“I ain’t seen no one as looks like her yet.”
“We will find her. A woman traveling alone will stand out like a Jolly Roger flung up the mast.”
Beti forced herself to breathe. They couldn’t mean her. She slipped deeper into the room, basket full of wool clutched to her chest.
“Look at the price of this lot. We gotta find that treasure—”
“Shut yer bone box. We got no mind to share Red’s treasure with any active citizens now do we?”
A cold wind gripped her guts and sent a tremble through her rigging. Beti stared unseeing at the shelves before her. It had been three months since she’d heard those voices, but there was no mistake. These were the same men who’d dug up her father’s false grave.
How had they traced her to Kemp’s Landing? For the first time in her life she felt truly friendless. There was no Doc Campbell’s house down the road where she could seek refuge. All she had in Kemp’s Landing was a room at Miss Polly’s. Any hint of scandal, and she’d be tossed out of there pretty quick.
Mr. Morgan blasted through the door.
“Found ye-self some wool too?” He boomed.
Beti nodded through the trembling that had taken hold. “Right this way.” She had no choice but to follow the boisterous man into the main room.
“Be with ye gentleman in a few minutes.” Mr. Morgan took his place behind the counter. Beti kept her gaze on the floor to shield her father’s eyes from those who might recognize them, but she forced her shoulders straight. She wanted to give them no reason to notice her. She bustled quickly to the counter and without so much as a whisper handed Mr. Morgan the correct sum.
“Thank ye, ma’am.”
Beti nodded and quickly headed for the door basket gripped in both hands. Beti avoided collision by stopping short. She took a quick look as she would at anyone. Two well-dressed, well-groomed men, one tall one less so shifted out of her way. The tall one had his eyes on Mr. Morgan, and the other dragged his eyes over her like a receding surf.
“Beg ye pardon,” the leer in his voice unmistakable.
Beti dipped her bonnet and whipped her skirts to clear her way, hoping her defiance gave the proper message to the man’s impertinence. Inwardly she paled.
The doorbell tinkled just as she heard Mr. Morgan greet the men much as he’d greeted her not ten minutes before. She raised her head and walked with her back to Morgan’s along Main Street. She ducked down the first cross street she came to and managed a quick look back. The man with the leering face stepped into the street. Beti thanked God once again that she took after her mother. The only resemblance she bore to her sire was the unusual blue-green quality of her eyes. Her mother said her father’s eyes were the color of the Caribbean seashore and that her daughter’s eyes were the same. There was no recognition in the gaze that had assessed her so brazenly. She picked up her pace once she was sure she was out of sight.
“Ye look a-fright,” Miss Polly said from just inside the door. Beti climbed the steps with as much calmness she could muster. There was no need to tell anyone about her history. She wanted a new life, and that meant leaving the past in the past. In North Carolina. Not in Virginia and definitely not in Kentucky.
In the parlor just beyond Miss Polly a woman hovered as though she waited for something.
Miss Polly took notice of Beti’s observation. “Oh, I declare I would forget my head if it weren’t anchored on.” She whirled into the parlor. “Miss Sigridsdatter, did I say that right?” Beti didn’t answer before Miss Polly continued. “Meet Mrs. Thornton. Mrs. Thornton is my other guest. Fresh from the Continentals.”
Mrs. Thornton, dressed in a simple brown gown of Virginia, cloth bobbed a curtsy, and Beti did the same.
“Miss Polly tells me ye are looking to join a wagon train west.” Her straightforward question was delivered with more kindness than disapproving judgement. Confidence that Beti wished she had radiated from the woman. And though Beti recognized even more now that she should not share her plans with strangers, she had an overwhelming feeling that she could trust Mrs. Thornton.
“I am.”
Mrs. Thornton’s lips raised in a small half smile. “Me too.”
Relief ran through Beti like brine through a leaky barrel. “Are ye planning to settle in Kentucky?”
“Aye. I expect to leave within a fortnight.”
“Two unescorted women following Daniel Boone into the Wilderness?” Miss Polly laid a hand to her cap and exited the room. “What is the world coming to?” They heard her muttering until the back door slapped closed.
A twinkle lit Mrs. Thornton’s eyes, and Beti answered with a grin.
“Would it be too forward to inquire as to the particulars of yer plan?” Beti asked.
“Do ye jest? Pray sit down.”
Four
Periwinkle shadows lengthened in the golden afternoon light slanting across the yard at White’s Tavern. Zeke stood with his team on the porch waiting. Mose had placed announcements seeking families for their wagon train all over Kemp’s Landing. If Isaac was right, they could expect a fair turnout. Several families huddled together looking at the others with expectancy and hope. Smiles broke out between them anytime they spoke to each other. A little boy barely out of leading strings, a tuft of blond ringlets crowding his eyes, spun on one foot kicking up an eddy of dust his sisters flapped out of their skirts. Zeke grinned even as arguments surfaced again in his mind.
Isaac was right, the more people making the journey the stronger they would be, but they would only be as strong as the weakest link. These men with their small children were farmers, not warriors. Zeke sent a prayer asking for wisdom—how could they shepherd such a group?
Across the yard Aggie arrived and just behind her a woman that stopped Zeke’s thoughts. Half a head shorter than Aggie, the woman glided behind Aggie who appeared to clump along in comparison. Quietly she took in all around her while her bonnet kept her face from his view. Aggie looped her arm through the mystery woman’s arm and made a direct course for the porch. Zeke ran fingers through his hair and replaced his hat.
“Captain, I’d like to introduce ye to Beti Sigridsdatter.” She glanced toward her friend. “Did I say it right?”
The woman’s bonnet bounced with her agreement.
Isaac hopped off the porch. The woman jumped back as though startled by his quick move. Aggie placed a reassuring hand on the woman’s arm. Isaac removed his hat. She raised her face to greet Isaac, and Zeke stood mesmerized by the clear blue-green of her eyes. When she raised her lips in a warm smile, his heart took to beating a call to arms. Before he could wake himself to say something coherent, Isaac was back on the porch and the woman had drifted away with Aggie into the crowd.
So those were the men Aggie had served with. Aggie had not said much, just that her husband had served as rifleman in the same regiment. Beti hadn’t pressed into memories that were clearly painful. To see all of them at once was quite staggering. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen four such men together all at once in her life. Each of them was tall with broad shoulders. Surely those shoulders could carry any trials they might face. Their strength was evident in the confident way they stood waiting for the crowd to assemble.
“Naming ye for some holy place don’t save ye from the deeds yer father done.” The sharp voice of the Vicar’s wife echoed in her mind as Beti crossed back into the tavern yard behind her new friend Aggie Thornton. Perhaps it was a little too early to call each other friend, but this was the closest she’d ever come to having a friend close to her own age. What would Aggie think if she knew that Beti was the only daughter of a notorious pirate? Aggie who’d risked her life to follow her husband to the Continental Army?
