“I can find it all right.”
“Alone? You show up with your fancy captain and the three of you are dead.”
“You couldn’t kill a child.”
The man chuckled. “After what she’s been through, she might rather be dead.”
At that Maddie lunged at the man, but he caught her in his arms and held her easily. “How about a kiss?”
It was sometime later that Maddie emerged from the tent and Captain Montgomery was waiting to escort her back to her camp. They walked silently.
It was ’Ring who at last spoke. “You don’t seem to have enjoyed your port much. You keep wiping your mouth.”
“What I do or do not do is none of your concern!”
At her own tent she ordered Edith to put kettles of water on the fire to heat. “I’m going to take a bath.”
“A whole one?” Edith asked.
“Yes. As hot as I can stand. As thorough as I can stand.” She went inside the tent.
“What’s eatin’ her?” Toby asked. “I’d a thought she’d been real happy tonight.”
“She was,” ’Ring said stiffly. “She was until she thought I had dishonorable intentions toward her.”
“She don’t know you very well, does she?” Toby said, meaning his words as an insult, but ’Ring didn’t take them as such.
“No, she doesn’t. One minute she was offering me port and the next minute she looked inside her tent and acted like I was a satyr about to attack her. The woman makes no sense. She—” He stopped. “Toby, I’ve been a fool,” he said, then turned and took off running.
Four men were taking down the tent they’d set up for Maddie to use, but he examined the ground by lantern light. The ground was too trampled to tell anything from the tracks, but he picked up the butt of a cigar. “Does this belong to one of you?” he asked the men moving the tent.
“Naw, you can have it.”
“No, I mean, did one of you smoke it?”
One man punched another with a knowing look. “That pretty little singer leadin’ you a chase? Her other fella already left.”
“You saw someone leave the tent?”
“I didn’t see nothin’,” the man said. “You see anything, Joe?”
’Ring knew the men weren’t going to volunteer any information. They’d fallen in love with Maddie and they meant to protect her. He grabbed a man by the collar. “You want to keep that face of yours? Then tell me what you saw. I think he’s trying to kill her.”
Four pistols were placed near ’Ring’s head and the triggers cocked. The man jerked out of ’Ring’s grasp. “Why didn’t you say so? I just saw him slippin’ out. Couldn’t say if I’d ever seen him before.”
’Ring frowned at the men still holding guns on him. They didn’t seem dangerous unless one of them tripped on a rock. “Short? Tall?”
“Medium. About medium, I’d guess.”
“Light? Dark?”
“About medium.”
“Hell!” ’Ring said, and clasped the cigar butt in his hand. He walked away from the men, cursing himself. What was wrong with him? He knew she was a liar, yet this time he’d believed her. If he weren’t already so bruised, he’d have smacked himself because he’d believed her. She’d hurt his damned pride. All she had to do was give him a few insults and he’d gone off like a hurt little boy.
What—who—had been waiting inside that tent for her? Had the man been holding a gun? She could have seen that when he opened the flap. Had she possibly saved his neck by making him angry? ’Ring realized that had she allowed him to walk inside that tent, unprepared for an ambush, he might not be alive now.
Fool, he thought. I’m a damned fool for not having seen through her.