Nobody's Darling

When she lifted the pistol, pointing the barrel square at his chest, disappointment stabbed him. Then she turned the weapon and gently laid it, butt-first, into his palm. Ignoring the gun, he cupped her nape in his other hand and drew her to him for a kiss.

“You’ll never regret it,” he murmured into her hair. “I swear it.”

After Billy had snatched up his gunbelt and gone, Esmerelda slumped against the wardrobe, unable to determine if she was more dazed by his promise or his kiss. Both had been brief, fierce, and unbearably sweet.

She might have lingered there all morning if Virgil’s roar hadn’t rattled the windowpanes, startling her back to sanity. “I hate to start the party without you, son, but this tenderfoot’s fancy necktie ain’t gonna hold forever.”

“Bartholomew,” Esmerelda whispered, besieged by a fresh wave of horror.

She threw open the door and raced into the parlor, forgetting about her revealing attire. She skidded to a halt, shocked to discover Zoe Darling perched on a cane-backed rocker by the hearth, rocking and puffing on her pipe as if a lynching wasn’t about to occur practically in her own front yard. Sadie slept on the rag rug at her feet, blissfully snoring.

Esmerelda dropped to her knees beside the chair and gazed up into the woman’s stoic face. “Ma?” The word came easily to her tongue for the first time. “You need to fetch your shotgun. It really won’t do to send Billy out there all alone. In case you haven’t noticed, your sons have a tendency to be…” reckless? bloodthirsty? as vicious as a pack of rabid coyotes? “um… high-spirited.”

“The boy’s old enough to fight his own battles.” Zoe took another laconic puff off the pipe, refusing to meet Esmerelda’s eyes. “He proved that fourteen years ago when he up and ran off.”

“But he almost died only a few days ago. He still hasn’t regained his full strength.”

Zoe cut her eyes toward Esmerelda, taking in her disheveled hair, rumpled nightgown, and bare feet. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Looks to me like he has.”

Esmerelda blushed to the roots of her hair. She climbed stiffly to her feet. “Very well, Mrs. Darling. But since you’ve decided to harden your heart against a thirteen-year-old boy who ran off to avenge his father’s death, you might want to know that he didn’t do it for himself. He did it for you. Because they made you cry.”

Zoe’s chin might have quivered just the tiniest bit, but Esmerelda wasn’t inclined to comfort her. Straightening her shoulders as if they were draped with a duchess’s ermine-trimmed mantle instead of an old, faded nightgown, she marched across the room and slammed her way out the door.

When Esmerelda caught her first glimpse of Bartholomew, her bravado deserted her. She had to wrap one arm around a porch post to keep from staggering to her knees.

He sat astride a dun gelding at the crest of the hill, his hands bound behind his back and a noose draped around his neck. The other end of the rope had already been knotted over a jagged branch of the dead oak so that every time the horse shifted this way or that, it pulled his neck taut. It wasn’t the vivid bruises on her brother’s face but the defeated slope of his shoulders and the utter lack of hope in his expression that frightened Esmerelda more than anything.

Sam and Enos watched the proceedings from the back of the same wagon Billy had rented from the livery in Calamity, while Jasper gripped the reins of Bartholomew’s horse in his gloved hand. Even from that distance, there was no mistaking the nasty gleam in his eye.

Billy was already striding toward Virgil, who stood with hands on hips and feet planted wide, like some jolly giant appointed to greet the Lilliputians.

“It’s good to see you back on your feet, little brother,” he boomed. “Since I’ve elected myself president of this here hemp committee, I’d like to say a few words before we commence with the—”

“Cut him down, Virg,” Billy commanded.

Virgil’s face fell. He cupped a hand around his ear. “Say again. I don’t think I heard you right.”

Billy raised the pistol and kept walking. “I said cut him down.”

Enos and Sam exchanged a perplexed glance. Virgil took a step backward, his nervous gaze flicking to the weapon in his brother’s hand. “Hell, Billy, I loaned you that iron. You ain’t gonna shoot me with my own gun, are you?”

Billy stopped, cocking the pistol. “Only if I have to.”

Virgil gazed into his brother’s steely eyes for a long minute before flaring his nostrils in a snort of disgust. “Cut him down, Jasper.”

“Like hell I will.”

Billy swung the pistol toward Jasper.

A lazy grin spread over Jasper’s face. Esmerelda was struck anew by what a handsome man he might have been had his soul not been so ugly. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you, little brother? Cause if you shoot me, I just might drop these reins. And if I drop these reins, Mr. Fine-and-Dandy here is goin‘ on the last ride he’ll ever take.”

“Don’t!” Esmerelda hoarsely cried.

Although she’d vowed to trust Billy, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She plunged down from the porch and went racing toward her brother. She might have made it if Billy hadn’t shot out an arm, caught her around the waist, and gathered her against him. She could feel his heart beating strong and steady against her back.

“Be still, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear, his voice as smooth as oiled leather. “You don’t want to spook the horse, do you?”

“N-n-no,” she replied, her teeth chattering with helpless fury.

He lifted his head to look Jasper straight in the eye. “This isn’t your quarrel,” he said mildly. “I’m the one the boy shot.”

“We’re blood kin,” Jasper replied. “You wrong one of us, you wrong us all. Then you pay the price.”

Virgil, Sam, and Enos nodded their agreement.

Billy gave Bartholomew a thorough once-over. “Looks to me like this boy’s already done enough paying. Those wouldn’t be your fist prints on his face, now, would they, Jasper? I always said you could whip any man as long as he had his hands tied behind his back.”

“Why, you rotten little—”Jasper started for him, but his death grip on the reins brought him up short.

The horse pranced sideways, straining Bartholomew’s neck to an impossible angle; Bartholomew didn’t make a sound, but Esmerelda whimpered aloud.

“Whoa, there,” Billy crooned, as much to Jasper and Esmerelda as to the jittery horse. “I only meant to suggest that since the boy’s insult to my person turned out to be nothing more than a flesh wound, hanging might be a mite harsh.”

Remembering how valiantly Billy had fought for his life only a few days before, Esmerelda's heart welled with tenderness.

“What would you rather do?” Jasper asked, sneering with contempt. “Whip out that shiny little badge of yours and arrest him?”

Billy cocked his head to one side as if he was genuinely pondering the situation. “Considering that there’s been no real harm done, I might be willing to accept a sincere apology.” He turned to Enos and Sam, appealing first to his less bloodthirsty siblings. “How about it, boys? If the lady’s brother says he’s sorry, would you vote to cut him down?”

Billy gave her a sharp squeeze. Esmerelda responded to his cue by batting her eyelashes in Enos and Sam’s direction. “I’d be eternally in your debt.”

Sam scratched his head. “Huh?”

“She’d be much obliged,” Billy translated.

The two men exchanged a glance, then Enos shyly nodded. “She does play a m-m-mighty purty fiddle.”

“Virg?” Billy asked.

Virgil tore off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Aw, what the hell. Though I think it’s a dadburned shame to ruin a perfectly good lynchin‘.”

“Jasper?”

Although he refused to meet his brothers eyes, Jasper’s shoulders twitched in a sullen shrug that would have to be answer enough.