Mountain Laurel Read online

  “He came while you were gone.”

  “Who did?”

  “You have such a good time with your captain that you forgot about your little sister?”

  Maddie was immediately alert. “But why? I wasn’t supposed to see him until after tomorrow’s performance. And not even that night. He gave me a map.”

  “Yeah, he said all that. He just wanted to make sure you’d be there. And he said for you to wear somethin’ pretty. Somethin’ that sparkled. I think maybe he’s gettin’ worried about your captain friend.”

  Maddie sat down on the cot. “What did he say about Captain Montgomery?”

  “Said it’d take a buffalo gun to kill a so-and-so as big as he is.”

  Maddie put her face in her hands. “What am I going to do? Tomorrow I’m supposed to go into the mountains to meet him. I’m to see Laurel. I cannot, under any circumstances, annoy the man. Annoy him!” she said bitterly. “He’s already said that Laurel has…has been…I can’t think about it. I have to do what he says.”

  “Then maybe you’d better not go up that mountain with your army friend taggin’ along behind you. And the little one is askin’ questions too.”

  “Little one?”

  “Toby. He’s sniffin’ around Frank and Sam as well as me, wantin’ to know all about you.”

  Maddie stood up and walked to the side of the tent. What was she going to do? What could she do? I have to get rid of Captain Montgomery, she thought. I can’t tell him what’s going on for fear he might interfere. And tomorrow he’ll be even more alert than usual after the fiasco of the last few days. As for that, no one had seen the drunken miners take her, yet somehow, he’d found her. If he could find her once, he could find her again, but this time it wouldn’t be men merely wanting to hear her sing. This time it would be the men holding Laurel.

  “What are you gonna do?” Edith asked.

  “I don’t know. Somehow, I have to make him stay behind when I leave day after tomorrow.”

  “I’ve got some more opium.”

  “He won’t take any food or drink from me.”

  “Club him over the head?”

  “I don’t want to hurt him.” She remembered how he’d given her his blankets and sat up cold all night. He really was only trying to protect her.

  “How about women? I could get a couple more girls together and we could—”

  “No!”

  Edith looked at her awhile. “Too bad you can’t spend the night in bed with him yourself.”

  “I have more important things to think about than seducing a man. Although…” She thought it wouldn’t hurt if he trusted her more. “You say that Toby is asking questions? Perhaps I can ask Toby a few in return. Go now and set the table for luncheon. I can think better with a full stomach.”

  Edith had purchased some chickens, scalded them, plucked them, and fried them in hot grease. Maddie invited Toby to join her for luncheon, and she would allow him to sit nowhere else but at the table with her.

  “You’ve known the captain for a long time, haven’t you, Toby? Please have some more chicken.”

  “Ten years now. Don’t mind if I do.”

  She smiled at him as graciously as she knew how. “Tell me about him.”

  Toby didn’t even glance her way. He was used to women asking him about ’Ring. If he were a man who ran to fat, he would have been a keg on legs long ago from all the women feeding him to get to ’Ring. For the first few years Toby had felt trapped because on the one hand he knew he should keep his mouth shut about ’Ring, but at the same time he didn’t want to cut off his food supply. “Ain’t much to tell. He ain’t so different from most men.”

  “Most fathers don’t hire someone to show their sons the seamier side of life.”

  Toby was startled. “He tell you about that?”

  “Yes, he did. Please, have some more butter on your roll. I was wondering why he doesn’t…I guess I mean, why he doesn’t pay attention to women.”

  “Beats me,” Toby said.

  “Perhaps a lost love somewhere in his past. Someone he loved but couldn’t have.”

  “Oh, you mean like them songs you sing. Naw, nothin’ like that. He just don’t pay attention to girls. Why, I’ve seen them do some of the all-fired orneriest things you can imagine to get him to take an interest in ’em, but he just don’t.”

  “Here, have another tomato. Perhaps his lack of interest in women is a family trait.”

  “No, ma’am. In fact, that’s one of the things that worried his father. All six of his younger brothers is real interested in girls. Even the little ones. ’Course it could have somethin’ to do with the fact that the boy is the ugly one in the family.”

  She paused with her fork on its way to her mouth. “Captain Montgomery, this man here with us is the ugly one?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he is. And his little brothers never let him forget it. They say they own dogs better-lookin’ than their oldest brother.”

  At that moment Maddie realized that in spite of the sincere look on Toby’s face, surely he was teasing her. She smiled at him indulgently. “If he isn’t interested in women, what is he interested in?”

  “Duty. Honor. That kind of thing.” Toby said the words as though they were dreadful qualities. He looked at her over a mouthful of skillet bread. “You interested in him?”

  “Of course not. I was just wondering how trustworthy he is.”

  Toby set the bread down and, when he looked at her, his old eyes were intense. “He’s trustworthy. You can trust him with your life. If he says he’s gonna protect you, he means it. He’ll give up his own life ’fore he’d let anything happen to you.”

  She frowned. “I don’t imagine he’d ever involve himself in anything illegal.” Such as trying to influence a territory about becoming slave or free, she thought.

  “Hell no! Oh, sorry, ma’am. He’d agree to be tortured ’fore he’d do anything bad.” Toby grimaced. “I tell you, the boy can wear a man down. He don’t lie, he don’t cheat, he don’t do nothin’ that ain’t upholdin’ to the laws of man and God.”

  Maddie gave him a weak smile. It was just as she’d thought. If Captain Montgomery found out about the letters, would he turn her over to the army for discipline? Haul her back to the capital and have her tried for treason? Would he say that the good of the country was more important than the good of one child?

  “You’re sure thinkin’ hard on somethin’, ain’t you, ma’am?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “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