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The ghost tour started at Saloon Number Ten. Gertrude had never seen Calvin so eager to part with his money. He didn’t even suggest she pay for her own ticket.
A remarkably friendly tour guide named Diane told them that Saloon Number Ten was haunted by none other than the great Wild Bill Hickok.
Gertrude made a loud pfft sound.
Calvin gave her a dirty look.
“What? If Wild Bill were haunting this place, do you really think he’d put up with that perpetrator?”
“I think you mean impersonator, and yes, I think he’d love it. Legend is that Hickok had a bit of an ego, and imitation is the highest form of flattery.”
There were no sightings that night, though—of the famous gunslinger or his impersonator.
And then they were on to stop number two. As they went, Gertrude surveyed their tourmates. A family of five, the youngest of which was being carried and was very much not interested in this tour. A couple who might have been on their honeymoon. The woman kept admiring her left hand and taking pictures of her beau instead of the stuff they were supposed to be looking at. An older couple holding hands brought up the rear. She was surprised by their numbers. She’d expected a bigger crowd.
She stopped walking and turned away from the street. “Uh, Calvin? Why are we going by the Bullock?”
“I have no idea, but come on. If they get too far ahead of us, I won’t be able to hear the guide.
She pointed at the giant brick building the guide was now completely past. “But that’s the Bullock! That’s the whole reason we came!”
“Maybe not the whole reason,” Calvin said and then turned and walked toward the group.
What on earth? He was leaving her! She looked at the hotel, looked at the receding backs of her tourmates, and then back to the hotel. She didn’t know what to do. She was so mad at Calvin that she could spit.
He turned and looked over his shoulder. He waved his arm in the direction they were headed. “Come on, Gert!”
She growled and then followed them across the street. By the time she’d caught them, they were stopped and staring up at a fancy brick building with hotel written down the side in giant letters. “It looks like a castle!”
Calvin chuckled. “You sound like a little kid.”
She gave him a dirty look. “What?”
“It wasn’t an insult. You look like a little girl gazing up at a beautiful castle that belongs to a beautiful princess.”
She wasn’t sure how to respond to this.
“Let’s go inside!” Diane chirped.
Gertrude followed the crowd into the giant building.
“This Victorian was built in 1895 ...”
Calvin groaned. “I thought it would be older.”
She snickered. What a weirdo Calvin was.
“... today it is a restaurant and bar.” She started up some scary-looking stairs and ended up in a hallway that had been partially demolished.
“Wait,” Gertrude said quietly. “It says hotel on the side of the building, but it’s not a hotel anymore?”
“I’m not sure it was ever an ordinary hotel,” Calvin muttered behind his hand. “I think it was a brothel.”
“A brothel,” Gertrude repeated. “So this is where the dirty doves lived?”
Calvin laughed. “I think you mean soiled doves and yes, I think so.”
As they walked down the hallway, their tour guide detailed the violent crimes that had taken place there. Gertrude scrunched up her nose.
“What’s the matter?”
Gertrude was touched by his concern. “It’s just a bit much. I want to put bad guys away, not make them famous by talking about them a hundred years later.”
“Hmph. That was pretty profound, Gert.”
“I can be profound.”
He chuckled and kept walking.
“And while I’m being profound, I don’t think they should be called dirty doves or soiled doves.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t. That’s why.”
He chuckled. “And the profoundness comes to a screeching halt.”
“That’s enough out of you, buster!”
“Quiet in the back, please!” Diane said sweetly.