She thought again about her father and how he had told her that love would some day find her. She fantasized how it would feel to lie with a man she truly loved and surrender herself, body and soul. Belle distanced herself from the girls in the brothel; they had nothing in common. Flo was different, she had won her way into Belle’s heart.
“You know, Belle, the girls are jealous of you. They think you’re a snob.”
“Do you think that?”
“Well, I do get the feeling that you think you’re better than we are.”
Belle had to admit to herself that she did feel superior. It had nothing to do with anything beyond the fact that she was disgusted with all of them, including Flo for not valuing their bodies: the gift of life that God had given them. If that made her a snob, so be it. Yet maybe she was overlooking an opportunity to do some good, to shed some light, to save their souls from the devil.
Belle stepped into their morning gathering with both feet. It didn’t take much urging before Imogene, a girl her age, no bigger than a whisper, who acted tough as nails, told Belle her sad story. It sounded like Flo’s all over again, and so did Sadie’s, the girl with the big beautiful empty eyes of a Holstein, and yet another story told by a girl named Lavinia. Belle couldn’t believe how eager these girls were to put their lives out on the table--lives that were so sordid and ugly.
Lavinia had been molested by her father and then her brothers until her mother gave her the egg money and told her she’d be better off away from them.
“You are beautiful young women,” Belle told them. “It is not too late to leave this den of iniquity behind you and make a new start.” But they looked at her as if she didn’t understand, as if they were destined to be no more than they were at that moment and nothing could change that. What Belle would give to help these girls find a better way of life, yet she had job enough finding her own way.
The haunting reality of Lavina’s childhood invaded Belle’s cold, moonless night. Sinking into a fitful sleep, she was abruptly aroused by eerie sounds of a woman screaming. It was coming from down the hall--it was Imogene, the tiny blond girl who seemed so tough. Belle was on her feet, her pistol in her hand, as she ran to Imogene’s rescue. She flung Imogene’s door open. A burly miner, one who Belle had noticed downstairs earlier, held a fistful of Imogene’s hair as he banged her head against the wall and swore at her. Imogene’s hysterical scream was more than Belle could stand. Her skin crawled as she thought of Du Cartier. Her hand trembled as she aimed her gun in the miner’s direction. “Stop it. Stop it, now,” she shouted. The old fool ignored her. Belle’s aim was good and her bullet hit the drunk’s leg. He fell to the floor cussing her.
Belle couldn’t believe what she had done. The reality of the moment crashed down upon her and she dropped the smoldering gun from her grip and reached out to embrace Imogene. Imogene whimpered and melted into her arms and clung to her like a frightened animal. Belle stroked her hair and tried to comfort her.
The next thing she knew, Charley’s big arm wrapped Belle against him and he ushered her back to her room. She sobbed uncontrollably in his arms. It was almost daybreak before, in exhaustion, she slept for a short while.
The day was just beginning to color as she agonized over the nightmare that haunted her. She had shot a man. She would be arrested--she had committed a violent crime. The sheriff would come through the door any minute and take her to jail. She put her head under her pillow. Fully awake, she realized there was no hiding from what she had done. She’d have to pay the piper. Maybe when the judge heard the story, he would be lenient. Gathering her courage about her, she went to the bar to find Charley.
His eyes were filled with kindness. “Belle, you just had a bad dream. Leave it at that. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“But what about the man? Is he all right?”
“He got what was coming to him. Maybe he got the message that no one can get away with beating up the girls at the Silver Slipper. You probably saved Imogene’s life.”
“Didn’t anyone call the sheriff?”
“To this place? You’re joking.”
“What if the old coot goes to the authorities?”
“Not likely. Get last night out of your mind. You did what any decent person would have done. It’s over.”
Carrying her grip, Imogene, pale and distraught came and thanked Belle. Her face was bruised and there was no red rouge on her lips or cheeks. She was leaving. She planned to go as far west as her money would take her and then she’d look for a different line of work.
News traveled and it wasn’t long before Ben came looking for Belle. She went over last evening’s events and concluded by saying, “You shouldn’t have trusted me with your gun.”
“I’m glad I gave you the gun,” he said. “No man has the right to prey upon a woman like that. Belle, I want to take care of you. I hate your living in this place. Let’s get out of here for a while. I’ll go get the horses.”
They rode up a mountain that was so steep that the horses were winded and sweat foamed on their withers before they reached the top.
Belle thought of the Grampian Mountains--these Wyoming mountains were naked by comparison--no heather or heath, no ferns, just parched red earth, sagebrush and thin, dry grasses.
They sat on a big boulder where she could see the valley below. It was a crisp November day. The sun was warm, the wind was bitter. A mountain range to the west, blued by the distance, was capped with snow.
“Ben, what is your dream?” Belle asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you carry a dream in your head of some place, something that you want to reach for?”
“Sure. To marry you. “
Belle smiled. “I have lots of dreams; they keep changing and growing. I want a place where I can have a garden and roses, and a horse that I can ride like the wind. I know just what it will look like. It’s out there somewhere, Ben, just waiting for me.”
“If that’s what you want, I want it, too.” Ben put his arms around her and he kissed her. “I love you,” he whispered. Was she being honest with Ben letting him kiss her that way when she had doubts?
“Ben, I’m not sure I feel the way you do. I like you more than I’ve ever liked anybody, but about love, I am not sure--"
“Don’t worry yourself, sweet girl. I have enough love in my heart for both of us.”
“I don’t think it works that way.”
“I’ll grow on you, Belle. Don’t worry your head about it.”
Ben jumped to his feet. “Come on. Hop on my shoulders and I’ll take you for a ride.” Belle’s legs wound around Ben’s neck as he stood up. He held her ankles in his hands and ran like a surefooted mountain goat down the steep terrain. Belle held on for dear life. It was fun, crazy wild fun. When they reached a grassy spot, he lowered her to the ground and fell down panting. His dark hair coiled up with sweat.
“You’re heavier than I thought you’d be,” he teased. “Have you got rocks in your pocket?”
The sky blazed with the sunset and it was dark before they headed home. As they rode down the trail in the moonlight, Ben said, “When I’m out on a cattle drive, I work until dark and then I put myself to sleep looking at those stars.”
“They’re beautiful. I’m forever trying to figure out the constellations."
“I know how to find the North Star by finding the Big Dipper.”
“I like to wish on the Evening Star. Do you think the stars guide our destiny?” Belle asked.
“You mean like astrology? I don’t know.”
“There is so much order to life that it makes sense it would be written in the stars.”
“I never thought about it that way.”
“When I was little, I was afraid of the dark. Father picked me up from my bed and carried me out into the garden. He made me love the darkness because the stars came with it. He told me the key to life was right there if we only knew how to look.”
“He sounds lik
e a nice man.”
“He is. Like you in a way.”
The night wind was laced with winter; the moon hung silvery in an ice-starred vault as they made their way off the mountain and into the valley far below.
They took the saddles off the horses and were brushing them down when Ben spoke. “I’ve dreaded telling you this. Bob and I are going to drive cattle to northern Montana. Winter’s setting in. We’ll be stuck there till spring. Oh, Belle, I hate leaving you.”
“When will you go?” Belle felt a lump in her throat.
“In the morning. I’ll miss you so much, Belle.”
“I’ll miss you, too. I really will.” He held her in his arms and kissed her and kissed her. It was all they could do to say goodnight.
Up early to see him off, Belle watched Ben sit Blue as though they were part of each other. Whiskey and Brandy, his border collies, jumped and barked. They knew something was up. If only she were an artist, she’d paint this handsome young cowboy with his little-boy smile, and then she wondered if she should paint herself into that picture. Was Ben her destiny? Winter would be long without him. In the spring when he returned was soon enough to think about that.
Ben and Blue were a dot on the horizon before Belle stopped waving goodbye.
The girls were having a “hen party” and Flo wanted Belle to come. It was a dreary day and Belle felt lonesome. She put down the Cheyenne Gazette she was reading to join the girls.
Their conversation revolved around the men in their lives as they compared notes. “What do you think when you’re doing it?” one of them asked.
“I don’t think at all--I just do it and get it over with. Simple as that."
“There’s one man I didn’t mind giving to--but I know he isn’t thinking of me like that. Men don’t marry girls like us.”
“I think about my ma and how she slaved all her life, bore thirteen kids, nine of them lived. She did the work of a man all her married life only to have my pa walk out one day and never come back. That’s not going to happen to me.”
“Women give--men take. That’s the way it is.”
Their talk turned to their clothes, their hair, their makeup. There was no far horizon in their lives and Belle wondered if they even knew who Woodrow Wilson was, or that he was a Presbyterian, and had once been the president of Princeton University. Not likely. Then she laughed at herself She didn’t know those things about the President of United States either until that very morning when she’d read the newspaper.
Belle studied Flo. She was a good person and shouldn’t be caught in a trap like this. Second chances mean undoing and starting over. Flo could do that, she was better than she let herself imagine. It was up to Belle to convince her.
The girls were sweet things and at loose ends, without family, without any guidance while they were still growing up. She wondered why she was different. Sometimes she thought she was born old. Her Grandmother Ferguson had often talked about “old souls”; maybe that’s what she was and had lived many lives before. The idea intrigued her. Or was it her upbringing and the blood of her ancestors that made her different? She needed to move on. She didn’t belong here.
She liked Ben Herrington and she liked the idea that he loved her. Love was a wonderful thing and it was happening to her but she wasn’t sure that Ben was the recipient. She was in love with the idea of love.
What would her life be if she were to marry this drover who disappeared for whole winters? She wasn’t ready to marry--not just yet. Time--that’s what she needed, more time.
On an impulse, Belle went to her room and got Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets. Reading aloud, to the girls, she found they were more eager to be an audience than she thought they would be:
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
“That’s beautiful.” Flo sniffed through her tears. “Read it again.” The girls were enthralled. Maybe there was hope for them after all. If she could just elevate their thinking little by little. These girls wanted to be sophisticated, wanted to be loved by someone so much that they mistook the male attention they were getting for something that it wasn’t.
In February, fresh snow was caught up in wild Wyoming winds, frosting the landscape. The cold made men congregate around wood stoves. Cheyenne looked like a ghost town. Belle sat on her bed reading a book that Charley had given her. She understood part of the Five Great Dialogues of Plato, but certainly not all of it. As she held the book, her stomach made it move. She pressed her hand against her stomach, and it did it again. When she told Flo about it, Flo rolled her eyes.
“Do you think?” Belle asked.
“Yes, I do.”
“How could I be?” Belle grimaced.
“Ben?” Flo offered.
“Heavens no.”
“Then, who?” Flo held the palms of her hands up questioning.
“I’ve never--Good Lord in heaven.” Belle sank into Flo’s waiting arms. “I don’t want this to be true. Oh, Flo. This is my worst nightmare."
Flo heard, for the first time, about Du Cartier and all that Belle had tried so desperately to forget. “I’d locked my door, gone to bed and was having a terrible dream about Tommy. It was dark and I was asleep when it happened. I had a hard time knowing what was real and what I dreamed. Flo, what a demon that Du Cartier was!”
“That’s why you were in such an awful state at the train depot that day. I could kill him,” Flo cried.
Belle was horrified. It couldn’t be. She felt repulsed, angry, desperate. She cringed as she thought about it. A baby who couldn’t look you in the eye, a baby that would grow up to beat dogs, a baby so despicable that he would have no regard for anyone, a monstrous baby, as big as an elephant.
She thought about Ben and knew what news like this would do to him. A baby that wasn’t his would be difficult for any man in love. She was tarnished, flawed, ruined. No respectable man would have anything to do with her. Her confusion grew as she thought about what it meant. Ben and this unborn baby did not fit together into one picture. Belle and this unborn baby did not fit together into one picture, either.
“Lavinia told me she got rid of a baby, once,” Flo said. “She used a clothes hanger and she almost bled to death. Promise me you won’t do that. “
“I could never.” Belle gasped. “The idea is hideous.”
“I’ve heard say if you take a tablespoon and put it upside down on your tongue and press really hard, you’ll start to menstruate. You might as well try it. What have you got to lose?” Flo said. “I’ll go down to the kitchen and swipe a spoon.”
Belle’s thoughts were pulled back to Illinois. How unfair to be caught in this ugly situation. Why her? She had never done anything to deliberately hurt anyone. It was as though she were being punished for some horrible crime.
Had Madame Du Cartier known all along that her husband did such vile things? Is that why she was so sad in the carriage that day? It was despicable. He should be punished. He should be locked up to protect other unsuspecting women. But it would be Belle’s word against Du Cartier’s and he was gentry and an important business man and she was fifteen and female.
Never before had she hated anyone, but she hated Du Cartier with every fiber of her being. Until now, she had believed that
all people were basically good but she had changed her mind. Du Cartier was a contemptible rat and she’d like to see him burn in Hell.
Flo came back from the kitchen waving a tablespoon. “I swear I didn’t tell him why I wanted to know but I asked O’Reilly where a girl should go if she got in trouble and he gave me a doctor’s name.”
“I don’t know. I guess that would be a way out if this spoon doesn’t work. I wish I knew what to think; I’m so confused,” Belle said. How ludicrous it was. In this establishment these promiscuous girls played with fire every night of their lives and yet it was Belle who got burned.
Out of Innocence Page 8