A Touch of Camelot (14 page)

Kansas City, Missouri, was her goal. Silas had a bank account there. After fleeing San Francisco, Gwin had wasted no time in pointing them in that direction, but their money had run out in Colorado. Crossing into Kansas on foot, they had begged rides from passing farmers, but that hadn't been enough. It was then that Gwin had sailed into her ill-fated career as a horse thief. That rash act had landed them behind bars in Garden City. They had managed to escape once only to be picked up again in Caldwell. Sometimes, when bad luck hit, it hit like a ton of bricks.

But that was about to change. Gwin was determined to get them to Missouri. She knew enough not to expect too much concerning Silas's banked funds, but she hoped there would be enough to help get her and Arthur established somewhere, preferably somewhere in the East because that's where the best schools were.

Gwin put all of this from her mind as she saw to the rest of her personal needs. Sometimes it wasn't wise to look too far ahead. A good night's sleep was what she needed. She had to be well rested and sharp tomorrow morning when they pulled in to Reno.

She threw one last doleful glance at her reflection before unlocking the door. A part of her—the part she considered weak and sentimental—was sorry to leave Cole behind. After all, it wasn't every day that a girl stumbled across her very own Sir Lancelot.

Clutching her towel and perfume bottle, Gwin started back to her berth. She was still thinking about Cole Shepherd's heart-stopping smile when she felt a jostle from behind.

She didn't have time to turn around. An arm encircled her waist, pinning her arms. A damp, foul-smelling cloth covered her nose and mouth, and she gasped, drawing in a lungful of throat-burning fumes. She let out a muffled cry as her eyes swept the coach, but Cole was nowhere in sight.

In fact,
no one
was in sight.

Only green baize curtains, dozens of them, pulled closed for the night.
This can't be happening
, she thought crazily.
I'm being suffocated in the middle of a rail coach full of witnesses!
It was unbelievable. But unbelievable or not, it was true.

Gwin's struggle was swift and silent. She tried to turn her head, to wrest her face away from that cloying smell, but the hand clamped down harder, forcing her head back until she thought her neck might snap. Her lungs filled again with choking fumes. Her strength drained, her mind fuzzed, and she felt control of her own body begin to slip away.

Less than one minute had passed since Gwin had stepped out of the ladies' washroom. She slumped, her head rolling to one side, her eyelids fluttering closed. Just before she passed out of this world, she thought vaguely that it was a shame ... a sad, sad shame that she would never get the chance to really know him.
Lancelot.

Chapter Nine

She was taking too long.

Cole poked his head out from between the sleeping curtains. The aisle was deserted. He muttered to himself, "She wouldn't dare."

But, of course, he knew very well that she would.

He reached for his shirt, berating himself for even stripping it off in the first place. How stupid of him to think that she would actually make this easy, how stupid to think that maybe she was as exhausted as he was and would cooperate for a change.

"What’s the matter, Cole?"

Cole was so angry, he couldn't look Arthur in the face.

"What are you doing?" the boy persisted.

"Your sister is up to her old tricks again."

Arthur, who was undressing for sleep, stopped, his thumb hooked in the shoulder strap of his overalls. "She wouldn't. I just know she wouldn't. She's probably just back there fooling with her hair. You know how girls are."

Cole ignored Arthur as he pulled on his boots. He reached for his gun belt, thought better of it, and instead extracted his Colt .45 from its holster.

Arthur's voice rose in alarm. "What are you going to do with
that
?"

Cole slipped the Colt into the pocket of his jacket and pointed a stern finger at Arthur. "Don't you move. Understand?"

Arthur's eyes were big. He gulped and nodded, looking, at that moment, very small and very young. Cole felt a jab of compassion and softened his tone. "Look, just stay where you are. I'll see about getting your sister back here. By her hair, if necessary."

Arthur offered a tremulous smile, apparently relieved to know that Cole didn’t intend to shoot Gwin. Not tonight, anyway.

Cole had to turn sideways to avoid disturbing the solid row of sleeping curtains that lined either side of the aisle, but it didn't hamper his progress. He was exasperated with Gwin and meant to find her quickly.

He reached the ladies' washroom and was about to rap on the door when something crackled beneath his heel. He looked down to see Gwin's towel, but it was the shattered perfume bottle that caught his attention. He stooped to examine the discarded items. The soap was wet, the towel damp. She must have come back here, washed up, dropped everything, and made a run for it.

Cole frowned. Even for Gwin, the idea seemed farfetched. He stared at the towel and the fragrant shards in his hand and started to get a bad feeling. As impossible as it seemed, it appeared as if Gwin had vanished into thin air.

*

Arthur sat cross-legged in the berth, his shoulders slumped and his head bent. Cole's parting words
—"Don't you move."
—still rang in his ears, and it wasn't only because Arthur was still much more child than adult that he was loath to disobey. He liked Cole. In fact, he liked Cole a lot, and there was a part of him that yearned for Cole to like him back.

"Don't you move."

Arthur didn't move. He missed Silas. Sometimes he missed Silas so bad he had to bite his knuckles at night to keep from crying. He missed Clell, too. Clell had been the one who had found Excalibur among the odds and ends in the wagon of a street peddler in Salina, Kansas. Clell had even shown Arthur how to shoot it so that the rocks he used for ammunition didn't go all kerflooey.

Arthur was plenty smart enough to realize that Cole was nothing like Silas. He wasn't like Clell, either, but Arthur liked him anyway. Yesterday, when Arthur had worked up the nerve to ask Cole a man-question, Cole had answered him straight. He hadn't treated him like a kid.

Arthur was going to miss Cole. During their dinner stop, Gwinnie had signaled him, a subtle, unobtrusive gesture, imperceptible to anyone who didn't know what to look for. With the knuckles of her forefinger and middle finger, she had brushed beneath her chin before picking up her fork to eat. Arthur had seen it immediately, of course. He had been trained since birth to recognize that signal, a disguised gesture of acknowledgment from one sharper to another.

A few minutes later, when Cole had been distracted by the waiter, Arthur had known to look at Gwinnie for more. She had made a shadow-bird with her hands and had mouthed one word: Tomorrow. And Arthur knew what that meant. Sometime tomorrow they would fly the coop. Arthur was to keep sharp and watch for her lead. And
this
time, Arthur knew she would pull it off.

So now Arthur was torn. Something didn't seem right, but Cole had told him to stay put. Even though Arthur was learning to respect Cole, the fact remained that Cole didn't know Gwinnie like Arthur knew Gwinnie. What was more, he didn't have any way of knowing that she planned to escape sometime tomorrow, not tonight. She had no reason to be giving him the slip now, and that's what troubled Arthur.

Something had happened to Gwinnie.

The more he thought about it, the more anxious he became. Arthur tried to block out the inner voice that urged him to move despite Cole's warning, but he couldn't stand it. He pushed the sleeping curtain aside and stepped out into the aisle.

*

Cole had a bad feeling, all right. A bad feeling, but a familiar one. A creeping, indefinable warning signal he privately referred to as the spider on his neck. Once, as a new patrolman on the dark streets of New York City, Cole had strolled into an alley, unwittingly interrupting a robbery in progress in an adjoining jewelry store. That spider-on-the-neck feeling had caused him to whirl around just in time to avoid having his skull shattered by a baseball bat.

Pushing his way through the third sleeping coach with no luck, Cole thought about the two most important lessons he'd learned during his brief career in law enforcement: Never let your guard down, and never ignore the spider on your neck.

He thought about the man in the saloon car with Gwin the other night. What was his name? Monroe. He was a slick gambler who was used to getting his way with women. No doubt he had been disappointed when Cole had thwarted his amorous plans.
So disappointed that he would kidnap her? So disappointed that he would try to force himself on her?

Cole tried to shut out the thought of Monroe tearing at Gwin's clothes.

"Damn it, Gwin," he swore as he picked up his pace. He was headed for the day coach where the train's few night owls might still be socializing. He actually hoped to find her there. He actually hoped to catch her in the act of hustling up a card game, but the spider on the back of his neck already hinted at something very different.

A woman in a puffy night cap thrust her face from between a set of sleeping curtains, stopping him in his tracks. "Good heavens! Is there a fire? All this hullabaloo in the middle of the night!"

Cole tried to be patient as she settled a pair of spectacles onto her nose. "I'm sorry, but I'm looking for someone. A pretty redhead?"

"Oh, her! Yes, I've seen her, all right. Drunk as a lord and dead to the world."

"What?"

"Disgraceful! That's what it is. Demon rum. Public debauchery. The whole world's going to hell in a hand basket."

"I don't understand, ma'am."

She pointed a sharp finger. "They went that way. That Chinese gentleman was helping her back to her seat."

Cole was confused. Chinese gentleman? Gwin passed out and smelling of liquor? It didn't make sense. "Thank you, ma'am. You've been a tremendous help."

The woman called out, causing more heads to pop out from their curtains, as he moved away. "To hell in a hand basket, I say!"

Cole crossed into the narrow vestibule that connected the last sleeping coach to the day coach behind it. Gwin had not been drinking. There was no reason for her to be passed out. And the Chinese gentleman the lady had referred to was obviously not helping her back to her seat.

When Cole stepped into the next coach, any last vestige of hope dissolved. It was deserted. Gwin wasn't here. Neither was Monroe. And neither was the Chinese man.

Cole kept moving, his gaze fixed with growing trepidation on the rear door of the day coach. Behind it were two baggage cars and a caboose. No matter how hard he racked his brain, Cole couldn't think of one honorable reason why a male passenger would take an unconscious young woman into a baggage car at this hour. Not one. And that's why, as he left the day coach behind and moved into the vestibule connecting it to baggage, he pulled the Colt from his coat pocket.

Chapter Ten

Cole paused at the door to the baggage car, his fingers tightening on the doorknob. Through the door window, he saw them, and what he saw confirmed all the fears that had nagged at the back of his mind since discovering Gwin's shattered perfume bottle. It was not Monroe, but the Chinese man.

He was on his knees, leaning over Gwin's sprawled, unconscious form. Cole's stomach lurched at the sight of her lying so deathly still.
Keep your wits about you, Shepherd.

He twisted the knob only to discover that the door had been locked on the other side. The man's head jerked up at the first rattle, and Cole knew he had to move fast. He stepped back and kicked. The heel of his boot landed squarely against the wood just above the doorknob. Luckily, the flimsy connecting door had not been made to withstand such punishment. It splintered and flew back on its hinges, cracking into the wall behind it.

All of this took less than five seconds, but it was plenty of time for the other man to react. Still on his haunches, he pulled Gwin's limp body up and around to front him like a shield. The lamplight caught and glittered on a sliver of steel at her throat—a stiletto poised at her jugular. Her eyes were closed and she didn't move. Cole couldn't tell if she was breathing.

His eyes flicked back to the Chinese man's face. They recognized each other in that instant, the way one professional recognizes another. This was no coolie imported from the Orient as cheap labor for the railroads. This man had been imported for a very different reason.

When he spoke, Cole was jarred by a British accent. "I'm impressed by your timeliness, Mr. Shepherd, but then, they say if you want a job done right, call the Pinkertons."

The man's familiarity with Cole and his employer confirmed Cole's impression that this man's presence was no matter of chance. Cole's grip on the Colt didn't falter even though his palms were beginning to sweat. The floor of the baggage car rocked gently beneath his feet as he eyed down sights trained on the other man's forehead.

The man spoke again, seeming to read Cole's thoughts. "I wouldn't consider it if I were you, Mr. Shepherd. On a moving train such as this, there's a chance that you will hit your mark, but there's also a chance you will hit Miss Pierce."

Cole took one step forward.  

"Do
not
come any closer. I will kill her if you do."

Cole tried to read the man's face, but his features remained implacable. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"I want you to drop your weapon to the floor and kick it to me."

What the man had said earlier was true. The cars rocked only slightly at this moment. Cole might be able to adjust his aim to compensate for it, but what if they took a turn or hit a rough piece of track? He didn't think he could live with himself if he hurt Gwin. Cole believed this man when he said he would cut her throat. He had no choice but to believe him. Cole knew he had to give up his gun. He also had to close the distance between them.