My Calamity Jane

by Cynthia Hand

  Jane jumped to her feet. She really wished she had the bullwhip on her, but the darned dress had no pockets. So she grabbed Buntline by the shirt front. “Say that to my face,” she snarled.

  “I, uh, did,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean any offense, truly.”

  “Well, consider me offended,” Jane said.

  Buntline smiled. “Why are you in Deadwood, Jane? Did you come looking for someone? Or something, perhaps?”

  Her skin prickled at the idea that he might know her secret. She let go of his shirt and turned away in disgust. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again, Buntline, slower, since you don’t seem to catch my meaning. No. Comment.”

  “Isn’t it obvious why she’s here?” came another voice from a person who’d been standing on Buntline’s other side, a slender fellow with green eyes and glasses. “She came to be reunited with her mother, Miss Swearengen. For Pete’s sake, Ned. Pay attention.”

  “Hello, there,” Jane said, delighted. It was like Winnie was here by magic, conjured from Jane’s previous thinking about her.

  Winnie’s eyes sparkled behind her glasses. “Why, hello.”

  “It’s good to see you, Mr. . . . ,” Jane said. “Oh shoot, I forgot your name again.”

  The side of Winnie’s mouth quirked up. “Wheeler . . . Edward Wheeler.”

  “Mr. Wheeler.” Jane could not keep herself from smiling.

  Buntline glanced back and forth between them. “You two know each other?”

  “We met in Ohio when I was there working on a story.” Winnie smiled and stood up. “Might you take a walk with me?” She offered Jane her arm.

  Jane downed the rest of her brandy in a single swig. “Sure.”

  Buntline and the barkeep were laughing as Jane and Winnie walked away. “Now that there’s a small man with a big woman!” she heard Buntline exclaim. “Woof!”

  “Ignore him,” Winnie said.

  “Oh, I do,” Jane said, but her cheeks were turning pink. “Buntline’s the worst. Plus I don’t much like writers.”

  They pushed out onto the street and started toward a better (but only slightly better) part of town. The sun was sinking below the steep Black Hills, but it turned all the brown of the streets to shades of gold and rose. Dust floated in the air, catching the light like sparkles. Jane felt as if she’d slipped into some kind of improbable dream.

  “Wait. Are you following me?” Jane asked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Winnie replied, and Jane didn’t understand what that meant, but she didn’t really care. They stopped in the doorway to a bakery, and the smell of bread washed over them.

  “Now, what’s this about you not liking writers?” Winnie said.

  Jane’s hand tucked into the crook of Winnie’s arm felt strange and awkward. She pulled away. “I didn’t mean you. I guess I don’t really think of you as a writer, because I can’t . . . you know.”

  “I could teach you,” Winnie said. “Then you can read my work and tell me what you think. I’m a decent writer, too, at least my editor seems to think so. But he doesn’t know my big secret.”

  It took Jane a few seconds to catch on. “Why do you have to be a man to be a writer?”

  “It’s just easier.” Winnie shrugged. “Why do you so often pose as a man?”

  “Well, it’s more comfortable, for one thing.” Jane pulled at the starchy lace collar of her dress. “So, yeah. Easier. I guess.” It was easier, in almost every situation, she’d found, to be a man.

  Except perhaps this one. With Winnie.

  Winnie was gazing at her with the intent expression she often had, her eyes inquisitive. Searching. And very close, Jane realized. They were standing so near to each other that their faces were mere inches apart.

  “Well, you don’t seem quite yourself dressed this way,” Winnie said. “But you are undeniably pretty.”

  “Shut up,” Jane said immediately.

  Winnie threw back her head and laughed, and when she stopped laughing she was even closer.

  “You’re pretty, too,” Jane got out after a long pause. “But not so pretty as people would know to look at you, that you’re a female sort.”

  “Thank you. I think.” Winnie stifled a smile, her bottom lip caught in her teeth in a way that Jane found oddly distracting. “It is so good to see you again, Jane.”

  “Likewise,” Jane murmured.

  Then, seized by an impulse, she bent her head to kiss Edwina Harris. Their lips touched gently. Sweetly. Jane couldn’t have said how long the kiss lasted—an instant and also an eternity in which everything Jane thought she knew suddenly shifted.

  (She’d never really even wanted to kiss a person before. She’d never had what she would call a romantic interlude with anyone, boy or girl. But Winnie was good and kind and beautiful, and Jane wanted to kiss her. And so she did.)

  Then she was gazing down at Winnie again, suddenly aware that she had just kissed a woman on the mouth. On the boardwalk in Deadwood. In public.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted.

  “Please, don’t be sorry,” Winnie said, but took a small step back. She touched her hand briefly to her lips and then smiled. “Well. We should . . . walk.”

  Jane glanced around, but no one was looking at them. Then she realized why. She was dressed as a woman, for once, and Edwina a man. Jane was six inches taller than Winnie, but height didn’t matter. Only the clothes.

  She took the arm that Winnie offered her again. They strolled down the boardwalk like they were promenading in some fancy city like New York. Jane could not think of what she should say then, and Winnie didn’t speak, either. They quietly ambled along, night falling around them. Crickets literally started to chirp.

  Jane coughed. “Do you want to know a secret?”

  “Always,” Winnie replied.

  “My name isn’t really Calamity Jane.”

  Winnie pretended to be shocked. “Is that so? Is it Jane Swearengen? Because I don’t think that’s exactly a secret anymore.”

  “Ugh, no,” said Jane, her nose wrinkling. “Not Swearengen. How she even came up with that, I’ll never— Anyway, my name is Martha.”

  Winnie’s eyebrows lifted. It was satisfying, Jane found, to tell her something she didn’t already know.

  “Martha Canary. Like the bird.”

  “How do you do, Martha Canary?” Winnie held out her hand, and Jane shook it, holding her hand a little longer than was absolutely necessary.

  “Fine. Nice to make your acquaintance,” Jane said, and laughed nervously.

  “So I wonder if you would tell me something,” Winnie said then.

  Her expression was suddenly, inexplicably mournful, in such a way that Jane wanted to give her a hug, to ask what ailed her, even if Jane was the problem. Even if Winnie had felt differently than Jane did about the kiss, Jane wanted to fix it. “I’ll tell you anything.”

  “Al Swearengen isn’t really your mother, is she?”

  Jane’s heart sank. She’d meant to tell the truth just now, but her mother’s secrets were not hers to spill. “My mother went to the angels when I was a kid, like I told you. Her name was Charlotte Canary.” It wasn’t a lie, she reminded herself. But it wasn’t the whole truth, either.

  “Why does Swearengen say she’s your mother, then?”

  “It’s an arrangement we have” was all Jane could manage.

  “Because you want the cure,” Winnie filled in. “And Al Swearengen has it.”

  Jane’s breath caught. “How did you . . .”

  “Oh, come on. You had me read you the pamphlet about the cure, and about it being in Deadwood, and then that very night you left Cincinnati to make your way to Deadwood. I’m not a genius, but I can put two and two together. You’re a garou, Jane, aren’t you?”

  “Oh.” Jane looked at her hands. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

  She waited for Winnie to pull away from her, horrified, repulsed, but there was only sadness in the girl’s expression. That and something else Jane c
ouldn’t read. Winnie reached up and touched Jane’s cheek, which Jane felt through her entire body. Jane even thought that Winnie might be the one who would kiss her this time.

  But then Winnie said, “I’m writing a story about it. That is to say, I already wrote a story. It may be the best thing I’ve ever written so far, but . . .”

  The words were like an ice bath (and Jane had had enough of baths for one day). “You wrote a story about me being a garou,” she said, hoping she’d heard it wrong.

  Winnie’s hand dropped. She nodded. “Yes.”

  Jane shook her head. “But you promised. You said you wouldn’t write about me.”

  “I can’t keep that promise.”

  “Why, because I’m a garou?”

  Jane felt her shoulders expanding. Her fingers curled into fists; her nails felt sharp against her palms. She ran hot, then cold, then hot again. She was sweating. She could change, right there, on the street, and give Winnie the proof she needed. It was all Jane could do not to explode into the beast on the spot.

  “No,” Winnie was saying, but Jane wasn’t hearing words at this point. “No, it’s not like that. I can explain. It’s—”

  “You lied to me!” cried Jane. “You promised!”

  Then she turned and ran, as fast as she could, leaving Winnie calling after her in the street.

  She managed to stay mostly human until she was back in her room at the Gem, the door slammed and locked behind her. She tore off the stupid flowered hat, and then the dress, popping a few pearl buttons as she struggled to get out of it. The corset, however, had been tied from the back. She was trapped. She ran to the vanity and splashed water on her face, then saw, in the mirror, that her teeth were fangs. Her nails were claws. Her face was changing shape, her nose and ears elongating, hair sprouting up all over. In a flash she was completely hairy. The bindings on her corset broke and the contraption fell away from her. Her legs bent and snapped backward. “Geeze Louise,” she cried.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Go away,” she said hoarsely.

  Another knock. A familiar voice. “Jane?”

  It sounded like Frank, but it couldn’t be. Frank was in Ohio.

  “Go away,” she roared.

  “Jane, it’s Frank. Can I come in?”

  It was Frank. How was it Frank? It didn’t matter. He could definitely not come in. “Uh, no, Frank,” she said. “I’m doing something in here.”

  “Jane, just open the door,” Frank said. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  “No, you don’t want to see this,” Jane moaned. “No, no, no!”

  Frank’s voice became gruff. “Jane, you open this door. I mean it. Right now.”

  She knew that tone. When Frank got like that he was like a dog with a tooth in a towel. There was no use resisting. He’d get his way.

  “Okay, Frank. You asked for it.” She lurched over to the door, unlocked it, and then threw it open.

  Frank was standing on the other side. At least she thought it was Frank. He was wearing Frank’s clothes, but his face was entirely covered with fur. His ears were pointed, too. His eyes, which were normally brown, were golden.

  Frank was a woof.

  “An explanation is probably long overdue,” Frank said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Frank

  “Wha—? How?” Jane stumbled backward. She obviously hadn’t practiced talking with her mouth in snout form, which was not an easy skill. “You,” she got out with great difficulty. “Woof?”

  Frank pushed her inside and closed the door behind them. He locked it and turned to face her. “I’m the same Frank you know,” he assured her. “But yes. I’m a garou.”

  Her eyes, which were still recognizably Jane’s eyes, widened. “Me . . . ,” she said slowly. “Too.” Then she let out an agonizing wolfy howl.

  Frank rushed over to introduce Jane to the Wooo. He grabbed her hands in his. “Wooo,” he said softly. “Say it with me, Jane. Woooooo.”

  She met his gaze. “Wooo?”

  He nodded. “Wooo.”

  They woooed together for a few minutes, exhaling in unison, until the hairs covering their bodies shrank back into their skin, and their claws retracted, and their slobber . . . well, stopped slobbering. And once they were both human again, and once Frank had wrapped a blanket around her (to cover up her lady bits), Jane sank to the floor.

  “I know,” Frank said, sitting down beside her. “I know.”

  “How’d you figure it out?” she asked.

  “I saw you talk to a dog.”

  Jane pulled the blanket more tightly around her. “He told me the funniest joke about squirrels. There was this one, see, who didn’t save up acorns for the winter, and he—” Her mouth dropped open. “You can talk to George!”

  (Where was George, anyway? We haven’t seen him since they encountered Annie on the street two chapters ago. He was probably off picking her flowers or something. But George could take care of himself.)

  “Yes,” Frank said. “Sometimes being a garou comes in handy.”

  Jane looked unconvinced. “Since when?”

  “Since always. Oh you mean, since when have I been a garou?”

  Jane snorted. “’Course that’s what I mean! Why else would I ask ya?”

  Now she was sounding more like the old Jane.

  “For as long as I can remember,” Frank answered.

  “What, and you didn’t tell me?” A long, curly hair popped out of Jane’s knuckle.

  “Jane, please stay calm. We need to talk as humans.”

  “Wooo,” Jane said. The hair went away.

  “Good,” Frank said. “You’re getting it.” He took a deep breath. “You know that story Bill tells of him rescuing a baby from a garou attack?”

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “What about it?”

  “He skips a part.”

  Her brow furrowed. “What part?”

  “Bill changes the story so he reaches the baby first. Guess he wishes he had, you know? But the truth is that the garou got there first.”

  “Oh, rocks,” said Jane. “Did the garou eat the baby up?”

  Frank closed his eyes. “No. I’m the baby, Jane.”

  “You’re a baby and a garou? That don’t make no sense.”

  “Okay, let’s try this again,” Frank said patiently. “I was a baby, when I was younger.”

  “Yes. Go on,” Jane said.

  “And my family got eaten up by a garou.”

  Jane looked stricken. “Ah, Frank, I never knowed that.”

  “I know,” Frank said. “That’s why I’m trying to tell you.”

  “But you’re a garou.”

  “Correct. You’ve got it. I’m a garou.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Jane.

  Maybe the third time would be the charm. “I’m the baby who Bill saved from the garou that night. But I’d already been bitten before Bill got to me. But he took me in anyway.”

  It was quiet. Then Jane said, “Bill ain’t your real pa?”

  Frank swallowed. “He’s the only pa I’ve ever known. That’s real enough.”

  “I can’t believe you never told me that,” Jane said in a hurt voice.

  That was a pang to Frank’s heart, because he’d already felt so guilty for not sharing his secret with her. “I’m sorry. Bill thought it would be best if no one else knew that I was . . .”

  “You told Bill but not me?!”

  “Yes, Jane!” Frank yelled. “Bill’s the one who saved me! Try to keep up!”

  Then he had to wooo for a minute.

  “Sorry,” Jane said after he’d calmed down, shaking her head as if to clear it. “My head’s so muddy right now. You don’t even want to know the day I’ve had.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I said you don’t want to know.”

  “But I do want to know. After you put some clothes on.” He waited, back turned, while Jane got dressed, and then sat
with her on the bed. “Tell me.”

  Her lip quivered. “I . . .”

  “Yes, Jane. I’m listening.”

  “I just got . . . I . . .”

  Oh, rocks. She clearly had just got the “cure,” and now she was in thrall, like poor Jud Fry on the train, and she couldn’t talk about it.

  “I just got my first kiss!” she blurted out.

  That was not what Frank had expected her to say. “What?”

  She sighed. “It was really nice, too. But now my life is over. My first kiss is probably going to be my last.”

  Frank was momentarily distracted by the thought of his kiss with Annie. Which had been, in a word, amazing. But then he remembered that this wasn’t about him. “Why would it be your last kiss, Jane?” he asked.

  Jane shook her head. “Right afterward, I found out that she—I mean, that writer, what’s his name, Edward Wheeler—knows I’m a garou. And he’s gonna publish a story about it.”

  “What?” Frank said. This time, a hair sprouted out of his elbow. “Does he know who you are?”

  “I think that is what you might call the hook of the story,” Jane said bitterly. “The hero-eene of the plains is a garou.”

  “Well,” Frank said, “there’s got to be something we can do. I’ve met Mr. Wheeler. He seemed like a reasonable fellow. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Bad idea,” Jane said immediately. “I don’t want you to do that. You know what Bill says: Writers can’t be trusted.”

  “Maybe Bill could talk Mr. Wheeler out of it,” mused Frank.

  “Don’t you see? That’s even worse,” Jane said. “The Wild Bill Hickok, world-famous garou hunter, was stupid enough to employ a garou. That, as Charlie would say, would be bad for the show.” Her jaw set. “I’m not draggin’ Bill farther through the mud.”

  “But—”

  “I said no!” Jane interrupted.

  Frank held up his hands. “Okay. Wooo. Wooo with me, Jane.”

  “I don’t need to wooo.” Jane stood in a superhero pose: hands on hips, chest out. “There’s only one course for me, Frank. I need the cure.”

  Frank rubbed his eyebrows. “Yeah. About that. I’ve got some bad news.”