Hate Me All You Like
Chapter 19 of The Ballad of Abigail Lambert
Esperanza sat atop her Father’s horse as he steered his gang westward. He hadn’t been particularly open about where they were going, but if the life on the road they led before she’d managed to escape was any indication, it wouldn’t take long for the bullets to start flying and they’d have to move along once again. When she didn’t find it reprehensible, she often found it exhausting to live the way her father had compelled her to but now she didn’t have much of a choice. The life she wanted back home in Tennessee was as dead as her mother, and the only person in the world who cared enough to help Esperanza found herself in the same company.
They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since they left the homestead. She’d been silent for days, refusing to utter anything at all. Colin figured she was still steeped in denial that she was finally back, but even if she didn’t want to speak to him, he was glad to have her back with family. Back where he could keep an eye on her, keep her safe. If she would just listen to him and stay put, he wouldn’t have to resort to such actions as tying her to a bedpost while he was gone. How many nights had she tried to run off and how many nights did he find her? Would she ever learn that as long as Colin’s heart was beating, he would do everything he could to protect her? The insolent little shit had no respect for the value of the sacrifice he made to keep her around. Keep her fed. One day, she’d understand. One day.
Esperanza knew that she was how he justified his wretchedness. He could rob a stagecoach or shoot someone he thought cheated at poker or sink to the lowest level of sin and wickedness as long as he told himself it was for her. She didn’t doubt that he thought he might even be doing the right thing with such a justification, but she refused to be an accomplice in this. This might’ve been the furthest she’d ever managed to run off over several years of attempts, and she’d gotten a good woman killed in the process. She’d begun to wonder how much it would really be worth to endure further years of suffering under Colin’s boot for God knows how long. She’d run two thousand miles and he still caught her. Maybe the grave was the only place he wouldn’t be able to chase her to, she figured, but even then—eventually he would find his way there too.
“How long are we gonna go on like this?” He asked her as they trotted along down the dirt road.
“Like what?” she asked.
“When are you gonna learn that I will do anything for you, darling?”
“I think you’ve done enough.”
“You may resent me, Esperanza, but I’m a family man.”
Esperanza scoffed.
Colin turned around and grabbed her by the chin. “You don’t get to pick your family. But you damn well do what you can to protect it.” He released her, and turned back toward the road.
If this was to be her life, she thought, and it was nothing but suffering—how could the cost possibly justify itself, she wondered.
“This impulse of yours to run as far away from me as you can,” Colin said, “you get that from me.”
“What do you mean?”
“First thing I did when I was old enough was get away from my folks. I was always pushing ‘em away, wanting to be my own man, even as a boy. It wadn’t till your mother and I nearly died in a God forsaken blizzard trying to get back home to them that I finally understood what they were worth. But by that point, they were already gone. It was nothing short of a miracle you didn’t freeze to death on that trip. You were just a baby. When we finally got home and I learned they were gone, and I was left with just you and your mother, I understood that life was about family.”
This was the first time Colin had ever really spoken about Esperanza’s grandparents to her. Her mother would tell stories about her side of the family back in Mexico, but Colin was always taciturn. Esperanza knew the house belonged to her grandparents, her mother had told her as much, but anytime she wanted to learn about them, he didn’t have much of an answer to her questions. Not for desire to leave her unanswered, but a silent indictment of his lack of a suitable answer. The truth was, he just didn’t know. He didn’t care to, until it was too late.
“You can hate me all you like, but you will always be my daughter.”
“And you will always be the man who killed my mother.”
They rode in silence after that. Esperanza looked over her shoulder, back at the rest of the gang. Behind them, she saw something curious: looked like a man trying to flag them down. She could just barely hear what sounded like shouting coming from his direction, and he was waving his arms back and forth.
“There’s a man back there,” she said.
“So?” Colin asked.
“I think he’s trying to get our attention.”
He turned the horse around to see for himself, but when he finally turned, he saw no one there.
“He was right there, I swear!” she said.
Struck by curiosity, Colin and his gang trotted back down toward where Esperanza sighted the strange man. They brought their horses to a stop and dismounted.
“Look around,” Colin said.
Esperanza stood behind Colin, who stood with his feet planted firmly in the dirt. His men searched the forest on both sides of the road as Esperanza quietly stepped back from him. She was able to slip away toward one of the horses and mount. She quickly darted away, and Colin turned to see it.
“Get her!” He shouted.
A few of his men mounted their horses and gave chase. Esperanza’s heart raced as the horse galloped beneath her at full speed. If she could get away, she could start over; she just had to get away. She couldn’t go back. She refused. Family or not, this was not the life she wanted. She looked behind her, and Colin’s goons were gaining on her. How long would she have to ride before she finally found peace from her father’s grasp? Perhaps to the end of her life, she thought.
One of Colin’s men was close enough to roll out a lasso and throw it at Esperanza. It took him a couple tries, but on the third, he managed to snag her and rip her from off the horse. She fell to the ground, and miraculously didn’t sport an injury, but that didn’t stop the force of her body hitting the dirt from feeling like she might’ve. They dragged her back to Colin, who proceeded to lift her (still tied) back onto his horse.
“I should know better than to trust you,” Colin told her.
“Go to hell!” she shouted.
Colin slapped her across the mouth. Her lip bled. He mounted his horse, sure enough that this was just some ploy so she could escape again. The nerve of the girl, he thought. Maybe it couldn’t be beaten out of her, but he would damn well try. They all rode off down the road, back West.
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