Stuttering, Zeth couldn’t seem to get his words out, but it didn’t matter much because the Pruetts wouldn’t have heard him anyway--they were laughing too hard.
“Belle! Surprise!” Flo gave Belle a weak wave as she caught sight of her. Zeth got his wits about him, jumped down and helped her out of the coach.
“Flo, my goodness, Flo. Are you all right?” Belle hugged her.
“I think so. I’ll let you know in a minute,” Flo said. “How about you, Zeth?"
"Oh, I’m all right--shook up some.”
“What in hell’s going on?” Harlow asked as he pulled his suspenders up.
“Just delivering Flo here,” Zeth said.
“That’s not what I mean. What were you doing inside the coach when you should have been in the driver’s seat?” Harlow asked.
Zeth grimaced and shot a look at Harlow, and Belle could see that Harlow wished he hadn’t asked.
“Well, the main thing is that ye aren’t hurt," Belle said, trying to change the subject. “And thank the good Lord, the coach and horses survived the ordeal, too. Come on up to the house, I think we could all use a cup of hot coffee."
“Zeth, here, needs a good stiff drink,” Harlow said.
"Oh, where are my manners? Flo, this is my husband Harlow Pruett. Harlow, my friend from Cheyenne days, Flo Cummins.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Harlow.” Flo nodded his way.
“So, you’re Flo,” Harlow said, giving her a good going over. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. She had pulled her cape back on her shoulders and all but the nipples of Flo’s breasts pouched out of her tight-fitting bodice. “Well, I’ll be--" Harlow mumbled as he turned away, clearing his throat.
Flo reached into her satchel and brought out a box of Corona cigars. “These are for you, Harlow. Sort of a coming present,” Flo said.
“Well, thank you kindly. I’ve never had a whole box of cigars before.”
The women went into the kitchen to make the coffee while the men sat in the parlor smoking and belting down straight shots of whiskey. Belle could hear Harlow say, “Well, what spooked your team, anyway?”
“Don’t know. I saw Cal Riemers out slopping his pigs when we went by. Guess it could have been him. I can see him doing a fool thing like that. He’s always up to something.”
“Zeth, how in hell did Flo talk you into bringing her up here, anyway?” Harlow asked. “I’ve never known you to get off the main road before.”
Zeth lowered his voice and Belle strained to hear but she couldn’t. But she had a pretty good idea how Flo had persuaded Zeth--that didn’t take much imagination.
As they drank their coffee and ate Belle’s shortbread, Harlow said, “Well, this will give the canyon folks something to talk about all winter.” He settled back in his chair and blew smoke rings.
“I don’t want to wear out my welcome. Think I’d better get to getting. Thanks for the refreshment, Belle. I’ve got to get back to Horseshoe Bend before night fall,” Zeth said. He was on his feet, heading for the door.
“Zeth,” Belle said as she followed him. “I know ye won’t understand this, but it’s important to let the neighbors see ye still have your passenger as ye go back down to Horseshoe Bend.”
“You’re sending Flo back with me?”
“No.”
“Well, who then?”
“Just wait a minute.” Belle dragged a scarecrow from her garden. “Here’s your passenger, Zeth.”
“Okay, Belle. I get the picture,” Zeth said as he took it from Belle and lifted it into the passenger seat.
“Here, take my bonnet, Zeth. I hate the darn fool thing, anyway.” Flo tied it on the scarecrow’s head.
“Now if that doesn’t just put the cherry on the parfait,” Belle said. “Slow down as you go by Riemer’s spread. Let ol’ Cal have a good look.”
“Gotcha.” Zeth tipped his hat to Belle and then to Flo who threw him a flirtatious grin. “See ya, Harlow. We need to get together for a poker game sometime soon.”
The stagecoach headed back down the road. A lady in her fancy hat was sitting in the passenger seat as it disappeared over the rise.
“I don’t like my life anymore, Belle,” Flo said. “I kept thinking about you. I could do what you’ve done, couldn’t I? Find some nice man, with money maybe, and settle down.”
“Of course ye could, Flo.” Belle tried to sound positive but she wondered how easy it would be for Flo to bury her past.
“I want to have kids. They’d be as sweet as T.J. I want to start my life all over, like I was just born. Help me, Belle?”
“It’d take some doing, Flo. Ye’ve got no skills . . . except . . . ye know.” Belle was embarrassed at the way that came out sounding but Flo didn’t seem to mind.
“I can learn. You can teach me. Say you will.”
“Flo, to be honest, ye can’t go around with your bosom pouched out like that. I had to put Harlow’s eyeballs back in his head when he first saw you. No, it wouldn’t do around here.”
“But it’s the latest thing. It’s called an enhancer. It sure makes the men take notice.”
“I’ll bet it does; that’s the problem. It might be acceptable somewhere but not in this canyon.” Belle knit her eyebrows. "And your clothes, they’re far too flashy for a discriminating lady. Ye’d have to give them up. “
Flo looked down at her red satin dress with its low-cut neckline and crossed her arms to hide her breasts. “I don’t want to be a nun, Belle. Only a lady like you.”
Belle was relentless. "And then there’s the make-up. It makes you look wanton. Ye’d have to use it sparingly, if at all. It cheapens ye. Go wash your face, let’s see how you look.”
Belle led Flo to the pantry and handed her a wash cloth and a bar of soap. When Flo had finished, it was as if her face had disappeared. Her eyelashes were transparent as fishing line and gave her eyes no definition. Her penciled-in eyebrows disappeared completely. Flo’s complexion was so light and colorless, she looked sick. This face didn’t look like Flo. It would take some getting used to.
“There, ye look beautiful,” Belle lied.
“Do you really think so? I think I look all washed out,” Flo said as she glanced in a little mirror above the sink. “It’s not fair. Your skin has the blush of a peach, and mine, the underside of a lizard.”
“Well, maybe just a tad of rouge. Ye can’t let it look like ye have any on. And let your eyebrows grow out.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like this, Belle.”
“Hey, ye asked for it. If ye want to do this, it starts right here.”
Belle pushed Flo’s face up to Harlow’s little shaving mirror.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Flo faltered. “I wish I had your high cheekbones. “
“It’s all or nothing, Flo. Ye have to go whole hog or just forget the whole idea. Another thing, ye can’t just go around propositioning men to get what ye want, like ye did with Zeth.”
“You think I did that?" Flo tried to sound innocent but wasn’t very good at it.
“Yes, I think ye did.”
Flo giggled.
When Belle told Harlow about Flo and what she wanted to do, Harlow said, “I don’t think so, Belle. It would be like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
She thought about how Flo looked without her makeup. “No, Harlow, ye’ve got it backwards. It will be like trying to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.”
“Belle, I almost forgot to tell you. Ben Herrington volunteered. He went into the army,” Flo said. “He came by the Silver Slipper to tell us he was on his way to France to fight with the British. Did he come all the way up here to see you?”
“Shh,” Belle whispered as she put her fingers over Flo’s mouth. “Shush.” Where was Harlow? Had he heard what Flo said? Then she saw him outside walking toward the ice house.
Belle winced as she thought of Ben. “Maybe he’ll meet me brothers. They’ve been in the army almost two years now.” Ben. Oh, how much she
missed him. Part of her went with him that day he rode away. She was a married woman and shouldn’t be having thoughts like that.
“Well, did he?” Flo persisted.
“Yes, yes he did. Thanks to you.”
“I couldn’t help it. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. Forgive me?"
“He came all this way for nothing. I wish he hadn’t come. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Have it your way. Charley left right after you did. Just packed up and headed west. You know, Belle, I think he was sweet on you, too.” Flo rolled her eyes.
“We were just good friends, no love interest.”
“Maybe not for you.” Flo tried to catch Belle’s eye but Belle wouldn’t let her.
“Let’s go bake a cake, a sunshine sponge.” Belle headed for the kitchen. She rattled around in the cupboard until she found the cake pan. Then she assembled eggs, salt, sugar, flour, lard, cream of tartar, three mixing bowls, a measuring cup, and the flour sifter on the table. “It all yours. Here’s the recipe. See what ye can do.”
“It takes all this to bake a cake?” Flo looked reluctant.
“It’s not that hard.” Belle handed Flo the flour sifter. "Here, sift two cups of the flour into the big bowl. Then add a pinch of soda and a pinch of salt and sift it a second time,” Belle said.
Belle stoked the fire in the Majestic as she waited for Flo to finish. She measured out the lard and sugar and dumped them together in the small bowl. “Cream the lard and the sugar together.”
“Where's the cream?”
“There isn’t any cream. Cream means mixing until the lard and sugar absorb each other and are smooth. Do it with a fork.” Belle watched and waited. “Fine. You’re catching on. Next you beat the eggs and add them to the creamed mixture. You take the shells off the eggs before you beat them.” Belle smirked.
“I know that, silly.” Flo sniffed. But she didn’t have the slightest notion of how to crack an egg and made a mess all over the table.
“One quick sharp tap on the edge of the bowl, Flo,” Belle said as she demonstrated with an egg, “or we’ll be eating egg shells. There’s a knack to it. Here, try it again.” Belle handed her another egg. It took several before Flo mastered it.
Belle picked up the bowl and tucked it between her bosom and her left arm and spun the whisk in a circular motion.
“Now you try it.” She handed the bowl and whisk to Flo. “If we’re going to eat this cake before Christmas, we’d better get it into the oven.”
“I can’t do it,” Flo whined.
“Up and over. Up and over. Try singing--‘Flow gently sweet Afton among thy green braes,’ as you whip.”
“Something peppier, Belle.”
“How about this one: ‘Roamin’ in the gloamin; on the bonnie banks of Clyde, roamin’ in the gloamin’ wae my lassie by my side. When the sun has gone to nest, that’s the time that we love best, it’s lovely roamin’ in the gloamin’.”
“That’s good. It works; I can do it. What comes next?” Flo asked.
“Same old words all over again.”
“What if I forget the words?”
Belle laughed. “We won’t tell Harlow and it won’t hurt the taste much. Just whisk the eggs.”
As the winter deepened, an icy storm stalked the canyon, breathing destruction on the orchard, the garden, leaving the golds of autumn limp in its wake. Belle taught Flo to cook, to sew and even more important, to read.
They started with “Polite Society at Home and Abroad.” Flo needed this information if she was going to pass as a proper lady. Belle read aloud to Flo: “Etiquette is not a servile yielding up of one’s individuality, or cold formality. It is rather the beautiful frame which is placed around a valuable picture to prevent its being marred or defaced. Etiquette throws a protection around the well-bred , keeping the coarse and disagreeable at a distance, and punishing those who violate her dictates, with banishment from the social circle.”
“What?” Flo wrinkled her brow, looking overwhelmed.
“Oh--let’s try the Bible.” Belle slapped the gilded book closed. She had to find something with smaller words. Flo could use a little religion, anyway. It was slow and tedious but not without laughs. Finally, Flo came into her own. Harlow had a stack of old Idaho Statesman newspapers and Flo found the comic strips. There as she read “Bringing up Father” and “The Original Katzenjammer Kids,” Flo learned to read.
Harlow decided they should go ahead and have their wedding party: they needed a diversion. The winter had grown long. They’d invite all the canyon folk. He moved his smithy stove down to the barn, chinked the barn’s cracks with mud and straw and built a fire pit inside. There was plenty of room for dancing on the wood floor and the musicians could sit in the hayloft. He had three fiddlers coming from Montour. Belle and Flo strung paper lanterns Harlow had brought home last summer from the Chinese store near Placerville. They baked up a storm and made enough baked beans in the cast-iron pot to feed an army. Belle eyed the sheep that Harlow slaughtered that morning to roast over the fire and asked him for its stomach, heart, liver and lungs. She was going to make haggis. It wasn’t that she craved the taste of it as she found it barely tolerable, but haggis was always served in Scotland on special occasions. She remembered how, with pomp and circumstance, it was placed on a platter, held high and marched around the gathering as the bagpipes played. By the time they were through with all the folderol, the suet mixed with the oatmeal had grown cold and its greasy slime stuck to the roof of the mouth of those who were brave enough to eat it. Even so, Belle clung tenaciously to her Scottish heritage, and haggis was a part of it.
Flo and Harlow watched Belle chop up the organs, add the onion and stuff it into the scoured sheep’s stomach. She added spices, uncooked oatmeal and some soup stock and tied the opening with a string. The haggis boiled in the soup kettle all afternoon.
As the invitations were received, the guests responded on the Hoop and Holler line, telling Belle what they would bring. Ada Prichard would bake the wedding cake and the others would bring a covered dish. Harlow moved the Edison phonograph down to the barn to play, between sets, when the musicians took their break. It would be a splendid party.
On Friday afternoon, while the women were still scurrying about the kitchen, folks began to arrive. The frozen river allowed the Irish folks to come across the river on the ice and the folks from Gardena and up Dry Buck all showed up. And the Foxes, too, so all the canyon folk were there. The children were in the middle of it, dancing and singing with the grownups. The bodies in the barn, the energetic dancing and singing, a bit of sipping whiskey that was passed around among the men in the tack-room, and the good hot food with a little help from the fire, kept the guests warm.
There was much snickering and elbow punching among some men as they watched Beatrice Fox’s unbridled breasts swing like a pair of metronomes as she waltzed with her husband. Then one of the men sidled up to the musicians and asked them to play a polka, a nice lively one. With the rollicking beat of the music, Beatrice and her husband Elmer danced. The men’s snickering grew into raucous laughter and although Belle could see the humor of it, she stood among the culprits and gave them her wide-eyed stare until they realized they’d been discovered.
As the children got sleepy they were wrapped in blankets and set up in the hay where they could watch the dancing until they fell asleep.
As hostess, Belle decided to teach the ladies a Scottish country dance. They were quick to learn and little by little pulled some of the men out on the floor. The whooping and hollering, a part of the dance, got the men to let their hair down and have fun.
Harlow grinned at Belle as she finished doing the Harry Lauder drinking song she had perfected at the Silver Slipper. “You’re full of surprises, Belle. You’re really good!”
“How did you like the haggis?”
“Can’t believe you spent all that time and energy on something that came out tasting like that. Now, your dancing and singing were
really something.”
“I did it for auld lang syne, Harlow. Flo asked me to. Pretty good for an expectant mother, eh?”
Harlow gave Belle a squeeze. He hadn’t seemed as excited about that news as Belle thought he’d be. He’d been a little standoffish with T. J. but after all the boy wasn’t his. It likely would be different when his own baby came and she put it in his arms.
And Flo, with only a hint of makeup, eyed the men, then ran to find Belle to see who wasn’t attached. There weren’t many. But Ada Prichard’s brother Pretty King was there. He was young and cocky, not too long on looks but pleasant enough. Once Flo found him, he kept asking her to dance.
“Belle, tell me about your friend, Florence,” Ada Prichard said. “Does she come from a good family? Pretty seems to like her.” She nodded in the dancers’ direction.
Out of Innocence Page 15