Hell's Belle Read Online Free Page A

Everyone
please stay with your respective traveling groups. We'll need to take a head
count."
    A short while later,
Twila found herself in a dingy rear hotel room overlooking the manure piled behind
a livery stable. The Bell males, on the other hand, were downstairs playing
poker and smoking cigars with the other men from the train. Or, as they
preferred to describe it, "celebrating their victory over the negligent
and incompetent Pacific railroad."
    Lucius was in rare
form that night, unable to recall when he'd had a better run of luck at cards.
His father didn't appreciate some of his son's less savory talents, but Lucius
knew a man had to be able to hold his own while standing in the middle of his emporium
or sitting at a card table. His father generally frowned at Lucius partaking of
spirits, as well. Except tonight. Fletcher was very much in favor of a bit of
drink and sport—seeing as how all of it was at someone else's expense.
    Lucius won the pot for
the third time. One of the Englishmen got up and groused about needing to
relieve himself. His partner watched him depart, then gave Lucius an odd look.
"What's your father guarding there in his breast pocket? State
secrets?"
    His father never
went anywhere without his ridiculous little journal. Fletcher Bell scribbled
all sorts of nonsense down in a series of little bound books, convinced that
someday someone would pay him handsomely to publish his memoirs. The train
debacle had absolutely delighted the old man. There would be a story, he
insisted.
    Somehow Lucius
couldn't imagine telling this pompous English fellow that. Telling him that
essentially his father was a little… peculiar . Actually, rather pathetic.
Admitting that Fletcher Bell believed every bit of minutiae of his mundane
existence should be preserved for posterity.
    The two
"blokes," as they called themselves, hadn't been staying in the
sleeping car, either, leading Lucius to suspect they could be misers like his
old man. They'd loudly proclaimed they'd lost quite a lot of valuables in their
trunks, and they looked prosperous sorts. Lucius could tell by their clothing
and grooming. Fletcher had taught him to measure a man's wealth by his garments
and shoe polish. A dapper fellow had money to spend keeping himself that way,
whereas a man could boast all he liked, but worn shoes and frayed cuffs told a
different tale.
    Lucius knew he'd
never see these two again after the next couple of days. They'd all go in
various directions from Ogden. An outrageous thought dawned. A really wicked
little prank. He decided he rather liked the idea.
    "I wouldn't
say anything too loudly, if I were you," he replied, glancing warily at
his old man, who was puffing his cigar and regaling some other fellow with his
big future plans for a new store. "And don't let on you've noticed. He
gets really tense about that book of his. It's got the map , you
see."
    "Map? What
to?"
    Lucius verified
that now the topic of his father's discussion had flowed into a heated economic
and political debate with the fat man from Minnesota."To the mine, of
course!" Lucius hissed. "We're going to Nevada, to a place along the
Truckee, not far from the High Sierras. You know it's all gold country out
there."
    The Englishman
dropped his monocle. "Your father's got a map to a bleedin' gold
mine?"
    The fellow's
mixture of shock and avid interest was so overwhelming, Lucius couldn't quite
keep a straight face. "Naw, it's just useless things he likes to scrawl
down to jog his memory. A copy of that list for the railroad, so he can be sure
later they don't try to cheat him. Things like that. I was joshing about the
mine. Still, my uncle Nathan knew several intrepid explorers. You never
know."
    Lucius got up with
his winnings, still smirking. The English fellow would be whispering to his
cohort, thoroughly in awe of the Bells of Omaha—soon to be the Bells of Nevada.
    "You catch any
of that?" Marquardt asked Cookson as the latter sat back down at the