Mrs. Chang took Grandma Perkins’s hands in hers. “Of course. Please let us know if we can do anything to help you or your family.”
“Thank you so much.” She pushed the button and the doors closed.
“I can’t believe it.” Bailey shook her head as they entered their room. “Grandpa Perkins is such a nice man. I wish he hadn’t gotten hurt.”
“We have lots of things to pray about tonight, don’t we?” Mrs. Chang said. “Including thanking God that none of us were injured. You girls were pretty close to the action. I’m glad you’re all right.” She kissed all three girls on the head.
“Mom, do you think we could go see Grandpa Perkins at the hospital tomorrow?” Bailey asked.
“That would be nice, if they let kids in. I’ll have to check the hospital rules first. We wouldn’t stay long. He needs his rest to get better.”
“I feel sorry for Justin and Joe. They must be really sad.” Kate pulled out her pajamas and headed for the bathroom to change.
Bailey’s eyes met Kate’s. She suddenly thought, I hope they weren’t responsible for that elk stampede!
The Cowboy Ghost
The next morning, through a fog of sleepiness, Bailey heard her dad leave for one of his meetings. She had an uneasy feeling but couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Then it came to her—the stampede the night before. Biscuit was hurt and so was Grandpa Perkins. It seemed like a bad dream.
Kate rolled over and stretched. “Biscuit?” Still half-asleep, she felt around the bed for him.
“Kate, Biscuit’s not here, remember?” Bailey whispered, not wanting to wake the others.
Kate sat up, worry lines creasing her forehead. She rubbed her eyes, blew her nose, and put on her glasses. Her shoulders slumped like she held the weight of the world on them. “Oh yeah. I forgot.”
“I was thinking,” Bailey said softly, looking to see if her mom and Trina were still asleep. “The elk stampeded shortly after we saw Justin and Joe walking toward the hills last night.”
“I know. I thought the same thing.”
“I think they’ve been shooting at the elk and making them charge into town.”
Kate thought on that a moment. “The elk are being harassed and it’s making them more aggressive, just like Sydney said.”
“I bet if Justin and Joe caused the stampede, they’re sorry for it now that their grandpa got hurt.”
“If it’s them, I hope they’ve learned their lesson.” Kate’s eyes blazed fiercely.
“But why would they want to make the elk stampede in the first place? I don’t get it.”
“I don’t know, either. I have a feeling there’s a whole other piece of this mystery that we haven’t begun to figure out yet.”
“I’m starting to think they’re really messed up. They seem to have a nice family, so I don’t think that’s the problem.” Bailey propped herself up on her elbow.
“No, it must be something else. McKenzie mentioned that they might feel threatened in some way. Maybe we need to think about what it could be.”
“I know,” Bailey replied. “I wish there was some way she could talk to Justin and Joe. She’s so good at figuring people out.”
“Guess for now we’ll just have to rely on her suggestions and figure it out ourselves.”
“I think we need to pray for them,” Bailey said. “And we need to ask God to show us if there’s some way we can help them.”
“Maybe if we invite them to see room 408 with us today, we’ll have a chance to learn more about them.” Kate put her hand over her mouth and sneezed, waking Trina and Mom. She smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Good morning to you, too,” Trina mumbled then buried her head under her pillow.
“Do you know when we can go get Biscuit?” Kate asked Mrs. Chang.
“I’ll call to find out.” She looked at the clock. “They’re probably just opening.” She picked up the vet’s business card and dialed the number. “Yes, this is Dory Chang and I was wondering how our dog, Biscuit, is doing and when we might pick him up.” Mrs. Chang covered the mouthpiece of the phone and whispered to Kate, “They’re checking.”
Kate nodded.
Mrs. Chang directed her attention back to the person on the phone. “Okay. Thank you. We’ll see you later. Bye.”
“What’d they say?” Bailey asked.
“They said Biscuit is doing fine and we can pick him up this afternoon. They need to change his bandage this morning and check his vital signs. If something doesn’t check out, they’ll give us a call. Otherwise, he’s good to go.”
“Good. I can’t wait to have him back,” Kate said, beaming.
“Let’s get dressed so we can ask the front desk if we can see room 408 before we get Biscuit.” Bailey hopped off the bed and grabbed some clothes.
“Good idea. You think the boys will want to come after what happened last night?” Kate asked.
“Hard to say. But it could be a nice distraction for them.” Bailey slipped into her jeans and T-shirt. “I’m ready.”
“Wait just a minute, missy,” Mrs. Chang said in her mom voice. “You need to eat something and brush your teeth and hair before you go anywhere.”
“Aw, Mom. We have ghosts to chase down.” Bailey smirked at her mom.
“Then you’ll need all the energy you can get from breakfast. Have a seat.” Mrs. Chang set the box of cereal in front of her daughter and grabbed a carton of milk from the mini-fridge.
Kate quickly dressed and joined Bailey at the table. “Did the vet say anything else about Biscuit?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“I can’t wait to see him.”
“We should turn on the morning news to see if there are any new developments about the stampede.” Mrs. Chang grabbed the remote and pushed POWER.
“Witnesses say they observed some young men with guns just before the stampede…,” the newscaster said.
Bailey froze, her spoon halfway between her open mouth and her bowl. Kate choked on the bite she’d just taken. Coughing, she snatched a napkin from the table.
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Chang asked her.
“Y–Yes. I’m fine.”
Bailey glimpsed her friend’s worried eyes. They finished breakfast, brushed their teeth and hair, and were out the door to go see if Justin and Joe wanted to go ghost hunting with them. Kate grabbed a small pad of paper and a pen in case they needed to take notes.
“I can’t believe our suspicions about Justin and Joe were on the news!” Bailey said as they walked down the hall.
“I hope they didn’t do anything.” Kate knocked on the Perkinses’s door.
A moment later, Mrs. Perkins answered. Bailey told them why they were there.
“Well, how thoughtful. Just a minute, I’ll ask them.”
A moment later she returned. “Thank you, girls, for thinking of them, but with all that’s happened, they think they’ll pass this time. We’re going to go to the hospital to see their grandpa later. He was hurt in the stampede last night.”
“Yes, we heard. I’m sorry.” Bailey shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Mrs. Perkins, do you know if they’d let us see Grandpa Perkins if we went? If children are allowed in the hospital?”
“Yes, I saw children visiting other patients last night.”
Kate brightened up. “That would be great. We’d like to go visit him.”
“That would be lovely. I know he’ll be glad to see you.” “Okay. Well, tell Justin and Joe hi and that we’re sorry about their grandpa.”
“I’ll do that.” Mrs. Perkins closed the door.
Standing on tiptoe a short time later, Bailey leaned against the tall front desk. “Excuse me. We were wondering if we could see room 408, please.”
The man at the counter smiled. “Barbara told me some young gals might be coming to ask about that.”
Bailey looked at Kate, eyebrows high with surprise.
“Let me see. Yes, it’s vacant, though I can’t let y
ou in without an adult. Would you like me to get a bellhop to take you?”
“Yes, please!” Bailey could hardly contain her excitement. They were going to get to see the haunted room!
“And what are your names?” the front desk clerk asked.
“I’m Bailey Chang, and this is Kate Oliver.”
“Very good. I’ll get someone to take you up.”
“Thank you.”
“Now remember,” Kate said, pulling Bailey aside while they waited for the bellhop. “We need to look for anything that could be used to make it look like the cowboy appears in the window then fades to the left.”
“Got it.” Bailey turned at the sound of footsteps. A young man Bailey guessed to be in his twenties approached them.
“You must be Bailey and Kate.” He stuck out his hand and shook Bailey’s hand first, then Kate’s. “I’m Lance. Nice to meet you. So you’re interested in the cowboy ghost of room 408, huh?” he asked as they walked to the elevator.
Kate nodded. “We saw him from the front yard yesterday.”
“What time of day was it?” The elevator doors opened and they stepped in.
“Around noon. Why?”
“Seems like that’s the time most people see him these days.”
Kate looked at Bailey, who widened her eyes.
“Why do you suppose that is?” Bailey asked, fishing for more information.
“It has something to do with the lighting. You know, the sun being directly overhead and all.”
“Interesting.” Kate pulled her pen and paper from her pocket and jotted down the lighting clue. The elevator doors opened, and Lance led them down the hall to room 408. He slid his key card through the slot and they heard it unlock, the tiny green light flashing. “Here we are! I’ll wait here by the door for you. Take your time looking around.”
Bailey gazed at the room that looked remarkably like their own room down the hall. Nothing special or haunted about it.
Kate walked slowly around the room, inspecting every wall and corner. Bailey followed her as she went to the window over the bathroom sink. It overlooked the front yard where they’d been standing yesterday when they saw the ghost.
“If the ghost looked like it faded to the left from out there,” she said to Bailey, “then it would have to move to the right from in here, since it faced the window.” Sure enough, the bathroom wall was right there, making it impossible to move in that direction.
“Alex thought we should feel the glass, remember?” Bailey asked.
Kate leaned closer to the window and ran her fingers over the glass. “There are definitely scratches or etching or something. I can feel them.” She moved her open hand along the window’s surface.
Bailey felt it, too. “Maybe people tried to claw their way out of here to escape the ghosts!”
Kate laughed. “I doubt that. I think Alex may be right. It’s some kind of etching.”
“Sometimes they put etched glass or thick blocks of glass in bathroom windows so no one can see in.” Bailey scratched her head. “But who could see in way up here on the fourth floor?”
“We did! Or we thought we saw the cowboy ghost, anyway.”
“Let’s go out on the lawn at noon again today so we can check it out. We’ll see if we see that cowboy ghost again. Maybe Lance will even bring us back up here then so we can see what it looks like from the inside.”
Kate high-fived Bailey. “Let’s go ask him.”
Lance was leaning against the door frame listening to his iPod. He snatched the earphones from his ears when he saw the girls. “All done?”
“For now,” Bailey replied. “But we were wondering if there’s any chance you could bring us back up here around noon. We want to see what the room looks like at the time of day we saw the cowboy.”
“If I’m not busy with any other guests, I’ll be glad to.”
“Great! Thanks!”
“I’ll walk you back down to the lobby.” Lance extended his arm to show the way.
“Oh, thank you,” Kate said, “but we’re going back to our room now. It’s just down this hall. Thanks for letting us in.”
“No problem. I’ll try to meet you in the lobby around noon.”
Bailey followed Kate to their room. “Why did you want to go back to our room? There’s not much to do there.”
“We need to tell the other girls what happened last night.” Kate’s eyes grew serious.
“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot they don’t know about Biscuit or Grandpa Perkins yet.”
“Or that we’re pretty sure Justin and Joe were involved in the stampede and that the news talked about boys with guns going into the hills just before the stampede.”
“We do have a lot to cover with them!” Bailey slid her key card in the door.
“We’re back,” Bailey announced when they entered the room.
“I was just getting ready to call you.” Mrs. Chang bustled around tidying up and then grabbed her purse. “Trina and I are going shopping. Do you want to go?”
Bailey looked at Kate to see if she wanted to go. She detected the slight shake of her head. “No. I don’t think so. We were just there yesterday when we went hiking.”
“Okay. You’ll be all right here?”
Bailey nodded. “We’re going to call the Camp Club Girls to tell them about last night’s stampede and that Biscuit got hurt.”
Mrs. Chang kissed Bailey on the cheek. “Sounds good. We’ll probably be back around one o’clock or so. There are sandwich makings in the fridge if you get hungry. We’ll go get Biscuit after Trina and I get home.”
“Okay. See you later. Have fun!”
Kate dialed Elizabeth then conferenced in all the other girls, including Bailey.
“Everyone there?” Each one confirmed they were there and could hear each other.
“Good. We have a lot to tell you about since yesterday,” Bailey said.
“Really? How much could have happened in less than twenty-four hours?” Alex asked.
“A lot! We’ll start at the beginning. We heard creepy ghost music last night and went to investigate,” Kate began. “Legend says it’s the ghost of F. O. Stanley’s wife, Flora, playing the piano. Turns out the ghost music came from the Music Room where she always played, but it’s really just a piano player on a timer. If anyone comes into the room when it’s playing, the music stops.”
Bailey picked up the story. “We discovered it’s on a motion sensor that’s tied into the timer. So if the detector senses motion in the doorway, it turns off the timer and player piano, stopping the music.”
“Awesome! You guys are getting good at this!” Sydney exclaimed.
Bailey laughed. “But that’s not all! While we were still in the lobby, there was another stampede in front of the hotel.”
“I was carrying Biscuit because I’d forgotten his leash,” Kate added. “He heard the noise and bolted from my arms and ran outside.”
“No!” Alex said.
“We chased after him, but it was too late.” Kate’s voice shook as she relived the horrible evening. “He’d been trampled by the elk and was lying in the grass with a bloody paw.”
“It was terrible!” Bailey wailed. “Poor Biscuit could hardly breathe he hurt so bad.”
“What did you do?” Elizabeth asked.
“We had to take him to the hospital,” Kate said.
“And get this,” Bailey said. “Someone had just told my parents where the closest one was and which vet to ask for!”
“Wow,” Elizabeth said. “That sounds like a real God-thing!”
“Totally.” Kate cleared her throat. “And the hospital was pretty close, too!”
“You did the right thing by not picking Biscuit up to comfort him,” McKenzie said. “A loving touch is all anyone really needs as they wait for help in a time like that. So how is he now?”
“Well, the doctor checked him over,” Kate told her. “He had a crushed paw and some broken ribs. They wrapped his paw up in a big bandag
e and gave him some pain medicine to make him sleep so he could heal easier. We had to leave him at the hospital overnight, but we’re going to get him this afternoon.” Kate grinned triumphantly.
Sydney sighed. “That’s a relief.”
“Give the puppy a hug for me when he gets home,” Alex said.
“And an extra treat from me!” McKenzie added.
“I’m glad he’s going to be okay,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll be sure to remember him in my prayers. You know, in Proverbs, the Bible tells us a righteous man cares for the needs of his animals. I’d say you’ve done exactly that.”
“Thanks, Lizzy.” Kate smiled shyly at Bailey.
“But that’s not the worst of it!” Bailey continued. “Three people were hurt in that stampede, too!”
“Oh no!” Sydney cried.
“Here’s the sad part—the one hurt the most was Justin and Joe’s Grandpa Perkins.” Bailey couldn’t bring herself to call Justin “Oscar the Grouch” under the circumstances.
“That is sad,” McKenzie said. “How are they taking it?”
“We don’t really know.” Bailey shrugged, even though the others couldn’t see it through the phone.
“We haven’t actually talked to them ourselves yet.”
“But here’s the creepy part,” Bailey continued. “We saw Justin and Joe walking toward the hills the night of the stampede.”
“And it was only a few minutes later that the stampede happened.” Kate bit her lower lip.
“We think they had their gun with them even though it was way too dark for them to do any target practice.”
“Not only that,” Kate added, “the news station this morning reported that witnesses had seen two young men with guns before the stampede. So we weren’t the only ones who noticed.”
“Man,” Sydney said. “Those boys are going to have some explaining to do.”
“You’re telling me.” Bailey pulled her lip balm out of her pocket and smoothed some on.
“We want to try to get to know them better to see if we can help them in any way,” Kate said.
“They must be really afraid and lonely right now. Not to mention sad about their grandpa,” McKenzie added. “They really do need some good friends like you.”
Bailey’s Estes Park Excitement Page 9
