by David Khalaf
INTERLUDE I
JANE STOOD OFF-STAGE at the Palace Theater, drinking the cold out of her bones. An unexpected snowstorm had struck St. Paul an hour before show time, and the bitter wind seemed to find its way into every crack of the theater.
The Farmer’s Almanac was predicting a long winter for 1896, and it was only mid-November.
Jane had suffered far worse than this—blizzards on the plains with nothing more than a bear pelt and a bottle of hooch to keep her warm. But these days even the slightest cold chilled her to the core. Her aging body was like a dying fire, incapable of producing heat no matter how many layers she piled on.
The young man on stage had only a handful of spectators, people who seemed more interested in getting warm than getting entertained. He was a magician, performing card tricks and other sleight-of-hand magic that was too intricate for anyone in the audience to appreciate.
When his assistant clamped on a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs behind his back, Jane squinted through her cataracts to watch. His fingers were nimble, and his movements deft. He had the shackles off in only seconds.
“There’s something about him,” Petey said.
Jane nodded her head in agreement.
“Something special,” she said. “But what?”
She tipped the flask to her lips.
“Speed?”
“No,” Petey said.
“The boy’s a little scrawny for strength.”
Petey didn’t say anything. Jane leaned on the rifle that doubled as a cane.
“You know, it’d be a hell of a lot easier if you just told me.”
“But then it wouldn’t be intuition, would it?” Petey said.
“Bah!”
Jane yanked off her hat and swiped it at the air, as if she could hit Petey. She then tugged the hat back on over her thick braid. She hated her hair, but she kept it long so that people didn’t mistake her for a man. Makeup was a foreign concept to her and, besides, no amount of blush would hide her flat nose and square jaw.
The magician finished his act and bowed to a murmur of applause. He walked off-stage toward Jane, his head drooped in disappointment. She cleared her throat and spit, a direct hit on the tip of his shoe. She was as good a shot with her mouth as she was with her rifle.
The magician looked up, and Jane got a first good look at his eyes, blazing with intensity. There was no doubt he was one of them.
“Apologies,” she said, handing him her handkerchief. “I’m an old coot.”
The young man took in her cowboy hat and fringed buckskin jacket.
“You’re Calamity Jane,” he said. “I heard you tell your stories on stage. Is it true your horse was a drunk, and that you shot a man with your eyes closed at a hundred paces?”
Jane gave him a wink.
“Askin’ for truth is like searching for Sasquatch,” she said. “You don’t actually wanna find him. The fun is in the hunt.”
Jane spit again, this time into a teacup she used as a spittoon.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Harry Handcuff Houdini.”
“That mean anything to you, Petey?” Jane asked.
Petey remained silent.
Typical Petey.
He would jabber on all day about things Jane didn’t care a skunk’s tail about, but as soon as she asked him a legitimate question she’d get the silent treatment.
“Sorry, are you talking to me?” Houdini asked.
Jane flicked away the magician’s question with her hand and took another swig from her flask. They stood there a moment, the two of them alone in the dark. On stage, a gawky girl with a neck like an ostrich danced an uninspired tap.
“So what’s your talent?” Jane asked.
“You saw my act,” Houdini said. “I’m a magician. Card tricks and handcuff escapes.”
“Nah,” she said. “What’s your real talent? I been put in handcuffs fancy as those. How do you escape them so easily?”
Houdini shifted uncomfortably.
“Tread carefully,” Petey said. “You’ll scare him off.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do,” Jane muttered under her breath.
“It’s just practice,” Houdini said. “Staying limber and daily practice. Why do you ask?”
“I get a sense about people,” Jane said. “It’s a hunch.”
It’s a loudmouthed nudnik in my head.
“Very funny,” Petey said. “You’d be dead ten times over if it weren’t for me.”
It was true. Petey had kept her alive all her years on the Great Plains. Her ability to feel out a bad situation prevented her from getting scalped, hanged, and shot half a dozen times. Petey also told her who could be trusted, which was a list shorter than the number of chambers in her six-shooter.
But the young magician in front of her, he could be trusted. She was sure of it. If only she could get him to trust her.
“Point out the girl,” Petey said.
“See that girl?” Jane asked, nodding to the performer on stage. “I gotta hunch she’s gonna fall flat on her face.”
Jane had been watching the way the girl stumbled around in tap shoes she probably wasn’t used to, and how her routine was sloppy and imprecise. Every time she danced the chorus, she ended up a few inches closer to the front edge of the stage.
“Watch now.”
Sure enough, as the girl rounded into her finale, she threw her hands out and stepped forward, completely missing the stage. She tumbled into the orchestra pit.
Jane erupted into laughter, stamping her rifle on the ground. Houdini looked at her, horrified.
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud,” Jane said. “She’ll be fine.”
Houdini watched as the young dancer stood in the pit and brushed herself off.
“So that’s my talent,” Jane said. “Now tell me about yours.”
A bead of sweat rolled down Houdini’s temple.
“I’m not sure what you want of me.”
“He’s not ready,” Petey said. “He doesn’t know about the rest of us. He barely knows about himself.”
Jane agreed. He was young, and it was better to let him grow into his talent before she told him more. She forced her face into a cordial smile.
“Well, OK then. It’s a nice trick you got there, sonny. Skip the cards and stick with the escapes. And next time, do a stunt that people in the cheap seats can see too.”
Houdini broke into a relieved smile.
“That’s good advice,” he said. “I should go find my wife. This is a belated honeymoon of sorts. Nice to meet you.”
They shook hands.
“We’ll meet again someday,” Jane said.
Just a hunch.
The magician dashed off.
Jane rummaged through her pockets and found an old deerskin she always kept on her. There were three names on it, including her own at the top. The second one, Crazy Horse, she had scratched out years ago after his death. The third one, that sharp wit she had once met from Missouri, was still alive as far as she knew. The magician was the first new talent she had met in nearly a decade.
Jane removed a fountain pen she had won at a game of poker. It was far too nice for her chicken scratch. She propped the deerskin up against the nearest wall and wrote a fourth name.
Harry Handcuff Houdini.