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  Hakim spoke, but seldom to her. Abdul never spoke at all, and she'd learned that it was because his tongue had been cut out. She suspected he'd been gelded as we! Those were sufficient reasons for her to behave herself, until she devised a practical means of escape. Since she was kept locked in at all times, she'd decided the best thing to do was to hide somewhere in the car, lead them to believe she had escaped, then slip away while they were all out searching for her.

  She was alone now. The train had stopped. There was a bench settee running half the length of the car on one side. Geneva tried the seat, hoping to find it to be a hinged storage compartment. It was. Elated, she scrambled inside the dusty, unused space and pulled the lid closed on top of herself, settling in so she could peek through the thin space beneath the bench seat, straining her neck and back in a most awkward and uncomfortable position. There, motionless, she waited.

  After a time, her patience was rewarded. Two men entered the room. She could not see their whole figures, but through her horizontal line of vision she could see the white of Hakim's suit and the gold of Abdul's sash. They paused, and she watched as they turned. Hakim spoke, using an imperious and unmistakable tone, even if she could not understand the words. Geneva's heart pounded so hard that she wondered why the two men did not seem to hear it. She held her breath, watching the white and the gold move quickly about the room, rifling its furnishings. Suddenly the gold sash disappeared from view. Feeling a trickle of perspiration glide along the small of her back, she turned as quietly as she could, trying to see where he might have gone.

  Presently her vision was obstructed completely, and she realized, stifling a gasp, that Abdul was standing directly before her position. If the gap had been just a bit wider, she could have poked her finger out and touched the dark cloth of his pantaloon trousers. She heard Hakim bark another brief command, and the giant moved again. The lopsided duo left the room, exhibiting no great haste or vexation. Geneva bit her lower lip, deciding on her next course of action.

  She waited another minute. The men did not return. Cautiously, she lifted the lid of the bench and listened. Hearing nothing, she climbed out and shivered. It was like emerging from a coffin. Soundlessly, she tiptoed to the door and pressed her ear against it. Outside, at some distance, she could make out voices, although she could not determine what was being said, or even whether the language being spoken was English. She tried the door lever tentatively.

  It was unlocked.

  Her heart leaped at this unexpected boon. She pushed the door open, at first a crack, then a narrow wedge. Outside, it was very dark. Her eyes adjusted to the blackness, and in moments she could see there was a freight car stopped beside them. Slipping out, she closed the door quickly and quietly behind her. The stench of creosote mingled with an unfamiliar odor she could not quite place. On the other side of the train was an open space. Lights glowed in the distance on shadowy structures like yellow globes, sending glistening reflections on the straight rows of rails stretching before her eyes like silent regiments. Again, she heard the distant sound of voices and running feet nearby. She flattened her back against the door, hoping to be invisible in the darkness to searching eyes.

  A minute passed.

  She heard the distant cry of a bird. A gull. It was then that she recognized the heretofore unfamiliar smell: the sea! At once excited and frightened, she mastered an urge to jump from the train and run, although the lure of freedom, so near at hand after such a long time, was suddenly very powerful. The gull called again in a mocking laugh. I am free, it seemed to taunt her, while you hide in shadows from men who would make you a slave.

  She swallowed hard, even though her mouth was dry as sand. There was a rushing to her right. The sound of running. In the darkness, she saw shadowy figures flit past her hiding place, between her position and the freight car. She had to move. Her impulse was to head toward the light, but she quickly rejected the foolish notion. She needed the cover of darkness and shadows to succeed, and she needed to do what her enemies would not expect.

  Geneva had never been close to the wheels of a train before, and the idea scared her. It was but a few feet to the freight car beside her, though, and if she could slip under the car and hide between its huge metal wheels, she would have a better vantage of her surroundings while remaining unseen. She knew she could not remain where she was.

  She listened hard. The sounds of voices and of movement were far ahead of her, some distance up the track. She would not have a better opportunity. Slowly, she edged toward the steps, feeling rather than seeing her way.

  The first step down was much farther than she had expected. She poked her toe downward, reaching for the second step. She found it at last, congratulating herself on being one step closer to her immediate goal. She risked a glance up ahead, craning her neck so she could see past the corner of the car in front of her. She could apprehend nothing but the long columns of the two trains, which seemed to meet somewhere in the darkness. Resolutely, she stepped down again, and she was pleased to find it was easier to move.

  Her next step took her to the ground. The heel of her shoe sank into coarse gravel with a loud and unexpected crunching sound. Geneva recoiled at the noise, then waited, one foot upon the earth, literally sunken into it, the other poised upon the bottom step. It was an awkward pose, and a precarious one: Suppose the train began to move suddenly? Her two hands upon the guide rails, she shifted her weight to the foot sunken in the gravel—she already felt moisture seeping into the seams of the cheap boot—and in another moment she stood with both feet sunk into the wet ground.

  There was no help for it. The noise, in her ears, was like a loud alarm rattle. Quickly gathering her skirt into her hands, she took several crunching steps away from the train car that had been her gilded cage and pressed her back against the hard, splintery wood of the freight car across from it. She took a deep breath, willing herself to think only of her freedom so near to being a reality, and she ducked under the car, nearly tripping over the track in her haste.

  She was breathing so hard that her chest began to ache. Crouching low beside a great iron wheel, she peered hard into the darkness. Presently, Hakim approached in advance of four or more black-robed associates. Abdul, to her mild surprise, was nowhere in evidence.

  In the clipped, imperious tone Geneva could not fail to recognize, Hakim issued what sounded like commands. The men scattered like provoked beetles, except for one who, with Hakim, idled by the train not five feet from where she was hiding. Her fear gave way to annoyance at her predicament: What were those fools doing there? Her feet and legs began to cramp, and she desperately wanted to get out from under the train, but now she dared not move—not, at least, until Hakim and the other man went away again.

  So she waited.

  And waited.

  The two sentries paced in a random fashion, more in idleness than order. She monitored their legs as they passed close by her position, counting their steps to pass the time, pace her breathing and take her mind off the painful cramping in her legs.

  All at once two large, indistinct forms fell from above her, one each upon Hakim and his minion. Startled, yet fascinated, Geneva watched as the new assailants easily overpowered the two men. Who could they be? she wondered, transfixed by the silent spectacle. She remained still, observing. It would not do to reveal herself, or to call attention to her presence, especially as she had no notion as to the motives, much less the identities, of these two new and unanticipated players.

  Presently, their quarry overpowered and immobilized upon the ground at their booted feet, the new shadows straightened.

  "I think I broke my damn foot jumping from that boxcar, Senator," she heard one terse male voice accuse, just above a whisper. "You think these good ol' boys know anything?"

  "They know," the other man answered in a low, brief growl she recognized at once. She grew so dizzy that she very nearly fainted. Kieran Macalester!

  She tried to call out, but no sound came forth
from her vocal cords, which were paralyzed, like her limbs, from sheer relief She managed a muffled cry, a choking sound, and willed her legs to propel her out from under the shelter of the freight car. Stumbling in the darkness toward the voice, she barely heard the sound of metal against leather that was the drawing of two guns from their holsters. She straightened, still unable to see anything but two tall shadows.

  "Gen!"

  Kieran's whispered ejaculation had a ring of amazement. She felt his hands grasp her arms as though he might be picking some rare and delicate fruit from an exotic tree. She almost fainted from relief, from terror—she did not care to analyze its origin any more than she cared how it should come about that Kieran Macalester stood before her in the darkness of this strange place, with danger all around them.

  "Gen," he whispered again, pulling her close in a desperate, rough embrace. "Gen, Gen…"

  She could not see him, but she knew the feel of his arms around her and the softness of his cotton flannel shirt beneath her cheek. And he smelled, wonderfully, of leather and of horses. She did not have to see his face. It was enough to know he was there, with her.

  She pushed away from him suddenly and swung a sharp blow with her open palm against his bristly, unshaven jaw. How dared he show up here after allowing Humble's men to take her away and subject her to the horrors of the days that followed?

  There was an amused chuckle behind her, and she remembered the second shadow. "What was that for?" Kieran released her abruptly, sounding stunned.

  She saw him lift his hand to the cheek she had struck, and her own cheek burned with the pain of the blow she had dealt him. How could she answer him, when she could not even form a cogent reason for herself?

  "For takin' your sweet ol' time, Senator; what else?" The chuckling voice behind her supplied the answer in a low tone. "What woman likes to be kept waitin'?"

  "Mac, take me away from here. Please. Quickly!" Geneva could not even feign an interest in the man whom she knew only as a shadow and a gently mocking voice. She only knew that she felt exposed, out of her hiding place, in spite of the darkness, and would not feel safe until she was far away. Without wasting another word, Kieran Macalester took her hand in his own, and they moved together toward the rear of the train.

  They had not taken more than a few steps when Kieran suddenly released her hand. Dismayed, Geneva turned in time to see the ominous bulk of Abdul, who had already subdued the two outlaws by some unknown means, and was even now planting a large sandaled foot squarely in the center of each of their backs as they lay face first on the ground. Powerless, she watched in new horror as the two men strove uselessly to free themselves from the feet of the impassive giant. The sounds of their struggle to breathe under his crushing weight were awful. She did not know what to do, and in the moment she needed to formulate a plan she was seized roughly from behind by several pairs of hands.

  "You insult His Highness's hospitality." Hakim's high, nasal voice rebuked her from a few feet away. "And what has Abdul caught? A pair of mice?"

  "They—let them go," Geneva managed, giving up her struggle against the men who held her fast. "I escaped on my own. They just happened by."

  "You lie!" Hakim railed at her, brushing dirt from his costume as he moved beside her.

  "It's the truth!" she insisted, hoping to keep her feelings hidden from the sultan's counselor. "I was hiding when you came with Abdul, and when you left the car, you neglected to lock the door. You must let them go!"

  "And why must we do this?" Hakim challenged her disparagingly.

  Abdul had already withdrawn his long and fearsomely curved sword from its sheath at his waist, and he appeared to be considering which head he wanted first. Geneva forced herself to remain calm.

  "Because," she said coolly, her gaze compelled by Abdul's weapon, "the bodies will be found, and you'll be detained for questioning. The authorities won't al-low the sultan or anyone else to leave the port until they find the murderer. It is wisest to let them go."

  She restrained herself from going on, sensing that further argument would only convince Hakim that she was lying to spare their lives. She prayed that Hakim, no doubt the only person present other than the two outlaws and herself who spoke English, could not detect the desperation in her voice.

  She turned her carefully blank stare to Hakim, scarcely daring to breathe. He was regarding her keenly. With doubt, or merely disdain? There was no way to tell. After a minute, he shouted a few brief commands to the men who held her arms. The result was that they half-led, half-dragged her away, back to the train car where she had been imprisoned. She dared not betray her interest in the outlaws by pleading further for their lives, certain, with a horrible, sick feeling in her stomach, that to do so would ensure their doom.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The Corvallis was a sailing steamer built for cargo and passenger service in shallow coastal waters. She was a long ship, but not especially fast, especially in a headwind. Her sails were furled; she chugged along through choppy gulf waters on steam alone. The sky was boiling gray, and the horizon blended ominously with the sea all around them.

  Three or four days to Biloxi, the first mate had said yesterday. Dumping another bucket of garbage over the side, Kieran Macalester gagged and by force of will alone prevented himself from retching again. In the hold, Billy was tending thirty skittish Arabian colts and fillies, and was whistling as he did so. Billy displayed no tendency at all to motion distress, whereas Kieran had discovered very early in this mission of folly that he himself had best spend as much time as possible topside: It was only in the heavy, whipping salt wind that he had any hope of keeping his seasickness at bay, as it were. Every minute on board, he was unpleasantly reminded that he didn't know diddly about the sea.

  He cursed himself hourly for his carelessness in Galveston, carelessness that had resulted in Geneva Lionwood having been snatched away from him, and in his sorry state now in gulf waters with noxious duties and the perpetual, unrelenting revolt of his stomach. When he found Geneva again, and had somehow got her off of this hell-bound vessel, he vowed to himself, he would personally take her anywhere she wanted to go, so long as it did not involve boats. Afterward, he would never let her out of his sight again, if he could help it.

  So far, he had not found her. The passengers were quartered up front, in cabins above deck. The crew, about twenty men, of which he and Billy were now a part, were quartered below, in the stern. His duty would be over at eight bells, whatever the hell that meant. He and Billy would slip away after that, and find some way into the passengers' quarters without attracting attention.

  Macalester hoisted another bucket of slop over the side and was nearly knocked over by a mammoth wall of green-gray water. The wind blew half of the sorry-smelling mess right back on deck. Muttering a brief curse, the outlaw seized his mop and began to clean it up. The mop was heavy with seawater. Every push reminded him painfully of his broken rib, and of those bruised by the unknown boulder of a man who had crushed him under his feet in the Galveston trainyard. He cursed again at the memory, still feeling the grit of the gravel in his mouth. He had had Geneva. She had been in his arms.

  And in the next moment he had been eating dirt, and she was gone. But not before saving his neck. Again. Damn, he thought, mopping the stuff up.

  His mop fell on the strangest pair of shoes he'd ever seen on a man: white, all pointed and decorated with elaborate gold brocade, like some whore's outlandish slippers. He very nearly laughed at the sight. He looked up from the shoes, scanning the long, voluminous gray robe cloaking the man before him, who stood more than a head shorter than he, in spite of his white turban. Macalester would have recognized him by his build alone, but the turban clinched it.

  It was the man he had jumped on from the train roof not forty-eight hours before in Galveston. "Howdy." Macalester waved the fingers of his left hand, standing the mop beside him like a staff.

  The man stared at him hard, his small dark eyes and etch
ed features seeming to memorize Macalester's every feature. Macalester met his sharp gaze evenly. The man could not possibly connect him with the events of that night. It had been darker than the black hole of Calcutta and the man, he was certain, had never seen him. And of course, he and Billy had already been face-first in the dirt by the time he had revived.

  The man stared at him for another minute, an icy stare suggesting that its sender thought himself too high and mighty to share space on this earth, let alone this ship, with the likes of an ignorant deckhand. Macalester mastered a sudden urge to empty another garbage bucket in the haughty man's direction, even as the object of his animosity turned from him abruptly and retched heartily over the side.

  Macalester, fighting his own queasiness, felt a measure of satisfaction at the sight. The sea, he reflected with bitter amusement, truly made equals of all men. He went about his own distasteful chore with considerably greater vigor thereafter, watching, as he worked, while the strange little man made his way in a weaving step back along the port gunwale and paused every now and again to empty the contents of his stomach. Macalester made a note of the location of the doorway through which the man disappeared, then completed his task, his discovery strengthening his heretofore failing constitution.

  "I don't want to meet up with that big sumbitch again," Billy muttered, his back pressed against Macalester's own as they approached a corner in the dimly lit corridor. It was really no more than a short, narrow passageway lined on either side with the doors of individual cabins. The air was heavy, and faintly smoky, with exotic sweet spiciness.

  "Me, either." Macalester's whispered reply was laconic. "Shut up, or you'll guarantee it."

  Night had finally come on the gulf, and Macalester and Billy had been relieved of their duties for eight hours. He had eight hours to look for Geneva among the foreigners. He pressed his face against the unpainted planks at the corner of the corridor, peering around the side, trying to see without revealing himself. What he saw did not please him. He retreated a step, motioning to a curious Billy with his index finger pressed to his lips.