Free Air Part 25

"From New York. Is there another hotel----"

"Nah, there ain't another hotel! Oh! So you come from New York, do you?

Sn.o.bs, that's what N' Yorkers are. I'll show you some rooms. They'll be two dollars apiece, and breakfast fifty cents extra."

The woman led them upstairs. Claire wanted to flee, but---- Oh, she couldn't drive any farther! She couldn't!

The floor of her room was the more bare in contrast to a two-foot-square splash of gritty ingrain carpet in front of the sway-backed bed. On the bed was a red comforter that was filthy beyond disguise. The yellow earthenware pitcher was cracked. The wall mirror was milky. Claire had been spoiled. She had found two excellent hotels since Yellowstone Park.

She had forgotten how badly human beings can live. She protested:

"Seems to me two dollars is a good deal to charge for this!"

"I didn't say two dollars. I said three! Three each for you and your pa.

If you don't like it you can drive on to the next town. It's only sixteen miles!"

"Why the extra dollar--or extra two dollars?"

"Don't you see that carpet? These is our best rooms. And three dollars---- I know you New Yorkers. I heard of a gent once, and they charged him five dollars--five dol-lars!--for a room in New York, and a boy grabbed his valise from him and wanted a short-bit and----"

"Oh--all--right! Can we get something to eat?"

"Now!?"

"We haven't eaten since noon."

"That ain't my fault! Some folks can go gadding around in automobuls, and some folks has to stay at home. If you think I'm going to sit up all night cooking for people that come cha.s.sayin' in here G.o.d knows what all hours of the day and night----! There's an all-night lunch down the street."

When she was alone Claire cried a good deal.

Her father declined to go out to the lunch room. The chill of the late ride was still on him, he croaked through his door; he was s.h.i.+vering; he was going right to bed.

"Yes, do, dear. I'll bring you back a sandwich."

"Safe to go out alone?"

"Anything's safe after facing that horrible---- I do believe in witches, now. Listen, dear; I'll bring you a hot-water bag."

She took the bag down to the office. The landlady was winding the clock, while her husband yawned. She glared.

"I wonder if I may have some hot water for my father? He has a chill."

"Stove's out. No hot water in the house."

"Couldn't you heat some?"

"Now look here, miss. You come in here, asking for meals and rooms at midnight, and you want a cut rate on everything, and I do what I can, but enough's enough!"

The woman stalked out. Her husband popped up. "Mustn't mind the old girl, lady. Got a grouch. Well, you can't blame her, in a way; when Bill lit out, he done her out of four-bits! But I'll tell you!" he leered.

"You leave me the hot-water biznai, and I'll heat you some water myself!"

"Thank you, but I won't trouble you. Good night."

Claire was surprised to find a warm, rather comfortable all-night lunch room, called the Alaska Cafe, with a bright-eyed man of twenty-five in charge. He nodded in a friendly way, and made haste with her order of two ham-and-egg sandwiches. She felt adventurous. She polished her knife and fork on a napkin, as she had seen people do in lunches along the way. A crowd of three rubbed their noses against the front window to stare at the strange girl in town, but she ignored them, and they drifted away.

The lunchman was cordial: "At a hotel, ma'am? Which one? Gee, not the Tavern?"

"Why yes. Is there another?"

"Sure. First-rate one, two blocks over, one up."

"The woman said the Tavern was the only hotel."

"Oh, she's an old sour-face. Don't mind her. Just bawl her out. What's she charging you for a room?"

"Three dollars."

"Per each? Gee! Well, she sticks tourists anywheres from one buck to three. Natives get by for fifty cents. She's pretty fierce, but she ain't a patch on her husband. He comes from Spokane--n.o.body knows why--guess he was run out. He takes some kind of dope, and he cheats at rummy."

"But why does the town stand either of them? Why do you let them torture innocent people? Why don't you put them in the insane hospital, where they belong?"

"That's a good one!" her friend chuckled. But he saw it only as a joke.

She thought of moving her father to the good hotel, but she hadn't the strength.

Claire Boltwood, of Brooklyn Heights, went through the shanty streets of Pellago, Montana, at one A.M. carrying a sandwich in a paper bag which had recently been used for salted peanuts, and a red rubber hot-water bag filled with water at the Alaska Cafe. At the Tavern she hastened past the office door. She made her father eat his sandwich; she teased him and laughed at him till the hot-water bag had relieved his chill-pinched back; she kissed him boisterously, and started for her own room, at the far end of the hall.

The lights were off. She had to feel her way, and she hesitated at the door of her room before she entered. She imagined voices, creeping footsteps, people watching her from a distance. She flung into the room, and when the kindled lamp showed her familiar traveling bag, she felt safer. But once she was in bed, with the sheet down as far as possible over the loathly red comforter, the quiet rustled and snapped about her, and she could not relax. Sinking into sleep seemed slipping into danger, and a dozen times she started awake.

But only slowly did she admit to herself that she actually did hear a fumbling, hear the k.n.o.b of her door turning.

"W-who's there?"

"It's me, lady. The landlord. Brought you the hot water."

"Thanks so much, but I don't need it now."

"Got something else for you. Come to the door. Don't want to holler and wake ev'body up."

At the door she said timorously, "Nothing else I want, thank you.

D-don't bother me."

"Why, I've brought you up a sandwich, girlie, all nice and hot, and a nip of something to take the chill off."

"I don't want it, I tell you!"

"Be a sport now! You use Pete right, and he'll use you right. Shame to see a lady like you not gettin' no service here. Open the door. Dandy sandwich!" The k.n.o.b rattled again. She said nothing. The heel of her palm pressed against the door till the molding ate into it. The man was snorting:

"I ain't going to all this trouble and then throw away a good sandwich.

You asked me----"