The other men nodded.

“Changed who?”

“All the women. My Molly never used to talk back to me. Now she has ideas and…” Billy swallowed. “She wants me to listen to her. I told her I was buyin’ more cattle and she said no. She said we needed to save money to send our boys to college. In Maryland.”

There was a collective gasp.

“They’re tsked,” Big John said, then shuddered.

“They’re what?”

“Tsked,” Billy told Zeke. “Titanville Society for Knowledge, Empowerment and Devotion. Tsked. If we do something they don’t like, they tsk at us. It’s to remind us to act right.”

The men looked defeated. Zeke couldn’t help it. He laughed. The sound came from deep inside and felt good.

“I’m gone six months and every one of you is running scared because of a woman?” Zeke kept laughing until his sides ached. “That’s a good one. You think that up, Billy? It’s a fine way to welcome me home. Good for you.”

Billy grabbed his arm. “It’s not a joke, Zeke. You’ve got to do something to help us. You’re the only one. We want you to court Alethea Harbaugh. Get her to fall in love with you. All the women do, it won’t be hard. Have your way with her, ruin her, then send her back where she came from.”

“I’m not sure her husband will approve of me courting her.”

“She’s a widow,” Big John said. “She’s powerful, Zeke. There’s something about the way she looks at a man. As if she knows every bad thing he’s ever done.”

“Why is she here?” Zeke asked, still convinced they were joking. They had to be.

“She’s the new schoolteacher,” one of the men said. “The books she’s brought with her. Plays by some dead Englishman. Something about a ham. My boys are walking around quoting him all the time. You’ve gotta stop it!”

Billy sucked in a breath. “Zeke, we’re desperate men. We’ll do anything you say. Just get that harpy out of town.”