Pitman’s typically stoic demeanor cracked. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Stockton pushed away and held his arms at his sides. “I didn’t feel it was any of your concern. He is in my regiment.”
This conversation was growing dangerous, like two rivals circling each other for a fight. Stockton defensive against Pitman, the dominant force.
They could not long go like this, or it might be revealed who it was that injured the other soldier, and such a thing could not come to light. Stockton knew, but Pitman did not, and Joseph wished to keep it that way. There had to be another way to bring their escalating conversation back to the barrels.
As Joseph lifted up on the iron and pounded the end against the anvil, a thought sparked as hot as the very orange bits that sprayed in front of him. He halted, sure such a thing was folly. Driven by his hunger, no doubt. He’d come out to work before allowing himself any food, and the lack affected his thinking.
The men continued to speak, but of what he couldn’t say. Again the thought came, and this time with so much strength, his hammer could not have struck with such force.
Almost as if an otherworldly power possessed him, he stilled and cleared his throat. “What about Captain Higley, sir?”
Both men craned their necks to him, as if somehow simultaneously surprised and satisfied with the sudden interruption.
A single brow on Pitman’s thin, weathered face lifted. He tilted his head. “How know you he is familiar with smithing?”
“He told me, sir.”
“Told you?” Body and face unmoving, he looked to Stockton, who raised a single shoulder.
Resting his hammer aside, Joseph hurried the still-hot piece to Sackett, who nodded and began finishing the work. “When I was in town not two days past.” He wiped his hands on his apron. “Captain Higley informed me he would speak to you of this…perhaps he decided against it.”
Stockton spoke almost on top of his words. “I couldn’t spare him. He’s only just been made captain, and to lose him to this work…”
His answer struck Joseph, and it strained his forehead not to furrow. Why would he not wish Higley—
Hannah.
Then he too had noticed the man’s attentions. Joseph’s insides knotted. Stockton was becoming far too familiar, too possessive. The sooner this charade was ended, the better. The farther Hannah was from this place…
“Perhaps you could have a word with him, sir.” The words were out before Joseph could weigh their prudence.
Pitman turned, his head cocked at the unsolicited suggestion. “You are in that great of need?”
“Aye.” He motioned to Sackett and Deane, still faithful in their duties but surely no less interested in the conversation. “We work hard, but we can only work so fast. If we had another able man, it would make the work—”
“Nay, Major, nay. Our lack is not so dire.” That tick beneath Stockton’s eye tapped harder, and Joseph’s muscles thickened. There was an unmasked threat in his stare. Did Hannah have any knowledge of how dangerous this man truly was? All his pretended politeness was like an undetectable poison.
While again the men sparred with their words, Joseph’s mind caught him in a vortex. He must get her away. He must try and dissuade her from going with Stockton to the ball—she could pretend herself ill if need be. The more Joseph knew of the dangers that surrounded them, the stronger the need became to keep her as far from them as possible.
As if an answer to an unspoken prayer, an idea, much like the first, lit his mind, and he spoke before he even had a chance to make out the full shape of it. “Sirs, if you are not opposed, I should like to travel to Duxbury.”
Stockton’s disapproval was instant. “Whatever for?”
“Forgive me, Major.” He cleared his throat, praying Providence would soften his enemy’s heart. “I’ve made these barrels, but I wish for them to be inspected before the rest are completed. If somehow they are not true, ’tis easier to make alterations now.”
Pitman glanced back to the stack, his mind clearly working as he studied them in silence. Stockton shifted his stance, crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. ’Twas difficult to find fault with such an argument, though clearly the man sought frantically for one.
“He’s made a clear point, Ezra.” Pitman spoke in a tone more personal than he had even with his wife.
Shaking his head, the tick at Stockton’s eye refused to abate. “I have orders to complete these, and our timing is—”
“You must let him go,” Pitman interrupted. “’Twill take only a day. If you let him leave now, he will return before sunset.”
Like ice being slowly chipped at, Stockton’s features shifted to varying forms of frustration. Finally, after a long breath that could have been heard all the way to the house, he dropped his arms at his sides and turned to the door. “I shall want a full report upon your return.”
“One more thing,” Joseph called, his insistence as wise as throwing rocks at a bear.