Place to Belong, a (26 page)

Ransom.

She didn't sleep well that night on the train, and in Joplin the next evening, she got off the Rapid City train and walked to the other platform. By the time she realized this was the wrong platform, the correct train had left. She took a room in a nearby hotel, an expense she hadn't counted on.

Already she was a day late getting to Louisville, and she had not had a chance to practice at all during the long train ride. Early the next morning she boarded the train for Louisville, arriving late that afternoon. She walked to the Pride of Kentucky Hotel near the shoot venue, carrying her bags, rather than pay money for a hansom. On the way to her hotel, she passed a very nice little tea room and stopped for a very late lunch. They were within fifteen minutes of closing, but she was too hungry not to be seated. Lunch cost nearly twice what she had counted on.

She was more than ready to set her bags down by the time she entered the hotel lobby and stepped up to the desk. “Good afternoon. I am Cassie Lockwood. I sent in a reservation two weeks ago.”

The clerk, a rather snooty-looking fellow in a dark suit, scowled at her and leafed through a box of cards. “Lockwood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have no reservation here under that name.”

“Sir, I sent it in with my deposit. Then may I take a room anyway?”

“No vacancy. I am very sorry.” He didn't look sorry at all.

“But—”

“I am sorry, young lady. There is a shooting contest near here this weekend, and all our rooms are taken.”

“Sir, I know about the shoot. I am one of the contestants.”

He looked at her as if she had just identified herself as the
Queen of England. “Of course you are.” His tone of voice insisted she was lying. “That does not mean a room suddenly drops out of the sky. We are full, regardless. I'm sorry. You will have to look elsewhere.” He took a sideways step and addressed the man beside her. “May I help you, sir?”

His attitude ignited smoldering embers of anger. It was the shooting match that had filled up his hotel, and she was part of that shoot. “Excuse me, sir. Where is ‘elsewhere'? Where will I find other accommodations?”

“The nearest is the Hotel Kentucky. Several blocks in that direction.” He gestured vaguely toward the front doors.

And so she carried her bags another three blocks up Market Street. There it was. The sign looked dull, and the paint was peeling a little on the arched doorway of the Hotel Kentucky. In the small lobby there was no lovely furniture, and the clerk behind the desk was not dressed fancy. But he smiled. It was not a particularly friendly smile, more a cold smile, but at least it wasn't a sneer.

“May I take a room here for the night, please?”

“Second or third floor?”

“Second, if possible.”

“They cost more.”

“Then third.” She must husband her money carefully, even if it meant carrying her bags up another flight of stairs. Her arm that was no longer sore was getting sore again.

She received her key and carried her bags up to room 27, stopping at each landing to rest for a moment. Once inside, she locked the door—Ransom's instructions—and shook out her good skirt and fancy shirt so the wrinkles would fall out—Mavis's instructions. She flopped down on her bed, weary in body and mind. She awoke with a start; it was dark outside! She was hungry, but she should not go out on the streets after dark—everybody's instructions, even Micah's. What to do?

She walked downstairs, but this hotel had no restaurant, nor was there one on this block, the clerk informed her. She walked back upstairs. To the third floor. She made certain her guns were clean and ready to go, her ammunition sorted and boxed correctly. She was ready.

Except that she'd had no practice.

Just before she curled up in bed, she took the unnecessary precaution of tipping her plain wooden chair and wedging its back up under the doorknob. Ransom had insisted on it, and she said she would, so she would. Her word was good.

She was so weary and restless, she had trouble getting to sleep. Sometime in the night, her door rattled. She raised her head.

It rattled again, as if someone were trying the doorknob. Now the chair wedged against it rattled. Someone
was
trying to come in! She should call out, but she was too terrified to emit more than a squeak. Who would try to enter her room? Perhaps a drunkard on the wrong floor, thinking this was his room. A mistake, surely, but frightening. The person tried once more; the chair rattled . . . and then silence.

What if it was a thief? Or . . . ? Quietly, she got up and opened her gun bag, pulled her shotgun out, and without making any more noise than necessary, carefully loaded it. Then she sat at the foot of her bed and waited, scarcely breathing. And waited. Whoever it was did not try again. He must have realized his error. Despite the reassuring silence, she could not get back to sleep. She was too nervous, her eyes too open to close again.

The next morning, she dressed in her show clothes, packed everything else up, and left that hotel as soon as the streets were light. She now had three blocks further to go to reach her venue, for the second hotel lay in the wrong direction. Now she was passing the Pride of Kentucky Hotel, and their restaurant was almost open; beyond its plate glass doors, she could see the waiters setting up the tables. She plopped her bags down near
the interior double doors and sat down in an elegant chair to wait for them to open. She felt herself drifting off, too tired to stay awake.

“Why, here she is!” A man's far-too-cheerful voice woke her instantly. “Miss Lockwood, my lovely nemesis! And all ready to compete.” Tyrone Fuller came sweeping up to her. “Did you sleep well?”

Cassie stood up, partly to wake up a little better. She felt foggy. Should she tell him? He had organized this; perhaps she should. “Not well, no. This hotel was full, and I had to go three blocks to a Hotel Kentucky. It was not a restful night.”

“Full? What? Why, I set aside a whole block of rooms just for participants. There was one waiting for you.”

“The gentleman at the desk insisted otherwise.”

“Come with me a moment, please. You may leave your grips there.” He waved toward a nearby bellhop. “Watch her bags!” He marched energetically to the desk. “Mr. Howe!”

The desk clerk looked at him, looked at Cassie, looked at him, looked at the gentleman he was waiting upon. “Excuse me a moment, I beg of you.” Mr. Howe was frowning as he moved to their end of the desk. “Yes, Mr. Fuller?”

“I understand you refused this young lady a room.”

“We were fully occupied, sir.”

“I had a room waiting for her in that block!”

“The block of rooms for the shooting contest were not assigned to specific persons in my records here.”

“You knew they were for the participants. Did she not say she was participating?” Mr. Fuller's voice was rising, and Cassie did not like the attention they were drawing. She loved being center stage in a show. She hated this conflict.

The man cleared his throat nervously. “She did, ah, mention it, sir.”

“And . . . ?”

“I did not take her claim seriously, Mr. Fuller. She's a little girl.”

Cassie glanced about briefly and wished she could shrink away, but there was nowhere to shrink to. They now had the attention of everyone in the room.

A third fellow joined them, introducing himself as the manager. Why couldn't Mr. Fuller move his complaint to the manager's office or wherever one would complain in private? He was explaining that she was a star, very famous, and to refuse her a room was criminal, but to top it off, “to send her to the Hotel Kentucky?
The Hotel Kentucky!
That nest of thieves and rounders!”

Cassie was mortified, absolutely mortified.

“Send a young girl amongst cads and pickpockets! What if—”

The manager snapped his fingers. Instantly Mr. Howe handed him a white pad and pen.

The manager looked at Cassie. “Miss Lockwood, on behalf of this hotel, I profusely apologize. My man made an innocent mistake, and I am extremely grateful nothing serious resulted. That does not negate the fact that it was a serious error. The dining room is now open.” He jotted something on the pad. “You and Mr. Fuller will please accept a complimentary breakfast, anything you wish. Mr. Fuller, rest assured the cost of the unused nights of that room will be fully refunded.” He jotted another note and thrust it at Mr. Howe.

Mr. Fuller fumed some more about incompetence, but the storm had apparently passed. He escorted her to the dining room. Her bags. Where were her bags? She saw them over beside the bellhop. The manager was speaking to him. And now the bellhop was taking her carpetbag away, leaving the gun bag. She so hoped peace was restored. But where was he taking her bag?

They were seated by a window. Cassie looked out on Market Street, where she had trudged down and up again. She secretly
hoped Mr. Fuller would be riding to the venue, and she could ride too.

Free breakfast. Perhaps her luck was turning for the better. But she was so churned up by the argument out there—not just her stomach but her head and heart and mind—that she could not eat. She ordered ham and eggs and forced a little something down—the ham slice was greasy and quite thin, not slab size like Mavis's. She knew she would be ravenous long before dinner, but she simply could not eat it all. Mr. Fuller plied her with questions the whole while and commented on how dainty and ladylike her appetite was, but her mind couldn't give him her full attention. This day was already terrible, and it had hardly started!

One little wish came true. Mr. Fuller ordered up a hansom, and Cassie and her gun bag both rode in style. They arrived in ample time to set up.

She was convinced that bringing Micah along next time would surely be worth the cost of a train ticket and hotel room. With Micah handling the guns, she would only need to hold her hand out and the correct gun would be plopped into it. Without Micah, after each set she had to go to her table, choose her next gun, reload if necessary, and return to her station. And now it was time.

When the contestants were introduced and Cassie stepped forward, raising an arm high in greeting to the audience, a curious thing happened. The churning feeling disappeared under an onslaught of that old familiar tingle. This was her world, what she had been born to literally, and she wished that Mr. Howe, the hotel clerk, were watching now, seeing how wrong he had been. She was about to give these folks a good show. It was what she knew how to do, and she was among the best of the best. She returned to her table, picked up her rifle, and stepped out to the line.

In the first set—stationary targets—most of the contestants scored well. Cassie and Mr. Fuller were the only two with perfect scores. Next were moving targets with handguns. Cassie could not find her rhythm and missed two. But Mr. Fuller missed one, so it was not a disaster. Not yet. They were still one and two. By the time they had broken for dinner, four participants had dropped out.

The meal for the contestants was set up in a little tent apart from the concessions serving the audience. Trays of sandwich ingredients were set out, and a young woman ladled soup for each person. Cassie built a roast beef sandwich with triple meat and as many pickles and onions as she could pile on. She tasted the horseradish. Very mild. She had to slather it on to get the full effect. Mr. Fuller sat near her and commented that the daintiness of her appetite had fled.

Mavis said that she made her horseradish every fall. Salt and grated root with a bit of alum to retard spoilage. Her horseradish made Cassie's eyes burn and her nose run. Lucas and Ransom ate it by the spoonful and didn't seem to notice its acrid pungency. The Engstroms. She wished she were there now, but she relished this competition too.

That afternoon her arm held up long enough to shoot two overhead sets, clay birds and, as night approached, some kind of sparkling fireworks balls. The balls screamed and left a smoke trail. If you hit them squarely, they exploded in a spray of sparks. Cassie loved that set! But she had missed three of the clay birds. She was now fourth, with Mr. Fuller in the lead.

She rode back to the hotel with him in his hansom. “Don't fret, Cassie,” he assured her. “I missed a few too. You're not out of the running by any means, and tomorrow will go better for you. Not as good as my tomorrow, I hope, but better than today.” And he chuckled.

As she walked into the lobby, two people near the fireplace
looked her way, smiled, and pointed. They must have been in the audience. She smiled back. The manager was standing by the desk. He smiled at her also. “Good evening, Miss Lockwood. I hear you did well. Mr. Howe will personally escort you to your room. Sleep well.” Mr. Howe jogged around the end of his desk, took her gun bag from her hand, and led the way to a lovely private suite. She realized they were trying to make up for their mistake, but she was going to enjoy this. An elegant suite, all for her alone. Her luck was indeed turning for the better.

The next day, she missed one of the stationary targets but none of the moving ones, and Mr. Fuller missed two of those. By noon she was in third place and Mr. Fuller had dropped to second. The leader was a young man from a town nearby who claimed he'd learned to shoot as a market hunter supplying restaurants with squirrels. For the fourth set, they released live birds, and three of Cassie's birds flew off to increase Louisville's pigeon population. Mr. Fuller missed one. The squirrel hunter missed four. In the end, Mr. Fuller was first, the squirrel hunter second, and Cassie third.

She received her winnings in cash. Although the hotel room was supplied by the organizers, her money barely covered her expenses. Had this hotel been added to her costs, she would have lost money.