He saw a blow-up Mrs. Claus standing on someone’s roof. She was swaying back and forth, an arm raised as if to say, “Help! I’m going to fall over!”
He laughed out loud. Bellini had always, always made him happy.
19
Bellini
Everyone expected Logan Hamilton and me to grow up and get married, despite the O’Donnell/Hamilton feud.
The O’Donnells and the Hamiltons go way back.
It’s not a pretty history.
We’re not the Hatfields and McCoys. There are no vigilantes, no one sells illegal moonshine, and there are no midnight rides to rescue anyone. There have been (a few) gunfights, and those happened a long time ago.
But the intense dislike, on both sides, goes back over a hundred years, all here in Montana. What started it? A love triangle, of course. Erma Fairchild was a beauty—everyone said so. She was new to Kalulell, and both Larry O’Donnell, nicknamed Quicksilver, and Dolph Hamilton were determined to woo and marry Erma. She dated both men. She flirted, she giggled, she teased. She ran off with—you guessed it—a woman. The woman’s name was Gilda Zanderfield. They left Kalulell, and rumor has it they shared a rambling pink house for the next fifty years outside of Eugene, Oregon.
But the damage was done. Quicksilver O’Donnell and Dolph Hamilton were furious with each other. They understood that Erma had left with Gilda, but they didn’t quite get the implications there—neither was too bright—and they blamed the other for creating a “bad situation for my Erma.”
Quicksilver shot at Dolph after Dolph, holding a rusty knife, charged him in downtown Kalulell, when the town was hardly more than a saloon, a grocery store, a few businesses, a church to save the sinners, a bank for mining and railroad money, andhorse-drawn buggies. The bullet hit Dolph in the left foot, right by his pinkie toe. Dolph toppled to the ground in front of the post office, surprising a group of women headed for tea and dessert at Esther’s Café.
Dolph shot back at Quicksilver, and Quicksilver forevermore had a scar across his cheek that looked like a tree branch. The two, bleeding ferociously, whining, and hurtling curses, lay on the ground. They survived.
Later, Quicksilver and Dolph married cousins, Beth Ann and Stella Ann. Ann was the name of their grandmother. The cousins couldn’t stand each other, either. They wanted to be the prettiest in all the land. Unfortunately, one cousin had a diabolical sense of justice (Quicksilver’s wife), and she spread rumors about Dolph’s wife being a former hooker. That didn’t go over well, and the women got into a skirt-tearing, hair-pulling, tumbling fight in, of all places, church.
The minister tried to break them up and was hit in the crotch and fell to the ground right in the middle of the aisle. This happened right after the congregation had sung “Amazing Grace.” When Quicksilver and Dolph split up the screeching ladies and shoved them into the arms of other O’Donnell and Hamilton relatives, they went at it themselves—still in the aisle, bless their hearts, no praying or asking for Jesus’ help. No guns were pulled this time, though, but swear words were shouted—heaven forbid. More O’Donnells and Hamiltons jumped into the fray, leaping over pews while the minister still held his crotch.
It was the most exciting church service ever! Everyone agreed. And thank the Lord, it also ended the church service early. The minister liked to hear himself talk and talk. Jesus, he took so long to tell them they were all headed to hell in a handbasket, and the fight spared the congregation the boredom. Jesus apparently did not have an opinion on the raucous fight,but some thought that the statue of the Virgin Mary at the altar looked disapproving.
Not surprisingly, Quicksilver’s and Dolph’s children didn’t get along. Their children didn’t get along either. Aggravating the whole thing were cattle-grazing arguments, water rights and land disputes, and later they had competing businesses in town.
Over the years, more bullets flew, a barn was burned down, horses “released” (stolen), cattle “lost” (stolen), trucks “misplaced” (stolen), and there were many more fiery love triangles down the generations, which sometimes ended in elopements. It was a small town, after all, and there weren’t that many people to choose from to marry. The fights continued.
In fact, at Lady Whiskey’s, there have been four fights over the years between Quicksilver’s and Dolph’s descendants. So, they don’t get along, in a general sense, but I know my mother and her sisters are sick of the whole thing, and I know that people on Logan’s side think the whole thing is ridiculous. In addition, Logan’s relatives do not like Logan’s father at all. They have called him an “insane hermit,” a “drunk devil,” a “dishonest crook with breath like hellfire,” and “a total jerk. Don’t get him near me ever, or I might pretend I’m an O’Donnell and take him clean out.”
In recent decades, many of Quicksilver’s and Dolph’s descendants are great friends and, now and then, lovers and spouses. Plus, everyone works and has families and older parents to take care of, so there is not much time anymore for generational warfare.
My personal problem, though, as an O’Donnell, is Logan’s father, Drake Hamilton.
Drake asked my mother out many times when they were younger. She always said no. This infuriated Drake. He was controlling and manipulative, a snake of a man. How dare Whiskey say no? Who did she think she was? She didn’t havemoney or land like his family. Her family had seven daughters. They were poor! They barely survived. He had land, Whiskey had nothing, but she turned her nose up at him. Who was she to do that? Whiskey came back home after fishing in Alaska and opened a bar. As a woman! It wasn’t exactly a prestigious position. She should be flattered,gratefulthat he asked her out!
Laina Dawley caught Drake’s eye next. She was twelve years younger, only twenty years old, and it was rumored that Drake poured on the charm. She was pretty and sweet and funny, but also sheltered by a loving family, and no one in town could understand why she married Drake, until Logan arrived six months after the wedding.
“Poor thing,” my mother said to her six sisters one day when they were having tea and cookies at our house. “I’ll bet she felt like she had to marry him. Laina’s parents are so religious. Maybe she did it because she thought she would be a disgrace.”
“I heard that her parents didn’t want her to marry Drake,” Aunt Emmie said. “You know her daddy. I was told that he slammed the Bible down on the table and told Laina that the Bible said to marry for love, not marry a loser with a temper.”
“Drake fooled her, and she fell in love,” my mom said. “And I’ll bet Drake pushed her into sleeping with him, then she had Logan and didn’t want to have to fight Drake for custody. She told me once that she was scared to leave Drake because when Logan would be forced to go and visit him, she wouldn’t be there to protect him.”
“That’s what happened,” The Sisters agreed. “Poor Laina.”
What also happened is that Drake didn’t like me. Being an O’Donnell was only one of the problems. Being Whiskey’s daughter—the woman who spurned his attention—was another. A third was that he simply didn’t likeme.
When Drake saw me in town or behind the bar, he glared. He would say things like, “Your momma is the only woman on earthdumb enough to name a daughter Bellini,” and, “Brush your hair, girl,” and, “I hope you’re not like your mother. She needs a man to get her back into line,” and “Don’t hang out with her, Logan. Bellini’s rebellious like her mother, defiant and difficult.”
It sounds ridiculous—he was carrying on a family feud that the vast majority of O’Donnells and Hamiltons gave up years ago—but Drake couldn’t let go. Personality disorder? Maybe. Flat-out meanness? Maybe. Obsession? Maybe. Alcohol addiction leading the whole thing? Probably.
The man’s brain had to be swimming in alcohol at all times—although not in my mother’s bar. She kicked him out, permanently, the first month she opened, as he started to stalk her. When he wouldn’t leave, she pulled out that gun under the cash register. She fired one round through the roof, then drew the gun straight down at Drake’s face. He got the picture. My mom climbed onto the roof that night and patched up that bullet hole herself.
