Families in wagons had passed them going in the other direction and a number of men had passed as well, tipping their hats as they went past. Bonnie had told Dixie to not look directly at the men, but just nod in return.
“That’s the Idanha Hotel,” Bonnie said as they rode into the edge of the larger downtown area, pointing to a massive red brick and stone building that seemed to tower over the other buildings. It also had four turrets with flags on top of them and Dixie could only imagine the rooms in those rounded turrets.
“Wow,” was all Dixie could say.
Bonnie smiled. “Wait until you see the inside of the place. Duster loves staying there and playing poker, since there’s a major poker room in the basement. I like it as well, but it’s not as nice as the places I stay in San Francisco.”
Again, Dixie decided to not ask why Bonnie was going there. Instead Dixie just studied all the stone and wooden buildings making up the downtown area. Most of them were two stories tall and the center of the town seemed to be along a wide street she remembered as Main Street.
They took their horses to the stable behind the hotel and left them there, taking their saddlebags and moving around the edge of the building to the front entrance on the corner with Main Street.
The road was still dirt and very wide, but very smooth and not really dusty, which surprised Dixie. The sidewalk was mostly stone and around town there were many, many bicycles leaning against buildings and very few horses other than ones pulling large wagons.
The downtown area seemed to hum with a slow-moving business.
All the men seemed to be dressed in dark suits with vests and the woman were all in long cloth dresses, other than a few who were also dressed in leather riding pants as she and Bonnie were.
There was no doubt, standing there on those stone front steps, that Dixie was in the real past. Even the heat and the smells of the horses coming from different directions made it seem very, very real.
Bonnie took Dixie’s arm and turned her toward the front door. They went up the front stone stairs and through two massive wooden and glass doors. Inside, the huge space took Dixie’s breath away. The floors were a mosaic Italian marble tile, and the towering ceilings were polished oak layered in between stone columns.
It was designed to just flat be stunning and it stunned Dixie.
A number of comfortable-looking seating areas with couches and chairs were scattered through the large lobby on area carpets, giving the place a comfortable feel. Light streamed through the huge windows on two sides making the inside almost as bright as the summer day outside.
Numbers of men sat reading papers, and a few women sat knitting around the lobby. Again all the men wore dark suits with vests and most of them had watch chains hanging from the vest pockets. The woman all wore long dresses that clearly had petticoats under them.
On one side of the lobby to the back was a metal cage that seemed to be an elevator with the name Otis stamped above the door. Dixie had no idea elevators had been invented in 1901, let alone had made it to Idaho.
A grand marble staircase curved upward near the metal exposed elevator. It was wide and bright and six people could stand on one stair and not touch.
An ornate oak front desk ran along one wall on the far side of a massive field of marble tile with two men in suits behind it. On the wall behind the desk were a massive number of mail boxes for each room.
“How many rooms does this place have?” Dixie whispered to Bonnie as they walked across the tile toward the front desk.
“One hundred and forty,” Bonnie said. “All wonderful.”
The two men at the front desk smiled at them and greeted them.
“We have a reservation,” Bonnie said. “I assume for two suites. The names are Mrs. Bonnie Kendal and Mrs. Dixie Smith.”
Dixie was shocked for a second about how Bonnie had given her name, but then realized that having a pretend husband more than likely made her safer.
Both men smiled again and nodded. “We were expecting you. Both of your suites are ready and paid for completely.”
Duster had clearly set all this up ahead.
They both signed the huge ledger, Dixie making sure she signed it Mrs. W.D. Smith and beside her Bonnie nodded and said nothing.
The man behind the desk gave them their keys and told them their room numbers on the sixth floor. Then asked where their luggage might be to take to their rooms.
“It will be coming along in a few days. It was delayed, so we plan on doing a lot of shopping between now and then,” Bonnie said, laughing and smiling at the two men. “So thank you, we are fine.”
Dixie was impressed at how smoothly Bonnie said exactly the right things. Women of the time were expected to travel with large trunks and a lot of clothing.
Still carrying only their saddlebags, they turned and headed for the staircase and elevator.
“We don’t plan on riding that, do we?” Dixie asked.
Bonnie laughed. “Not a chance. Safety brakes are still a thing of the future.”
“Oh, thank you,” Dixie said.
The climb to the sixth floor was actually fairly easy. Maybe she was starting to get in better shape after the last two days.
Or maybe she was just too tired to care anymore. That seemed more likely.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
August 17th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
BRICE WAS STUNNED at everything about the big Idanha Hotel. The ornate lobby, the fact that it had an elevator, and now the suite he was to stay in on the sixth floor. For the time he was going to be in this suite, this must be costing a fortune. Yet Duster planned on keeping his corner suite on the sixth floor the entire time he was gone as well.
When Brice had asked him why, Duster had shrugged and said simply, “Never know when I might get back.”
The hallway at the top of the stairs on the sixth floor went off in two directions. It was carpeted with a flower-patterned carpet of blue and orange that actually fit the décor of oak columns and patterned wallpaper.
Each door was of solid oak and sconces dotted the walls between each door, clearly electrical. The hotel had named all the rooms on the sixth floor instead of numbering them. Each name was screwed on the door with a decorative bronze plaque.
Brice’s suite was on the south corner of the building and was called Lost River. The suite had a large living room area that extended out into the turret area with a view through the tall windows that looked out over parts of the growing town and the city.
The ceilings in the room were a good twelve feet high and a faint blue-flowered wallpaper covered the walls.
Since it was a corner room, lower parts of the windows opened on both sides of the room allowing a breeze to go through the room and keep it surprisingly cool.
An oak writing desk was tucked to one side of the living room and a large oak table filled the turret area. Brice had a hunch he would be using that table a great deal over the next two months.
The bed was a huge four-poster made out of polished oak that dominated the bedroom part of the suite and off that room was a washroom with a sink, a large metal tub, running water, and a toilet with a water tank high on the wall. For some reason that toilet actually in the room surprised Brice.
He clearly needed to learn a lot about when things were invented and what was new. In all the years of math, it had never once dawned on him that he needed to learn details of history for his future job.
Duster had left him to wash up and get settled in his room. Since Brice didn’t have many clothes, just one suit and vest, there wasn’t much to hang up or put in the big chest of drawers in the bedroom.
He stripped down to his underwear and used the sink and washcloth to wash off the trail grime as best he could. Later tonight he would take a bath to really get clean.
Then he dressed in his black jeans, a dress shirt, a vest, and his suit jacket. He actually looked exactly like every other gentleman on the street, which surprised him.
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He left his cowboy hat and oilcloth duster on the hanger near the front door.
He pulled on clean socks and his cowboy boots and was just standing when Duster knocked at his door. Duster’s suite was called Game Lake and was down the wide carpeted hallway on the west corner of the building.
Brice opened the door and Duster came in.
Duster had on a suit jacket as well and a dress shirt, but he also wore his cowboy hat and oilcloth duster, open down the front.
Duster just seemed comfortable with that look.
“Saddle bags?” Duster asked.
Brice pointed to them on the top of an oak table near the door. Other than unpack some clothes and empty out his trail food supplies, he hadn’t done anything with them yet.
“Carry about fifty dollars on you at all times and one of the keys,” Duster said. “Remember how far a simple dime goes in this time period.”
Brice nodded. Duster had given him that talk on the way here yesterday and he had already pulled the fifty dollars.
“The gold and the rest of the money you need to hide,” Duster said. “Nothing worse than being back here and out of money, trust me.”
Brice looked around, but the only places he saw right off to hide anything would be the obvious places.
“Dig the money and gold out and divide it up into three parts after you take out the fifty dollars,” Duster said. “If you need to cash in the gold, there’s an assay office down the street a few blocks.”
Brice took the money out of the hidden pocket of his saddlebag and spread it on the table. The pocket was designed into the saddlebag by Duster and was invisible to almost all searches.
“Leave a third in the saddlebag in the pocket,” Duster said.
Brice did that and Duster took the saddlebag and draped it over a chair near the bed in plain sight.
“Since it’s empty, not a lot of use to some thief and easy to identify.” Duster pointed to Brice’s initials that were stitched in clear letters on both sides of the saddlebag. “So no one would take it.”
That made perfect sense to Brice.
“Grab another third of that and follow me.”
Brice did as he was told, carrying a good five hundred in bills and some gold about the size of his large finger. From what Duster had told him, the money he was carrying would buy a couple really nice homes in this time period.
Duster pointed to the sink attached to the wall in the bathroom. “Take a look up under there.”
Brice got down on his knees on the blue tile of the bathroom and looked up at the underside of the sink. It was molded metal in the shape of the sink and not finished on the underside.
“See the lip around the edge?” Duster asked.
It took a moment for Brice to see it, but then he spotted how the front and side edges of the sink were curled up under the sink to give the sink a rounded bottom look, even to someone sitting low in the bathtub.
That rounded bottom edge that was turned up formed a nice gutter. Brice put the money in under that edge on the bathtub side of the sink, making sure it was tucked down tight.
“That’s pretty nifty,” Brice said, standing and brushing off his knees.
Duster nodded. “Both crooks and regular people don’t know that’s there, so never use it.”
“So what do I do with the last third?” Brice asked.
“We give it to the front desk to put in the safe,” Duster said. “They would expect us, as men of means renting these suites, to do exactly that. And also, anyone watching knows we have left no money in our room, so no point in breaking in.”
“I’m guessing all this came from hard knocks early on,” Brice said.
“More than I care to remember,” Duster said. “So let’s go give this money to the front desk and I’ll show you the best steaks in all of Boise about three blocks from here.”
“Sounds perfect,” Brice said, realizing he really was hungry.
He was finally starting to relax a little and realize just where he was. And that he was going to live for almost two months here in this room, in this town, in this time, in this timeline, while only two minutes and fifteen seconds passed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
August 15th, 1901
Dixie’s Timeline
AFTER DIXIE WASHED up and got ready to go out for dinner in her one good dress she had packed in her saddlebag, Bonnie had shown her how to hide two-thirds of her money and on the way to dinner they had checked the other third with the hotel front desk.
Bonnie had Dixie carry at least fifty dollars, but only ten of it in her purse, the rest of it in a garter under her dress. It was not a good idea for women to carry a lot of money in this time period, and ten dollars was almost too much, since dinner was going to cost them about fifty cents each in the hotel dining room overlooking Main Street.
Besides that, they would just charge the meal to their rooms.
Dixie’s suite was in the north corner of the building and was called Avalanche Creek while Bonnie’s suite was in the east corner of the sixth floor and was named Dutch Flat. For some reason, numbers didn’t suit this hotel.
The view from Dixie’s windows over the town and part of the valley was flat amazing. She had relaxed after getting cleaned up and seeing the wonderful suite. It would not be a hardship at all to stay for a few months in this suite and work on really understanding the math problems that Bonnie and Duster faced.
Bonnie said it was amazing how at times, simply sitting and thinking added more insight into a math problem than hours crunching numbers on major computers.
Dixie agreed with that.
The dining room of the hotel was a large, high-ceilinged room of cloth-covered tables and high chairs and waiters with tuxedos. Of the forty tables, only about a third were occupied during the dinner hour and no one was close enough to them that they had to worry about being overheard.
Plus the evening was warm, so Dixie decided that after Bonnie left she would have dinner in her room with the cross breeze between the windows.
They talked about some of the things Dixie needed to be careful of, and a few times with a waiter close by Dixie had to whisper a question to Bonnie about what was standard behavior for eye contact for a woman in this time in a restaurant, what was the right fork, or when to eat and not eat, including where to place her napkin.
It was one thing to eat in a formal restaurant in 2016, another to eat in one in 1901. But somehow she managed to not make any major mistakes and Bonnie assured her she would be fine.
After a wonderful dinner of fresh-caught mountain trout and creamy potatoes in a rich garlic sauce, Dixie felt almost human.
Back in the suite, Dixie took a long bath. The staff brought in three heated containers of water and it felt heavenly.
After her bath, she barely managed to crawl into bed before she fell asleep, the big featherbed holding her like a mother holds a child.
The sun streaming in the big windows woke her just after dawn. She managed to get her long red hair up on the top of her head and dressed in her riding clothes before Bonnie got there.
After a wonderful breakfast of ham and eggs served to them in Bonnie’s suite by the staff, they went shopping and bought Dixie a full wardrobe of dresses and shoes and petticoats.
Bonnie didn’t buy anything for herself, saying that she would do so when she reached San Francisco. And she told Dixie that she should save the clothes and they would take some of them with them to the mine to take back for future trips into the past.
That was the first time that Dixie had thought about going into the past more than this once. It sort of startled her and she decided she would think about that after the next two months.
She had a lot of things to think about. More than she could have ever imagined.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
August 18th, 1901
Brice’s Timeline
DUSTER HAD LEFT early in the morning, heading out to Arizona.
For the first two hou
rs, Brice had just sat in his room, feeling panicked and very much alone. Duster had done everything he could to help Brice get ready, including helping him shop for more men’s clothes of the time.
And for two days they had eaten in a different restaurant every meal, getting Brice used to the different places close to the hotel.
Now, Brice was alone in the past, in a different timeline, and he had to admit, scared to death.
Finally, after a couple of hours, he started to get hungry. He knew he needed to get some lunch. He had decided that for the first day or so he would just stay in the hotel and get used to things. He and Duster hadn’t even eaten in the hotel restaurant, but Duster had said it was good food.
Right now Brice decided that he needed to stay in the hotel, do some thinking, take some notes, get his nerves back.
Brice checked his pocket watch. It was almost eleven and the dining room downstairs would be opening for lunch soon. He and Duster had bought him a few journals that would be suited for a man taking notes. Duster also bought him a couple of the nicest fountain pens and refilling ink. And a few pencils as well.
After a few tries, Brice discovered, to his surprise, he liked the feel of the fountain pens. So he made sure one pen was full of ink, then took it and his journal down the six flights of stone stairs to the main lobby and into the dining room.
The big dining room was wonderful and comfortable and surprised him with its feel. It had very high ceilings and high windows framed in polished oak. The tables were covered in fine linen tablecloths and each table had a single flower in a crystal vase in the center.
A large fireplace dominated one wall, but wasn’t lit. More than likely that fireplace in the winter kept this room very comfortable.
The higher parts of the windows had been opened which allowed the air to move through the room, keeping it fairly cool even though the day outside promised to be warm.
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