Edwards scurried thought the door and made a quick line to Taylor. Isaac listened as the animated man pointed toward the main chamber of the ordinary. Zeke stepped up to the two.
“I tell ye she is not fit to be with decent people.” Edwards looked at Isaac and slid his gaze to rest on Zeke.
“What is going on, Isaac?”
“Reverend Edwards has just be telling me—”
“That woman, the one who got caught in the woods.”
“Miss Sigridsdatter,” Zeke supplied.
“That’s what she told us, but that’s not her name. Her name is Boatman.”
Isaac shrugged.
“As in Billy Boatman?” Zeke asked.
“The same. She’s his daughter.”
Fists balled at his sides. Isaac pushed his hand palm down. “Why would ye say such a thing, Reverend.”
“I just heard it from a couple of men who served with Red the Black. They went looking for their old friend and heard he died. They wanted to offer comfort to the man’s daughter.” The sneer on his face told Zeke all he needed to know about what kind of comfort Edwards thought the men were looking for.
Anger exploded in his gut.
“Watch yer mouth,” Zeke warned. They had the wrong woman. Beti Sigridsdatter was an innocent. Of that he was certain. She couldn’t have lied to him about who she was. Why would she?
Edwards’ eyes grew squinty. “Let’s ask her,” Edwards challenged.
Zeke turned thinking Beti must have returned, only to find her chair empty. Her loom sat cockeyed in its basket as she’d left it.
Before Isaac could stop him or Zeke could stuff a sock in his mouth, Edwards stood in the middle of the dancers making himself the center of attention. Once the joviality silenced, he shared his news. Murmurs began blending with the dog barking in the background before Edwards finished speaking.
“I need some air.” Zeke stalked toward the entrance. Just how did one fight such gossip? He sent a prayer to heaven asking for wisdom. He turned when Issac whistled. Capable of shredding eardrums if not kept short, the whistle was too much for Zeke to handle. He resisted the urge to shove a finger in each one of his ears. He was the only one besides Mose who stood grinning like a fool on the opposite side of the room.
Gordon appeared at Isaac’s left side. Mose regained his composure and took the other side of Gordon. Zeke took his usual place on Isaac’s right side.
“These are serious charges Reverend Edwards. I presume ye have proof? Where are these men who claim to know our friend?”
“In yonder chamber.” Edwards pointed to the bar on the other side of the door. Which brought up another question about the man’s qualifications to lead a flock of anything. Not that it is wrong to have a glass here and there, Zeke never did have a taste for it and that was that, but he’d seen way too many men tasked with leading a church tippling more than enough for the Lord’s supper.
Scowling anger to wide-eyed bewilderment suffused the small group that had become their traveling family. Zeke left to find the men. Why Isaac felt it was necessary to bring them into their midst was lost on him, but perhaps he was right and this misunderstanding would be cleared up before Beti came back. Surely that was the best outcome. She’d had enough criticism from the woods incident. He motioned for Edwards to follow.
And this would give him a chance to make sure the men Mose saw were not the same men from Kemp’s. And if they were, he would make it his business to find out just exactly what they were up to.
Edwards paused to scan the room.
“I do not see them. Perhaps they excused themselves.”
Zeke crossed the room in four limping strides.
He rounded the tavern to see Beti backing up towards him, Nellie at her side, ears laid back, growling deep and threatening toward two men.
Beti had her rifle pointed at two men he’d never seen before. Their hands reached to heaven.
Zeke approached her side. “May I help ye?”
She relaxed her aim at the men, and their hands slipped. “I am fine. Just going back into the ordinary.”
Zeke focused his own weapon and ordered the men, “Keep them up.”
Hands shot back to their former position. “We didn’t do nothing, mister.” The one on the right said. “Ye know how them light-headed females are. Skittish over the littlest things.”
Zeke said nothing. The man kept talking.
“All we said was that we were old friends of her father.” The one on the left stood slightly behind the talky one. His eyes were darting back and forth between his friend and the dog.
“That’ll do, Nell.” The dog stopped its growly hum at her command, but didn’t relax its vigilance.
“Do ye know these men?” he asked Beti.
“No.”
“Come on now, that ain’t right. We visited ye father when ye was a girl.”
“Many people visited my father.”
“Ye got no cause to pull a gun on us. We was just coming out to use the necessary.”
