Hell's Belle
Authors: Shannah Biondine
HELL'S
BELLE
by
Shannah Biondine
Copyright © 2005 Shannah Biondine
All Rights Reserved
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Wadsworth, Nevada
Spring 1870
Someone coughed too
loudly. Preacher Phillips raised an eyebrow in silent question and waited
expectantly. Del Mitchell dropped his gaze to the folded note his wrangler
handed him, and scanned the short message while a hundred inquisitive eyes
bored into his back.
She wasn't coming.
He crushed the scrap
of paper in his fist and glanced at his best man.
Sandy cleared his
throat and addressed the assembly inside the small church. "Folks, the
bride's had a change of heart. There won't be a wedding today."
"Well, hell! I
say we all go over to Miz Minerva's and have ourselves a party to
celebrate!" Jordan Zoyer shouted.
Del spun on his
heels and strode from the church, wanting nothing more than to be away from the
church, his men, his town, his shame.
She'd left him
waiting at the altar. Standing there like the world's biggest fool. Hadn't
bothered to send the stupid note to the church. Del had waited over half an
hour before dispatching a man to see what had Betty Lee Lydecker so late.
"Del, wait
up!"
Del heard Jordan
shouting behind him. From the hoots and scuffling feet, they'd formed a
procession along Church Street. Poor Phillips. What did it say about a preacher
when the locals would fly out of his place of worship and head straight for
Hell on Wheels? An exaggeration, Del thought, coined by the local prudes. Just
because saloon and brothel owners got their supplies shipped by rail cars, like
most other business owners, didn't seem fair to call that section of any boom
town by that appellation.
But Del supposed
that at least in this case, it was fitting. Betty Lee had politely told him to
take himself straight to hell in her note, and she always had detested the
gaming and bawdy houses, particularly Miss Minerva's Pleasure Palace. Ever
since the pissing incident, she'd forbidden Del to set foot in the establishment.
So he'd gotten a
little drunk and taken a dare. So he'd been lined up on the rooftop, letting
loose into the wind, trying to see who could hit the petunias the tinker
cultivated in boxes on his porch. Men had silly pissing contests. Everybody knew
that. Harmless fun. Certainly wasn't intending to
hit
anyone.
How was Del
supposed to know Betty Lee's wrinkled old prune of an aunt would pick that very
same evening to stop by Tinker Michaelson's, or that the wind would shift at
just the wrong second?
Del jerked off his
string tie and kept marching toward Minerva's.
Betty Lee never
would have known he'd been the man to hit the old biddy's straw bonnet if
Jordan Zoyer hadn't shot off his big mouth. But no, Jordy had to go shouting
and cackling how
hilarious
it was, and congratulate Del on the best shot
of the competition, even though he'd missed the flower box by at least eight
feet.
Betty Lee Lydecker
and her aunt Martha had never let Del forget about that damned straw bonnet,
even after he bought the old prude two others to replace the fool thing. Nice
ones, too.
He paused to shove
the wildflowers he'd picked for Betty Lee through a knothole in a sagging
picket fence as he left Church Street and headed for the disreputable part of
town. Betty Lee didn't want him or his flowers. And because of her, he'd missed
the weekly poker games at Miss Minerva's for over two months. Well, he wouldn't
be missing any more of them.
"Buck up,
Del." Sandy Thayer, Del's foreman at the horse ranch, threw an arm around
Del's shoulders. "She wasn't the right gal for you."
Del snorted.
"And you'd know who's right for somebody. You, who can't even tell when a
woman's got her heart in her eyes."
Sandy dropped the
friendly arm. "I told you before, it doesn't matter. Won't work."
"Guess I'll
see right quick, huh? Not much in the mood to be celebrating, but it does
satisfy a certain sense of justice. Drinking and carousing in the last place
she'd ever have wanted me to go…on what should have been my wedding day.
Perfect."
Rumors around
Wadsworth would later proclaim the horsemen had arrived en masse stark naked at
Minerva's front door. That wasn't accurate. The only man showing his skin was
the jilted bridegroom, and he still wore his socks, boots, and hat.
An hour after the
drinking started, Jordan whispered in Minerva's ear that poor old Del was in
need of a special evening. The kind a man never forgot. She looked to Sandy
Thayer for affirmation, or so he claimed. But Del noticed the madam looked at
Sandy Thayer every chance she got. The woman's eyes always followed him, yet
Sandy swore a looker like Minerva Vance never could be content beside his
hearth, darning socks the rest of her life. So he pretended not to notice how
she mooned after him. Del had scoffed at the man's pride, but he wasn't
scoffing today.
Nope, today Del's
bare butt warmed one of the oak chairs in Minerva's poker parlor while he made
jokes about having nothing up his sleeves and generally got drunk as the
proverbial skunk. On some level, he was aware that Jordy's whispering had
gotten louder. Now he made very vocal, boisterous suggestions that had most of
his wranglers chortling with glee. Glasses were raised in bawdy toasts so many
times, Del gave up and ordered himself a full bottle of rye.
And then someone…he
could never be sure who it was…started talking about exactly what had been in
that goddamned note.
"Aw, honey, it
don't make no difference." This was offered by Cinnamon, the skinniest of
Minerva's girls. The boys said what she lacked in substance she more than made
up for in agility. Del wouldn't know. Even though Betty Lee had carried on,
bawling and sniffling, insisting he was known to have lain with every harlot in
the place. His denials—carefully worded—fell on deaf ears. So he avoided
Minerva's once he and Betty Lee had set a date.
Cinnamon's bangle
bracelets clanked next to Del's ear, and he got a good whiff of stale
perspiration under all her talcum powder and perfume. Maybe there was something
to that agility talk, after all.
"That's right,
Delancy," Betsy concurred. She sidled up close to Del, a wicked smile in
her eyes. "Her loss is every other gal's gain. There's more than a couple
gals hankerin' for a man the likes of you."
Betsy had long,
dark, unruly curls everywhere and knew some delicious tricks with them. Del
felt a niggling little itch at the remembrance of having one wrapped in a
particularly sensitive location. Betsy was all lips, hair and nice breasts.
The next thing he
knew, Betsy was in his lap and Del was fondling those nice breasts, putting on
a real show for everyone gathered around the poker table. He'd just murmured in
her ear that they ought to go upstairs when one of the Keating brothers
announced to the whole establishment that Del Mitchell had been thrown over for
a blackleg named Dan Collier.
Rory Keating knew
because he'd carried Miss Betty Lee's bags to the train platform, and who
should be waiting for her, all smooth good looks and fancy duds, but the card
sharp who'd come into town some weeks earlier. "They was headin' for the
Barbary Coast, I heard him say," Rory volunteered. "Promised her he'd
get them a room in a glittering hotel and champagne to drink. Said he knew some
hotel owner."
Del dumped Betsy
off his lap and got unsteadily to his feet. "That's real useless information,
Keating. What the hell makes you think anyone here gives a crap what that
trollop does or where she goes?"
A smarter fellow
would have known he'd already said too much, but Keatings never featured brains
over brawn. "Sor-ree! Just figured folks was wonderin' why you and the
boys are here, 'stead of over to the church and all. I mean, everybody in town
knows you was getting hitched today. S'posed to, I mean. Until Miss Betty left
last night with that other fella."
Yeah, she'd left
town, all right. Del's wrangler had whispered that Aunt Martha had been the one
to come to the door and hand him the note. Then she'd announced none of Delancy
Mitchell's hands were welcome on her property, and slammed her front door in
his face.
Sandy stepped
between Del and Keating. "Rory, why don't you and Cinnamon have yourselves
a dance? Minnie, how come your piano player's not setting our toes bumping in
our boots?"
Minerva just shook
her head. Minerva had brassy copper curls piled up so high, it was always a
wonder she could even walk without them tumbling loose, cascading like a Sierra
avalanche. When she shook her head, folks held their breaths and stared,
waiting.
"Now every
soul in this fool town knows Del Mitchell was fixing to take that Lydecker gal
to wife. Why, I never
did
know, since she was a prudish snob that never
would have made a man like him happy. But it don't matter. She's gone and he's
not going to mope about it. Are you, Del?"
He hesitated,
trying to sort out the drunk feelings from the ones he'd still have sober.
Every eye in the place was locked on him, and he knew they all waited for him
to somehow salvage his pride. But when he looked down inside himself, there was
a muddle beyond just that. He was sore as hell, and did feel cheated and betrayed.
But he was also kind of…relieved, he'd guess it was. Like maybe it hadn't been
such a wonderful idea to wake up beside Betty Lee every morning of his life,
anyhow.
He belched and
looked Minnie square in the eye. "Nope, I'm sure as hell not sulking over the
likes of prissy Betty Lee."
"I dare you to
prove it," Jordy said.
Minerva's piano man
hit a discordant note. Poker chips rolled, forgotten, to the floor. Glasses
were lowered to the bar. The barkeep paused in mid-pour. Suddenly everyone
focused on Jordan Zoyer, who grinned like a cat with a full bowl of heavy cream
and held out a bottle of something dark and thick.
"I gave Minnie
here a week's pay. Now,
if
you take my dare, this whole town won't look
back at today as the day Del Mitchell got stood up at the altar. No, sir!"
A low murmur of
approval rippled across the saloon.
Jordy played to his
avid audience. "Today will become a day of legend. A day we'll be talking
about for years to come. No exaggeration, Delancy. All you got to do is go up
to Cinnamon's room with her, Betsy, and this chocolate syrup. I dare you to let
both them gals cover you in chocolate sauce, then lick you clean."