Chapter 22

Kat grabbed at the railing on the steps up to the train car.

She kicked Rutledge hard in the leg, and he wrenched her sideways, knocking her head against iron.

Dazed, she was barely aware of where she was until she got slammed onto the floor. Uncle Patrick landed next to her. Two men doing Thaddeus Rutledge's bidding.

She scrambled backward. "Help! Someone help me!" She screamed until her words should have peeled a man's eardrums away.

Uncle Patrick didn't move.

Thaddeus Rutledge laughed. "Sykes, tie her up."

Sykes, a thug of a man, the one who'd run around the corner where Huey was hiding, came toward her.

Uncle Patrick moaned and clutched his belly. Kat's lifelong training at her father's side roared to life, and she rolled onto her hands and knees and moved to the side of her dreadful tyrant of an uncle-in-law.

Dr. Horecroft was slower, but finally he stepped onto the train and sat, tidy and evil, on a blue velvet couch. His hands folded. A satisfied smile on his face.

"Do you have bandages?"

Sykes, his arms outstretched to grab her, stopped. "What?"

"Bandages. Or is it your wish that Patrick Wadsworth die?" She looked at Sykes and saw him check for orders by looking at Rutledge. Her eyes riveted on Rutledge, too. A man she'd never seen before nor met, only heard about from the horror stories Beth and Ginny told. He was a man of power in Chicago who moved in the upper echelons. Jeremy should have known him, but he must not have been important enough to speak of or she'd've heard of him.

Rutledge blinked, stumped by her question it seemed.

She tried to penetrate his single-minded interest in himself. "Do you intend to let my uncle Patrick die? You won't get his money, and you'll lose a man who must be a colleague of yours. Saving him would give you a powerful connection."

Money and power, that was all Patrick and Rutledge understood.

Rutledge shook his head as if clearing it. "Sykes, get her the doctor's kit. But first give me your gun."

"Dr. Horecroft," Kat snapped as she wrestled Uncle Patrick's hands away from his belly, "get down here and help me."

"I'm not that kind of doctor."

"Surely you had to go to medical school in order to call yourself a doctor. Get over here."

Horecroft just sniffed and settled more comfortably into his cushions.

Sykes gave Kat a smirk and handed over his gun to Rutledge, who said to Sykes, "Tell the engineer to get this train moving now."

Rutledge sat down in a plush seat, put his leg up on an ottoman, rested the pistol on his thigh, and said, "So you're his mad niece, is that right?"

Sykes rushed out.

"And you're the imbecile who tried to keep your wife locked up in an asylum."

Rutledge's eyes flashed in a way that told her she'd pay for such insults later. She found she could talk and tend Uncle Patrick at the same time. He was writhing, curled up on his side, bleeding on an intricately woven Aubusson rug.

"I know your wife. She's a very sensible and rational woman. Why on earth did you decide you'd label her insane?"

"Where is she?" Though Rutledge appeared as if calm, Kat was good at reading people. Her father had taught her how important that was when treating patients. Now she saw Rutledge's hands, resting on the arms of his chair, tense up, the knuckles turning white. His eyes narrowed. Despite the cool expression, she saw that she'd struck a nerve.

She needed to stay alive. She was almost certainly headed back to Chicago, based on the direction of the train. Rutledge would stand back, unbothered, while Horecroft tortured her. But they wouldn't kill her, and if he survived, Seb would come for her.

She'd live as long as Rutledge believed she knew how to take him to Ginny. "I know exactly where she is."

Rutledge let his cold disinterest slip as he lunged forward, still seated but nearly ready to jump out of his chair. "Where? You'll tell me right now or you'll be very sorry you didn't."

"Uncle Patrick, lay back." Kat decided it was time to ignore Rutledge, and anyway, she had other things to do. "Remember, I trained at my father's side. I can help you. Rutledge's man shot you in the chaos when you tried to kidnap me."

Patrick lay back. Kat ripped open his shirt and swallowed hard at the sight of a single bullet hole right above his belt.

Sykes, Rutledge's thug, came back with a canvas bag. "Whatever medical equipment is on this train is in that bag. I told the engineer to pull out fast."

Kat opened the bag and looked inside. It was a jumble, but there were things she could use.

"Is there whiskey on this train?" She was handed a little brown bottle full of liquid. A quick sniff told her what it was. "That's laudanum. Give him that."

Rutledge's eyes darted to the bottle, his expression turning hypnotic.

Kat had seen that look before. And she'd seen Rutledge limp and had heard about Yvette fighting back against him last year when he'd hit her. Rutledge was a man who lived with pain, and it appeared he was very familiar with the milk of the poppy.

"I still need whiskey. The alcohol will sterilize the tweezers I'm going to use to get the bullet out and sterilize the needle and thread to sew him up."

Kat predicted with some confidence that Uncle Patrick was going to die. But her medical training told her what to do and forced her to try. And anyway, she'd rather practice medicine on a doomed man than answer Rutledge's questions.

The train started moving. She tried not to panic. Help would not arrive in time to keep her from being taken to Chicago.

Seb had been pinned under that murderous so-called friend of his. Lloyd and Deacon were both down, Huey as well. Any of them would come when they could, but until they did, Kat was on her own.

Seb leapt up to go after his wife.

Marcus tackled him and slammed him to the stone street.

Twisting wildly, Seb hammered his old friend with a fist to the belly, the chin, the nose.

Marcus hung on like a leech, but he was no longer punching. Marcus had spent the last years in his parents' comfortable home, bent over a laboratory table.

Seb did that same kind of work, but he'd spent last summer on a wagon train, walking long miles, holding teams of cattle and horses steady. He'd spent the winter riding and checking cattle. Shoveling snow and chopping firewood. Building a barn.

The fight swung in Seb's direction quickly. Marcus's blows were strong but not steady, not powered by muscles hardened by work and the frontier. Marcus began to flail.

A sudden impact knocked Marcus away from Seb. Huey, bleeding from a head wound, landed hard on top of Marcus. One, two hard blows to the chin and Marcus dropped flat to the ground, the fight gone out of him.

Seb staggered to his feet in time to see Deacon roll to his hands and knees, then crawl toward Lloyd.

Huey clamped shackles on Marcus and got to his feet. They heard a train's wheels begin to churn.

Seb's eyes met Huey's. He shouted, "He's taking Kat!"

Deacon said, "Go after her. Lloyd's wounds aren't mortal. I'll get help and have Marcus arrested."

Huey started toward the train, unsteady but game, Seb right behind him. The two of them were running flat-out before they rounded the building that blocked their view of the train station. A single engine pulling eight cars was gaining steam out of the station.

Seb shouted, "Private train! Has to be Rutledge and Wadsworth. He's taken Kat on it."

Seb dashed past Huey as the cars slipped past him, picking up more speed. He saw an open door on a baggage car, probably empty, then sprinted and leapt for the door handle and hung on as his feet swept out from under him. Dragging himself forward, he tumbled into the car. Looking back, he saw Huey catch hold of the steps on the last car, the caboose. Huey was hurt, but he clawed his way up those steps and soon vanished altogether.

Gasping for breath, Seb tried to think. Should he move forward on his own or wait for Huey? What was the best way to save Kat?