Between Love and Lies (17 page)

A cloud of dust high in the sky along with a muted thunder were her beacons. The sound swelled into bellowing cattle, shuffling hooves and men shouting orders. She’d reached the rail depot. Just in time. A train was loading its final cattle car. It’d leave in a matter of minutes.

She sprinted for the locomotive. A single leap took her over the track and around the cow catcher. Her feet slipped in the loose dirt. Arms wind milling, she fought to stay upright. She ended up on her hands and knees, crawling behind the engine.

The smoke-box with its fluted chimney towered over her. The depot stood on the other side. So did Dodge and the eager eyes of everyone who might drag her back to the Gertie. A mysterious array of pipes and pistons drew her attention down the train. Her gaze halted on a ladder. The iron rungs, smooth and solid under her hands and feet, made for a quick climb.

When she reached the top, a glimpse of the workers trudging back to town sent her ducking as she jumped over the last rung. Her pant leg caught on something. She flipped forward into blackness. She landed hard on her belly and chest.

The air left her lungs. Wouldn’t return. She rolled onto her back. The coal for the firebox was an unforgiving bed as she struggled to breathe. One painful gasp at a time.

The bright starbursts obscuring her vision faded. A swathe of blue, broken only by lazy puffs of charcoal smoke, arced above her while the railcar vibrated beneath her. She lay hidden from the men she’d seen returning to town.

Relief rendered her aches and pains insignificant. This part of her plan had worked. She was leaving Dodge and everyone in it. She closed her eyes against the memory of whiskey-colored eyes. Her future lay elsewhere.

All cattle trains leaving Dodge went to Chicago’s Union Stockyards. At the end of the rail line, a new town awaited. From all accounts, it was a bustling rabbit warren of streets where a runaway might hope to disappear. She couldn’t hope to go farther. Not without Edward’s jewelry box and watch to pave her way.

What should she do when she reached Chicago? Could she keep the boy’s garb and find work in the cattle yards? In four days, she’d find out. She’d have new challenges. All of which she must face alone.

The warmth of the sun vanished. When she opened her eyes, a silhouette the size of a bear descended toward her. Panic sent her rolling sideways and scrambling across the coals. A rough hand seized the back of her collar and hauled her up onto her toes. Then her feet left the coal bed. She dangled in the air, as if she were as light as a child’s toy.

“We got another stowaway,” a baritone voice announced above her head.

“Toss him down.” The high-pitched reply came fast and from far below.

“No!” Her shriek ended when she hit the ground. Pain knifed into her hip, stabbing up her ribs and down her thigh. Her momentum sent her tumbling. Each bounce inflicted another bruising wallop on a new part of her body. She couldn’t do anything but curl into a ball—until she crashed into something hard and stopped.

“Jesus H. Christ! When I said to toss him, I didn’t mean on me.”

Arms wrapped around her aching body, she squinted up at the thin man furiously rubbing his shins. When he lifted his head to glare at her, she recognized the close-set eyes and pointy nose under the short brim of his hat. His soot-covered overalls confirmed her worst nightmare. She’d seen this rat-faced brakeman at the Star.

And if she knew him, he knew Sadie Sullivan.

She scuttled backward on her heels and her butt.

“Oh, no you don’t.” He grabbed the shoulder of her coat and thrust his nose close to hers. “You ain’t leaving till you learn not to steal a free ride on our train.”

She lowered her chin and tried to hide under her hat. The blur of his arm swinging toward her made her duck even further. The crown of her hat took the brunt of his slap. The cord yanked tight under her chin before it snapped. Released from its tether, her hat flew into the air. Her hair did the same before falling around her shoulders.

A gasp of surprise whistled in her ear followed by a hushed voice. “You’re the whore John’s searching fer.” He swept off his own hat and used it to beat the dust from her clothing, clouding the air even more. She coughed and winced, his whacks reminding her of every bruise.

“Reckon the boy’s taken enough punishment.” The deep voice grew louder, coming closer. “When I get done climbing down from this car, you’d better have turned him loose. We gotta get this train moving.”

Do as the bear says. Release me, you horrible little rodent.

Her captor yanked her to her knees so she faced the train. “But look! The
he
you threw off the coal car is a
she
.”

Clenching her teeth against the pain she knew would follow, she lurched to her feet and tried to run. A hand as heavy as an enormous paw grasped her head and forced her face skyward. She glared up at the same massive silhouette that’d thrown her off the train.

A moment of silence stretched her nerves tight.

“She’s the escaped whore.” Excitement raised the thin man’s voice to a squeak. “The one with the French pox.”

“I know who she is,” came the answering grumble. “I’ve eyeballed her at the Star, same as you.”

“John said we gotta return her to the madam.”

“All in good time.”

A cold sweat turned her skin to ice. She wanted to see John right now. “He’s offering a reward.”

“And I’ll take
every
reward in my grasp.” The big man’s gaze cut to his partner. “Ain’t you ever rubbed your dick while listening to her singing out of reach on that stage?” His hand dropped from her head to encircle her arm like a band of iron.

That didn’t stop her from trying to twist free. “Madam Garrett will—”

He hauled her toward the train. “She can do whatever she wants. Same as I’m gonna do what I want—which is stripping you naked beside that train and jerking off while you wriggle beneath me with all of your pale flesh free for my other hand to grope.”

His partner jumped between them and the train. “Hey! When do I get my turn?”

“After you stand guard and make sure no one interrupts me.”

“I discovered who she was first. So I should go first.”

“Too bad yer a bandy-legged runt who’ll spend his life being second.”

The thin man tugged her toward him. The bigger one jerked her back. She felt like the wishbone on last week’s pheasant dinner, pulled in two directions and ready to snap.

The only direction she wanted to go was away from these two men. She needed help. Any help. At the saloon, she’d overheard that brakemen often worked in pairs. Was the other man in the caboose at the end of the train? Or walking along the backs of the cars? If she could get his attention, she might have a chance.

She screamed as loud as she could. Then she bit the palm that descended to cover her mouth. She could do nothing to escape the punch that followed. Pain exploded in her jaw and cracked her head back. Once again she hung from the big man’s grasp.

“Hit her again,” he growled, “and I’m gonna darken yer daylights.”

“But she bit me!”

“Remember those rules Garrett likes to harp about? We can do anything we damned well please except leave one of her girls too beat up to work in her saloon.”

“We can’t stick our pricks in this one.”

“There are other ways to get off.”

Eager fingers reached up to squeeze her arm. “If I help you
get
her into the engine cab, no one needs to stand guard. We can both be first.”

A frustrated growl sounded above her. “I’m only sayin’ yes to shut you up.”

She threw the last of her strength into trying to break free. The two men ignored her. With a determination gained from a single-minded purpose, they pulled her across the dirt toward the train.

CHAPTER 11

Noah’s heels hovered
over his gray’s flanks as they followed John’s horse like a shadow through the rail depot. With the slightest command, Pepper would turn onto a new course. They’d been together long enough for the horse to sense his decisions a heartbeat after he’d made them. Trouble was he hadn’t a clue what to do right now.

Should he stay with John or start his own search?

On their first lap, John halted just long enough to bark orders at the townsfolk and workmen. This time they didn’t stop. They raced past the caboose, the railcars packed with bellowing cattle, the empty corrals and loading ramps, the locomotive rumbling and puffing black smoke while it waited to leave.

John’s attention was riveted on the workmen retreating into town. Noah squelched the urge to abandon the chase. The Star’s strong-man was riding in circles. But he couldn’t take the chance, however slight, of John stumbling onto Sadie without him nearby.

The orders Madam Garrett had given back at the Star made him rigid with worry, and anger.

They’d punished Sadie before. They meant to do so again. There’d be a reckoning for those offenses…as soon as he made sure Sadie was safe.

How could she have disappeared so quickly? Why hadn’t anyone seen her? John was offering enough incentives to make even a by-the-book preacher turn her in.

From the din behind him came a sound, faint as the cry of a bird high overhead. It raised the hair on his neck. He reined Pepper around. On the opposite side of the locomotive he’d sped past, two men dragged a struggling form. A tangle of brown with a flash of familiar red. Gone behind the locomotive in a blink.

His stomach flipped over, sick with dread. Pepper raced forward and bounded over the tracks straight toward the two men climbing into the engine cab. Long red hair hung from the bundle they were trying to force inside.

With a roar, he jumped to the ground, his revolver cocked and pointed at the biggest man’s back. “Bring her down. Or you’re both dead.”

The pair froze. The smaller man tensed, most likely preparing to jump on him.

He shifted his aim and pressed the trigger. The man’s hat flew into the air. He cocked the hammer and swung the barrel back to the first man who now glared down at him. He raised the gun until he stared straight down the barrel into a pair of black eyes.

The man’s gaze dropped to Noah’s chest, to the silver star pinned there, then rose to clash with his again. “Ain’t it against the law to shoot unarmed men, Deputy?”

“Noah?” Sadie’s voice flowed over him, dulling his rage but only for an instant.

He fought the urge to look at her. He kept his gaze on the men, but his words were only for her. “How badly did they hurt you?”

“The big one threw me off the top of the coal car. The other one punched me in the jaw.”

Noah swore.

“She tried to stowaway on our train,” the smaller man said in a shrill rush. “She’s that escaped whore John wants brought in.”

“That why you were forcing her back onto your train?” Noah demanded.

Silence met his question.

He drew in a deep breath, struggling to hold onto his raging emotions. “I killed the last man who tried to take her. Shot him square between the eyes. But you—” He lowered his aim to the man’s crotch. “You both deserve a bullet between your legs. Marshal Masterson will understand when I tell him you ignored my direct order to bring her down.”

With exaggerated care, the two men climbed down and set Sadie on the ground. Then they raised their hands and retreated as far was the engine would allow.

“Get back on that train,” he growled, “and out of my sight.”

The pair scrambled to obey. As soon as the train started moving, Noah holstered his revolver and dropped onto his knees beside Sadie. She lay curled in a ball on her side.

“What were you thinking, stowing away on that train?” His voice came out hoarse, unwilling to speak of the danger she’d exposed herself to because of her need to run away from him.

“I felt a sudden need to disappear in Chicago.”

The train rattled by, picking up speed. If she’d succeeded in stowing away on it, he might have never seen her again.

“Mule-headed little fool,” he muttered. He brushed her hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “Why is your face streaked with so much dirt?”

She released a long sigh. “So, I failed there as well. I’d hoped to cover all of my face. And my hair…I should’ve cut it.”

“If you had, I might not have seen—” He shoved the thought from his mind and gathered her in his arms with all the gentleness he could muster.

She didn’t utter a sound, but her pain was evident in the stiffness of her muscles.

“I’m just glad I found you.” He breathed the words into her hair, then forced himself to continue in a firmer voice. “I made you run from the Star. I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t running from you,” she replied without hesitation. She was telling the truth.

Her truths baffled him as much as her lies. “Then why did you leave?”

“Cora said it’d be either you or Wardell coming. Wardell was a possibility I couldn’t face.”

Wardell.
The name echoed in his mind as the last railcar swept by. Its wake buffeted him, made him stagger. His hold tightened on Sadie as he stared after the receding tail of the train. He should’ve hauled Sadie onboard himself. He should’ve left Dodge with her safe and secure in his arms…and never looked back.