“He’s a good boy,” Toby said. “You can trust him with your life.”
But can I trust him with my secrets, she wondered. “What is he doing now?”
“Watchin’.”
“Watching what?”
“Watchin’ out for you. There’s men followin’ you, and he sets up on a hill and watches ’em, what he can see of ’em anyway. Two of ’em keep pretty well hidden, but the other two are bumblefoots.”
She stopped eating. “You mean he just sits up there and watches? Watches everything I do?”
Toby gave her a little half smile. “He’s tryin’ to find out what you’re hidin’. You oughta just tell him so he can get some sleep. I can’t even get him to eat anything ’cept hardtack, and thank the Lord we’re runnin’ out of that.”
Just tell him, Maddie thought. She would if it all weren’t so very serious. “Edith, put the rest of this chicken and some tomatoes in a bag.”
“You gonna go see him?”
I’m going to give him something else to think about besides the men who are following me, she thought. “Yes. Perhaps he’d like a little company.”
“He’d rather read than visit with a female,” Toby said, and could hardly keep the laughter inside. He’d said that a hundred times to a hundred females and every one of them had considered it a personal challenge. He was glad to see this opera singer was no different from other women.
“Oh? Perhaps I can persuade him otherwise.” She took the bag of chicken and tomat
oes from Edith and went up the hill.
“Captain?” she asked. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, looking for all the world as though he were asleep, but she knew he wasn’t. His breathing was too even, too deep. She settled on the ground near him. “You can stop pretending now. You’re too good a mess captain to let someone walk up on you.”
Slowly, he opened his eyes but he didn’t smile at her. “What are you doing up here?”
“I brought you some fried chicken.”
“I’ve eaten, thank you.”
“Toby told me what you eat. Have I done something to offend you?”
“You mean besides lying and getting kidnapped?”
“And telling you you can’t sing? I know your sense of humor is, as far as I can tell, nonexistent, but surely I didn’t hurt your feelings.”
“No, you didn’t hurt my feelings. Now, will you please return to your own tent?”
“And leave you up here alone to spy on me?” Before he realized what she was doing, she reached behind him and grabbed the spyglass. He made a lunge for it, but she put it behind her back. He leaned back against the tree.
“This is old,” she said, looking at the beautiful, worn brass case. “Isn’t it the kind sailors use?”
“Perhaps.”
She pulled the glass out to its full length. “Ah, yes, now I remember. You tied up Frank and Sam with sailor’s knots. It is my guess, Captain, that you’ve had something to do with the sea in your life. Am I right?”
He snatched the glass from her hands without answering.
“What in the world has made you so grumpy?”
“I have things to do and I’d rather you went back to your own camp.”
She opened the bag Edith had given her and withdrew a somewhat scrawny chicken breast. “I brought you something good to eat.”
“Oh? Is it poisoned? I’m not eating any food you give me.”