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.

Billy’s attention shifted to Bartholomew. Esmerelda didn’t have to see Billy’s eyes to know they’d narrowed in unspoken warning. She held her breath as her brother straightened his head the best he could, swallowing against the strangling tension of the rope. He glanced briefly at Billy, then defiantly shifted his gaze to Esmerelda.

“I never meant to hurt you,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

As Esmerelda gazed into his tear-glazed eyes, she knew he truly was. Perhaps for the first time in his life. A sob caught in her throat as her heart surged with love and pride. She had her brother back. The one who’d slipped his little hand into hers each Sunday afternoon when they went to put flowers on their parents’ graves. The one who’d written startlingly eloquent poems about his mama playing her violin with the other angels in heaven. The one who had wrapped his chubby arms around her waist whenever he sensed she was tired or lonely or afraid.

She didn’t understand the reason for the terrible resignation in those eyes until Jasper hooted. “You’re sorry, all right! A sorrier sonofabitch I never saw.” Before any of them could react, he let go of the reins, smacked the horse on the rump, and shouted, “Yee-haw!”

Esmerelda screamed. Flinging her aside, Billy dropped to one knee and fired six times in rapid succession, cocking the hammer and squeezing the trigger so fast his hand was nothing more than a blur.

He might have severed the rope. He might have saved Bartholomew’s life. But he didn’t have to. For at that precise moment, a mighty shotgun blast struck the oak, shattering the rotten wood and sending the branch and Bartholomew sprawling to the ground in a cloud of dust.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Esmerelda’s ears were still ringing when Zoe Darling came swaggering down from the porch with Sadie marching along behind her. The flared muzzle of her shotgun was still smoking, as was the pipe clamped between her teeth.

Her long strides carried her right past where Billy still knelt in the dirt; past Virgil, who looked as if he was quaking in his boots; and past Jasper, who paled as if he’d seen a ghost.

She didn’t stop until she reached Bartholomew. He blinked up in astonishment at the massive Amazon towering over him, shotgun in hand.

“You all right, son?” she asked.

He slowly sat up, massaging the angry rope burns that had seared his throat. “I think so,” he rasped. He had to swallow several times, his bruised Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, before he could squeak out, “Th-th-thank you, ma’am, for saving my life.”

Esmerelda beamed with pride. At least he hadn’t forgotten his manners.

Zoe gave him a kindly smile. “Consider it my pleasure. I never did care much for public lynchins‘. Especially in my own front yard.”

As she swung around, her smile darkened to a thunderous scowl. She took a long draw on the pipe, sending smoke roiling from her nostrils. Jasper flinched. Virgil began to tiptoe toward his horse. Esmerelda groped for Billy’s hand.

But the first blast of Zoe’s wrath was directed at the two men huddled together on the seat of the wagon. “Git down from there this instant, you yellow-bellied curs.”

Enos and Sam exchanged a fearful glance, then scrambled down from the wagon as if afraid their mother just might empty that second barrel into their hides.

She shook a finger in their sallow faces. “I ought to tan your sorry behinds for bein‘ a party to mischief such as this.”

“But, Ma,” they whined in unison. “Virgil made us do it.”

“And you!” She turned on Virgil, freezing him just as he was reaching for the bridle of his horse. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! Why, you’re the oldest! Just what kind of example have you been settin‘ for these poor, feebleminded children?”

Virgil ducked his head and kicked at the dirt like a chastened six-year-old. “I’m sorry, Ma. I’ll do better next time.” He shot her a hopeful look from beneath his sandy brows. “Honest, I will!”

Esmerelda shook her head, utterly bemused. Who would have thought one cranky old woman could reduce the infamous Darling gang to sniveling shame?

Seemingly satisfied with Virgil’s promise, Zoe strode over to Jasper. He stared straight ahead, as sulky and defiant as ever. Until his mother reached up and smacked his hat clean off his head.

“You know better than to leave your hat on in your ma’s presence. Didn’t I teach you better manners than that?”

“Yeah, I reckon you did,” he drawled.

“It’s ‘Yes, ma’am,”“ she corrected sternly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he meekly echoed, his bottom lip starting to quiver.

Esmerelda might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t just tried to murder her brother in cold blood.

Zoe settled her shotgun in the crook of her arm and surveyed the lot of them. It was apparent from their hangdog expressions that they were just waiting for her to order them off her land.

She shook her head in exasperation. “It looks like you haven’t had a decent bath or meal between the four of you in fourteen years. Git inside and I’ll boil you some water and rustle you up some grub.”

Their faces brightened, making them look less like vicious outlaws and more like prodigal sons, glad to be home after a long stint of wallowing with the pigs.

“Don’t you sass me none, either. I can still lick every one of you if I have to, and don’t think I cain’t.” As they filed past with Zoe herding them along like some ill-tempered sheepdog, Esmerelda realized that Billy had not been included in the invitation.

He was already climbing to his feet and holstering his pistol, his face unreadable. Esmerelda might have thrown herself into his arms then and there if a hoarse cough hadn’t reminded her that she had a prodigal of her own to welcome home.

She scrambled over to Bartholomew, dropping to her knees beside him. He gave her a look of such abject shame that she couldn’t resist opening her arms to him. Instead of ducking out of her embrace as he had so many times in the recent past, he wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in her bosom, his shoulders heaving with emotion.

While Esmerelda was stroking Bartholomew’s hair and crooning words of comfort, Billy turned his head to squint at the horizon. The man was her brother, for God’s sake. There was no need for him to feel such an ugly stab of jealousy. But Esmerelda’s gentle murmur and the nagging cadence of his ma’s voice telling Virgil to take off those filthy boots of his before he tracked up her clean dirt floor made him feel as if he were the only man alive on that windswept plateau.

To escape the sting of the wind, Billy moseyed on over to the buckboard and peered into the back. He whistled beneath his breath as he got his first clear look at its cargo.

Bart must have sensed his sardonic glance. Hastily extracting himself from his sister’s arms, he scrambled to his feet, giving his nose a surreptitious swipe. He and Billy eyed each other warily.

Bart finally nodded toward the bandage wrapped around Billy’s shoulder. “I really am sorry about that. I never shot anyone before.” A faint shudder raked him. “It’s not an experience I would care to repeat.”