Chapter 3

3

"There was a letter from Beth in the mail today." Kat Jones had gone to town this morning for supplies.

She'd arrived home in time for the noon meal, cooked it, then waited for Sebastian to come in so she could share the excitement of a letter from their Idaho friends.

Seb was a hard worker and a creative inventor with several patents, and she was very proud of him. And even more proud that he was living up to his promise to make his faith in God and his love for his wife the top priorities in his life. He no longer had the obsession for working in his laboratory that he'd brought into the marriage.

Kat had waited until he got inside since the letter was to them both, but now she smiled at him, tore the letter open, and read quickly. "There's a lot here, but the main thing I see is they're leaving the canyon, Ginny included."

"Ginny's coming then?" Seb drew the cup of coffee close. Even in the heat of late August, the man loved his hot coffee.

Their eyes met. They knew it was a serious business. She studied her husband. He had blond hair a shade darker than hers and blue eyes that shone with intelligence, curiosity, and his deeply inventive way of thinking.

"Yes, and it sounds like most everyone is coming with her. Beth and Jake and the children. Oscar is coming, and the wagon master from our days on the wagon train, Dakota Harlan, may come as well. He ranches in that area. Jake talked to him and asked him to join them to help protect Ginny. Joseph will stay back and take care of things in Hidden Canyon."

Kat exchanged a somber look with Seb. They both knew Joseph hadn't fully healed from his broken arm and likely never would.

And Yvette would stay put in the canyon.

Kat, with her stunning inheritance from her deceased husband's family, had done investigating in any direction she chose, and they'd tracked down Yvette's family and found enough tragedy and abuse in her past to drive anyone mad. But Kat was working on an idea to help the poor woman.

"We haven't even met the baby." Seb's expression brightened. "A girl, right? Lydia?" They'd gone back to visit their Hidden Canyon friends last summer. Riding the Transcontinental Railroad was a long journey, but rumors abounded of a train spur going to Boise that would take them much closer to their friends. They'd talked about going again this summer, but now their friends would come visit them here.

"Yes, she's nine or ten months old. She must be getting close to the age babies walk. And the twins are three now. I wonder if they're still such little balls of endless energy."

Kat pushed a plate of fried chicken across the table. Since Uncle Patrick had died and she'd sold her holdings tied to the Wadsworth fortune, she was a wealthy woman. Of course, they didn't need much money, not here on their homestead near Cheyenne, Wyoming.

They'd added on to their home in anticipation of a growing family and brought in some modern conveniences like a boiler to heat water, pipes to bring it inside, and an indoor water closet and shower bath. All luxuries, but when the Wyoming winter winds howled, they were grateful for them. They had a nice, very modern cookstove and a potbellied stove to heat their bedroom. They'd built a much larger barn and expanded their homestead by buying a tract of land in the steep hills to the west. No farmable acres, but there was lots of good grazing. They'd purchased a herd of cattle and hired cowhands to tend them, which led to their having to put up a bunkhouse and a foreman's house. More horses were bought as well to keep everything running smoothly.

No children had arrived yet. All the lavish preparations for a comfortable home were fairly well wasted on Kat and Seb. Kat mostly preferred her time in the kitchen, and she'd gotten involved in projects in Cheyenne, the territorial capital, and interesting things were always happening there. Seb had his laboratory and all the odds and ends he needed for his experiments and inventions.

"I knew Oscar wouldn't let Ginny come without him." Seb helped himself to a leg of fried chicken. Kat knew he always went for that first, and she loved how well she'd come to know the husband she'd married rather recklessly.

"Everyone's coming except Joseph. He'll stay home and tend the ranch; long travel can be painful for him."

"You said Dakota Harlan is coming? I haven't seen him since we turned off the Oregon Trail and the rest of the wagon train went on west. He's a tough man and will be good to have around if there's a fight."

Kat sincerely hoped and prayed it wouldn't come to that. She read the letter again, slowly this time, then handed it over to Seb before turning back to her meal. "I need to contact Mr. Etherton. He said he'd represent Ginny at trial. He's talked with me a lot about the asylum, the conditions there, Ginny's temperament, and how she'll handle this whole ordeal. He's also been looking into Rutledge and his situation back in Chicago. The man has lost most of his wealth."

"He's still hiring investigators, we know that." Seb read the letter while he tore a chunk of chicken off the bone with his teeth. They'd had one of the investigators at their home already this summer. They weren't Pinkertons anymore. Kat had put a stop to that by traveling to Chicago, finding Allan Pinkerton, and demanding he face the truth that he was being manipulated, which had resulted in the abuse of a fine woman.

The investigators these days were of a much rougher sort.

"How can he afford to pay the men who are hunting for Ginny when he's supposedly financially ruined?"

"Rich men have a different set of rules than the rest of us. I'm sure his definition of ruined is very different from a regular person." Kat would like to take Rutledge's no doubt weighty money bags and beat the man over the head with them.

"What else do we need to do to get ready?"

"I'm going to ask Mr. Etherton just that."

"Let's ride to town this afternoon."

"Really, right now? You'd leave your work?"

"Getting away from it helps, I've learned that. Moving, breathing clean air, riding a horse, and pulling away from my thoughts of the experiments often gives me new ideas. I was a fool to work such long hours before. Being a better husband has made me a better inventor."

"Then let's go. Mr. Etherton needs to see what's in this letter." Cheyenne was about a fifteen-minute ride away on horseback. They could go into town anytime they wanted if the weather was good, and on this late August day it was beautiful.

Thinking of the short ride in the warm sunshine didn't stop a chill of dread from running up Kat's spine. "Just thinking about Ginny going to trial for something so stupid as to prove she's sane makes me sick. It's ridiculous. It's unfair. It's guilty until proven innocent."

Seb got up from his chair and rounded the table to pull her close. "Don't let it upset you, honey. You know, however the trial comes out, it's not like it's some law that she has to be locked up. The only reason to do this is so she can defy her husband if she ever comes face-to-face with him. She can wave the court document in his face as proof of her sanity, and he won't be able to do anything about it. He'll be forced to leave her alone."

"Someone will still have to always be close to her side to guard her. What she needs to do is divorce that horrid man. That way he wouldn't be able to touch her ever again."

Seb lifted her gently to her feet and just held her for a moment.

Divorce was a scandalous thing. To turn your back on vows made before God was an awful sin. But when a husband betrayed and abused his wife as profoundly as Thaddeus Rutledge had betrayed and abused Ginny, well, God would understand, wouldn't He?

"The way I understand divorce law is that both husband and wife have to agree to it. There can be no divorce unless both parties sign the papers saying it's what they want. And I doubt Rutledge would ever agree to it."

"Surely that's not true in such a modern territory as Wyoming." Then Kat's eyes narrowed. "Why would you know so much about divorce law?"

Sebastian looked at her, grinned, then laughed out loud. "You could never get me to sign such a paper, my pretty wife. You are stuck with me as surely as if we'd been soldered together with fire and iron."

"That sounds rather painful."

He laughed again and hugged her tighter, swinging her back and forth. After Sebastian released her, he said, "It's not even a law in this territory that a husband can lock his wife away without a judge declaring her insane. That's only true in some states, and Wyoming is not one of them." He pressed a kiss into her hair and spoke in a voice that soothed her. "I know this brings it all back for you. Being in that asylum, having your freedom and all your rights taken from you. You feel it more deeply than the rest of us."

"Ginny was in there for three years. I was only there for one. I don't know how much longer before that asylum drove me truly mad. It's no place for anyone, sane or not. It's the worst possible way to treat someone who isn't in their right mind. And being married to you protects me from anyone declaring me insane. Since only a husband has that right. But to even imagine going back—" her breath caught, and she had to swallow hard to go on—"is unbearable. And yet there are women still locked away there. They need to be saved. The sane ones need to be set free. The insane ones need better care. I know just how Ginny must be feeling right now."

"At least here and now we can hope to have a quiet little trial and get everything in order without Rutledge finding out."

Hope was a wonderful thing, but Kat also believed in facing up to reality, and she knew Rutledge would be listening closely for any word of his wife. He needed her because poverty didn't suit him. He wanted her because he wasn't a man who accepted failure.

It would suit Kat to never hear from the man again.

Thaddeus Rutledge slammed the sheaf of papers down on his desk. He stood. Too fast, for his right leg buckled. He was about to catch himself on the desk when his left arm failed him.

Thaddeus fell face-first onto the top of his desk and was glad no one was in his office to see such humiliating clumsiness.

It was all Eugenia's fault. His right leg had been injured when Yvette, a madwoman, stabbed and slashed him and nearly killed him after he'd caught up with his daughter in Idaho. Elizabeth was married now. Her new husband had her money.

He'd broken his arm when he'd been thrown off a train by Sebastian Jones, yet another husband married to a woman he wanted to get his hands on. Another madwoman who had escaped the asylum and run off with Eugenia. Katherine Wadsworth Jones, Eugenia's partner in the escape, had information he wanted, and he'd almost died in his attempt to get it.

He'd almost gone to jail, too. It had taken a good deal of his money, very generously and discreetly spread among judges and juries and lawmen, as well as politicians both state and local, to make the kidnapping charges go away. He hadn't been charged with a crime. He hadn't gotten any information either.

And now Katherine Jones had full possession of the Wadsworth fortune. She'd sold every bit of it and now lived in a hovel in Wyoming. She must have squandered that huge fortune. No one seemed to believe she still had it. Thaddeus had traced her generous donations to churches from Independence, Missouri, to Omaha, Nebraska, and all the way along the Union Pacific Railroad line to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where reports came back to him that she'd settled, had added on modestly to her hovel, bought a good-sized chunk of hilly land and a herd of cattle.

Thaddeus's investigators had done their best to find out what Katherine knew about Eugenia's whereabouts, but they'd failed to unearth anything. He knew she'd traveled to Idaho on a wagon train, and then she left the train and rode north. He'd tracked her as far as the O'Tooles' place, but after that it was as if she'd vanished. No one could find any sign of Eugenia moving on from there. But Thaddeus had seen Elizabeth at the O'Tooles just before Yvette had stabbed him. Eugenia had to be in the surrounding area.

Yet Idaho was a vast territory. And the O'Tooles had claimed ignorance regarding Eugenia's whereabouts. All he had to do was look at that Irish trash to believe they were indeed ignorant of most everything.

He glanced at the sheaf of papers again. Now this.

Everything hurt. Thaddeus fumbled in a drawer for his bottle of laudanum, took two quick gulps to take the edge off, and straightened. He shoved down the pain. Then, worse than physical pain, he shoved down the fear.

It wasn't something he was used to feeling. But what he'd just read frightened him.

It had finally happened. The creditors were through waiting, and he could no longer rob Peter to pay Paul. Peter and Paul were both destitute. As was Thaddeus—except for what he had hidden.

Now he had no choice but to flee, and flee fast.

He gathered himself, adjusted his suit coat, and rang the bell he kept on his desk. Hard.

Sykes came in fast. Hand on his gun that was tucked into a shoulder holster. The man could read the message in the way Thaddeus had rung the bell. Good to know.

"We need to move." Thaddeus turned to the wall behind his desk. A tidy line of bookshelves. Thaddeus had read them all. Books about great men like Vanderbilt and Carnegie, Astor and Jay Cooke. Thaddeus had learned from those great men.

Now he'd need to apply everything he'd learned. Except none of those men had ever run up against as much trouble as he had.

He suspected they all had instilled a great deal more fear in their wives.

Bracing himself for what lay ahead, he did something he'd never done in front of a witness before. He tugged on the book closest to the left on the center shelf. It tilted, then clicked, and a whole section of the wall opened.

It'd always been a secret, and he'd chosen the man who built it for him carefully. But the time for secrets was over.

Thaddeus dragged out a large bag and tossed it behind him. Sykes caught it. Thaddeus drew out two others, both medium-sized satchels. The bags had been packed months ago with everything he needed and a bit for Sykes.

He reached in and extracted the fourth satchel. Smaller than the others but heavier, more carefully packed so that nothing clinked. Taking it in his right hand because his left couldn't bear it up, Thaddeus turned.

He locked eyes with Sykes, and what he saw there reminded him of himself. Cold and cruel. Sykes was a stout man who had built up his strength for the work Thaddeus had him do. Which was to collect rents from the scum who lived in his tenements and the crudely built little shops he charged so dearly for.

Those rents had fattened Thaddeus's pockets for a long time. Still, he'd had to take on mortgages to buy them and so had spread his money thin, letting the banks shoulder the risks rather than him. It had worked for years.

He'd thought his whole life was going up in smoke when the Great Chicago Fire had swept through the town only two years ago. And there was no denying that Thaddeus had taken a brutal hit. But he still owned valuable property under the smoldering rubble, and he'd extended himself even more recklessly to rebuild.

Eugenia's father had always counseled against taking on debt. The old fool was dead now, and that money should have been Thaddeus's. But the old miser had written his will very carefully so Thaddeus couldn't touch any of the man's money.

Even so, development in Chicago was explosive, and Thaddeus had taken advantage of the bankers and the gleeful race to rebuild the city. He'd tightened his belt and spent very little on himself as he tried to get ahead. He'd gone on expanding his empire. Then the day came when the bankers decided they didn't like the looks of the Rutledge empire. They began dunning him to reduce his rate of borrowing. He'd put them off, over and over again.

And today his main bank had said no more. They were calling in the loans. Thaddeus had no choice now but to leave town, away from his creditors' reach.

There was enough money in his smallest satchel to push back this day, but he wasn't parting with any of it. He'd leave. He'd intensify his search for Eugenia, and he'd come back to Chicago in triumph.

And there stood Sykes, very likely deducing exactly what was in the bag Thaddeus held on to. It occurred to Thaddeus that the man might be a danger to him because this fourth, heaviest bag was worth a fortune. All Sykes would have to do was grab it and run.

But if Sykes's intent was to steal, he wouldn't do it right now. He'd need to do his own running, and he knew Thaddeus was a man who would hunt him down, never giving up.

Sykes would bide his time.

As for Thaddeus, he had his own gun—smaller, better hidden, and just as deadly. He closed the hidden compartment and walked to the back door to his office. The one he always kept locked. The one to which only he had the key.

He unlocked it and snapped, "Follow me." He stepped into a small room, waited for Sykes to enter, then closed and relocked the door. "Emergency trip." Thaddeus led the way to the elevator he'd had installed in secret after his leg injury.

He and Sykes rode the elevator down to the ground floor of his heavily mortgaged building, where the two of them exited into an alley.

The alley was narrow and filthy, and it disgusted Thaddeus to have to set foot there. Today it seemed he was making an exception to every rule. "Hail us a cab," he told Sykes.

There were always carriages to rent. Thaddeus had his own, but the whole point of this was not to leave a trail.

He was soon riding in a shabby old carriage, heading toward the railroad station.

Once there, he had Sykes buy two tickets, and they were training westward within the hour. It wasn't his own private railway car. He didn't have a cook or a maid along. He hadn't even paid for a sleeper berth. All very rustic.

He had to wonder if Sykes had figured out yet that they weren't going back.

Pounding hooves from the north had Maeve whirling around to see who was coming.

"It's Oscar come to visit. I wondered if we'd see him this summer."

Bruce sounded happy. Maybe he was just excited to spread the news about his courtship.

Maeve squelched her unworthy thoughts. She realized a whole crowd was coming. She saw Beth riding with a small child in front of her, with Jake beside her, a matching small child riding in front of him. They had three-year-old twins. But hadn't there been a new baby? Beth was expecting one when Maeve had visited her last summer. There was no sign of the little one.

Then Maeve gasped at the sight of—

"Ginny's come to visit." Ma announced it like the queen herself were riding in. "I'll go put coffee on. Bring them all in as soon as you can."

"No. Wait and say hello to her, Fiona. She's finally left that canyon." Bruce sounded like the voice of doom. "I can hardly believe it. She must've decided it was time to face the past."

Ginny Rutledge had ridden into Hidden Canyon in the fall of 1869 and was just now emerging. And she'd vowed she never would because the outside world, as it was run by her horrid husband, was dangerous for her.

Maeve had heard the story of Ginny, the nicest, calmest, most sensible woman Maeve had ever met, being locked into an insane asylum by her tyrant of a husband when she wouldn't hand over the money she'd inherited from her parents. Furthermore, she refused to hand over their daughter Beth's money.

Maeve studied the group. Oscar rode along with Beth, Jake, Ginny, and... "Where's Joseph?"

Bruce said, "They look like they're planning a long stay out of the canyon. Reckon someone had to stay back and do the chores."

More hoofbeats thundered, this time coming from the west. Lots of hoofbeats. She knew who she'd see before she looked in that direction because only one man had that many horses, and he came by with them regularly.

Dakota Harlan, a reckless, foolish, hard-riding, rude man who'd led them all west as the master of their wagon train. And when the O'Tooles and the Collinses had turned aside, Dakota had gone on to get the rest of the pioneers to Oregon. He'd tried homesteading there in Oregon in a spot with a cabin already on it, built a year earlier by Jake, but Dakota found it didn't suit him. He returned a year later and settled in the nearby mountains, though Maeve wasn't sure where exactly.

Dakota caught wild mustangs that roamed the Sawtooth Mountain Range, broke them, and took them around the country, selling the horses. He was a dab-hand at gentling the animals, and everyone knew he sold them for a fair price. The horses sold so fast he rarely got to town. He always said he was on his way to Fort Bridger, but his horses were always long gone before he got that far.

In fact, the O'Toole family could use another horse. Maeve's little brother and sister had been riding double with Bruce and Maeve's brother Donal, but they were getting too big for that. The family needed two horses now, so it was perfect timing for Dakota to arrive.