Hell's Belle (34 page)

But he'd never
expected the rush of tender feelings he'd developed. The almost insatiable
sexual desire—hell, part of him wanted nothing more than to strip off his duds
and climb into bed right now, and give her pleasure in a dozen other places
just so she wouldn't have to feel the hurt in that leg.

"I'd swear
that's gold ore. Right there. You see that? Stand over here, so the sun hits
it. That's
gold
, Del! Gold! Right here on your property."

"Naw, it—"

He'd started to
contradict Sandy, but the words died on his tongue. Because Del and Sandy had
panned the Truckee now and again, never finding much of anything. But they both
knew what to look for, knew a gold vein when they saw it. And they were seeing
one now.

Del crouched down
and dug with his fingers. Sandy scraped along the bottom of the rockslide with
his knife. "Jesus light a firecracker! Twila must have knocked these
stones out of position. She hit gold, Del! I can't believe it! I'm going to
scrape some of this and take it over to the assay office right away. You got to
file a claim. You and the missus are going to be rich, Delancy Mitchell!"

Del clutched
Twila's leather slipper to his chest. He grinned at Sandy, but not for the
reason Sandy assumed. It was gold ore, all right, and there could well be some
serious money coming as a result of the discovery. But it didn't matter. What
made Del smile was hearing someone credit Twila for a miracle. The fact someone
else realized they stood in evidence of one.

Not the gold.

The woman who'd
tripped and uncovered it.

The woman who'd
looked Del in the eyes and offered him a future full of promise at sunset the
night before. Just at the twilight's last gleaming.

He turned and loped
back to the house. He was going to deliver that slipper and spend about an hour
telling her how much he loved her. About how rosy their future had become.
Maybe he'd rig up a way to give her a nice hot bath without getting her splinted
ankle wet. The doc said they had to keep the splint and bandages dry.

But Del didn't want
the rest of her dry.

Oh, no sir. Not
when he thought of how Twila reacted to soapy lather on those nice little tits
of hers. Which weren't so little any more. Del wanted her wet and throbbing in
other places, so she didn't have to feel a thing from that bad leg.

Oh, he'd tell her
all about the gold. And how they'd use it to build a finer house and send the
kids to school back East if she wanted. Maybe buy some thoroughbred stock for
the ranch. Or visit Europe. Whatever she wanted. After all, she'd stumbled upon
it. Should be her decision how to spend it.

As for Del, he
already had his precious gift. He didn't need another damned thing.

* * *

Lucius stepped
between the cars, glancing down at the swaying open platform. He'd never really
understood how someone could easily uncouple railroad cars, particularly while
the train was in motion. He bent lower, peering at the coupling mechanism,
trying to figure out how it worked.

"Well, look at
what we have here! Divine Providence! I told you my nose was never wrong. You
can't debate the matter any longer, Cookson. The whelp wouldn't be here if not
for some fateful intervention."

Lucius tried to
scramble to his feet, but it was no use. The two Englishmen were bigger,
faster, and angry as buzzing hornets. "Wait a minute! I can—"

"Oh, no, you
don't! What do you think to do this time, tell the conductor we prefer to ride
on the roof of this contraption? We've a score to settle with you, Mr. Bell.
I'm having to ride standing up, thanks to your shenanigans!"

"I'm sure
there's some mistake, gentlemen. I—oomph! Hey!"

Lucius found
himself upside down, dangling precariously over the side of the guardrail. He
hadn't realized the train was whipping along the tracks quite so fast. He
clutched at the railing and tried to squint up at the men holding his shins and
belt.

"I've got
money! Let me down, and let's talk about this."

"You hear him,
Cooky? He's got money, he says. Didn't I tell you that all along?"

"Where
is
this money? That's what we want to know. We tried your father's blasted book,
but it was filled with gibberish! You better get your memory back, boy, and
quick like. There's a trestle over a ravine up ahead. Be a shame if you came
out here to relieve yourself and tragically slipped to your death."

"No! I told
you it was all a joke! My father doesn't have any treasure, but I was very
lucky at cards these past few days. I've got money in—inside! Yes, inside! Take
me back into the car and I'll show you."

"Hah! We’re
not interested in your paltry traveling funds, you blighter! Your family's
mine. That's what we're after. I smell gold and it's got the name Bell etched
into it. So where's the gold hidden? Tell me the truth, before I lose my
grip."

"But I'm
telling
you the truth! Why won't you believe me? I was teasing before. It was just a
lark. A prank. My family owns an emporium. That's all. There's
no gold
!"

* * *

The Lord's faithful
assembled in the tiny church in Wadsworth, Nevada, everyone in town trying
desperately not to stare at the Bell family. But it was hard not to. They made
such an interesting spectacle. Even the new preacher, Reverend Atwater, seemed
to take special note.

Rumor had it—or so
Amos Stanislaus claimed, when Del Mitchell was out of earshot—that Fletcher
Bell had thrown an apoplectic fit of some kind in a rage of passion. He claimed
raccoons had razed his store. Even produced a dead coon as some kind of proof
of his allegation. Of course, no one else had seen these nocturnal vandals at
work…while Emily Mercer whispered that she'd ventured over to the shambles of
the store just in time to discover the proprietor in a very compromising
situation with a strange woman. A widow whom Fletcher Bell had now taken to
escorting to Sunday services. Despite the fact she'd blackened his eye.

Amos had heard all
about that, too. Sally Thorpe said she'd been walking past the store and heard
Fletcher cry out in pain. The strange woman, this widow, rushed over and
apologized for striking him. It might have been an accident. Sally allowed that
they'd looked to be in the midst of cleaning up the mess.

But Amos didn't
think so.

He suspected this
widow wanted matrimony, and Fletcher Bell, known to be a skinflint, had tried
to take his pleasure without paying the piper…so to speak. So she'd broken up
merchandise at his emporium and popped him a good one right in the face. Now he
was talking matrimony, all right. And all but kissing her backside whenever
they were out in public.

Then there was
young Lucius, who inexplicably had turned up in town with part of his hair
missing.

Slim Johnston
absolutely made it clear he was in no way, shape or form liable for that. The
younger Bell had been out of town for several days and turned up on his
father's porch with his clothes torn, his pockets empty, and a section of
bloodied scalp where luxurious hair once sprouted. He'd been beaten and robbed,
so they said.

No one really knew
that to be a fact.

But the local men
decided they'd continue to frequent the local saloons and bordellos, and stay
the heck out of places in Reno or beyond. One family canceled their plans to
ride over to Utah for a family reunion. The elder Bell wasn't planning a
wedding trip. A man obviously took his chances traveling these days. Train
robberies, highwaymen…all manner of dangerous sorts. Nope, folks were staying
close to Wadsworth. After all, darned few of the menfolk had enogh hair to
spare.

Twila, of course,
had always drawn stares at church. Before they'd been openly hostile. Now they
were looks of envy and disbelief. Not only had she wed the handsomest rancher
in northern Nevada, there was talk of a family soon, and everyone heard the
news out of the assay office.

Delancy Mitchell
had discovered gold on his land.

Twila had broken
her ankle, had to hobble into church on a pair of wood crutches. To the women
in town, she might have ridden in on a sedan chair carried by a half-dozen male
slaves. She amazed them. Had them simply agog.

"You know,
Lula," Jessica Burns muttered behind her gloved hand. "I was always
taught to view ungainliness as a detriment. My mother always said a young lady
must be graceful as well as demure. Now I'm not so sure that's the best idea.
Everyone in town knows Mrs. Mitchell is prone to mishaps, and just look at her!
Maybe I should slip off my back porch. I've been wanting the doc to get a look
at my ankles. He's a widower, you know."

"Your ankles
are thick, Jessica. Perhaps I should fall onto my bottom and get my tailbone
examined. If I was to take a wild pratfall, do you suppose I'd find gold or
silver in my back garden?"

Del heard the
whispers and had to hide a smile. He reached for Twila's hand and they settled
onto a pew. A collective sigh rose around them.

Well, a body never
knew what might happen tomorrow. Some of these folks would get their heart's
desire, Del supposed. Some were hoping against hope. But Del Mitchell didn't
have to pray…still, he did. He prayed for Twila's ankle to heal up fine. For
five sons and four daughters, all sturdy and healthy as young horses. And
smart. He prayed for the ranch to prosper, so he could leave it as his legacy
to those nine children he hoped to father.

But he didn't ask
God for wondrous miracles. He'd already been granted two.

Twila and the gold.

A superstitious man
might figure he had a third one coming, the way things of like natures tended
to come in packs of three. Yes, three was said to be a magical number, and
Sandy and the boys were sure Del must be due for a third miracle. They had a
round of bets going over at Miss Minerva's as to what it might be.

Of course, they
were wagering in the wrong direction entirely, thinking bigger and bigger all
the time. A place the size of Buckingham Palace. The President of these United
States coming to buy a horse from Del Mitchell. Twila's next candle
misadventure burning down the entire town.

Del had his money
on smaller. About seven or eight pounds or pure spunk and mischief. Looking up
to meet his wife's smile, he amended that. Nine pounds of bedevilment. A smart
man never underestimated Hell's Belle.

I'd already
envisioned an accident-prone heroine when I began working on this tale. Then I
researched Western towns for the setting. I wanted to find a ghost town, a
place which did or had actually existed once…though the events I'd recount
there would be pure fiction. My research led me to Wadsworth, Nevada—which
locals insist is
not
a ghost town.

Not in the
traditional sense, anyway. It's still inhabited. Wadsworth's original church,
schoolhouse, and a few shacks from its heyday of wild frontier days remain. But
it's a quiet place, far off the beaten track. Visitors would never guess the
gambling casinos and bawdy nightlife originally were on that site, rather than
Reno, thirty miles away.

Wadsworth intrigued
me and seemed an ideal setting for the story of Twila and Del, as it had a true
history of accidents and misfortune.

In June of 1872
there was a serious railway accident, with several train passengers injured.
Fires repeatedly burned down the entire town, despite its location along the banks
of a river. After a particularly devastating fire in 1902, the whole railroad
maintenance shop and most of the town's businesses and inhabitants packed up
and relocated farther west…to a new site they christened
Sparks
.

ABOUT
THIS AUTHOR

Shannah Biondine is a former
professional resume writer who is the author of several historical romances and
other works of fantasy. Shannah is an avid and eclectic fiction reader herself.
She collects Venetian masks and the art of Josephine Wall. Shannah also owns
big dogs, reads tarot cards, enjoys both jigsaw and crossword puzzles, and
since relocating from California to Colorado has developed an affinity for
shoveling snow. To learn how to pronounce her pen name or learn more about her
titles, please visit her website: 
www.shannahbiondine.com