Read Wanted! Belle Starr! for Free Online

the same and using the supposed
occupations they had given to their previous victim.
    What was more, the pattern of the play had
followed a similar course!
    With the Kid seated by her side, but not
playing due to the supposed language difficulty, Belle had quickly
established that she had no liking for losing. Then, although she
had played with far less skill than she actually possessed, she had
been allowed to win steadily. However, the attempts made by Emily
to ply her and the Texan with hard liquor had met with no success.
Claiming almost total abstinence for herself, she had asserted that
as she had heard was also the case with Indians and half breeds in
North America it was most unwise to let ‘Manuel’ drink intoxicating
beverages.
    Commenting upon the proposed ‘hunting trip’,
apparently because she was in high spirits over having taken
another sizeable pot which she had felt sure was presented to her,
despite Driberg having held a hand of higher value than the one she
displayed the lady outlaw had been offered the opening she needed
to introduce a subject essential to the culmination of her
scheme.
    “ As you wish, Armond,
Reverend,” Belle continued, with the good-humored acquiescence of a
person who found everything was going as she desired. Which was
true, although not in the way the majority of her audience believed
to be the case. She was most gratified by the way in which all the
members of the gang were studying the Kid in a speculative, even
perturbed fashion. “Let us by all means play on, so I can make the
most of my good fortune!”
    “ You’re real lucky and
that’s a fact!” Driberg admitted, with the sourness of a
disgruntled loser. “There’s none of us can do a thing right against
you!”

Chapter Six – All Things Are
Possible
    “ Madre de
dios !” Belle
Starr gasped, the game having been resumed and two more pots coming
her way without any suggestion the trap had begun to be sprung.
Glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, while
the deck was being shuffled in what she knew to be a legitimate
fashion, she continued, “Is that the hour?”
    “ It is,” Armond Chauvelin
confirmed, a trace of suspicion in his otherwise blandly polite
voice. “Why?”
    “ Much as I hate to do so while
enjoying such a lucky streak, I’m afraid I must leave after your
next deal, my dear Armond,” the lady outlaw explained. “I have the
so early meeting in the morning with a Captain Dusty Fog what
strange names these Americanos del Norte have, don’t you think?”
    “ Very strange,” the ‘Duke of
Haute-Savoie’ agreed, his tone pensive as he was aware of the
reputation ascribed to the man mentioned by his intended
victim. xi He found the possibility of her
attending such a meeting disturbing. “Do you know him
well?”
    “ I have heard something about
him, but we have never met,” Belle replied, truthfully with the
first part and much less so where the second was concerned. “By all
accounts, he is segundo for an uncle who owns one of the largest ranches in Texas
and should be able to offer me many cattle at a suitable price. We
are to discuss this in the morning and I never care to talk the
business unless I am fully rested.”
    “ A most sensible
precaution, mon cher Donna Maria,” Chauvelin praised jovially, concluding there
was no justification for his fear that the beautiful young woman
was intending to make an excuse and leave before the trap could be
sprung. He also decided, bearing in mind the person she was meeting
in the morning, that it would be advisable to leave Newton after
the game was over. Turning his gaze to his wife and giving a brief
inclination of his head, receiving an equally quick nod indicating
an understanding of what was wanted, he went on, “But perhaps your
luck will change before you leave us.”
    “ All things are possible,”
Belle conceded, giving no indication of having noticed the exchange
of signals between her host and hostess.