Now that she was grown, she understood, of course. Whatever Bob Wright had done with such women during his long absences, it was something a wife could ignore; at Fort Dodge, the women were right there, mocking and obnoxious. Alice might not be eager for yet another pregnancy, but neither did she welcome the constant bitter reminders of what was going on behind her back.
A lot of things got better when they moved to Dodge City. The house Bob built for the family was an enormous improvement over their little shack at the fort. Buffalo hunters and Indians were becoming a distant memory, but the whores were everywhere. Laughing and lewd, or drunk and desperate. Walking the streets, browsing in the store. Leaning from second-story windows, calling out to passersby.
Alice insisted that Belle’s dresses be made in dark, sober colors and expensive fabrics, to avoid her being taken for one of them. “You never know who might be watching, Belle,” her mother told her over and over, “so you must conduct yourself as a lady at all times.” Alice allowed Belle to go out only between the hours of ten and noon, so her maiden eyes would not be subject to the spectacle of open prostitution. As though Belle hadn’t seen worse, back at the fort. As though she didn’t know what her own father was doing over at Bessie Earp’s bordello.
Since Belle’s last birthday, Alice’s concern for her daughter’s future had bubbled into a rolling boil of desperation. “Even if we started planning a wedding tomorrow, you’d be sixteen before your first baby.”
“Don’t fret, Mother,” Belle replied, selecting the voice of Sweet Reason. “Abraham and Sarah had a baby when she was ninety-nine, so I guess I have a few years left.”
The remark earned her a slap, but it was worth it.
All year, Belle had endured a series of her mother’s dreary Sunday dinners, each one a transparent job interview. A visiting banker, lumpish and self-important. A railroad man, bumptious and balding. Tommy McCarty, son of the town’s doctor, who was nice enough, really, but boring. A cattleman’s nephew, educated at Harvard, who could only talk about how sophisticated Boston was and how he couldn’t wait to go back East.
Don’t let me stop you, Belle thought. There’s a train leaving in the morning.
The latest, and most persistent, in this tiresome procession was Elijah Garrett Grier, who’d been calling on the Wrights regularly for months. Eli Grier was from a prominent Connecticut family and he was a war hero, her mother told Belle before the gentleman arrived that first Sunday. Even Belle had to admit that Captain Grier had seemed like a real possibility when he rode up to the house on his beautiful Arabian mare. Slim and straight-backed, good-looking and worldly, Eli Grier was almost as old as her father, but with his well-brushed tailored uniform, and his silver captain’s bars, and his tall cavalry boots all shined up, he was quite handsome.
And don’t think he didn’t know it.
During the soup course, the captain pretended not to notice that his foot was pressing against Belle’s under the table or that he had brushed her hand with his when she passed the salt. By the time the roast was served, however, it wasn’t entirely clear to Belle whom the captain was courting. He hardly spoke to Belle at all, preferring to discuss business with her father and to flatter her mother, who was still pretty at thirty-two and probably just starved for attention because Daddy was never home, what with the store, and the state congress, and his political meetings, and card games. And his women.
Belle manufactured a headache before dessert, and the captain found this an opportunity to stand and bow over her hand as though he were going to kiss it, but instead he looked into her eyes with a leer. Little lady, you’re not likely to top this opportunity, that leer said. Best grab me while you can.
I’d rather be buried alive, Belle smiled back, and went to bed with a book.
“What did you think of him?” Johnnie Sanders asked her the next morning when she came into the store.
“His horse is pretty,” Belle said.
“That’s called damning with faint praise,” Johnnie observed. He tapped an account book with his pencil. “The captain’s got quite a tab here, and at Ham Bell’s, too. Grier’s over his head in a lot of places.”
“So I’m to be a line of credit,” Belle said.
“And a very pretty one,” Johnnie told her, and he was so matter-of-fact about it, Belle found no reason to blush. “Course, you’re an ethical person,” Johnnie pointed out, “but Captain Grier might overlook a character flaw like that.”
Oh, how she missed Johnnie Sanders!
Despite the lack of encouragement from Belle herself, Captain Grier was still coming to dinner, and still playing hard to get, although it should have been obvious by now that Belle did not consider him worth having, thanks all the same, and—
“Miss Isabelle?” Dr. Holliday was saying. “Miss Isabelle!”
Belle felt a tug at her sleeve and looked down to see Wilfred standing at her side.
“It is just as I thought,” the dentist told her. “Sometimes a permanent tooth erupts just behind a milk tooth whose root doesn’t absorb on schedule. Tell young Mr. Eberhardt, please, that I believe nature will take care of it in a few days. If it remains a source of discomfort to him, bring him on back. I will help things along.”
Belle gave Wilfred the good news, and the little boy smiled shyly.
“Well,” she said, trying not to hope that Wilfred would experience enough discomfort to justify another visit, “we’ll be on our way then. Thank you, Dr. Holliday …” She stopped, for the dentist looked as though he were thinking something over, and her heart gave a little lurch.
“Miss Isabelle,” he said tentatively, “I wonder if you would act as our interpreter a little while longer? I would like to say something else—something personal—to the boy.”
Which was a disappointment because Belle had been thinking that Dr. Holliday might ask to call on her. Naturally, she agreed to translate and was surprised when the dentist braced against his desk and lowered himself carefully onto one knee so he could look Wilfred in the eye.
“This is a terrible world,” he told the child, “full of tragedy and sorrow. You have been thrust into manhood too early, but your first thought was to protect your womenfolk. That, sir, is a mark of nobility.”
He glanced up at Belle, who added Dr. Holliday’s definition of nobility to the list of indictments against her father, and then told Wilfred what the dentist said. She did not know all the words, so she substituted “sadness” for “tragedy and sorrow,” and told Wilfred that he was a good boy to take care of his sisters.
Within the hour, when she got home, Belle would dash upstairs to her bedroom, retrieve her diary from its secret place in a drawer beneath her underthings, and write in a looping girlish script, I knew that Wilfred was grieving, but I did not truly understand how Alone he must have felt until this very morning when Dr. Holliday laid a kind hand on Wilfred’s shoulder and told us about the day his own dear Mother died. It was so Sad! That poor man! That poor little boy! I nearly wept!
Indeed, by the time she had finished translating the story of Dr. Holliday’s loss for Wilfred, mere interest had ripened into full-blown infatuation, and Belle was blinking away tears as she watched the dentist struggle to his feet. Of course, if it had been her father who moved so awkwardly or coughed so often, the girl would have been annoyed and disgusted, but since it was Dr. Holliday, she didn’t mind the cough at all, and his lameness seemed romantic, and she wondered if he had been wounded in the war. Then he made a joke about not turning Catholic because he’d never be able to get off his knees the third time the congregation dropped a curtsy to the Lord, which made her laugh. She was thrilled by Dr. Holliday’s magnanimity when he refused payment for the consultation, and flattered when he said that seein’ her pretty self on a fine mornin’ like this was all the compensation he required, and touched when he said that it had been an honor to meet young Wilfred.