Uncle Fred placed the quoin lock into the chase to lock down the print before stepping away from the press. “I am awfully curious about that new deputy from Texas.” He flashed his ready grin, then waved an inky palm back toward the kitchen.
The family was already seated at the table. Sissy—or Aunt Sissy, as she was to be called now—had finished feeding Baby Eloise and commenced to dish out the squirrel and onions. Scott held his other half sister, Amelia, on his knee, bouncing her and eliciting squeals of delight. Now that he was nearly grown and had a stepmother to look after him, Scott didn’t need his older cousin Betsy anymore. No matter how she helped in the newspaper office, her presence was a strain on the growing family—a strain that none of them would mention, but it troubled her sorely.
Betsy took her plate from Sissy and dove in.
“Sit down and eat with us for once, Betsy.” Sissy wasn’t that much older than Betsy, but she tried to make the gap feel wider with sternness. “Between the chores and the press, you’ve been on your feet all day.”
Ignoring the sitting down part, Betsy shoveled in a few more bites. It was full-on dark, and that was when things started happening among the steep cliffs and deep hollows. She wouldn’t find a fantastic story sitting at the table with Uncle Fred and Aunt Sissy. Her destiny was bigger than that.
Tossing her plate into the sink, Betsy planted a kiss on Amelia’s little cheek as she hurried past. She didn’t quite hear what Sissy was calling, so she waved a hand over her head as she entered the office and shouted back, “I’ll be careful.”
She grabbed her cousin’s coat off its hook and pulled it over her calico dress. No clouds out tonight, so she’d be able to see well enough. Her desk rattled as she opened the drawer. She removed the letter from her pocket, gently placed it alongside the other rejections she’d collected, closed the drawer, and then extinguished the lantern and snatched a hat of her uncle’s before heading outside.
Pausing next to the house, she heard Sissy’s words through the window. “I know she’s always scuttled around unaccompanied, but it really isn’t fitting. She’s a young lady—”
Betsy growled. Not true. She was no longer a young lady. She’d already weathered the painful season where everyone from the postmaster’s wife to the auctioneer tried to get her hitched to some yokel. That was behind her. They’d finally given up, leaving Betsy to live the life she enjoyed, free from having to justify her decision to any chaw jaw who wanted to opine on the matter. She’d rejected every available man who was interested, and since there was no one new to strike up speculation, she was safe.
At the sound of thundering hooves, her heart sped. They were riding tonight. Where were they going? Had they found Miles Bullard? How she wished she could join them and see the action firsthand.
Betsy jogged to the corner of the town square so she could better see them as they passed. She began her mental tally of those she suspected and those she’d cleared. Down the street, Postmaster Finley was pulling his shutters closed on his family rooms above the post office. She hadn’t expected that the shady postmaster was one of them, especially since his family usually fell on the wrong side of the law. What about Doctor Hopkins? He’d been to town earlier. Had he had time to get decked out in his ruckus-raising clothes?
Here they came, shouting excitedly and some waving their bundles of sticks over their heads. They looked a fright, but Betsy wasn’t scared of them. They were all local men, most of them quite decent and law-abiding until the law failed them. As much as she liked Sheriff Taney, he had let them down. If he couldn’t handle everything on his own, then they were lucky someone was willing to step in.
She watched as the riders streamed by and tried to memorize the various masks and disguises. Clive Fowler was easy to recognize. Couldn’t hide size under a burlap sack. But besides him, she couldn’t positively identify anyone. They raced by, whooping it up, but one of them seemed less gleeful. He rode a fine horse that she suspected was from the Calhouns’ farm. He wasn’t Jeremiah . . .
“Hey, Mr. Pritchard,” she called.
It was a shot in the dark, but it struck the bull’s-eye. The mask turned to her. She couldn’t see his expression, but she did note the long hair emerging from the bottom of his hood. Yep, another Bald Knobber identified.
He raised his branches and shook them at her. A warning, but Betsy smiled. She didn’t mean any harm, and Mr. Pritchard knew it. She just couldn’t stand to leave a mystery be. Not if there was a chance on her figuring it out.