It was a very fine hotel. But in the dining room door were several bullet holes…

Mary and I washed dishes and helped make beds and wait on tables… Ma was always tired, Pa was always busy, and there was some kind of disagreement between us and the partners in the hotel. -Pioneer Girl manuscript

Five

Chloe felt bleary as she and Kari drove to Burr Oak, Iowa, early the next morning. The phone had jerked her from sleep in the night, and she’d been sure it was Roel­ke, or someone calling with bad news about Roel­ke. When she heard Kari softly singing “Puff the Magic Dragon,” it had taken several groggy minutes to figure out that Astrid or Anja had called Mommy after a nightmare.

Then came thunderstorms. It rained all night. It was raining as they crossed the Mississippi and entered Iowa. It was still raining when they arrived at the hamlet of Burr Oak.

“Not auspicious,” Kari muttered. A flicker of lightning cracked the sodden gray sky.

Chloe tried to pretend that the world was not soggy and dismal. “We’re here. We should at least see the place.” She squinted through the water pouring down the windshield. Between the wipers’ frantic slaps she caught glimpses of something large and colorful down the street. “Park down by the Laura Land Tour bus.”

Kari eased to a stop beside an old red brick bank building that served as visitor center. “Now what?”

“Wait here,” Chloe said. “I’ll see what’s what.”

She was dripping by the time she dashed inside, purchased tickets, and flung herself back into the car. “A tour started a few minutes ago,” she reported. “It’s in that white building across the street.” Squinting, she made out the letters on another sign: Masters Hotel. To the left, a very twentieth-century bar had been built inches away from the small, unassuming structure.

They found the Laura Land Tour group crowded inside the hotel’s front room. Alta, wearing a yellow slicker over today’s red gingham pioneer attire, lifted a hand in greeting. Hazel Voss, who’d acquired a calico bonnet of her own, beamed when she recognized Chloe. Jayne was present as well, looking bored, her ridiculous high heels crusted with mud. Surely Jayne isn’t actually bouncing down the highway in a repurposed school bus with the Laura Land hoi polloi, Chloe thought. Jayne was probably caravanning along the same route, as were Kari and Chloe, the lovely woman with Asian features from Pepin, and a few others.

“Welcome,” the tour guide called. She was a petite woman wearing jeans and a Western-style blouse, maybe thirty-five, with auburn hair captured in an impressive French braid. “I’m Marianne Schiller, site director. I was just explaining that in 1876 the Ingalls family moved to Burr Oak from Walnut Grove, Minnesota, after the grasshopper plagues wiped out their crops.”

Chloe nodded, wishing again that Pa Ingalls had moved his family in an easy-to-follow line. They went from Wisconsin to Kansas, she recited mentally. From Kansas to … well, as she now knew, back to Wisconsin. From there, on to Minnesota. And from Minnesota to … well, as she now knew, here to Iowa.

“The family was destitute,” Marianne was saying. “Some friends invited Pa and Ma to help them run this hotel. This is the only childhood home of Laura Ingalls Wilder still standing on its original location.”

Chloe felt a frisson of anticipation.

“There was a saloon right next door,” Marianne continued. “Laura and Mary were afraid of the rough men who gathered there.”

“I do not remember this place,” a dark-haired man with a delightful French accent said. “It was not in the television, I think?”

Jayne sniffed derisively.

Marianne smiled, ignoring Jayne. “No, neither the television series or the books included this period.”

A woman raised her hand. “How long did the family live in the hotel?”

“Just a few months,” Marianne said. “They moved out, and Pa tried to find carpentry work. Pa and Ma weren’t happy having the girls exposed to men swearing and drinking. Also, although Burr Oak boomed in the 1850s, by the time the Ingalls family arrived there just wasn’t enough business. There was another big hotel across the street where the trailer park is now. The stage stopped there first, so that hotel captured most of the travelers.”

Chloe leaned toward the window, trying to conjure a big hotel where, as promised, a trailer park now stood. She was sorry she’d looked.

“And once the trains came through Iowa, bypassing Burr Oak … ” The site director’s voice trailed away. “Well. Let’s see the rest of the building.”

The hotel, built into a hill, was larger than it first appeared. The kitchen and dining area were in the lowest level. “This is where Mary and Laura helped wash dishes and wait on tables,” Marianne explained.

“How old was Laura?” Chloe asked. Between the family’s many moves, the episodes Laura omitted from the Little House series, and her own less-than-rudimentary math skills, she was having trouble keeping track.

“Nine,” Marianne said. “And they all worked hard. Laura said that Ma was always tired and Pa was always busy.”

They climbed to the top floor. The tiny bedrooms featured some lovely quilts.

“Did any of these belong to the family?” Chloe asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Marianne said. “The family never returned to visit Burr Oak. But come back downstairs and I’ll show you our treasure.”

Marianne’s treasure consisted of three beautifully embroidered handkerchiefs, carefully preserved beneath glass. “These were Laura’s,” she said proudly. “The museum in Mansfield gifted them to us when our site opened nine years ago.”

“Ooh.” Chloe reached toward the glass, almost touching it. She wanted badly to sense something of Laura. She longed to know that Laura had been okay here despite serving food and scrubbing dishes. But nothing came through.

Alta Allerbee thanked Marianne for the personal tour. “Now,” Alta continued, “I’ve made arrangements for my group to eat an early lunch at the Black Crow tavern next door.”

Alta’s Laura Lookers pulled up hoods and gathered umbrellas. Chloe found herself next to the Asian woman from Pepin. “Nice to see you again,” she said.

“After what happened, I almost went home,” the other woman confessed. She had a jaw-length cap of glossy black hair, dark eyes, and porcelain skin. Her voice was soft, with a lovely accent Chloe hadn’t noticed in the frenzy the day before, suggesting that English was her second language. “But I changed my mind. I’ve planned a driving tour of all the homesites, and I’m registered for Looking For Laura.” She extended one hand. “My name is Haruka Minari.”

Chloe introduced herself and Kari as they all stepped out to the porch. The steady drumbeat of raindrops was louder here, and thunder growled every few minutes. “I’m sure we can tag along with the tour group,” Kari said. “Want to join us, Haruka?”

“I suspect that the tavern’s menu has very few vegetarian options,” Chloe said, ‘very few’ being a euphemism for ‘absolutely none.’ “You go ahead. I’m going to—”

The Black Crow’s door slammed open, and none other than Wilbur Voss lurched outside. Alta, who’d been leading her crew, stumbled away from him … which caused a chain reaction that backed one poor woman into an ankle-deep puddle.

“Remember Hazel, who ditched her husband and sent him home?” Chloe asked Kari. “Evidently he didn’t make it to Peoria.”

“Hazel?” Wilbur hollered. He rocked on his feet, considering the raincoated people standing like statues in the downpour. “Hazel!”

Chloe flashed on Marlon Brando looking for Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, and couldn’t stifle a snigger. Wilbur, pudgy and bald and pretty thoroughly soaked, was no young Marlon Brando.

Hazel pushed through the knot of bewildered people. “Wilbur!” she cried. Her cotton bonnet, dark with rain, drooped over her forehead. “What on earth has come over you?”

“Come back with me, Hazel,” Wilbur begged. “I sh-should never have let you go.”

Chloe’s amusement faded. This was embarrassing. Pathetic, really. And worrisome. Wilbur may have fallen apart when Hazel left him, but how would he react once he sobered up?

Hazel glanced over her shoulder, looking mortified. Then she shoved Wilbur toward the bar. Another patron obligingly held the door open until the Vosses disappeared inside. The other Laura Land guests exchanged glances, shrugged, and followed.

“Well, go enjoy your burger,” Chloe told her sister. She suspected that Hazel’s fellow travelers would keep an eye on her and intervene if Wilbur got abusive. “I’m going to see if Marianne can spare a few minutes.”

Kari and Haruka plunged from the porch and splashed after the group. Before turning away, Chloe eyed a gray car parked in front of the bar, remembering the sedan that had sped from the lot the evening before, back by Lake Pepin. Now that she knew Wilbur Voss had not obligingly driven his belligerent self back to Peoria after Hazel decamped, she couldn’t help wondering if it had been his car she’d seen in the dusk. She was obsessed with the need to keep Miss Lila’s quilt safe, but … maybe she had other things to worry about. Like a controlling husband angry at a female stranger—her—who dared intervene when he was ordering his wife about.

Roel­ke was right, Chloe thought. Pushing herself into the middle of Hazel and Wilbur’s argument back at the Pepin Wayside had probably only pissed Wilbur off more than he already was. And Wilbur was proving himself a man who didn’t like being dissed.

Marianne emerged from the Masters Hotel with the French visitor, who was clutching a list of questions. Finally he thanked her and walked away. Marianne glanced at Chloe as she locked the door. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No problem. Do you get many foreign visitors?”

“More than you might expect. The TV show is huge in Europe, and the books are huge in parts of Asia. I had a lovely conversation with that Japanese woman before the tour started.” She smiled. “Now, how can I help you?”

“I’m Chloe Ell—”

“The lady with the quilt!” Marianne’s eyes narrowed with a professional but predatory hunger. “My office.” She gestured toward the bank building across the street.

Chloe fetched the box, now swaddled with a green poncho. Then she followed Marianne inside, past the teen minding the cash register. The office was cramped, and the only desk was completely covered with files, papers, and books.

On top of one pile was a china shepherdess figurine, disconcertingly minus the head. “Oh, my,” Chloe said. Ma Ingalls had carried a beloved china shepherdess from place to place.

“Don’t worry,” Marianne said. “It’s antique, but certainly not Ma’s original. It was in my inbox this morning, and I haven’t had a chance to track down what happened.” She waved a hand: Enough of such minutia. “May I see the quilt?”

Chloe put the box on the floor, removed the lid, and explained what she knew.

“Oh, my,” Marianne said reverently. She leaned forward, grabbing her braid so it didn’t drip onto the quilt. “I’m sure the Board would be thrilled to acquire it. Most people with Laura-related items don’t think of us.”

“Until very recently, I didn’t even know your site existed,” Chloe said apologetically.

“We get that a lot,” Marianne told her. “Laura’s daughter Rose came through town in 1932, searching for the hotel. A decade or two later, a couple of people wrote to Laura, asking if she really had lived here. Laura wrote back saying yes, but by then there was a lot of confusion about which building she’d lived in. The hotel had been turned into a residence, you see, and it was in pretty bad shape. But about ten years ago a few local people who loved the Little House books decided that it needed to be saved. They took out a $1,500 note and announced plans to purchase and restore the building.”

“I’m glad they made it happen.”

“We all are.” Marianne looked back at the quilt. “Anyway, I’m sure all the sites are telling you the same thing, but … it would be amazing if your friend’s quilt could come here. We’d take excellent care of it.”

“When the legal issues get sorted out, I’ll let you know,” Chloe promised. “I’ve also been trying to learn more about this particular pattern.”

“A quilt expert is going to speak at the symposium in De Smet,” Marianne said. “Didn’t Alta tell you?”

“I haven’t mentioned the quilt to her,” Chloe explained. “Frankly, traveling with the quilt makes me nervous.”

“Alta’s put together a good lineup,” Marianne said. “The homesites are so spread out … I think this symposium will create a community of Laura fans.”

Chloe nestled the lid back onto the quilt box, wary of any sadistic dust bunnies that might be lurking beneath Marianne’s desk. “The Masters Hotel is special,” she said carefully, “although I admit, some of what I learned is a bit unsettling.”

Marianne leaned back in her chair, eyeing Chloe with speculation. “Are you a book person, a TV person, or a truther?”

“I … um … ” Chloe floundered.

“Some people don’t want to hear about anything Laura didn’t include in the books,” Marianne explained. “Some people love the Little House TV series, and don’t want to hear about anything that Michael Landon didn’t include in a show. You may not know this, but in addition to starring as Pa Ingalls, Landon also wrote scripts, directed, and produced the series.”

“Ah.” Chloe hadn’t watched the series herself, but she was familiar with it.

“And a few people want to know what Laura’s life was truly like,” Marianne continued.

“That would be me,” Chloe said. “I’m a truther.” She was a curator, after all. A history professional.

Marianne nodded. “Well, the truth is that the Burr Oak period was very painful for the family. Having to leave Walnut Grove was a bitter blow. And once Freddie died—”

“Who was Freddie?”

“Sorry. I forgot you joined the tour late. Charles Frederick—
Freddie—was Laura’s baby brother.”

“Laura had a baby brother?” Chloe asked blankly. That was not in the books.

“She did. But he died while the family was staying with relatives on the way here. They buried Freddie and had to leave the grave behind when they traveled by covered wagon on to Burr Oak.” Marianne toyed with a pencil. “Laura said it was a cold and miserable journey. Can you imagine? The family was devastated.”

Chloe felt stunned. “How … how do you know all this?”

“Are you familiar with the Pioneer Girl manuscript?”

Chloe shook her head.

“It’s a biographical manuscript, never published. Only a few pages cover Burr Oak. If you’d like, I’d be happy to make photocopies for you.”

“That’s kind of you,” Chloe said, although she wasn’t sure she was ready to read the Burr Oak chapter of Pioneer Girl.

“Laura did have some happy memories of her time here. The birth of her youngest sister Grace was surely a joy. Still, those months were overshadowed by Freddie’s death.”

“I imagine so,” Chloe said faintly.

“Pa was often away from home, trying to find work. The family never could get ahead financially. In the end, Pa and Ma were desperate to leave, but they didn’t have enough money to pay the rent due and journey on. They ended up waking the girls one night, putting them in the wagon, and sneaking out of town.”

Not Pa! Chloe thought. “Did he ever pay the landlord back?” she asked. It seemed important.

“Well,” Marianne began, “we know that—”

An alarm shrilled, so close Chloe almost jumped from her skin.

Marianne shot to her feet. “Dear God, that’s from the museum,” she gasped. “There’s a fire at the hotel!”