Nobody's Darling

“Then let’s proceed, shall we?” she said briskly. “Your brother is in desperate need of a clean, warm bed and some fresh bandages.”

Virgil cleared his throat. Sam hemmed and hawed. Jasper fixed his hard-eyed gaze on the distant horizon, as if he’d like to be anywhere else in the world at that moment. Not one of them would meet her eyes.

Oddly enough, it was shy, timid Enos who finally worked up the courage to swivel around on the wagon bench and face her. He tugged off his hat, wringing its brim in his tense hands. “We c-cain’t go no farther, ma’am,” he said with genuine regret.

“What do you mean you can’t go any farther? Of course, you can go farther.” She pointed at the house. “All you have to do is drive this wagon to the top of that hill.”

Virgil clambered down from his horse. “Enos is right, honey. You’ll have to go on alone from here.”

“Alone?” Esmerelda echoed. She cast the house a dubious look. It was beginning to look more haunted by the second.

“Yeah, alone,” Jasper drawled, the mocking curl of his lip reminding her achingly of Billy. “We ain’t welcome here.”

That didn’t exactly surprise Esmerelda. She couldn’t imagine many places where the Darling gang would be welcome. “Just where exactly is here?” When they exchanged furtive glances instead of answering, she sighed with exasperation. “Surely you could at least accompany us to the door. Help me explain what happened to whoever lives here…?”

Although she continued to press, her desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. Virgil was already hefting Billy out of the buckboard and draping him stomach-down over his mare’s saddle. After a moment of consideration, he drew one of his own pistols and shoved it into Billy’s empty holster. Then, ignoring Esmerelda’s continued protests, he clamped his meaty hands around her waist and swung her out of the wagon. Enos reached into the bed of the wagon and tossed her trunk and violin case to the ground. Sadie jumped down, landing on all four paws with an offended “oomph.”

Virgil pressed the mare’s reins into Esmerelda’s hand. “Don’t you worry none, honey. Our Billy has always been lucky when it comes to cards, women, and gettin‘ shot up.”

“That was before he met me,” she said glumly. After all, she’d interrupted his poker game, scared a woman off his lap, and nearly shot him through the heart at their very first meeting.

As Virgil mounted his horse, Enos ducked his head and said, “G-g-good luck, ma’am.”

“She’ll need it,” Jasper added with a derisive snort.

Esmerelda studied the expectant expressions on their faces. She studied the reins in her hand. She studied the top of the hill. They plainly intended for her to climb that hill on her own, leading Billy’s horse behind her.

Billy’s ragged groan at that moment firmed Esmerelda’s resolve. If there was help for Billy in that house, then, by God, she was going there, even if the devil himself stepped out on the porch to greet her, pitchfork in hand.

Straightening her shoulders to a regal angle she was certain her grandfather would approve of, she began to march up the hill, thankful for Sadie’s stalwart presence at her side. She could feel Billy’s brothers silently watching her.

She’d just topped the hill when the first shotgun blast shattered the night.

Acting on pure instinct, Esmerelda grabbed Billy by the seat of his trousers and dragged him off the horse. She landed on top of him in the tall grass, covering his body with her own. From Billy’s brothers she heard a frantic jingling of harnesses and scattering hoofbeats that faded to distant echoes. So much for expecting any help from them. She lay with her eyes clenched shut, hardly daring to breathe. Even unconscious, the feel of Billy’s hard, lean body beneath hers gave her a sense of security in a world turned topsy-turvy.

“Who the hell goes there?” shouted someone in a hoarse rasp that could have been either male or female.

Esmerelda opened her eyes and nearly yelped aloud to find Billy staring up at her. Oh, Lord, she thought, her clumsy handling must have killed him. Then he blinked and she realized the fall had simply jarred him to consciousness.

“Ma?” he whispered.

“Oh, you poor dear,” Esmerelda muttered. “The fever must be making you delirious.” This hardly seemed the time to remind him that his mother was dead. After all, what could be the harm in offering him such a simple comfort in moments that might very well be his last?

“That’s right, darling,” she murmured, stroking his sweat-dampened hair. “Mama’s here.”

She even dared to press a maternal kiss to his cheek. When she lifted her head, Billy’s eyes were narrowed in a confounded squint. Esmerelda was taken aback. He was staring at her as if she’d lost her wits. She had almost convinced herself it was nothing more than a grimace of pain when he closed his hands around her waist and heaved her off of him with surprising strength.

. Billy straightened to his knees in the tall grass, then staggered to his feet, weaving heavily. “Ma?” he called out. “It’s Billy. I’m hurt, Ma. Real bad.” He stumbled a few feet toward the house before dropping back to his knees. “I need your help.” His voice faded to a mumble. “I need you.”

Esmerelda’s mind reeled. She would have sworn Billy had implied that his mother was dead, but she’d obviously been mistaken. She breathed a quick prayer, thankful to have found help for him.

The shotgun belched again, its fiery breath strong enough to ruffle Billy’s hair. “Get the hell off my land, boy, before I pump your belly full of buckshot.”

An eerie calm descended over Esmerelda. She scrambled to her feet and marched toward the house, jerking Billy’s pistol from his holster without breaking her stride.

He grabbed for her, but got only empty air. “Don’t beg on my behalf, woman,” he ground out between his clenched teeth. “I won’t have it.”

Esmerelda had no intention of begging. She marched right up to the porch steps, near enough to make out the amorphous figure standing in the shadow of one of the posts. She could also make out the flared muzzle pointed straight at her chest. But it was too late to do anything but pray that there was no such thing as a triple-barreled shotgun.

She jerked her head toward Billy. “Is William Darling your son?”

No answer. A curl of pipe smoke drifted into the night.

Esmerelda swung her arm up, aiming the pistol, and repeated her question.

The figure held its silence. Esmerelda’s arm began to cramp. Then came the voice—unmistakably female, unmistakably sullen. “I ain’t got no sons. They all died durin‘ the war.”

“I believe you’re mistaken, ma’am. Every single one of the Darling boys survived the war.”

Esmerelda sensed rather than saw the apathetic shrug. “What difference does it make? They’re dead to me.”

Esmerelda pointed at Billy, her voice rising in frustration. “That man is going to be dead to everyone if he doesn’t get a clean bed and some fresh bandages. Can you provide those, or would you rather help me dig his grave so I can bury him on your land?”

She sensed the woman’s attention shirting to Billy. Although he still knelt in the grass, there wasn’t an ounce of supplication in his posture. His hands were clenched into fists. His eyes glittered with a fierce pride that was nearly as dangerous as his fever. Moonlight made the bloodstains on his white shirt stand out in stark relief.

The woman shifted the pipe to the other side of her mouth. “Looks to me like he already dug his own grave.”

Esmerelda sighed. “It has been a very long, very trying day, and you, madam, have just succeeded in exhausting my patience. Now are you going to step aside and let me bring him in the house or am I going to have to shoot you?”

A tense pause was followed by a gravelly chuckle. “Why, I almost believe you would.”

In reply, Esmerelda drew back the hammer of the pistol.

Billy’s mother waited a long time, long enough for Esmerelda’s finger to tense on the trigger. But she finally lowered the shotgun, propping it up against one of the posts. When the woman stepped out of the shadows, Esmerelda stumbled backward.