Hell's Belle

by Shannah Biondine

  CHAPTER 16

  The last time Del felt this strange traveling itch under his skin, a horse lay foaming at the mouth in the barn.

  He clenched his fists and told himself to buck up, not make insane mental comparisons. Twila wasn't about to die; she'd just eaten too many rich foods and had a brief fainting spell in a public place. The older matron who'd summoned Del assured him that sort of thing happened fairly often to women who were "in the family way."

  Del had naturally been concerned, despite the reassurances. Partly for Twila's welfare, and partly for himself. He'd never been comfortable around swoonish females with delicate constitutions.

  He also didn't much like the fact he'd returned to the Vogel household to find himself barred from Twila's side. He couldn't very well pitch a fit and bellow at the young Vogel girl. He'd only just met her. This was her home, after all, and he was an invited guest…which meant he was expected to act like a gentleman. And the girl was only trying to help, he reminded himself.

  Couldn't very well grouse at the old man, either. He'd been sitting home the whole time nursing his gout and waiting for that pus pocket, Lucius Bell…who still hadn't turned up.

  Del could hang around waiting for Twila's fainting spell to end…or he could do something useful—like track down that errant storekeeper's son. Always a man who opted for action over mental debates, Del announced he'd take the buggy and head out to scour the city for young Lucius and the missing palomino. When Twila arose from her nap, hopefully she'd be pleased to know Del was on the trail of her cousin.

  Manus Vogel nodded and told Del not to worry. Del's wife was safe and secure. Hilde assured Del she'd be there to look after Twila, and they had a family doctor nearby should Twila need medical intervention. More likely she just needed a rest and a cool bath. Del didn't have anything more to say, so he crammed his hat on his head and stalked out of the house.

  Thinking he'd witnessed one rotten turn of events that day.

  He'd had a vision in his mind when he agreed to staying over to attend the social, thinking it would be his chance to make up to Twila for never having danced with her. What he didn't stop to think is Twila hadn't danced with anyone before. He should have guessed that skinflint uncle of hers wouldn't have paid for dancing lessons or ever allowed her to socialize…No, Fletcher Bell would have been talking potential catastrophes and kept her home, sweeping and dusting.

  She'd been game enough to try, but mostly stepped on Del's feet and apologized profusely every thirty seconds or so. He could see she wasn't having any fun…and he wasn't making a dashing romantic gesture, the way he'd hoped. Nope, he was actually embarrassing his bride again in front of strangers. So then he'd suggested they give up dancing and try sampling the various foodstuffs…which had apparently made her sick.

  And as if those developments hadn't been disappointing enough, it turned out he'd stumbled into the very same church where one Betty Lee Lydecker was a pew-camping regular. And of course, he had the ill fate to run smack into Betty Lee while trying to rustle up some punch for Twila. Betty Lee…a woman he'd thought never to lay eyes on again.

  He couldn't believe she'd had the nerve to rush over to him like it was old home week. He'd always known she could tear up on command—she's used that ploy on him half a dozen times, at least—but in the time she'd been away from Wadsworth, she'd perfected the art of turning on the tears at will. Now it was almost convincing, her little wounded act.

  Well, maybe it was fair, after all. He'd humiliated one gal in public, then had another come up and flat out embarrass the heck out of him. Because not only did Betty Lee turn on the waterworks, she felt she needed to share their personal story with everybody within earshot…which had been a whole bunch of other churchgoers.

  But the classic touch was Betty Lee having the temerity to proclaim she'd run off with the gambler to spare Del's feelings because she loved him so danged much. He hadn't been able to completely maintain his composure. He'd openly snorted in derision and told her he'd felt anything but adored when he'd had to send a cowpoke over to her place to find out what was delaying her on their wedding day and all he got was a damned kiss-off note.

  Well, she'd balked at the last minute…

  "Seriously, Delancy, I'd been up several nights pacing the floor with worry over it!" She realized she couldn't go through with marriage to him, she said, because she'd been seeing someone else before and during her time with Del. And this someone didn't want to end their affair; in fact, he'd sworn to pursue her, even after marriage. Which would have possible and extremely awkward, since her secret lover lived on Del's ranch.

  He'd been about to turn his back and tell her he wasn't listening to any more of her ridiculous lies when the older woman had rushed up, informing him Hilde had taken his wife back to her house. Suddenly she'd nearly passed out and gone queasy. The older gal had patted Del's arm, insisting his wife was probably just fine. These things happened once a man got his wife in the family way….

  Del smiled bitterly now. At least he'd had the minor victory of seeing the shock on Betty Lee's face. "You're married? A wife…and she's pregnant?"

  Somehow Betty Lee's disbelief rankled a lot more than the actual inquiry. What did she think, that he'd just go on for the rest of his natural born days single and miserable because he'd lost her? That she still had some stranglehold on his feelings or his life, even after walking right out of it?

  "Yeah. Been married about half a year now. I need to go."

  "Oh yes, of course. But you…you don't plan to be back this way any time soon?"

  He could have laid her so low right then. Replied with any number of nasty truths. Like no, he wouldn't be back this way ever again if he could help it. He'd had nothing against this town until this moment, but knowing she lived in Sacramento soured his image of the whole place. He and his bride had settled their business here. There was no other cause to venture this far west again…and five foot, five inches of good excuse not to.

  Instead, he shook his head and grappled with what he could stand to reply. "Well no, it's not likely…I—"

  And then she'd done it. Clipped him with an uppercut.

  "I just want you to understand, Del. Maybe I'll never see you again, but I feel you have a right to know. I might have been strong enough if it had been anyone else. But I just didn't trust myself to deny him, and I didn't want you hurt that way. I mean, I know I hurt you, running off like I did. But this would have killed you, and he knew it. I used to think that in some freakish way, that's just what he wanted."

  Del was about to tell her none of it mattered when she spat out the worst of it.

  "Anyone but him. But you know how he could always goad others into doing what he wanted. Always stir up trouble. It's for the best, I guess." She wiped away a tear and walked off. Again.

  Leaving Del to gape after her with the sudden certainty that she'd been talking about Jordan Zoyer. His best friend. The man he'd mourned for weeks.

  There's being played for a fool…and then there's being taken for a first-class, absolute moron.

  Barred from an hour or so naked in bed with Twila, Del figured the only other remedy to ease his hurt right then would be half a bottle of whiskey chugged down without the pretense of needing a glass.

  He vaguely recalled that the section of town where the Vogels lived wasn't terribly far from a business district. He turned the buggy in that direction. Didn't spot any dram shops or saloons, but he found the next best thing. A barber who was open for business late in the afternoon and had a handful of customers inside.

  In towns lacking the intrusive Amos Stanislaus as their postmaster, the next best way to glean information was a local barber shop. Barbers knew men in town and a lot of the unsavory details of the area. If a new whorehouse opened, barbers would hear of it within a day or two…a barber might even know the names and specialties of the whores working there.

  So Del figured a barber would know the best place to go get numb, could even have
a vague notion of where to start looking for Lucius Bell. Del snorted as he set the buggy's brake lever and tied the reins to the hitching rail. Didn't it just figure that in a city the size of Sacramento, Del would lose Twila's damned cousin and his own best horse, while managing to find the one human being he'd hoped never to run across again? Didn't that just figure?

  "Howdy," Del offered as he stepped into the barber's establishment. The man paused in the process of snipping a lock of hair between his fingers. "Wondered where I'd find the closest watering hole."

  The barber jerked his chin to the left. "Three or four blocks down. Small place. Ugly yellow front door."

  Del hated the loquacious type. Especially when he had to make himself look like a buffoon by volunteering information that wouldn't make him seem like the brightest star on the horizon. "My wife's cousin is in town with us. We're all from Wadsworth, other side of Reno. Anyway, the cousin is a young fella, and I let him take my prize palomino. Don't suppose any of you gents have seen a big palomino in the past day or two?"

  "What's he doing with your best horse?" the man getting his hair cut asked.

  "He'd brought my wife in the buggy from my ranch. Then I rode out after them on my palomino. We decided to switch, me squiring her around the city in the buggy, and him using my quarter horse. But he hasn't come back to the home of the friends we're staying with. I know he had some business for his father. They run a general store. Just want to make sure the upstart's in one piece."

  "General store, you say?" A grizzled fellow was cheating at checkers with another man awaiting their turns in the chair. "I'd go by the rail station. If he had to purchase some goods, that's likely where they'd come, by rail car. Or maybe he was dealing with someone who'd be at the depot. Someone's like to remember that horse. Don't see palominos every day."

  Del knew that. Idiots like Lucius were pretty common. Caramel was a rarity. Which, to Del's way of thinking, said a lot about which being was truly worth locating.

  But he'd look for Lucius Bell anyway. Twila was under the weather and Del's plan for showing her some fun had been a flop. Running into Betty Lee had been the final corker in that disaster. He just wanted to find the kid and get everybody headed back home.

  The hell with Betty Lee and her fickle gambler, with Jordy and whatever might have gone on. It was over and done with, all of it. Jordy was dead and buried. And Betty hadn't seemed half so attractive as Del remembered…Or maybe he just hadn't taken a good look at her without sexual desire clouding his judgment. Today he'd seen a lush body and nice enough features, but she didn't have the inner sparkle of a girl like Twila.

  Betty Lee had never kissed him like Twila did, either. In a way that set his blood roaring through his skull, his pulse pounding, his tongue dissolving…even as he knew it was being stroked and petted right back. God, but Twila could kiss. Every time he got to seriously swapping spit with that woman, he wondered how he survived. Not only was his breath hard to catch, but there were moments when he truly felt like his flesh had just melted, his bones must have dissolved. The gal left him in a human puddle.

  Del grinned again. Twila had been embarrassed that she didn't know how to dance. Basically, she had two left feet. But if she ever understood how well she kissed and did a couple other things while in a man's arms, she wouldn't give dancing half a thought. His grin widened as he recalled that he'd been her teacher. He could teach her how to dance properly, too. Someday.

  Clinging to his imagination's new vision of Twila twirling and spinning, lighting his blood on fire as she spoke volumes with her golden eyes, Del set out to find the Sacramento train yard. Maybe it was a long shot, but he'd start asking every man his ran into if he recalled a big palomino and someone fitting Lucius Bell's description. Somebody had to have seen the lad. He'd never come to the Vogel place, the way they'd agreed…

  Thoughts of the Vogel house reminded Del that Twila was inside it, feeling poorly now, because Del had planted his seed in her belly during the very love sessions where he'd proudly been her teacher. The matron thought she'd been doing him a big favor, cluing him in on what to expect in the immediate future, but that wasn't completely true. Del knew from stories men swapped around the cracker barrel at Wadsworth's dry goods store that this was only the first in a series of episodes he and Twila would face together.

  She'd get a lot bigger, more cumbersome on her feet. She'd demand strange combinations of foods, or become fixated on eating a certain food repeatedly. Or abruptly decide to paint their bedroom blue, or plant daisies around the water pump. She'd worry that he didn't find her desirable anymore; he'd worry that he wouldn't find her any less so. Especially near the end of her time, when relations were forbidden.

  By that time, her back would ache and he'd rub it. She'd weep for no reason and he'd try to be patient. His nerves would fray and she'd laugh at him. Then they'd have a new little life to show for it, and they'd go back to loving and laughing and start over again.

  This was how families were built.

  Family…Del had to find her irresponsible cousin, who like as not was losing his butt in some poker game or riding the plump thighs of a local whore. Or maybe young Bell was indeed driving a hard business bargain. Whatever he was involved in, Del hoped Twila appreciated how far he was going out of his way to find the whelp.

  * * *

  Scowling, Frederick Cookson looked over at his partner of many years and asked himself why he'd put credence in something as transient and meaningless as a twitch on the side of Marquardt's nostril.

  They'd now devoted months to traipsing around this blighted area of northern Nevada and California. A more desolate and unappealing landscape, Frederick could scarcely imagine. Some said England was harsh, but he'd take foggy moors and the white cliffs of Dover over this region any time. Everything about the place was sharp and jagged. Even the pine trees spiked upward like stalagmites. The forest of the Sierra Nevada was nothing like the forests back home, where fox and hound, lush green depths, brooks and rippling pools awaited.

  And Cookson should know, since they'd spent a day and a half sitting on a stalled train in the midst of rock and pines before finally arriving at their destination of Sacramento. He was unsurprised to discover it was just as dull as any other city he'd visited so far in the American west. Already he saw naught to recommend the place, and they hadn't left the vicinity of the train station.

  "Ever think that perhaps we're paying the piper?" he abruptly asked Marquardt.

  "No. Because unlike you, good fellow, I don't waste much mental effort philosophizing on the meaning of life and that rot. We need to find a hotel and figure out where young Bell and his lady cousin might be lurking."

  Lurking.

  That was it, Cookson saw in a rare moment of total insight. Marquardt loved to think of their very existence as some grandiose game, a battle of wits played out in smoking parlors, on train cars, in boudoirs of cheap strumpets, on boardwalks, and in flophouses. People lurked or plotted.

  "Hey, there! Isn't that fellow down across the tracks there…" Marquardt had suddenly squinted and now was pointing frantically, all but jabbing the air. "Isn't that the horse rancher the cousin's shackled herself to? I believe it is!"

  Cookson followed the jabbing fingertip and squinted himself, peering into the distance. Good God, for once his blathering cohort truly was on to something! "You recognize that carriage next to him? Doesn't it look like the one we seen parked over by the Bell Emporium that day? The one she was driving…"

  "One and the very same!" his partner hissed. "What do you think they're up to, this lot? Switching about carriages and horses, all of them convened over here?"

  "Don't know what to make of it, to be honest."

  Marquardt snorted. "I told you I was onto something with those Bells. I told you!"

  Excellent. Cookson would buy him a steak and kidney pie next chance he got. In the meantime, they'd best find out what the bounder was doing nosing about the train yard. "You stay here and summon
a cabby. I'm going closer. Maybe I can hear what they're saying over there."

  Cookson had long ago perfected a technique of losing, chasing, retrieving, and once more losing his bowler hat. He had every bumbling maneuver down pat and used the technique now to surreptitiously move in close enough to eavesdrop.

  "Big palomino gelding. Young fellow's riding him, not a saddle tramp. A stuffy lad, works as a shopkeeper. About this tall. Dark hair, beak nose."

  The train butch scratched his chin, then shook his head. "I think I'd remember somebody riding a horse he don't belong on. From what you're sayin', he wouldn't fit that horse at all."

  "Exactly! He's damned lucky to stay in a saddle for an hour. I never thought when I loaned out the nag he'd disappear on me."

  "Shame. Hey, Kenton, you recall seein' a city fella clingin' to the pommel of a big buttermilk?"

  "Naw, I ain't—"

  "Hey, I think I know the man you're looking for!"

  Cookson's head jerked as a man missing the lower half of his left leg hobbled over, leaning on a crutch. "I saw a big buttermilk hitched outside Miss Adeline's place yestereve and a young fella was out on the porch havin' a pee overt' side. He nudged that horse's nose. Like he owned it, you know? Seemed like he was fussin' about the watering trough. Course Miss Addy's always kept that trough mighty high."

  "Like the price of her corn liquor!" Kenton laughed.

  "Where is this Miss Addy's place?" Del inquired.

  "Well now. Addy didn't want her frail sisters competing with a dozen other such houses, so she took a place on the other side of the river there."

  Cookson strained to catch the exact directions amid all the finger pointing and arguing over the best route the rancher should take to arrive at his destination. Finally he shook the cripple's hand and leapt up into his carriage. Cookson dashed through the swirling dust over to where Marquardt stood. He'd found a cab driver and loaded their bags.