Killdeer Mountain by Dee Brown

Author:Dee Brown [Brown, Dee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7428-6
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-10-03T17:22:00+00:00

9

THE HOTEL COMO’S UPSTAIRS hallway had no lights of any sort. It was like a dark cave except for a tiny glow of yellow candlelight seeping from beneath one of the badly fitting doors. What I had in mind after leaving Joseph O’Hara’s living quarters was to return to my room and get to work on some neglected dispatches to the Saint Louis Herald and let them know where I was. All pay above expenses that I received from that ungenerous newspaper came from measured inches of what the editor chose to print, and if I did not compose some letters describing my travels and file them on one of the downriver boats, my employer might soon discontinue even the expense allowance.

I was guided to my numbered room by that pale beam of light on the hall floor, and not until I’d let myself in with the door key did I remember that the room with the light was the one assigned to Kathleen Hardesty. Through the outer walls of my room the sounds of saloons and dance halls along the street easily penetrated—a tinkling piano, raucous voices, a female singer, an occasional shout. The evening was not yet waning in the newly-wrought boomtown of Fort Rawley.

Groping in the darkness of the room I found a tallow candle atop the crude washstand. Not a match could I find, however, neither loose in my pockets nor in the tin box in my bag. Needing a light to work by, I crossed the hall and knocked on Mrs. Hardesty’s door. Her interrogating voice sounded frightened, but when she recognized mine she opened the door quickly.

“Sam Morrison,” she cried, “I’m so relieved to see you.”

Her welcome was like that for someone who has been absent over a long period of time, and I must have shown my surprise. “Something strange has been happening,” she added. “I’ve had the oddest feeling all evening, and except for you I know no one in this hotel to tell of it.” She was talking too fast, and realizing this, she brought herself up short. “I’m sorry, Sam. Come in and I’ll explain.” She stood aside until I’d entered; then closed the door and dropped a wooden bar into a latch. Her red hair was done up in some kind of nightcap, and she was wearing a green silken robe. She offered me the single straight chair and sat on the edge of the narrow bed. There was not much room for visitors in the Hotel Como’s cubbyholes.

“Have you had the feeling, Sam, that someone was following you, watching you?” Under the candlelight her green eyes were very intense, with dancing pinpoints of brightness in them.

“Often, during the war,” I said.

“In the dining room this evening I felt eyes watching me. When I looked around very casually several times, I could catch no one at it, saw no one in fact who might want to stare at me. But then when I went for a walk along the wooden sidewalk I had the same sensation.

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