Badlands

Book 3: Sawbones

by Melissa Lenhardt

Genres: Historical Fiction; Action & Adventure Romance; Suspense

Synopsis

Outlander meets post-Civil War unrest in the conclusion to Melissa Lenhardt’s fast-paced historical series.

Laura’s worst fears have been realized: Kindle has been taken into custody and she is once again on the run. The noose awaits her in New York, but Laura is realizing that there are some things worse than death. Finally running out of places to hide, it may be time for Dr. Catherine Bennett to face her past.

A Blackstone Audio production.

Release date: June 27, 2017

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 416

Sample

“Packs a big punch with grit and raw passion. There is mystery, murder, Indians, bounty hunters and intrigue. The women are brave, intelligent and don’t take crap from anyone. Lenhardt is a talented, creative writer; she has a grand slam out of the park with Sawbones.”—

RT Book Reviews (Top Pick!) 4.5 stars

“Raw, gritty, and sometimes graphic, Melissa Lenhardt has crafted a page-turner. In Sawbones, the women are smart, brave, and at times ‘incorrigible.’ The plot twists, unique characters and intriguing story of passion and betrayal make this a book well worth discovering.”

—Jane Kirkpatrick, New York Times bestselling author of A Light in the Wilderness

“Absolutely loved it! I couldn’t tear myself away from Sawbones. An epic story of love and courage that sweeps from east to west, Sawbones will rip right through you.”

—Marci Jefferson, author of Girl on the Golden Coin

“A beautiful, heartrending story of courage, survival, [and] loyalty, [that] depicts the depths to which a human can sink and the highs to which we can rise above it all when hope is strong. … Sawbones is on my list of 2016 favourite reads.”

—Scandalicious

“You will fall in love with Catherine, as I did, as she struggles to assert herself in a violent and treacherous world, fighting not only prejudice but evil.”

—Sandra Dallas, New York Times bestselling author

“Sawbones is a thoroughly original, smart and satisfying hybrid, perhaps a new subgenre: the feminist Western.”

—Lone Star Literary Life

“Melissa Lenhardt has given us an amazing heroine and sent her on a thrilling journey from the teeming streets of New York City to the vast wilderness of the Texas frontier. Dr. Catherine Bennett’s adventure will keep you turning pages long into the night!”

—Victoria Thompson, bestselling author of Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue

“It was damn brilliant and I absolutely loved it! … It was [the] mix of loveliness with the book’s vicious, ruthless side that made Sawbones so compelling. … I was ecstatic to find out that there will be a follow-up called Blood Oath coming out later this year. You can be sure I’ll be devouring it as soon as I can get my hands on it.”

—Bibliosanctum (4.5 stars)

“If you are looking for a book that is well-written, has a gripping story-line seasoned with mystery, suspense, [and] a little romance, then you have come to the right place, my friend! … From the first to the last page, Sawbones is a raw, gritty tale that takes us back to a time when rules didn’t apply, when heartbreak was a way of life and tomorrow was a gift. Weaving facts and fiction Melissa Lenhardt gives us a story so rich in detail and horrific truths, you finish the book with so many questions, so many emotions and ready for more.”

—Margie’s Must Reads (4 stars)

“The adventure was nonstop, never giving way to a slow moment. … My heart was repeatedly ripped to shreds and mended … a thrilling, unpredictable roller coaster that held my heart from the start.”

—My Book Fix

The train lurched to a stop and let out a long sigh, exhausted from its trek across the featureless plains of Nebraska. The shouts of the railroad men and the clang of metal against metal pierced the thick air, heavy with the threat of rain.

“She still asleep?”

Fabric rustled as someone in the compartment stood. “Not what I’d call it, but yes.”

With my eyes closed against the sight of Rosemond Barclay’s fine dress and my mother’s necklace around her throat, I heard the sarcasm dripping from the whore’s honeyed Southern accent.

“Want me to stay with her while you stretch your legs?”

“If you don’t mind,” Rosemond said.

“How long it gonna last?”

“Her pain? I’m not sure. I’ve never seen the like. I’ll get us something to eat. I’ll be quick.” The air around me changed and I smelled lavender, Rosemond’s scent. I felt Rosemond’s presence and imagined her leaning down to stare out the window, or at me. “Though with that line, I’ll be lucky if I don’t miss the train.”

“Better hurry, then.”

The compartment door slid open and closed and I was alone with the man who Rosemond called Dunk, a Negro who did everything she bid without question. Standing well over six feet, he was an imposing specimen of a man, but when I was doubled over in pain, or numb from the opiate, he picked me up with soft, gentle hands and carried me.

I opened my heavy eyelids but couldn’t manage more than halfway. My head rested against an open window warmed by the sun and grimy with coal dust inside and out. I rubbed my fist against the glass and gazed through the small, partially clean circle at the activity outside. Passengers and railroad men scurried across the narrow platform and around Rosemond Barclay as if there were a protective cushion around her, though their heads turned and more than one gawped in appreciation. She made a show of putting on a pair of gloves, reveling in the attention no doubt, before continuing on down the steps and across the wide, busy street. She queued up at the end of the line of customers waiting to enter a narrow building. The whore didn’t need to draw attention to herself; her plaid periwinkle-and-white dress stood out against the sober mourning attire still worn by the majority of women, even seven years after the war.

“You awake?” Dunk said.

“Is that what you call this?” With a tongue thick and dry from laudanum, enunciation was difficult.

“Miss Rose went to get us something to eat.”

I nodded. “You have anything to drink?”

He leaned down and pulled a flask from his boot. He uncorked it and handed it to me. I took a long pull and coughed, spitting a good portion across the car. I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to regain my composure while Dunk laughed, but not impolitely. “That’s corn mash,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“You’ve had it before?”

“Once,” I said. I cleared my throat and drank again, ready for the taste and keeping it down. “Thank you.” I returned the flask to Dunk and noticed the knife secreted in his boot when he returned the flask to its home.

“You’re welcome.”

My gaze drifted to the black-and-white painted sign nailed to the depot. GRAND ISLAND STATION. From my vantage point, with dry plains stretching out behind the wide-spaced buildings—one thing the West had plenty of was space—and not a river in sight, let alone an island, the name seemed a disingenuous designation. But Grand Island, Nebraska, wasn’t the first Western town built on an ostentatious idea and duplicity, and it wouldn’t be the last.

My eyelids drooped closed and in my mind’s eye I saw a nattily dressed man standing on a barrel, with a young girl on the ground beside him, handing out leaflets.

Timberline is, by far, the most picturesque spot for a town in all of the Colorado Territory. The Rockies, that’s where the future is!

What of the Indian threat?

We will be traveling under the protection of the Army. The Indians will be no threat.

“It’s all built on lies,” I murmured.

“What?”

Dunk’s expression was open and honest. There was no guile in this man. He would be an easy mark. No wonder Rosemond employed him.

“The West,” I said. My life. “Where are we going, Dunk? That’s your name, isn’t it?”

The man smiled. “Yes, ma’am. We’re going to Cheyenne, then on to Boulder.” His smile turned into a grin. “Then on to the mines.”

“The mines? Rosemond is leaving Saint Louis for a mining town?”

Dunk laughed. “No, ma’am. She staying in Boulder. With you.”

“With me?”

“Got a lot there. House on the way. Starting over, she say. I been wanting to try my luck in the mines for years, but Miss Rose always talked me out of it. I knew she been softening to the idea a’ goin’ west for a few months now. Then she came home with you and we were gone next day. I owe you a debt of thanks.”

“Happy to be of service,” I said.

There was a knock on the door. Dunk stood and slid it open. The dark-skinned conductor glanced at me and lowered his voice. “You lookin’ for a game?”

Dunk tried to shield the conductor from my view. “May be.”

“Last car.”

Dunk returned to his seat and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs.

“Don’t stay on my account,” I said.

“I told Miss Rose I’d look after you.”

“You’re guarding me, you mean?”

Dunk’s expression turned sheepish. “No, ma’am.”

“Where would I go?” I nodded toward the town plopped down in the middle of the plains. “Besides, I’m too exhausted to move. Go on. Rosemond will be back soon.”

Dunk rubbed his hands together and stood. “You sure?”

I closed my eyes and nodded. I heard Dunk pull a bag down from the overhead shelf, rifle through, and return it. The door opened and closed, and I was alone.

I sat up straight, took a few deep breaths to steady my queasy stomach and spinning head. I wasn’t sure what Dunk meant about me staying with Rosemond, but I didn’t want to wait to find out.

Holding on to the open window, I stood on wobbly legs and retrieved the bag on the shelf. Inside were a few men’s clothes, a razor and soap, and an old copy of Shakespeare’s Othello. I flipped through the well-worn pages and stopped at the front. To Dunk, Elizabeth Jennings March, June 20, 1857. I dropped the book back into the bag and exhaled. No money. Of course Dunk took his money with him. I returned the bag to its place and looked around the compartment.

A bulging leather notebook tied securely with a leather string lay on the bench across from me. I untied the notebook and a pencil, the cause of the bulge, fell from the marked page. Expecting a journal and hoping for a secreted sawbuck, I stared dumbfounded at a sketch of a woman sitting on a bench, her head leaned against the window, asleep.

Me.

I flipped back through the notebook, finding much of the same. Women and men, in various poses and states of dress, an occasional landscape. Doodles, half-finished character studies, two birds sitting on a windowsill. A dark-skinned man from behind, his head turned as if looking over his shoulder, his back crisscrossed with long scars. A naked woman, looking down and away from the artist, dark curly hair exploding from her head and down to her shoulders. It was the most complete and detailed sketch and when I flipped forward I saw why: pages and pages of starts and stops, of small sketches focused in on different angles, different parts of the body, trying to achieve the artist’s vision.

I glanced out the window, searching for Rosemond. She’d advanced to the shebang doorway and would be inside soon. The urge to escape from Rosemond and whatever future she’d kidnapped me for was overwhelming, but even in my drug-addled state I knew escape would do me little good without money.

A woman in a dark dress clutching a blue-and-orange paisley carpetbag stepped into my line of sight, obscuring Rosemond. Her head turned on a swivel, searching for someone. She stood approximately where Rosemond had, but with strikingly different results. Where Rosemond had been met with admiring looks from the men on the platform (and, like most of the West, it was nearly all men), men caught sight of this woman and their expressions turned from a willingness to admire to a quick aversion of their eyes, and maybe a tip of their hats to disguise their rudeness. The woman stood as if a rod were strapped to her back, her shoulders and long neck straight in what could only be a defiant mien.

The woman’s head stilled and, after a brief pause, she stepped forward and stopped. I followed her gaze to see what caught her eye. A man—a farmer by the looks of his plain dress, sunburned face, and slicked-down hair—stood twenty feet away, holding his hat in his hands in much the same way as the woman held her bag. Unlike most of the men, he stared at her for a long moment. Disappointment morphed to disgust and he turned on his heel, shoved his hat on his head, and walked away. The woman’s body leaned toward the departing man, as if readying to follow, before straightening. She turned toward the train. I saw her face for the first time, and I understood the revulsion.

Her nose was too small, her face too long, her jaw too strong, her skin too freckled. Full lips struggled to contain her protruding teeth. A fringe of wiry orange hair escaped the edge of her sugar-scoop bonnet. Her green eyes, though, were beautiful, and stared straight at me, full of pride and challenge, and I knew being rejected or stared at wasn’t the worst that had ever happened to her.

A tall man with a hat pulled low walked behind the woman, jostling her and breaking our gaze. A small strip of his white collar showed between his longish dark hair and the navy-blue coat he wore. Buff-colored pants were tucked into the top of his cavalry boots, well worn and dusty from the trail. He held a Remington rifle loosely in his right hand and favored his left leg. A stream of smoke trailed behind his head and I knew he held a thin cigar between his teeth.

I dropped the notebook. It was Kindle, come to find me. Rosemond hadn’t been lying about helping me on Kindle’s behalf. I grasped the open window and yelled, “Kindle!”

My voice was barely a whisper, and the man continued on without stopping, down the steps of the platform and into town. I stumbled across the compartment and opened the door on the third try. Ricocheting down the hall on legs I could scarcely feel, I tripped down the stairs and fell onto the platform on my hands and knees. The redheaded woman was next to me, helping me up with strong, thin hands. I stripped my arm from her grasp and tried to run in the direction the man had gone, but stumbled again. Why wouldn’t my legs work?

“Let me help you.” The woman lifted me up, put an arm around my waist, and walked me in Kindle’s direction while I craned my neck searching for him. The steel-gray sky was thick with the earthy smell of impending rain.

“There.” I pointed at a saloon down the street and the woman dutifully carried me along. We navigated through horses, wagons, and pedestrians, drawing our own peculiar interest: an ugly woman holding a carpetbag in one hand and her other arm around a pale, ill woman. I reached for the porch column and pulled myself up the step. I rested my cheek against the coarse wood, hoping for a wellspring of strength to propel me inside the saloon and into Kindle’s arms.

“You can’t go into a saloon,” the woman said.

I stumbled through the open door and stood for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the dark. A card game at a table to the right of the door. A bartender polishing a glass behind planks of wood resting on two cracker barrels. A cracked mirror behind him. The jagged reflection of a thin woman with disheveled hair and bruises beneath her eyes. My mouth watered as the oaky scent of whisky drifted around me. I followed the sound of a woman’s laughter coming from the back.

“Hey!”

Finding my legs, I made it to the hallway in the back and stripped open the canvas curtain door of the first room. Empty. I moved to the room across the hall, startling two women in various states of undress. I went to the next room and ripped open the curtain. Kindle had his back to me, facing the naked woman on the bed, her hand between her splayed legs. My stomach lurched with nausea. “Kindle?” My voice was barely a whisper.

“She your wife?” the whore said.

The man turned and appraised me. A thin mustache hung limply from his upper lip, framing a cruel mouth and taking no attention away from his pockmarked olive complexion.

“That dope fiend? Hell no.” The man grabbed my arm and threw me out the door and straight into the bartender, who lifted me up and tossed me over his shoulder like I was a bag of leaves. He stalked through the saloon and dropped me on the ground outside in the middle of the only puddle in the street. With shaking arms, I pushed myself into a sitting position, horse piss dripping from my jaw, and looked up into the ugly woman’s face. The sun was behind her head, masking her expression.

“I told you not to go in there.” I took her offered hand. She pulled me up and released me quickly. She flicked the excess urine from her hand, bent down, and wiped it on the bottom of her skirt. “Was it him?”

I shook my head.

She sighed. “I’m sorry.”

The train whistle screamed and the train labored forward toward California.

“You’ve missed your train.”

Though my brain was fuzzy with laudanum and I wanted nothing more than to lie down in the middle of the street and sleep, I understood the import of the train leaving without me. I was free of Rosemond and could return to Kindle. I managed to smile. “So I have.”

My happiness was short-lived.

“Laura!”

Rosemond in her ridiculous blue dress stalked toward us holding a flour sack, her powdered, pox-scarred face a mask of fury. The ugly woman turned around and stood shoulder to shoulder with me. “Who’s that?”

“My kidnapper.”

Laura, dear, what are you doing wandering around in your condition?”

My eyes were inexorably drawn to the necklace adorning the whore’s throat. My mother’s sapphire-and-pearl pendant had traveled from New York City to Galveston, across Texas and Indian Territory to the Mississippi River. It was my protection from destitution, the seed money Kindle and I would use to start a new life. Rosemond touched the necklace and smirked. I imagined reaching out and ripping it from her long, vulnerable neck.

Rosemond’s demeanor changed as soon as she caught sight of the redheaded woman. She reached for me, smelled the sour aroma of urine, and drew back. Her lip curled, but her voice was solicitous, as if speaking to a child or an infirm elder. “What happened?”

“She was thrown out of that saloon,” the redheaded woman said. I followed her outstretched arm and saw the man I’d followed earlier leaning against the post, smoking a cigar and watching us.

Rosemond smiled at the woman. “And who are you?”

“Cora Bayle.”

Rosemond’s smile turned into a wide, wolfish grin. “That certainly clears up my confusion.”

“I thought I saw Kindle.” Despite the shot of moonshine Dunk had given me, my tongue refused to work properly. My words came out in one long slur.

Rosemond’s grin didn’t waver, but I saw a small muscle pulse in her jaw. “And now we’ve missed our train.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Cora asked.

“Her monthly courses. Excruciating pain.” Rosemond switched the flour sack into the hand holding her purse and grasped my elbow with the other. “Thank you for your help. Come along, Laura.”

Cora stepped between us. “She said you kidnapped her.”

Rosemond raised one eyebrow and took a long moment to look Cora Bayle up and down, her gaze settling on Cora’s heavily freckled hands white-knuckling her carpetbag. When Rosemond finally looked at Cora’s face again, her expression cleared. “Nora.”

“My name is Cora. Who are you?”

“Rosemond Barclay. Her sister.” Rosemond stepped slightly away from me, and Cora followed. “You look like an intelligent woman; surely you can see my sister isn’t in her right mind.” I tried to stand steady on shaky legs.

“I see she has a days’-old black eye and a lump on her forehead above it. I also see she’s high, most likely on laudanum.”

“You have experience with it?” When Cora didn’t respond, Rosemond continued. “It is the only thing that gives her relief. Unfortunately, it makes her unsure on her feet. She falls regularly. I try to keep her in bed, to monitor the amount she takes, but you know how sneaky dopers can be. I left her alone for mere minutes and she snuck away, probably trying to find more opiates.”

“She was looking for a man.”

Rosemond laughed gaily. “Aren’t we all?”

Cora couldn’t keep the flush of embarrassment from overtaking her pale complexion. Rosemond’s sly expression told me she noticed. “Laura was abandoned by her husband. He was quite the rake. A gambler, drunk, and womanizer. I tried to warn her.”

“No.” I shook my head but couldn’t dislodge the words I wanted to say from the brick wall in my mind. I hit my forehead with my fist, and the dull throbbing returned. I rubbed my eyes against my threatening tears. “That’s not true.”

“She defends him still.” Rosemond shook her head. “I’ve tried to make her understand it’s a fool’s errand to rely on a man to make her happy or provide.”

“A fool’s errand?”

“Men can and do leave, and where does that leave the woman? Destitute, at the mercy of family, if she has any, with few options of making a living.” Cora’s chin rose higher. Rosemond looked at me. Her smile was caring, but her eyes were flinty and cold. “Laura is destitute. Completely reliant on my goodwill. As well as my bank account.”

The threat was clear. I glanced toward the end of the street. The prairie yawned into the bleak, featureless distance. Storm clouds hung above the ground like a curtain of smoke after a battle. I had nowhere to go and no money to get there. I searched the main street for the sheriff’s office, my only option. As if reading my mind, Rosemond threaded her arm through mine and turned her attention to Cora. Thunder growled in the distance.

“Well. I suppose that’s our cue to procure lodgings for the night. Thank you for your help.”

We moved off. I looked back at the saloon. The man I’d followed was gone.

I allowed Rosemond to pull me along, hoping her bottle of laudanum had missed the train as well.

Five minutes later we were in a surprisingly lavish room on the second floor of the hotel. A canopied bed anchored the room. A white ceramic chamber pot was visible beneath the bed, and its matching pitcher and bowl sat on the chest of drawers. A straight-back chair and table were tucked into the corner on one side of the bed; on the other side a three-paneled partition blocked off a large copper tub. I went to the window, pulled back the dusty-smelling red drapes, and stared through the wavy leaded glass at the street below. A man wearing a tin star stood on the porch of the building across the street talking to the man I’d followed into the saloon, the Wanted posters nailed to the wall flapping in the breeze next to them. The sheriff lit the other man’s cigar, then his own cigarette. They smoked and stared in the direction of the coming storm. They tipped their hats to Cora Bayle, and the sheriff spoke to her while motioning to the storm and to the hotel. Cora replied, and he nodded, touched his hat again, and the two men meandered down the street in the direction of the saloon. Cora Bayle glanced up and down the street, a lost and aimless expression on her face. Thunder broke, louder this time, and a gust of wind blew a poster from the wall.

Rosemond turned me away from the window and slapped me across the face so hard I almost fell to the ground. She grabbed my upper arm and pulled me close enough I could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes. She put her finger in my face. “Don’t you ever do that again.” Her smallpox scars, normally well camouflaged with paint, stood out white against her red, angry complexion. “Where’s Dunk?”

“In the last car of the train, I suspect. Gambling.”

“Godammit,” she said under her breath. “You better pray to God Dunk gets off at the right station and remembers our trunk. Everything we need to start over is in that trunk. Money, the deed to a lot, the receipt for a prebuilt house. If Duncan …” Her fingers dug into my upper arm before releasing me, and she walked away in frustration and anger.

“Duncan told me you’re starting a brothel in Boulder.”

She wheeled around. “He what?”

“He told me everything. I don’t know what you expect from me … but I’m with you only until Kindle is freed and comes to find me.”

“Kindle is in the brig in Saint Louis. He won’t be coming after you anytime soon, if ever.”

“They won’t execute him.”

“We can only hope.” She stared at me with disgust. “I thought you were different.”

“Than what?”

“Women like Cora Bayle who can’t function without a man taking care of them.”

“I’m not like her.”

“Chasing after a stranger because you think he’s your husband? You better hope she didn’t understand what you said.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said his name.”

“I did?”

She shook her head and sighed. “We’re traveling across a country buzzing with the story of Kindle’s arrest, and speculation you’re alive.” She motioned toward the window. “There’s nothing else to do but gossip in towns like this. You wandering around calling out for Kindle doesn’t help. I’m trying to help you.”

“By kidnapping me?”

“I told you on the boat: Kindle asked me to help you, to save you from Lyman, and the hangman’s noose.”

“You can say it as often as you like, but I will never believe Kindle asked you to help me. He knows how I—” Loathe you. I caught myself, Rosemond’s threat of my destitution fresh in my mind. She crossed her arms and waited, eyebrows raised as if she knew what I’d wanted to say. “If Kindle is executed, I hardly care about my own neck.”

She uncrossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Kindle is a good man, I’ll grant you, but really, Laura. I didn’t think you would buy into the myth of love and marriage hook, line, and sinker.”

“A woman like you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“A whore, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“You’re right. I’ve never met a man whom I wanted to be beholden to.” She caressed the cheek she’d slapped as if asking forgiveness, and cradled my face with her hands. “Laura, how many years did you live without a man?”

I didn’t answer.

Rosemond smiled wryly. “Come now. We can be honest with each other. Thirty? Thirty-one?”

I shrugged one shoulder. Rosemond laughed. “So vain. I like that about you. Did you need a man to accomplish your goals? Become a doctor to the women of Washington Square?”

I shook my head.

“No. You did it on your own. William was a good man, as far as men go, but do you honestly think he would stand by and let you have a profession? He would expect children, a wife to cook and clean. Within a year you would have precisely the kind of life you rejected when you went to medical school.”

I turned my head away, but Rosemond moved it back. I looked down, remembering my argument with William on this subject. “You know I’m right,” she said.

“No. We agreed.”

“Laura. Men will say anything to get what they want. Even Kindle. You would have given in to his wishes in the end, you and I know it. Close your eyes.” Her voice was soft and consoling. I furrowed my brows, my stinging cheek reminding me not to trust Rosemond Barclay. She smiled, as if reading my mind. “I’m not going to hurt you. Go ahead. Close your eyes.” She closed hers, and I followed suit. “Imagine you’re free. No one is chasing you. You can have whatever life you want. What is it?”

I saw myself walking down the wooden sidewalk of a burgeoning town, holding my medical bag in my hand, people greeting me with a smile and calling me Doctor.

“Where’s Kindle?” I opened my eyes to Rosemond’s knowing gaze. “Was he there? You don’t have to answer. You’ve survived for thirty years without him, you can survive the next thirty without him, too. Of course you want to be with him, you’re in love. But you have to come to terms with the idea you might not get the chance.” Rosemond rubbed her thumb along my lower lip. “If it’s about sex, I can help you.” Her gaze settled on my lips and her mouth opened slightly. I pushed her hands away and stumbled back.

Rosemond laughed. “Don’t be such a prude, Laura. William told me enough for me to know you’re an energetic lover.” I lunged toward her, but she moved away quickly. I fell to the floor, her laughter ringing in my ear. “If he lives, there’s no doubt he’ll chase your snatch across the world, if necessary.”

I looked up at her. “You’re disgusting.”

“I’m not the one on the floor, covered in horse piss and dope sweat.”

“No, you’re the one forcing laudanum down my throat.”

“I’m hardly having to force it on you. You’ve been in pain.”

“You’re trying to keep me under control.”

She shook her head. “You’re determined to see everything I do through a negative lens. I wish Kindle had given me some token to prove to you I’m doing this on his bidding. Lord knows you’re more trouble than you’re worth.” She walked to the bed and pulled the bottle of laudanum from her purse. She uncorked the bottle and waved it underneath her nose. “If we’re judicious with it, it should last until we arrive in Boulder.” She held it out to me. “Do you need it? Or are you feeling better?”

Though my mind was clearing, my hands shook, the outward evidence of the bone-deep trembling in every part of my body. One sip would alleviate it. I turned away and sat heavily in the chair, exhaustion seeping from every pore. “I need to get back to William.”

“Why? To save him?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you aren’t aware, but the yarn Henry Pope spun about you two dying in Indian Territory has been proved a lie. When you walk into Jefferson Barracks claiming to be Kindle’s wife, you will be taken. . .