“So why the hell are you bothering me this early in the goddamned morning?”

“Because I want to know.”

“Or is it that her daddy wants to know?” Ridley asked, betraying his first uncertainty of the conversation. Starbuck shook his head and Ridley laughed. “Are you on heat for her, Reverend?”

“No!”

“But you are, Reverend, you are. I can tell, and I’ll even tell you what to do about it. Go to Greeley’s Tavern in Main Street and pay the tall woman in the taproom ten bucks. She’s an ugly cow, but she’ll cure your ailments. You got ten bucks left of that fifty you took off me?” Starbuck said nothing and Ridley shook his head, as if despairing of the northerner’s common sense. “I ain’t seen Sally for weeks. Not for weeks. She’s married, I hear, and that was the end of her for me. Not that I ever knew her well, you understand me?” He stressed the question by jabbing the lit end of the cigar at Starbuck.

Starbuck wondered just what he had expected to achieve by this confrontation. A confession from Ridley? An address where Sally might be found? He had made a fool of himself, betraying his own vulnerability to Ridley’s mockery. Now, as awkwardly as he had begun the confrontation, he tried to back out of it. “I hope you’re not lying to me, Ridley.”

“Oh, Reverend, there’s so little you understand. Like good manners for a start. You want to accuse me of lying? Then you do it with a sword in your hand, or with a pistol. I don’t mind facing you in a duel, Reverend, but I’ll be damned if I have to sit here and listen to your goddamned whining and bitching without so much as a mug of coffee inside me. You mind asking my son of a bitch servant to get me some coffee on your way out? Hey, Moxey! You can come back in now. The Reverend and I have finished our morning prayers.” Ridley looked up at Starbuck and jerked his head in curt dismissal. “Now go away, boy.”

Starbuck went away. As he walked back down the tent lines he heard a mocking burst of laughter from Ridley and Moxey and the sound made him flinch. Oh God, he thought, but he had just made such a fool of himself. Such a goddamned fool. And for what? For a murderer’s daughter who just happened to be pretty. He walked away, defeated and disconsolate.

Independence Day Dawned...

INDEPENDENCE DAY DAWNED CLEAR. IT PROMISED TO BE HOT, BUT there was a blessed breeze coming off the hills and the only clouds were wispy, high, and soon gone.