Nobody's Darling

“I’ll take it down for you,” Billy offered, extending his hand.

“Oh, no,” she said, clutching the envelope to her breast with even more desperation than she had clutched her drawers. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll just drop it off at the desk as we go.”

He slowly withdrew his hand and nodded. “You do that, Miss Fine. You just do that.”

A prickle of apprehension skated down her spine. Despite his lazy grin, Esmerelda couldn’t quite shake the odd sensation that Mr. Darling didn’t trust her any more than she trusted him.

“This horse seems rather tall. Do you have anything just a tiny bit shorter?”

As Esmerelda turned away from the stall, rejecting its velvety-eyed occupant just as she’d rejected the occupants of all the other stalls lining the north wall of the livery stable, Billy blew out a snort of exasperation that would have put his mare to shame. Although it was only late summer, at this rate they wouldn’t reach Eulalie until Christmas. Of next year.

Esmerelda meandered over to the opposite wall, her hands clasped behind her as if she were reviewing a line of shaggy troops.

The stable’s owner trotted at her heels, dabbing sweat from his brow with a dingy red bandanna. The shrill pitch of his voice revealed his growing desperation. “But, miss, you said the last horse was too short. And the one before that too broad. And the one before that too brown.”

She peered into the next stall, making a nervous little hop backward when the piebald gelding within nickered a welcome. “He’s a bit strident, don’t you think? Do you have anything quieter? More mannerly?”

The stable owner’s bottom lip began to quiver as if he was on the verge of bursting into tears. Taking pity on the fellow, Billy stepped forward. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss Fine, but none of Mr. Ezell’s horses were privileged enough to attend finishing school. Why don’t you just take a look-see at this docile fellow over here?”

He caught her elbow in a less-than-docile grip and dragged her to the next stall. The aged gray within lowered his head and gave them a sleepy look. If he were any more docile, he’d be dead. But this time Billy was standing near enough to feel Esmerelda’s quiver of alarm.

“Miss Fine?” he murmured into her ear.

“Mm?”

“Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

She drew in a shaky breath. “I sat on a pony once at the county fair.”

“Was the pony moving?”

She shot him a sheepish glance. “Only after I fell off.”

“That’s what I thought.” He steered her toward the stable door. “Why don’t you step outside while I choose your mount? I’m considered an excellent judge of horseflesh.”

She cast him a skeptical glance. He gave her an encouraging wink before pushing her out of the stable and gently closing the door in her face.

“Excellent judge of horseflesh, my… my… jackass,” Esmerelda muttered beneath her breath, eyeing the long-eared monster plodding in front of her with undisguised loathing.

She gave the reins a tentative flick. The hateful creature swiveled around to bare its long, yellow teeth at her and honked out a deafening bray. The basset hound perched on the bench of the wagon next to her threw back its head, jowls jiggling, and added a woeful howl to the chorus.

Esmerelda stuck her tongue out at the mule, only to end up biting it hard enough to draw blood when the rickety buckboard jolted through yet another rut. Her trunk and violin case were taking an awful beating in the bed of the wagon. If her bottom hadn’t gone numb hours ago, she’d probably be howling in pain herself. She’d spent most of the morning silently bemoaning the absence of her bustle.

She shot the portly hound a menacing glance and hissed, “If you don’t hush, I’ll sit on you.”

The dog subsided, giving her a doleful look that made her feel like the most heartless of bullies.

Her discomfort wouldn’t have been so galling if Mr. Darling hadn’t spent the entire journey loping ahead of the wagon on his chestnut mare as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He rode with remarkable skill, his long-limbed grace serving him as well in the saddle as it did in a gun-fight. Esmerelda gritted her teeth when a cheerful whistle accompanied by the jingling music of his spurs drifted back to her sunburned ears.

Her misshapen bonnet was proving to be a poor protection against the desert sun. The waves of shimmering heat had driven her to roll up the heavy sleeves of her basque. Her gloves shielded her hands, but she could almost hear the freckles popping out on her forearms. She sighed. There wouldn’t be enough buttermilk in all of New England to fade them now.

She shaded her eyes against the sun, hoping for a glimpse of civilization, but saw nothing but more of the same—sweeping plains of grama and buffalo grass peppered with sparse patches of mesquite beneath a blazing swath of sky. As alien as the landscape was to her eyes, she had to admit it possessed a wild and stark beauty nearly as compelling as it was disturbing.

Much like her stoic guide.

Darling’s cheery song had given way to the plaintive notes of “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier.” The mournful refrain sent a shiver of loneliness through Esmerelda’s soul.

Desperate for human companionship, she flapped the reins on the mule’s back. He lunged into a reluctant trot, nearly tumbling the hound paws over jowls into the bed of the buckboard. By the time the wagon caught up with the mare, Esmerelda was panting harder than the dog with the effort it took to control the cantankerous mule.

Mr. Darling slowed his own horse to a brisk walk.

“You whistle very nicely, sir,” she said. "Shall we attempt a duet to pass the time?”

He immediately stopped whistling. “That might not be a good idea, ma’am. We wouldn’t want to attract Indians. Or buzzards,” he muttered beneath his breath.

She gave the sky a nervous glance. “I know the tune you were whistling. It’s an old Irish folk song that was very popular in Boston during the war. My mother used to play it on the piano.”

“Was your father a soldier?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Papa always felt he could best serve his country by wielding a pen instead of a sword. He was a staunch abolitionist. He wrote eloquent editorials for the Gazette denouncing the unfortunate tendency of the privileged to enslave their fellow man.” The taut set of Mr. Darling’s jaw beneath the shadow of his hat brim warned her that she might be at risk of offending him. Hoping to placate him, she hastily added, "Of course, some of Papa’s friends insisted that the war was less about slaves than money.”

Billy reined in the mare, swinging around to face her. His gray-green eyes had gone hard as flint, cutting straight to her heart. Esmerelda’s hands involuntarily tightened on the reins. True to his contrary nature, the mule picked that moment to respond to her touch for the first time, bringing the buckboard to a lurching halt.

“My pa was a dirt farmer,” Billy said, his voice oddly flat. “He didn’t have any money or slaves. But when one of our neighbors accused him of being a Confederate sympathizer, that didn’t stop the Union soldiers from hanging him from a tree in his own front yard while my ma watched. If it hadn’t been for the war, Pa might still be alive. And Ma…” He trailed off to gaze at the distant horizon, a muscle in his jaw working savagely. “That, Miss Fine, is what the war was about for me and my kin.”

Esmerelda remained frozen with shame while he wheeled his horse around and spurred it into a canter. For a moment, she thought he was just going to leave her there—an insignificant speck on that vast and windswept plain. But he reined in the mare at the top of a shallow rise and glanced over his shoulder, his lean form tense with impatience. It took her several agonizing minutes to bully the mule into motion. Only after she’d succeeded did Darling continue on, presenting his back to her with deliberate finality.