Wilderness Double Edition 22, page 7
Then another man came out of a house and said something to greasy shirt, and whatever greasy shirt replied caused the second man to give chase, too.
Lou flew on. Only a few more houses and cabins to go and she would be at the north edge of town. A tract of woodland promised sanctuary and she bounded for it like an antelope fleeing wolves. When next she glanced back, she couldn’t believe her eyes; four men were now after her. They must all think she was the thief.
Stopping to explain, Lou realized, was pointless. They would think she made up the story of the man in brown. Better for her to lose them in the woods and go her own way.
Fate chose that moment to play a hand. A rough-hewn woman in a plain dress came out of the last cabin and began shaking out a blanket.
“Stop that one!” greasy shirt shouted. “He’s a thief!”
Lou angled to the left to give the cabin a wider berth, but the woman had dropped the blanket and was moving to intercept her. “I am not a thief!” she cried, to no effect.
“Hold on there, boy!” the woman said, moving faster. “Do the right thing and give yourself up.”
Lou pumped her legs with renewed vigor. The woman lunged, a hand clawing at her buckskins, but Lou swerved and made it past and then all she had to cross was a short field and she would be in among the trees, and safe.
A growl proved her wrong.
Lou glanced back. Someone had unleashed a mongrel. Its neck hairs bristling, its teeth bared, it was rapidly overtaking her.
What had started as comical had turned deadly serious. Lou had no hope of reaching the woods before the dog reached her. She spied several rocks, and bending, snatched one up in either hand, then ran on.
Lou’s timing had to be perfect. She glanced back, marking the distance between them, and when the dog was ten feet away she stopped and whirled and threw the rock in her right hand. It caught the dog full in the face and the dog yelped and veered. Her second rock caught it in the front legs and the dog reversed direction.
Lou had always been good at chucking rocks. When she was a kid, she practiced by the hour until she could hit anything she set her mind to.
Soon Lou came to the trees. She hoped her pursuers had finally given up. But no, only one had stopped and was tending to the dog while the rest, including the woman, were still after her.
Let them come, Lou thought. In the woods she was in her element. They would never catch her now. She zigzagged into the undergrowth and after twenty yards turned east.
Suddenly the vegetation ended at the brink of a steep gully. On the other side the woods resumed.
Lou descended in long hops. Midway down the slope was loose dirt, and as her left heel came down, her leg shot out from under her and she fell end over end like a wind-blown tumbleweed. She hit the bottom hard. Pain spiked her ribs and the breath whooshed from her lungs.
Loud voices spurred Lou into sitting up. She got to her hands and knees and began crawling up the opposite slope. Once at the top she would lie low until her pursuers gave up.
“Here he is!”
Boots thudded behind her. Lou tried to stand, to run, but rough hands seized her and she was hauled to her feet and shaken as a terrier might shake a rat.
“I’ve got him! This way!”
“Let me go!” Lou protested, struggling. She was thrown to the ground on her stomach and a foot was pressed against her back, pinning her.
“You’re not going anywhere, thief. We’re about to make an example of you no one will ever forget.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
It was greasy shirt. He bent and slapped her and laughed. “That’s what they always say.”
Over the side of the gully came the rest, the other men and the woman, their faces slick with sweat and twisted with hate.
“Say your prayers, boy,” greasy shirt said. “Your string has played out.”
Nine
Shakespeare McNair could count the number of times he had stayed at a hotel on one hand. He was seventeen when he left civilization for the untamed vastness of the remote Rockies and had rarely been back since. The wilderness intoxicated him. Life was a daily delight of exploration and discovery. He fell in love with the land as well as the people and never entertained a desire to leave. From time to time he did, of course, but only to obtain supplies or buy a new rifle or have a broken pistol fixed. On those occasions he usually shunned habitations and slept out under the stars.
The few occasions Shakespeare stayed at hotels had all been in St. Louis at the same establishment, a small, rustic place that catered to frontiersmen. The Wilton, it was called, after its owner, a former mountain man.
It could not begin to compare to The Armistead.
For starters, there was the carpet. Shakespeare took four steps and stopped in bewilderment, unaccustomed to walking on a sponge. “Danged if this don’t beat all,” he said while raising and lowering his right foot a few times.
“You’ve never walked on carpet before?” Evelyn asked.
“Not carpet as thick as three or four bearskin rugs, no,” Shakespeare said. He looked forward to getting a room and taking off his moccasins so he could wriggle his toes in it.
“My folks took me to a hotel in New Orleans once that had carpet like this,” Evelyn said. “They serve food right in your room, and clean your clothes if you ask them.” Her eyes were aglitter with rapture. “And you wonder why I want to live in a city.”
“We’ll miss you, is all,” Shakespeare said. More than she would ever know.
A light tinkling from overhead drew Shakespeare’s gaze to a crystal chandelier that glittered like a hundred sparkling diamonds. The effect was mesmerizing. He stood gaping until his wife plucked at his sleeve.
“We can catch flies later. Right now Evelyn and I need hot baths before she comes down with a cold.”
“First things first.” Shakespeare marched to the front desk and plopped his parfleches down.
“Welcome to The Armistead, sir.” A clerk in a natty suit bestowed an amused smile. “On behalf of the management, permit me to say that our staff is devoted to making your stay as enjoyable as possible. If there is anything you want, anything at all, all you need do is ask.”
“A room would be nice,” Shakespeare said.
“Two beds? I presume your daughter will be sleeping with your wife?”
Shakespeare and Evelyn chortled. “I should be so lucky as to have her as my own.” He was about to mention that she was the product of Nate and Winona King’s passion when he remembered the stable owner’s admonition. “Do you have a room with three beds?”
“Only our luxury suites on the top floor,” the clerk said. He hesitated, then added, “And they are quite expensive.”
Shakespeare touched his possibles bag. “Boldness comes to me now,” he quoted, “and brings me heart.” He took out his poke. “What do you call expensive in these parts, pardner?”
“Ten dollars a night. That includes a complimentary bottle of wine.”
“Why, as all comforts are, most good, most good indeed,” Shakespeare said. But he was thinking that ten dollars was more than most people earned in a month when he was Evelyn’s age. He turned to Blue Water Woman. “What do you say, my love?”
“It would be a new experience.”
“A costly one.”
“Only for a skinflint.” Blue Water Woman could more than hold her own. “What else do we spend our money on?”
The truth of the matter was that Shakespeare had seven thousand dollars socked away in a cubby hole under their cabin. Most was acquired during his trapping years, when a good season’s take could reap close to two thousand dollars. He had brought three hundred along for spending money. An extravagance, since on their last several visits east he barely spent fifty.
“A suite it is, then, by thunder,” Shakespeare said, and thumped the desk for emphasis.
“You’ll need to sign in,” the clerk said, turning the register. “An X will suffice if you can’t write.”
For a few seconds Shakespeare was speechless. “Oh, ye giddy goose.”
“Sir?”
“I will throw thee from my care forever into the staggers and the careless lapse of youth and ignorance.”
“Sir?”
Shakespeare took up the quill pen with a flourish. “I will have you know, sir, that I am on most intimate terms with the Bard. I have perused Plato, that master of questions within questions, and set sail with brave Odysseus on seas of terror. I have feasted my eye on Herodotus, and reveled in the immortal courage of the indomitable Leonidas. What say you to that?”
The clerk looked in confusion to Blue Water Woman.
“That is his way of telling you he can write. My husband never uses one word when fifty will do.”
“Oh.”
Shakespeare had started to sign in the appropriate space, but stopped. “Don’t listen to her. She is too mean to have her name repeated.”
“She seems awful nice to me, sir,” the clerk said.
“Only because you aren’t married to the wench. Her insolence, sir, makes Circe appear timid, the Cyclops appear tame.” Out of pique, Shakespeare took up two lines so his signature was twice as large as all the rest. “There. Feast your eyes on excellence.”
“Well done, sir. And might I say, I have never met anyone quite like you.”
“He quotes William Shakespeare by the minute,” Blue Water Woman explained. “I have heard them so often, I know a few quotes myself.” She paused. “Let me see. What is that one I am thinking of? Oh yes.” Her smile was deviltry personified. “He speaks nothing but madman.”
Shakespeare puffed out his cheeks in mock indignation. “Of all the bard’s magnificent pearls, leave it to you to remember that one.” He reached for the parfleches and discovered a boy in a red jacket had one under each arm. “Hold. What villainy is this?”
“He’s the bellboy, sir,” the clerk said. “He will carry your things up for you and help you settle in.”
“I am perfectly capable of carrying my own things,” Shakespeare said. “I still have all my teeth and my head has not so much ear wax as brains.”
“Husband,” Blue Water Woman said.
“Oh, all right. But I swear. If anyone offers to undress me, I’ll gut them like a fish and use their innards for rope.”
“Bluster,” Blue Water Woman said to the clerk and bellboy. “He is the gentlest of souls and kindest of men.”
“Lead on,” Shakespeare gruffly declared. “After this verbal assault my ears are blistered and my head is reeling.”
Bronze rails bordered the stairs. On each landing was a silver spittoon. Paintings adorned the walls, including one of a fox hunt in England that fascinated Evelyn.
At the third landing they met a woman coming down. She was tall and dressed all in black and had lustrous black hair that cascaded past her shoulders. She nodded at them and swished on by
“Goodness gracious, she was beautiful,” Evelyn breathed in awe.
“And rich,” the bellboy commented. “She has her own carriage and her own manservant to wait on her hand and foot. Why, when she arrived, she had more luggage than ten of most of our usual guests.”
“Wealth isn’t everything,” Shakespeare said.
“It sure beats being poor,” was the bellboy’s assessment. “Word is, she married into a wealthy Eastern family. Her husband died a few years ago and she inherited everything. But she never uses his name, which is strange.”
“I would love to have a rich husband,” Evelyn said.
Blue Water Woman had one more arrow in her quiver. “I would be happy to have a sane one.”
The bellboy announced, “Here we are. Three-oh-five.” He inserted a key and held the door so they might precede him. “There are two bedrooms, each with its own wash basin. The necessary is at the end of the hall to the left.”
Evelyn’s interest perked. “There’s that word again.”
“Your complimentary wine will be brought up shortly. The maid changes the linen each morning and brings fresh towels. Should you not want to be disturbed, hang out the sign on the door. For room service, you pull the cord, here, and it will ring a bell below.”
“Do you tuck us in at night?” Shakespeare asked.
The bellboy wasn’t finished. “The hallway lamps are lit as soon as the sun goes down and stay lit until midnight. At one a.m. the front doors and back doors are locked and stay locked until four a.m. A desk clerk, though, is on duty twenty-four hours a day.”
“This place would be perfect if it had stalls for horses,” Shakespeare said, and reached for the parfleches.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No, you can go.” Shakespeare moved to the door to close it but the bellboy just stood there, waiting expectantly. “What? Do you want me to read to you?”
“No, sir,” the bellboy said, and coughed.
“You’re supposed to give him what my pa calls a gratuity,” Evelyn remarked. “For being so helpful.”
“Had ! known you were a leech I’d have carried my own parfleches,” Shakespeare grumbled. He gave the boy a dollar.
“I thank you, sir. You are a true gentleman.”
“What else would I be?” Shakespeare rejoined, and resisted an impulse to kick the imp on his way out. He carried their parfleches into the first bedroom and set them on the bed, which was twice the size of their own and softer than a fawn’s backside. He stretched out on his back and closed his eyes.
“Husband, Evelyn and I are taking baths. The bellboy told her they will fill a tub for us and provide a bar of lye soap.”
“Have fun. I don’t need a bath right now.”
“Yes, you do.”
Shakespeare cracked his right eye open. “Are you implying I’m a mite ripe?”
“Only when I breathe next to you,” Blue Water Woman said. “Come along and we will take turns. Evelyn will use the tub first, then me, then you.”
“If I smell the worst, why do I get the dirtiest water?”
“You are the man.”
“I do not strain at the position. It is familiar.”
“Come then,”’ Blue Water Woman coaxed. “Evelyn and I want to feel clean again, and to use our noses.”
Shakespeare rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “I am an ass, indeed. You may prove it by my long ears.”
Athena Borke sat in the lobby for three hours in a high-backed chair in a secluded corner where the shadows hid her from those who entered. After the first hour her perfect features were marred by a frown that grew as time passed. Her left shoe continually tapped the floor. Her fingernails tapped the chair arm.
Finally Athena could not bear the wait any longer and rose to go to her suite. She saw a lad with an armload of newspapers enter and hand a dozen to the desk clerk, who paid him with a shiny new coin.
“Any news worth reading today, Bobby?”
“Not much, Mr. Timms. A man’s heart gave out and he died with his face in a bowl of soup. A hog was run over by a buckboard and the buckboard tipped over and the driver broke his leg. And the mayor is upset at all the animal droppings in the streets. He says it will give the town a bad name so he wants to outlaw all pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and cows.”
“Too bad we can’t outlaw the mayor.”
“Oh. And some people nearly drowned in the Missouri this morning when a horse went wild on a ferry and they were knocked off.”
“No shootings, knifings or beatings?” The desk clerk was disappointed. “You’re right. Not much interesting.”
By then Athena was at the foot of the stairs.
“One thing has folks talking,” Bobby said. “One of those people who fell in the river is the sister of that guy everyone wants hung. You know, the renegade who killed those traders and was put on trial.”
“Zach King?”
“That’s him. Well, I have to scoot. Mr. Barnes will throw a fit if I don’t get all these delivered fast enough.” The boy hastened out.
Crossing to the desk, Athena picked up a copy. “Do you mind if I take one of these?”
“Not at all, Miss Borke. The Kansas Sun is free to guests.”
Simmering with excitement, Athena could barely restrain herself until she reached her suite. The edition was six pages, half of them advertisements. On the second to last page she found the story she was looking for and devoured it, then read the account again.
“It doesn’t mention their names,” Athena said aloud. She smiled a smile that would chill anyone who saw it. “But that can be remedied.”
Athena pulled the cord for the bellboy. At his timid knock she called out for him to enter, stated the errand she wanted him to run, and gave him five dollars as incentive.
“I’m more than happy to help, ma’am, but Timms at the front desk won’t like me being gone as long as this might take.”
“Tell him it’s for me.”
“Yes, ma’am, but it’s against the rules for bellboys to leave the hotel. And Timms isn’t one to go against the owner’s wishes.”
“Do you suppose five dollars for him would smooth things over?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. He loves money as much as I do.”
“Don’t we all?” Athena Borke said.
Ten
Louisa King was hauled to her feet. She tried to break free but there were too many. She was pushed. She was slapped. She was punched. The man with the greasy shirt, the one who had started it all, shook her again. Shook her so hard, her teeth rattled.
“You’re the thief who’s been stealin’ my tools, aren’t you, boy? Sneakin’ right into my house and takin’ ’em right out from under my nose?”
“No, no,” Lou said, but he didn’t believe her.
“Bet you weren’t figurin’ on me borrowin’ my brother’s dog to guard my house, were you?” greasy shirt boasted. “It was his barkin’ that gave you away.”
“I’ve never stolen anything!”
“Sure you haven’t!” said another man. “I’ve had things taken, too. A watch my mother gave me. A folding knife I had since I was a kid.”
“It wasn’t me!” Lou tried again. “I’ve only been in town a short while.”
Lou flew on. Only a few more houses and cabins to go and she would be at the north edge of town. A tract of woodland promised sanctuary and she bounded for it like an antelope fleeing wolves. When next she glanced back, she couldn’t believe her eyes; four men were now after her. They must all think she was the thief.
Stopping to explain, Lou realized, was pointless. They would think she made up the story of the man in brown. Better for her to lose them in the woods and go her own way.
Fate chose that moment to play a hand. A rough-hewn woman in a plain dress came out of the last cabin and began shaking out a blanket.
“Stop that one!” greasy shirt shouted. “He’s a thief!”
Lou angled to the left to give the cabin a wider berth, but the woman had dropped the blanket and was moving to intercept her. “I am not a thief!” she cried, to no effect.
“Hold on there, boy!” the woman said, moving faster. “Do the right thing and give yourself up.”
Lou pumped her legs with renewed vigor. The woman lunged, a hand clawing at her buckskins, but Lou swerved and made it past and then all she had to cross was a short field and she would be in among the trees, and safe.
A growl proved her wrong.
Lou glanced back. Someone had unleashed a mongrel. Its neck hairs bristling, its teeth bared, it was rapidly overtaking her.
What had started as comical had turned deadly serious. Lou had no hope of reaching the woods before the dog reached her. She spied several rocks, and bending, snatched one up in either hand, then ran on.
Lou’s timing had to be perfect. She glanced back, marking the distance between them, and when the dog was ten feet away she stopped and whirled and threw the rock in her right hand. It caught the dog full in the face and the dog yelped and veered. Her second rock caught it in the front legs and the dog reversed direction.
Lou had always been good at chucking rocks. When she was a kid, she practiced by the hour until she could hit anything she set her mind to.
Soon Lou came to the trees. She hoped her pursuers had finally given up. But no, only one had stopped and was tending to the dog while the rest, including the woman, were still after her.
Let them come, Lou thought. In the woods she was in her element. They would never catch her now. She zigzagged into the undergrowth and after twenty yards turned east.
Suddenly the vegetation ended at the brink of a steep gully. On the other side the woods resumed.
Lou descended in long hops. Midway down the slope was loose dirt, and as her left heel came down, her leg shot out from under her and she fell end over end like a wind-blown tumbleweed. She hit the bottom hard. Pain spiked her ribs and the breath whooshed from her lungs.
Loud voices spurred Lou into sitting up. She got to her hands and knees and began crawling up the opposite slope. Once at the top she would lie low until her pursuers gave up.
“Here he is!”
Boots thudded behind her. Lou tried to stand, to run, but rough hands seized her and she was hauled to her feet and shaken as a terrier might shake a rat.
“I’ve got him! This way!”
“Let me go!” Lou protested, struggling. She was thrown to the ground on her stomach and a foot was pressed against her back, pinning her.
“You’re not going anywhere, thief. We’re about to make an example of you no one will ever forget.”
“I haven’t done anything!”
It was greasy shirt. He bent and slapped her and laughed. “That’s what they always say.”
Over the side of the gully came the rest, the other men and the woman, their faces slick with sweat and twisted with hate.
“Say your prayers, boy,” greasy shirt said. “Your string has played out.”
Nine
Shakespeare McNair could count the number of times he had stayed at a hotel on one hand. He was seventeen when he left civilization for the untamed vastness of the remote Rockies and had rarely been back since. The wilderness intoxicated him. Life was a daily delight of exploration and discovery. He fell in love with the land as well as the people and never entertained a desire to leave. From time to time he did, of course, but only to obtain supplies or buy a new rifle or have a broken pistol fixed. On those occasions he usually shunned habitations and slept out under the stars.
The few occasions Shakespeare stayed at hotels had all been in St. Louis at the same establishment, a small, rustic place that catered to frontiersmen. The Wilton, it was called, after its owner, a former mountain man.
It could not begin to compare to The Armistead.
For starters, there was the carpet. Shakespeare took four steps and stopped in bewilderment, unaccustomed to walking on a sponge. “Danged if this don’t beat all,” he said while raising and lowering his right foot a few times.
“You’ve never walked on carpet before?” Evelyn asked.
“Not carpet as thick as three or four bearskin rugs, no,” Shakespeare said. He looked forward to getting a room and taking off his moccasins so he could wriggle his toes in it.
“My folks took me to a hotel in New Orleans once that had carpet like this,” Evelyn said. “They serve food right in your room, and clean your clothes if you ask them.” Her eyes were aglitter with rapture. “And you wonder why I want to live in a city.”
“We’ll miss you, is all,” Shakespeare said. More than she would ever know.
A light tinkling from overhead drew Shakespeare’s gaze to a crystal chandelier that glittered like a hundred sparkling diamonds. The effect was mesmerizing. He stood gaping until his wife plucked at his sleeve.
“We can catch flies later. Right now Evelyn and I need hot baths before she comes down with a cold.”
“First things first.” Shakespeare marched to the front desk and plopped his parfleches down.
“Welcome to The Armistead, sir.” A clerk in a natty suit bestowed an amused smile. “On behalf of the management, permit me to say that our staff is devoted to making your stay as enjoyable as possible. If there is anything you want, anything at all, all you need do is ask.”
“A room would be nice,” Shakespeare said.
“Two beds? I presume your daughter will be sleeping with your wife?”
Shakespeare and Evelyn chortled. “I should be so lucky as to have her as my own.” He was about to mention that she was the product of Nate and Winona King’s passion when he remembered the stable owner’s admonition. “Do you have a room with three beds?”
“Only our luxury suites on the top floor,” the clerk said. He hesitated, then added, “And they are quite expensive.”
Shakespeare touched his possibles bag. “Boldness comes to me now,” he quoted, “and brings me heart.” He took out his poke. “What do you call expensive in these parts, pardner?”
“Ten dollars a night. That includes a complimentary bottle of wine.”
“Why, as all comforts are, most good, most good indeed,” Shakespeare said. But he was thinking that ten dollars was more than most people earned in a month when he was Evelyn’s age. He turned to Blue Water Woman. “What do you say, my love?”
“It would be a new experience.”
“A costly one.”
“Only for a skinflint.” Blue Water Woman could more than hold her own. “What else do we spend our money on?”
The truth of the matter was that Shakespeare had seven thousand dollars socked away in a cubby hole under their cabin. Most was acquired during his trapping years, when a good season’s take could reap close to two thousand dollars. He had brought three hundred along for spending money. An extravagance, since on their last several visits east he barely spent fifty.
“A suite it is, then, by thunder,” Shakespeare said, and thumped the desk for emphasis.
“You’ll need to sign in,” the clerk said, turning the register. “An X will suffice if you can’t write.”
For a few seconds Shakespeare was speechless. “Oh, ye giddy goose.”
“Sir?”
“I will throw thee from my care forever into the staggers and the careless lapse of youth and ignorance.”
“Sir?”
Shakespeare took up the quill pen with a flourish. “I will have you know, sir, that I am on most intimate terms with the Bard. I have perused Plato, that master of questions within questions, and set sail with brave Odysseus on seas of terror. I have feasted my eye on Herodotus, and reveled in the immortal courage of the indomitable Leonidas. What say you to that?”
The clerk looked in confusion to Blue Water Woman.
“That is his way of telling you he can write. My husband never uses one word when fifty will do.”
“Oh.”
Shakespeare had started to sign in the appropriate space, but stopped. “Don’t listen to her. She is too mean to have her name repeated.”
“She seems awful nice to me, sir,” the clerk said.
“Only because you aren’t married to the wench. Her insolence, sir, makes Circe appear timid, the Cyclops appear tame.” Out of pique, Shakespeare took up two lines so his signature was twice as large as all the rest. “There. Feast your eyes on excellence.”
“Well done, sir. And might I say, I have never met anyone quite like you.”
“He quotes William Shakespeare by the minute,” Blue Water Woman explained. “I have heard them so often, I know a few quotes myself.” She paused. “Let me see. What is that one I am thinking of? Oh yes.” Her smile was deviltry personified. “He speaks nothing but madman.”
Shakespeare puffed out his cheeks in mock indignation. “Of all the bard’s magnificent pearls, leave it to you to remember that one.” He reached for the parfleches and discovered a boy in a red jacket had one under each arm. “Hold. What villainy is this?”
“He’s the bellboy, sir,” the clerk said. “He will carry your things up for you and help you settle in.”
“I am perfectly capable of carrying my own things,” Shakespeare said. “I still have all my teeth and my head has not so much ear wax as brains.”
“Husband,” Blue Water Woman said.
“Oh, all right. But I swear. If anyone offers to undress me, I’ll gut them like a fish and use their innards for rope.”
“Bluster,” Blue Water Woman said to the clerk and bellboy. “He is the gentlest of souls and kindest of men.”
“Lead on,” Shakespeare gruffly declared. “After this verbal assault my ears are blistered and my head is reeling.”
Bronze rails bordered the stairs. On each landing was a silver spittoon. Paintings adorned the walls, including one of a fox hunt in England that fascinated Evelyn.
At the third landing they met a woman coming down. She was tall and dressed all in black and had lustrous black hair that cascaded past her shoulders. She nodded at them and swished on by
“Goodness gracious, she was beautiful,” Evelyn breathed in awe.
“And rich,” the bellboy commented. “She has her own carriage and her own manservant to wait on her hand and foot. Why, when she arrived, she had more luggage than ten of most of our usual guests.”
“Wealth isn’t everything,” Shakespeare said.
“It sure beats being poor,” was the bellboy’s assessment. “Word is, she married into a wealthy Eastern family. Her husband died a few years ago and she inherited everything. But she never uses his name, which is strange.”
“I would love to have a rich husband,” Evelyn said.
Blue Water Woman had one more arrow in her quiver. “I would be happy to have a sane one.”
The bellboy announced, “Here we are. Three-oh-five.” He inserted a key and held the door so they might precede him. “There are two bedrooms, each with its own wash basin. The necessary is at the end of the hall to the left.”
Evelyn’s interest perked. “There’s that word again.”
“Your complimentary wine will be brought up shortly. The maid changes the linen each morning and brings fresh towels. Should you not want to be disturbed, hang out the sign on the door. For room service, you pull the cord, here, and it will ring a bell below.”
“Do you tuck us in at night?” Shakespeare asked.
The bellboy wasn’t finished. “The hallway lamps are lit as soon as the sun goes down and stay lit until midnight. At one a.m. the front doors and back doors are locked and stay locked until four a.m. A desk clerk, though, is on duty twenty-four hours a day.”
“This place would be perfect if it had stalls for horses,” Shakespeare said, and reached for the parfleches.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No, you can go.” Shakespeare moved to the door to close it but the bellboy just stood there, waiting expectantly. “What? Do you want me to read to you?”
“No, sir,” the bellboy said, and coughed.
“You’re supposed to give him what my pa calls a gratuity,” Evelyn remarked. “For being so helpful.”
“Had ! known you were a leech I’d have carried my own parfleches,” Shakespeare grumbled. He gave the boy a dollar.
“I thank you, sir. You are a true gentleman.”
“What else would I be?” Shakespeare rejoined, and resisted an impulse to kick the imp on his way out. He carried their parfleches into the first bedroom and set them on the bed, which was twice the size of their own and softer than a fawn’s backside. He stretched out on his back and closed his eyes.
“Husband, Evelyn and I are taking baths. The bellboy told her they will fill a tub for us and provide a bar of lye soap.”
“Have fun. I don’t need a bath right now.”
“Yes, you do.”
Shakespeare cracked his right eye open. “Are you implying I’m a mite ripe?”
“Only when I breathe next to you,” Blue Water Woman said. “Come along and we will take turns. Evelyn will use the tub first, then me, then you.”
“If I smell the worst, why do I get the dirtiest water?”
“You are the man.”
“I do not strain at the position. It is familiar.”
“Come then,”’ Blue Water Woman coaxed. “Evelyn and I want to feel clean again, and to use our noses.”
Shakespeare rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “I am an ass, indeed. You may prove it by my long ears.”
Athena Borke sat in the lobby for three hours in a high-backed chair in a secluded corner where the shadows hid her from those who entered. After the first hour her perfect features were marred by a frown that grew as time passed. Her left shoe continually tapped the floor. Her fingernails tapped the chair arm.
Finally Athena could not bear the wait any longer and rose to go to her suite. She saw a lad with an armload of newspapers enter and hand a dozen to the desk clerk, who paid him with a shiny new coin.
“Any news worth reading today, Bobby?”
“Not much, Mr. Timms. A man’s heart gave out and he died with his face in a bowl of soup. A hog was run over by a buckboard and the buckboard tipped over and the driver broke his leg. And the mayor is upset at all the animal droppings in the streets. He says it will give the town a bad name so he wants to outlaw all pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and cows.”
“Too bad we can’t outlaw the mayor.”
“Oh. And some people nearly drowned in the Missouri this morning when a horse went wild on a ferry and they were knocked off.”
“No shootings, knifings or beatings?” The desk clerk was disappointed. “You’re right. Not much interesting.”
By then Athena was at the foot of the stairs.
“One thing has folks talking,” Bobby said. “One of those people who fell in the river is the sister of that guy everyone wants hung. You know, the renegade who killed those traders and was put on trial.”
“Zach King?”
“That’s him. Well, I have to scoot. Mr. Barnes will throw a fit if I don’t get all these delivered fast enough.” The boy hastened out.
Crossing to the desk, Athena picked up a copy. “Do you mind if I take one of these?”
“Not at all, Miss Borke. The Kansas Sun is free to guests.”
Simmering with excitement, Athena could barely restrain herself until she reached her suite. The edition was six pages, half of them advertisements. On the second to last page she found the story she was looking for and devoured it, then read the account again.
“It doesn’t mention their names,” Athena said aloud. She smiled a smile that would chill anyone who saw it. “But that can be remedied.”
Athena pulled the cord for the bellboy. At his timid knock she called out for him to enter, stated the errand she wanted him to run, and gave him five dollars as incentive.
“I’m more than happy to help, ma’am, but Timms at the front desk won’t like me being gone as long as this might take.”
“Tell him it’s for me.”
“Yes, ma’am, but it’s against the rules for bellboys to leave the hotel. And Timms isn’t one to go against the owner’s wishes.”
“Do you suppose five dollars for him would smooth things over?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. He loves money as much as I do.”
“Don’t we all?” Athena Borke said.
Ten
Louisa King was hauled to her feet. She tried to break free but there were too many. She was pushed. She was slapped. She was punched. The man with the greasy shirt, the one who had started it all, shook her again. Shook her so hard, her teeth rattled.
“You’re the thief who’s been stealin’ my tools, aren’t you, boy? Sneakin’ right into my house and takin’ ’em right out from under my nose?”
“No, no,” Lou said, but he didn’t believe her.
“Bet you weren’t figurin’ on me borrowin’ my brother’s dog to guard my house, were you?” greasy shirt boasted. “It was his barkin’ that gave you away.”
“I’ve never stolen anything!”
“Sure you haven’t!” said another man. “I’ve had things taken, too. A watch my mother gave me. A folding knife I had since I was a kid.”
“It wasn’t me!” Lou tried again. “I’ve only been in town a short while.”
