24 Laramie

“SUNSET. What an awful time to arrive in a frontier town. We have luggage and cargo. We cannot simply hide in the hotel.”

I don’t suppose you made a reservation.

“Demon Ramie! My friend. I am thankful for your company.” We heard a gunshot from across what passed for a street and down a hundred yards.

“Don’t let it startle you, ladies. Sometimes the boys get a little wound up at night when they get into town. Nothing like it used to be.” We looked at the speaker and found a short man with a beard and slouched hat jammed down on his head. “How about if I take you to which ever bawdy house you are headed to. I would happily be your first customer.”

“I beg your pardon. We will be going to no bawdy houses and will not require your assistance. We will take a room at a hotel,” Theresa said. I looked up and down the street.

We’d better stay here at the station hotel. I don’t think anything else is safe. What year is it?

“Twelfth May 1870. We are in Laramie City. We need to get off the street.”

No kidding. Hustle the girls into the station. There’s a hotel entrance from inside.

“Where is your husband then, girl?” the short man pressed on.

Knife? Gun?

“Boot and bag. You drive.” I took control of Miranda’s body and stepped between shorty and Theresa. My hand slipped into the bag and found the comforting grip of the Colt.

“If you wish to earn a nickel, I will pay you to carry our baggage into the station,” I said in a growl. Miranda is a lot shorter than me, but she was still tall enough to look him in the eye.

“A nickel to carry the little satchels of the fine ladies?” he mocked, looking at the bags we carried.

“Not these. Those.” I gestured behind us where a stevedore was still piling our dozen trunks on the platform. The man’s eyes got round and he turned and stomped away. “Now inside, both of you,” I commanded. “This is not a safe place.” Katie jerked around and looked at me.

“Yes, Husband Ramie,” she whispered. She took Theresa’s hand and led her into the station and to the hotel desk. I let Theresa talk her way into a hotel room, fending off the initial response that this was not a whorehouse and there were no rentals except to travelers. Theresa simply talked over the clerk and told him we would need our dozen trunks and the three crates in the freight secured for the night so that we could move them to JB Mercantile in the morning.

“It’s closed,” the clerk said. “Good old Johnny got hisself shot tupping old man Arnold’s missus. Soldiers boarded up the store.”

“It will be open tomorrow,” Theresa said. “I own it. Good old Johnny was my father and got exactly what he deserved. There will be no more arguments, boy. Give us our key and see to the luggage.”

The desk clerk was so taken aback by Theresa’s imperious tone that he immediately provided the key and called a porter to take care of the trunks, promising they would be placed under lock and key. I promised that I would inspect them after dinner. We went to our room on the other side of the building.

“The food smells good,” Katie said as we passed through the dining area.

“We can come back for dinner once we have seen our room. I want to check on just how secure our freight is,” I said. Theresa unlocked the door and we went in. As soon as the door closed behind us, Katie flung her arms around my neck and kissed me thoroughly. I could tell Miranda enjoyed the affection as much as I did.

“Do you two need your own room?” Theresa snapped. “If you bounce the bed all night I shall be cross.”

“Sister, we will be quiet,” I laughed. “I think.” Katie did not release my hand.

“Why does everyone think we are whores?” Theresa complained.

“In this town, women are married, too young to marry, or working on their backs,” I said. “We picked a fine time to arrive in this hell-hole. It won’t be civilized for another five years.”

“You know a lot about it all of a sudden.”

“I’ve been studying, Theresa,” I said. I removed my sister’s shawl and petted her hair, “Let us not argue. We have journeyed far and are tired. And if Katie’s stomach is any indication, we are hungry, as well.” Katie’s stomach was grumbling loudly. That broke the tension and we laughed. “Let us go back to the dining room and eat,” I said. “Then I must check on our freight.”

“Miranda, you are not going off on your own, are you?” Theresa asked. “I am sorry I have been snappish, but I am frightened. Please be careful.”

“Thank you, dear sister. Food first, and then we will see what happens.”

In 1870, the Thompson House hotel and train station was the only dependable dining room in Laramie. Certainly, food and drink were available in every establishment along Front Street, but ladies did not enter there unless they were working. We had a slice of roast, a potato, and drinking water. As we ate, I rummaged in Miranda’s memories, soaking up all she’d done in the past six months and their correspondence with the circuit judge in Cheyenne and the captain at Fort Sanders, who had ordered the mercantile secured. Miranda had liquidated the entire homestead in a box stock in Omaha and packed everything that could be shipped with them to Laramie. Another shipment would arrive next week.

We saw only two other women in the dining hall, both with husbands and children. No wonder we stuck out like a sore thumb. I wished Jason had been able to meet us at the station. Our letters had been loving, but he was patrolling the tracks into Utah as workers erected telegraph lines and secured fuel and water stations.

When we had finished our dinner, the girls returned to our room and I approached the chief porter.

“I would like to inspect where you have stored our freight,” I said. He nodded and got to his feet. I felt like every eye was on me as I left the safety of the station.

“Always got to store things when the night train arrives,” he said. “Nobody wants to travel at night.” We got to a rickety building at the end of the platform and he unlocked the padlock. I could see two of our trunks in the dim light through the door.

“And all our trunks and crates are in there?”

“Go in and check if you like,” he said.

Right. Who wants to go in the spooky cellar first to see if there’s anyone waiting for us? As if I hadn’t seen any teen slasher movies.

“Lock it,” I said. “If it is not all there when we collect it in the morning, I will know who to find.” I was answered by a groan and turned to find the porter slumping to the ground as a black-gloved hand clamped down over my mouth. He wrapped an arm around me, trapping both my arms. I couldn’t reach either my gun or my knife.

“Be silent and it will only hurt a little,” the man growled at me. “Cry out and I will make it hurt for a long time.” Miranda was screaming terror in my head and I tried to silence her so I could think. I could scarcely breathe in the corset she was wrapped in with his arms pulling me to him. He gave me a shove into the storehouse. I fell and turned to see him silhouetted against the opening of the door. I was scrambling to get to my gun when a shadow sprang from beside me, taking substance as I heard a wolf’s growl. The stranger fell back as the wolf sank teeth into his throat. A total of only seconds passed from the opening of the lock to the dull thud as the dark man’s body hit the dirt.

The porter groaned and I moved toward the open door. The wolf leapt the tracks and turned to look at me, gore dripping from his jowl. Then he was gone. Once I was certain the porter was coming around, I hurried back to the hotel.

A wolf had saved me. My throat burned.

“Was that your demon spirit form?” Miranda whispered in my mind.

That was a fucking wolf!

I’d abandoned control of Miranda’s body a step from the door and she’d stumbled against it, adrenalin still coursing through our veins. I hated wolves. Why had this one come to my rescue? And it wasn’t the first time. I remembered the wolf killing and leaving a deer the first time I hunted in Miranda’s body. I’d seen it out the corner of my eye pacing our wagon. What did it want from me, and why was it apparently a friend of Miranda’s and an enemy in my own time?

“Friend Ramie, please stay with me. I am as frightened as you.”

I know, Miranda. I am worried that the body I left in my own time is still vulnerable. I thought I saw a wolf when the raven called me to you. I still function in my own time when I travel to you, but I am not as alert.

“You will do well, Ramie. I know you will. Now let us greet our sisters. Katie was so excited to see you. She knows when you arrive as well as I do. Will you not give her pleasure tonight?”

I do not wish to simply use your body for the pleasure it can offer me.