’re not animals,” Stone said.
“The hell we’re not. Don’t give me that Bible-thumper hogwash. This life is all there is, and this life, in case you ain’t noticed, is dog-eat-dog.”
“Listen to you,” Stone said.
“But tell you what,” Fletcher said, and he pointed the Dragoon at Robert Grant. “I’ll do as you’d like and blow the top of his head off before I do you in.”
“You son of a bitch,” Grant said.
“Now, now, boy,” Fletcher said. “If you aimed to die in bed, you shouldn’t ought to have become a lawman.”
Stone’s chance had come. He was still holding the tin cup, half-filled with coffee; Fletcher hadn’t made him let go of it when they raised their arms. Girding himself, he said, “You’ve been at this outlaw business a long time, haven’t you?”
“As long as you’ve been a lawdog, I’d imagine,” Fletcher said. “Why?”
“That Dragoon,” Stone said. “You don’t see many men usin’ those old hand cannons these days.”
“I like it,” Fletcher said. “It kicks like a mule but it gets the job done.”
Guns on the Prairie Page 19