Chapter 24

"I'll get the train to stop and go back to Independence," Huey said. "Lloyd was going for the law—he's got some kidnappers to arrest." With that, he dashed out of the train car.

Kat scrambled to go back to caring for Uncle Patrick.

Seb came to kneel beside Kat's uncle, straight across from her.

"Did you hear what he said before Rutledge grabbed me?" she asked.

"No, Kat. I came in just in time to see Rutledge put his hands on you. Then I went berserk." Seb gave her a sheepish smile while she used a damp cloth to bathe Uncle Patrick's face.

"He found out Jeremy was murdered. He's had them arrested, and they've been convicted. He said he rewrote his will to leave me everything. He was ready to go get me from the asylum when he found out I'd escaped. Dr. Horecroft convinced him there was a thorough search going on for me, and the only reason he hadn't told Patrick of my escape was because he didn't want to worry him."

"Meanwhile, though you'd been gone nearly a year and a half, he was collecting a monthly fee for your care?" Seb didn't even bother to try to tamp down his sarcasm.

The slowly moving train screeched to a halt, shuddered, and then began inching in reverse. Back toward Independence.

Kat continued to clean her patient's face. "Patrick Wadsworth is supposed to be a very smart man. It's hard to believe he didn't have suspicions about Horecroft. Maybe he did. Maybe he thought Horecroft was going to be more help than hindrance in finding me, and he'd deal with his lies later." Kat added, "Help me sit him up. I'll try to get some water down him."

"Is he going to survive?" Seb slid an arm behind Wadsworth's back. "The bullet wound isn't that far from where mine was."

"I'm afraid it's just a few crucial inches too far in. We can only give him the best care possible, then hope and pray he lives."

Seb sat Wadsworth up with the utmost gentleness. Kat held a cup to his lips and poured in just a sip. Wadsworth swallowed, then swallowed again. His eyes fluttered open.

"Uncle Patrick, you're awake. Drink some more."

He took several good swallows before Kat set the cup aside. She grabbed a cushion off a chair and centered it behind Wadsworth's shoulder. "Let him down now, Seb."

Wadsworth groaned in pain as Seb eased him back.

"Uncle Patrick, this is my husband, Sebastian Jones. He's an inventor working on improvements to batteries. He has several successful patents. He knew Jeremy—they went to Washington Institute together in St. Louis."

Wadsworth's eyes slid to Seb. "You knew Jeremy?"

"Yes. He was a fine man."

"Not cut out for the business world. I saw that, but Douglas demanded we bring him into the company."

"Douglas Wadsworth, Jeremy's father," Kat explained.

"I remember."

"And now the company is Kat's, and through marriage yours as well. I've got a good board of directors running it now, but you'll do with it as you see fit. Jeremy has an inheritance from his father, too. That's yours now, Katherine and Sebastian. It always has been yours, and it was Jeremy's. I thought I knew best. I didn't think you could handle the money. Jeremy would have given it to the church. And you seemed mad with grief, Katherine. I should have listened to you, but instead I had you locked away. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I've been a man to take charge all my life, and I managed to abuse you in the worst way with my arrogant belief I knew everything."

"Uncle Patrick, are you a man of faith? Your wounds are very serious. We'll get you to a doctor as soon as we're back in Independence, but you need to think about your soul right now. Reach out in faith if you want to spend eternity with God. Your soul may not be required of you today, but it's time to get yourself right with God."

Beth cut off her gasp of pain.

The pain earned a glance at her shoulder. She saw something really wrong, but it was hard to say what. Swelling possibly, but a whole lot of it. A shocking amount, in fact. She reached for the lump on her shoulder, and just touching it was agonizing.

The horse had brushed against her was all. Or had she been hit harder than that? She'd been knocked to the ground, but somehow she'd gotten back on her feet and started running. Had she been hit a second time before she got out of the way? In all that had happened, she hadn't thought of it again. No one had.

Jake was at her side immediately. "Sit down. Oscar and Bruce and your mama will take care of Joseph. You got kicked or maybe stomped on. I wish Kat was here. She's got a good head for medicine."

Dakota said, "Kat's not here with you?"

"No." Jake positioned himself between Beth and the rest of the room.

"Ginny's Beth's ma?"

"Yes. Now stop asking questions. I need to tend Beth."

Jake carefully unbuttoned Beth's dress, and Dakota turned away to give her privacy. Both her dresses buttoned in the front to make feeding her babies easier. As Jake pulled it aside, her right arm slipped free of her loose chemise, though twisting to get her arm out sent a red-hot jolt of pain through her right shoulder. She let out a second louder gasp that she couldn't control.

Jake, his jaw tight with worry, eased the sleeve off her arm. "What happened here?"

Beth clamped her mouth shut, and still a groan of pain escaped. Once Jake had her arm free, she looked at her shoulder. Her stomach turned at the misshapen lump there. Her head swam. She had to look away before she cast up her breakfast. Staring at the wall without seeing it, her vision narrowed, and she tipped sideways.

Barely aware of a shout from Jake, she found herself lying stretched out on her back on the kitchen table, her legs bent at the knees and dangling off the small surface.

"Bruce or Oscar, one of you. Have you ever seen anything like Beth's shoulder before?"

"It's dislocated." Dakota studied her shoulder. "I helped reset a shoulder once. I think I can fix it."

Beth didn't think he sounded overly confident.

"Let me over there, Jake. You come to this side of the table."

"Dislocated? Do you mean it's broken?"

"Stop asking questions and switch sides with me." Dakota had gone into full wagon-master mode, and Jake obeyed him.

Beth's vision narrowed more, and she decided fainting was, under the circumstances, the best possible idea.

Uncle Patrick let Kat pray with him. The train continued its slow backward crawl toward Independence.

A brakeman came into their car. "What's going on here?" The man looked down at the bleeding patient and gasped. "Mr. Wadsworth! What happened?"

Kat thought the man was late to the crisis. "Get ready to jump off the train the moment it stops. Patrick Wadsworth needs to get to a hospital, the best one in Independence. Or the best doctor. I know very little about this town."

"I know it. I'll handle this." Seb left Kat to tend Uncle Patrick while he barked out orders to the brakeman. He'd just finished when the train pulled to a stop with squealing brakes and a blast of steam, the whistle blowing over and over.

The brakeman leapt off the car the instant it stopped and ran, shouting for a wagon to carry a wounded man.

Then Huey Jessup was back, running along the cars and coming in through the back of the private car with the engineer and the stoker at his heels.

"Be gentle with him." Kat stepped back.

"We'll get him out and transported." Seb continued to take charge. "I'll send him on his way, then get a sheriff here to pick up those men who kidnapped you."

"I'm going with my uncle to the hospital. You handle arresting Rutledge, Horecroft, Sykes, and whoever that other thug was." Kat followed closely, urging caution as all four men carried Patrick off the train. The brakeman had returned with an empty freight wagon by the time they'd gotten Uncle Patrick off the train.

Kat jumped into the wagon with her uncle, and Seb climbed in beside her.

"I'll handle the arrests, Seb," Huey shouted. "I'll find you at the hospital once things are settled here. I'll send the law there to talk to you."

"I'm just back from hauling three other men to the hospital," the wagon driver said. He slapped the reins on his team's broad backs and headed away.

No doubt Seb's lawyers and his friend Marcus.

Kat knelt beside her uncle, who'd prayed a salvation prayer with her just moments ago. She saw that he'd since passed out and was barely breathing. She looked up at Seb. "I don't think we'll get him to the hospital alive."

Seb's mouth twisted as he studied the man between them. "He fell under the gun of the madman who was after me."

"And the madman who was after me to find out information about Beth and Ginny."

"Do what you can for him. I'll pray." Seb rested both hands on Uncle Patrick's arm and bowed his head.

Kat checked the bandage. It was already tight but soaked with blood. She didn't know what else she could do, so she joined her husband in prayer for this man she'd never really known.

When the freight wagon reached the hospital, the driver leapt off the high seat and ran inside the small building, shouting for help. Two men carrying a stretcher came tearing outside, and with Seb's help they got Wadsworth into the hospital. He was still breathing.

A young doctor, whose white coat was already covered in blood, waved them into a back room. "You two wait out here. It's crowded in back."

Seb stopped.

Kat turned to look at him. "Huey is sending the law. Patrick Wadsworth is probably going to die. Thaddeus Rutledge is probably going to buy his way out of jail, then go right back to trying to grab me and force me to tell him where Ginny is hiding."

Soberly, Seb said, "And Marcus Coleman is probably going to jail if his family money doesn't get him out of it. Although he did shoot someone today."

"That ought to be enough," Kat said. Then she shook her head and added, "And yet why am I skeptical?"

"He seemed furiously mad today, and those things he said about our patents, he cooked all that up in his head." Seb grunted. "He might just get off for reasons of insanity."

"Maybe Horecroft could recommend an asylum for men."

"Inventing is a more dangerous way to make a living than I'd ever realized. Maybe I should start helping you hunt."

"I had a man grab me and hold a gun to my head when I was hunting."

Seb shrugged. "Gather eggs?"

"I can teach you to cook. You might find yeast helping bread to rise scientific."

"Sounds safe at least."

"I may end up rich. We could hire armed guards to surround our homestead cabin."

"We'd have to build them their own cabin, but sure, we could do that." Seb reached out a hand to Kat and pulled her close, then closer. "I need to get my priorities straight because I forget what's most important when I step into my laboratory."

"What you're trying to do is important. You've already changed the world, and I'm proud of you for it."

"Yes, it's important, but it can't be first in my life. God is first. And you, Kat, you're second." He pulled her into his arms. There they stood, exhausted, frightened, bloody, and still in the midst of a cyclone. He hugged her tight. "I love you, Kathleen Pendergast Wadsworth Jones. I love you, and I'm going to make sure you know every day that you're more important than my work."

"I love you too, Sebastian Jones." Kat rested her head against his shoulder. As she let him bear her weight for a lovely moment, she wondered if she could fully trust him.

She didn't ask because the doctor came charging out and said to her, "I heard you've got doctoring skills. I need help. I've got four men who've been shot back there."

The sheriff of Independence came rushing in from outside, heading straight toward Seb. "I've got a mighty powerful rich man demanding I arrest you and take your wife into custody. You both need to answer some questions. I can't keep a man like Thaddeus Rutledge behind bars without a real good reason."

Seb said, "Let's talk about this outside. My wife will talk to you just as soon as she's done saving four men's lives." He looked at Kat, who rolled her eyes and followed the doctor into the back room.