ALGERMISSEN, JO ANN - GOLDEN BIRD by bird.txt golden

Author:bird.txt golden [golden, bird.txt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The earliest departure for Galveston?” The ticket agent peered over the top of his wire-framed spectacles. “One cabin for you and the missus?”

“Two cabinsr—side by side,” Jack replied, glancing over his shoulder at Laura Lee.

She’d scarcely spoken a word since they’d disembarked at the Canal Street wharf. Only her face gave any clues to her private thoughts. Her eyes narrowed as they searched the faces of other pedestrians and widened with obvious interest as she peered into shop windows. Union soldiers loitering on a street corner pleated her brow with apparent dismay; her nose had a decidedly upward tilt as she passed them.

New Orleans, an occupied city, must remind her vividly of a past she’d rather forget, he decided. But the only comment she’d made was that this wasn’t the city she remembered visiting with her family before the war.

He’d kept an eye out for a suspicious-looking character who might be the hired gun who’d shot at them.

The ticket agent raised a dark eyebrow, licked his thumb and turned the page of the departure ledger. His gnarled finger skimmed downward. “Mmm-hmm. Nothing available today or tomorrow. The Matadora de parts at noon Wednesday. Two cabins available, but they aren’t next to each other. How does that suit you?”

Two nights, Jack thought uneasily. He had misgivings about staying so long in New Orleans, but he knew he’d rather face Luke Reynolds’s gunslinger than hand Laura Lee over to his brother. “Book passage on the Matadora.”

Two days, Laura Lee mused. She, too, had mixed feelings about this temporary reprieve. It worded her to be in the same city as the would-be assassin, but it delighted her to have two days alone with Jack.

Jack paid the man for their tickets and went to her side. He took the bird cage in one hand and her carpetbag in the other. “See anybody familiar?”

“No one from Blytheville.”

“Arrrk!” Captain Bligh batted his wings as though he were preparing for flight. “Cracker! Arrrk!”

“We’ll feed you when we get to the hotel,” Jack told him.

“Watch out, Jack.” She grinned and took the cage from him. “Gratitude isn’t the Captain’s middle name. He bites the hand that feeds him.”.

“It won’t be the first time on this trip I’ve been bitten,” he said as he held the door open for her. “I don’t know about you, but the Captain isn’t the only one around here who’s hungry. Is the St. Charles Hotel agreeable with you?”

“It’s frightfully expensive.”

She’d guarded her pennies too long to be extravagant. For the three dollars it cost to stay there for a night she could buy several bags of seed. But at least they wouldn’t have to pay extra for meals; they were included. Automatically she tightened the strings of her purse.

“Don’t worry about money, Laura Lee.” He smiled down at her and winked lazily. “No more sleeping on your bedrOOm floor for me.”

Laura Lee returned his smile and said lightly,

aren’t worded about me running off in the middle of the night?”

“No. Should I be?”

He

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