Part 27 (2/2)

I halted the pony in front of a hotel.

Lorna muttered, ”What you doin'?”

”We need to get inside somewhere.”

She looked up at the building and said, ”What do dat word say?”

”It says 'hotel.' ”

”We got to pay out some money?”

”Maybe a little.”

”Ain' got much.”

I tried to speak brightly in spite of my growing dread. ”You can sell things in Independence. I've got some things to sell.” Did this include the pony and the cart? I wasn't sure my thieving could go quite that far. Mindful of Lorna's instructions, I got myself out of the cart and went into the hotel as if I were alone, trying with all my might not to look as panicky as I felt. I hadn't actually gotten Lorna to reveal her plan, had I? She followed me closely and kept her head down. On the scale of luxury, this establish- ment fell somewhere closer to the Humphry House, where Thomas and I had spent the night in Kansas City the year before, than to the Free State Hotel, in Lawrence, which was burned up during the sacking, but the staircase was complete, no looking through the risers to the cellar three or four floors below, and it did look as though it had private rooms. There was a man standing in a doorway across the room, and as we entered, he came forward. Lorna was close behind me, my bag in one of her hands and her bundle in the other. I saw that things were up to me, at least for now. I threw back my shoulders and looked around critically. I said, ”What would I pay for a room for the night? A private room, one night?”

The man pulled off his hat. ”Four dollars, ma'am.”

”Oh, my goodness, that's much-”

”And the gal is four bits. We got quarters out back.”

I could hear Lorna counting in her head as well as if she were doing it out loud. I drew myself up and looked around. She hadn't made a sound, had she? I thought, Here's one for you, Frank, and said, ”I will give you three dollars, sir, and my gal has to stay with me. She's deaf, you know, deaf as the doorpost, and she can't be with others because she can't make out what folks are telling her to do. I got to have her with me.”

Lorna neither moved nor made a sound, but only stood with her head lowered.

I went on. ”She's a good gal, but I just don't know what to do with her. Can't sell her, because she's useless to anyone else. But I swear!”

The man looked at me.

I went on, leaning toward him, but speaking loudly enough for Lorna to hear. ”My paw shot her. You can't see the scars because she's got her kerchief on. He didn't mean to, he was drunk, and he wasn't even a mean drunk in those days, but it was late at night, and she was just a girl, and she was getting up to get him a candle, and he had his rifle with him, and he was coming in, and he just shot her!” I put my hand on Lorna's arm and brought her forward, as if there were something to see, and the man looked at her with eager curiosity, as if he were seeing it, and then he nodded. He said, ”Well, ma'am, we are busy with this war-”

”My goodness me! I am so frightened, I feel that I must throw myself on your mercy for this one night!” I opened my reticule and pulled out three dollars. ”We are trying to get out of this country and back to Saint Louis.” I leaned forward again and lowered my voice. ”I have been disappointed in love, sir!”

The man stepped back. I stepped forward.

”A certain captain of the militia, whose name I shall not reveal, brought us out here by steamboat and then, when we got here, produced a wife and four children! I fled, but my hopes were far different than this, and I am low on funds.” I let him look into my reticule just for a second. ”Sir! I needn't tell you about the state of my feelings! I can see by the look on your face that you are in sympathy with me-” I turned away as if to hide my face, and caught a glimpse of Lorna. Her face was as sober and impenetrable as wood. I turned to the man again. ”My gal doesn't understand. I've had a hard time communicating these betrayals to her-”

At last, he was overwhelmed. He said, ”You ken have the room, ma'am.”

”The Lord himself looks down upon you with approval, and you shall be rewarded, I am sure.”

”I hope so, ma'am.”

I handed him the three dollars, and we went up the stairs. Three or four doors were open, and I peeked into the rooms. They were dirty, but they had beds and floors and solid walls. I chose the corner one, so that if we talked, it was less likely that anyone would hear us. We went in; I closed the door; Lorna set down our things. There was nothing for it now, and we both knew it. I felt so disheartened that I couldn't even speak. We looked hard at each other, and I saw that I had done it again, that is, taken a stranger for a companion and set out on a journey whose destination I had no notion of. I hadn't any idea what Lorna was thinking. I sat on the bed and Lorna sat on the chair, and we were quiet for a long time.

CHAPTER 26.

I Sully My Character [image]Reverses of fortune, in this land, are so frequent and unexpected, and the habits of the people are so migratory, that there are very many in every part of the Country, who, having seen all their temporal plans and hopes crushed, are now pining among strangers, bereft of wonted comforts, without friends, and without the sympathy and society, so needful to wounded spirits. -p. 257 I COULD NOT OVERCOME the conviction that Lorna would be recognized in Independence by someone who had seen her at the plantation, and so I left her in the room, sitting in the chair, wedged against the door, while I went out to dispose of the pony and sell my belongings. The hotel was around the corner from a livery stable, so I put the pony and the cart there for a while-fifty cents. Not far from there was an outfitter's store; they were everywhere about and selling every item, new and old, from wheels and wagons down to fine linen handkerchiefs and lengths of French lace. There were even picture frames that still contained painted miniatures and daguerreotypes of their owners, a gallery of portraits of those who themselves had gone on to unknown fates but here awaited some sort of final disposition of their images. There was far more than I had ever seen in Horace's store in Quincy, and that was a measure, perhaps, of all the things that men and women thought they couldn't do without when they left their homes in the east and then decided that they must do without before they headed onto the prairie, then the desert and the mountains beyond. I wondered if the backtrackers heading east against the flow ever came through again, looking for their old things, trying to remake, if only in part, the life they'd thought to leave behind but now hoped to take up afresh.

The proprietor stood behind his counter, smiling. When he saw I had goods rather than money, his face fell. Ah. My goods. There were few enough of them. I pulled out the dress. He looked at it impa.s.sively and set it aside. I laid the four books on the table, three of Thomas's and my Miss Beecher. He opened them and saw that the pages were stiff and discolored. He noted that Miss Beecher herself had written me a note in the flyleaf of her treatise: ”To my student, with all best wishes,” and he was unimpressed. He set the book aside. From my pocket, I pulled Thomas's watch. It was warm, as I had been holding it. I set it on the counter, and he picked it up, opened the case, looked at it, shook it, noted the time, and compared it with his own watch, which he took out of his watch pocket. All he said was, ”Right time,” then he set it aside, and I had the sense of it apart from me, cooling. All the same, I didn't grieve for it then. It was heavy with too many memories and inner pangs. I felt almost relieved to give it up.

And I was relieved to give up the pistol, the cartridges I had made, and the percussion caps. I pulled them out of the bag and laid them gently on the counter, and for the first time the proprietor looked pleased. He was a western man, after all, and he ran his hand over the barrel and the stock, then he touched the hammer and the trigger with his forefinger. He said, ”Don't git too many of these in. Most folks are wanting to keep theirs.”

”It's a black dragoon.”

”I know that. Had two of 'em in. Handy thing.”

”Yes, folks say so.”

”An't everything it's cracked up to be, though.”

”Nothing is.”

”That's the truth, too.”

He looked over the goods again, calculating. He picked up Thomas's watch, set it down, ran his hand over the pistol, looked into Mrs. Beecher. Finally, he said, ”These guns is twelve dollars new.”

”You can see that I've kept it very clean. I never let it get fouled.”

”It's your own weapon, ma'am?”

”It's my own weapon.”

”How often you got to change the time on this watch?”

”Once every two weeks, by about five minutes.”

”Is that so?”

”Yes, sir.”

He looked at the watch again, weighed it in his hand. Then he looked over the array and said, ”I got forty dollars for ya, and that's only because it looks to me like you're all by yourself out here and these are your things.”

”They are.”

”This is what you do, ma'am. You take my forty dollars, and then you get yourself by stage to Lexington, away from the war here. That should cost you about two dollars or so. Then you get on the steamboat there, and you go on down the river and get away from this place, because I'm telling you right now that all of K.T. and western Missouri is going to be burning in a month, and if I didn't have me so many goods here, and such a big establishment, I'd be leaving myself, but I sent away my wife and daughter, back to Illinois. This an't no place for you, ma'am.” He handed me the forty dollars.

I said, ”I will certainly take your advice.”

”Remember, I told you. Everything them hotheads say they want, they're going to make sure they git it.”

”Yes, sir.” I turned my back on everything I owned and walked out of the store.

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