Jump to new as of January 10, 1999
Part One
Dedicated to Lee in the hope that Pride In The Old West will be continued.
Marshall Bill Darcy and an old prospector were riding slowly into San Antonio when they saw a stagecoach making good time on the road below them.
"I guess I must be getting' old," said the prospector, "I could swear that's an Injun ridin' shotgun down there…"
Darcy didn't even look down, "Wild black hair and mangy deerskins?"
"Yup," replied his companion.
"That's Lizzy Bennet," replied the Marshall, "and there aren't many men in this state she can't outride or outshoot so watch out for her in town."
"That's a female?" cried the old man, "Lord, I heard Texas was a tough place but they never told me about the females!"
They reached San Antonio ahead of the stage and Darcy made for his deputy's office, in most towns the Marshall and his Deputy share an office but in San Antonio it was generally understood that Mr. Darcy had the one with the sign outside and that Colorado Carter preferred the bar in the Lucky Lagoon. He ordered a drink and listened to what Colorado had to say about Indian attacks and the much worse news that Ike Wickham was due to drive his herd through town in the next few days.
"And that spells trouble," said Darcy, "usual rules apply - no revolvers, rifles or any other sort of firearm within the city. They hand them over at the deadline or they don't get through and we'll swear in more deputies if we have to."
The stage arrived, welcomed by riotous shouts and a few gunshots and a moment later Lizzy Bennet strolled into the hotel in an obviously good mood. Darcy tried to ignore her; the last thing he needed with the Wickham gang on the menu was any trouble from that little catamount. He was glad she was happy, Lizzy in a bad mood was only slightly preferable to a shoot out with Sitting Bull, today she seemed particularly happy.
"I love the Lucky Lagoon," she cried to the woman who had got off the stage, "there ain't a better hotel or theater in the whole of Texas. Meet Lucky Lucas, he owns it and he's just the finest gentleman in the south, aren't you Lucky?"
The woman smiled and nodded at Lucky Lucas and tried to sit down, but Lizzy was having none of it and leapt onto to Darcy's table. Her boots, caked with the filth of four or five years living rough, put him off his newspaper; he looked up and wondered what she would do next.
"And this is the man you want to watch," she announced, "Wild Bill Darcy, gambler and prospector turned lawman, our very own Marshall no less!"
The poor woman cringed. Darcy smiled at her and stood up as Lizzy jumped off the table and, because he was a head and a half taller than her, she was forced to look straight at his necktie, "And I'm glad to say he's a very good friend of a friend of mine!" she finished triumphantly.
Darcy shook his head and sat down again but the mud from Lizzy's boots had made his paper unreadable so for the millionth time he wondered what she had been like before her folks died and her only sister ran off with a loser. It was possible, that with some female fixings, Lizzy Bennet could be a passable pretty girl. Possible but not likely.
"Make mine a sarsaparilla," she grinned at the bartender, "and put a shot of bourbon it it."
"You been eatin' them jumpin' beans again, Lizzy?" he asked good-naturedly.
Lizzy smiled, "No, Jake, I'm just happy to be home, I guess."
"Happy to be home?" yelled Colorado, "Lizzy, you've only been gone as long as it takes the stage to get to Amarillo and back!"
Everyone laughed but Lizzy didn't mind being laughed at, that was what life was about, laughing at your neighbours or having them laugh at you. She finished her drink and before she could order another two men stumbled through the door torn and bloody.
"Louie… Abe!" she cried running towards them, "What happened?"
Louie Finnegan grabbed the bottle of whisky from the bartender, "Indians," he whispered hoarsely, "a whole pack of 'em, chased us from Deadwood right down here…"
"See!" Lizzy spun round to face Darcy, "I keep telling you the Comanchee are on the war path again but you just aren't interested… there's more arrows in the back of that stage than a porcupine's got quills but you don't care all you think about is those danged cattlemen!"
Darcy took a deep breath, "I've had a hard day, Lizzy, and I am not going to sit here and listen to you tell me how many Indians you've shot. Personally, with you here, I don't know why the government bothered to send in the army at all!"
Lizzy seethed but before she could think of an appropriately insulting reply Abe, revitalized by his share of the whisky, informed them that the army was no use at all and that as well as the two scouts from the fort the Indians had got Major Bingley as well.
Lizzy forgot to shout at Darcy and turned slowly round to Abe, "They got Major Bingley?" she said with a little tremor in her voice, "how'd they get him, Abe, was it quick and clean? In the head or in the heart?"
Abe shrugged and downed another whisky, "Yeah, in the head or the heart, maybe both."
It took a moment for the import of his remark to sink in but when it did, Lizzy leapt clean over her table and grabbing poor Abe by his collar promised to rearrange his face on the bar if he didn't tell her exactly what happened to Major Bingley. Darcy winced and wondered if he ought to do something. He was the law, after all, but the girl was as reasonable as a bad-tempered longhorn and he had no desire to be shot in a bar by a female in pants.
"So," Lizzy screamed as she dropped Abe back onto his stool, "you rode off and left Major Bingley to die like I wouldn't leave a dog? Oh, you're a rotten, stinking coward!"
Abe trembled violently and sought refuge in more whisky.
"And what are you gonna do about it, Marshall?"
Darcy shook his head slowly, "None of my business, Lizzy, none at all. If Fort Hertford wants its commanding officer back, then I guess they can go get him, I am certainly not getting involved."
For a moment he thought she was going to spit at him. He wouldn't put it past her, she really was the sorriest excuse for a woman in the biggest state in the union but she must have thought better of it because she grabbed her gun and stormed out.
"Where you going, Lizzy?" yelled Colorado.
"I'm going to get Major Bingley!"
Part 2
It took Lizzy a few moments to get across the road to Hudson's Stable and saddle up her horse. She sometimes wondered how she could afford to keep poor Charlotte but they had been together since Lizzy's days as a Pony Express rider and they were a pair, Lizzy and Charlotte, although by rights Charlotte still belonged to the government.
A little later she trotting briskly along the north road past the gates of Maclennan's ranch and out into the wilds. She had a good idea where Major Bingley would be, if he was still alive, the Comanchee had a little temporary encampment down by the creek just before the old mission and that's where they'd be. She'd told that dang fool Bill Darcy about it before but he just kept saying that the Indians weren't his problem, well, perhaps now they'd all take her seriously. She got off Charlotte at mission and left her standing silently in the moonlight by the remains of the old Spanish cloister and crept noiselessly towards the creek. Yes, she was right, she could hear voices and laughter, she stopped and counted four voices and drew her revolvers. Seconds later she stormed into the camp screaming and shooting in all directions, the Indians scattered, Lizzy untied her hero and dragged him up the path to where Charlotte was waiting patiently to take them back to town.
The Lucky Lagoon was full when they got back but Lizzy battled her way to the bar and bought drinks for herself and the disheveled but grateful Major Bingley. Oh, but he was just too handsome to be real! Tall but not too tall, not as tall as Bill Darcy, who the heck would want a man with such long legs, anyway? Blond curls and blue eyes and the sweetest smile this side of the Mason-Dixon Line. She sighed but, not being an overly romantic girl, she preferred to tell her story of the rescue but to her annoyance the men were more interested in the packets of cigarettes that had come in on the stage. She sighed and caught sight of Bill Darcy grinning at her in what she interpreted as a none too friendly way.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she demanded.
"I wasn't looking at you," he replied.
"You don't believe I killed four Indians, do you? I am so sick of you calling me a liar!"
He shrugged his shoulders and started to walk away but a couple of shots aimed at the ground too near his feet stopped him. Lizzy smirked but before she could think of replacing it in her holster another shot took it out of her hand. She stared down for a few seconds unable to believe the speed with which it was done.
"Why don't you buy a dress?" he asked in disgust, "Perhaps if you behaved like a girl from time to time you wouldn't be so gun happy?"
"Buy a frock… buy a bonnet… get a man… stay in the kitchen…" mimicked Lizzy in a Virginian accent.
"Ach! There's no point in talking to you!"
Lizzy made a mental notch on her gun-belt. She had lost nine arguments with him and won fifteen.
The next few days were quiet for Lizzy, the stage didn't need her and there was no work anywhere else. She wandered round town looking at things and listening to folks but really she'd rather be out in the countryside somewhere but she figured she'd better keep out of the Indians' way for a bit. The Deputies were busy setting up the "deadline" to control the brawling cattlemen and she knew from experience that Bill Darcy wouldn't swear her in for the night to help take their guns off them. Eventually she wandered past the Marshall's office where Bill and Colorado were sitting outside smoking and drinking morning coffee.
"Nice work on the taxpayer's money!" she remarked.
Darcy ignored her but Colorado, remembering Lizzy lived off her wits from day to day, pulled out another mug and a slice of ham and egg pie. Lizzy dumped herself down on the step at their feet without further invitation and began to devour the pie.
"Can't you eat like a human being?" demanded Bill as Lizzy bit ravenously into her second piece, "Did no-one ever tell you about etiquette?"
"What's an ettykeet?" Lizzy looked up and for a moment there was something in her big dark eyes that made his heart jump but only for a moment. His imagination or something.
"Mrs. Long has one," chuckled Colorado.
Lizzy looked thoughtful, "I thought that was a parakeet," she said.
Colorado began to roar with laughter and Lizzy, having had enough pie, thumped him on the head with her empty mug, "I don't know why I talk to you!"
"Just as well we have tin mugs around here," remarked Darcy dryly as Colorado rubbed his head, "you ask for it every time."
Colorado lit another cigarette, "I feel kinda sorry for Lizzy, it's the least I can do to feed her every now and then."
Darcy frowned, "There are at least five men to every one woman hereabouts, if Lizzy washed her face and wore a frock she'd pretty soon get a husband to feed her. She shouldn't be encouraged to live the way she does and she certainly doesn't deserve sympathy, there is no excuse for a healthy young woman in a frontier town running about like a stray boy."
Colorado said nothing and turned his attention back to the map they had been studying. Darcy watched Lizzy stroll down the street; she talked to everyone, everyone and their horse. He had never met a happier girl with fewer reasons to be happy. William Darcy had been brought up to the luxurious life of a Virginia plantation owner but his family's loyalty to General Lee had cost them everything and in the years since the war he had made his living as a prospector and a gambler and now a Marshall but still, in the ideal world of his memory, women were exquisite little things in silken gowns drifting around on the scent of magnolias. Most of the women he'd come across since leaving Virginia at least aspired to that but not Lizzy Bennet, he'd never seen her in a dress, never seen her in anything that couldn't be stuffed in a saddle-bag and thrown over Charlotte. He wrinkled his nose, he was pretty sure she slept with Charlotte too.
"Did you get a reply to the telegraph you sent to the sheriff up in Blackridge?" asked Colorado running his finger up the map in a straight line from Blackridge to San Antonio.
"No," Darcy traced the same line, "and I'd be a happy man if John Thorpe and his gang could be stopped in Blackridge, the last thing we need is for them to hit town at the same time as Ike Wickham."
"We'd have a bloodbath to clean up," Colorado folded the map, "you'd better send another one, Bill, there's nowhere between Blackridge and here to hold them."
"I'll ride down myself," replied Darcy grimly, "and I'll stop John Thorpe myself too, if I have to."