Comforting both of them as best he could, he scanned over their heads, looking for a man and a boy—or come to that, either of them alone.

Then a woman from the nearest village was there to help, and he left her to it, moving past broken carriages toward the pathetic remains recovered before he’d arrived. He looked at each in turn, and felt a swift surge of hope. Trevor and his grandson weren’t among the dead. It was difficult now to be sure which carriage he’d put his godfather in. And so he leaned into the wreckage of each one as he walked down the line, calling Trevor’s name.

Trevor and the child were not there either. “I should have begged him to stay,” Rutledge said aloud, unaware that he’d spoken. “It’s my fault.”

“It’s no’ your fault,” Hamish said. “There—yon man waving—”

He helped lift three more passengers down from damaged windows or doorways, then with another man’s aid, pulled a fourth from the rubble. It was a woman, too frightened to cry, her eyes huge in her pale face. She looked around, dazed, uncertain, and then saw her husband standing to one side earnestly telling the man who was clumsily bandaging his arm that his wife was still in the carriage. With a small sound, like that of a frightened animal, she stumbled toward him, and he buried his face in her shoulder, gripping her with his good arm.

Rutledge walked on, still searching. More people were arriving to help as word spread. Among them was a doctor, who began to organize a makeshift infirmary.

Listening to Hamish, scanning faces, trying to keep his own fear at bay, Rutledge did what he could.

A woman crouched in the opening where a carriage door had once stood—the splintered remains still clinging to torn hinges—called to him. He clambered over wreckage to lift her down and then hand her over the worst of the debris. She was mumbling disjointed prayers interspersed with Hail Marys. He could see the blood in her fair hair, another cut bleeding through a tear in the sleeve of her shirtwaist. He turned to look for the doctor, urging her to come with him when she pulled free.

“No. Don’t leave. There’s someone still in there—I think she’s dead.”

“Can you walk as far as that line of trees?” he asked her gently. “Where the women are helping others like you. Do you see? I’ll do what I can here.”

She nodded, holding on to his arm until she had regained her balance, and then walked on. A woman in an apron came to collect her and guide her the rest of the way, offering words of encouragement and comfort.

Rutledge turned back to the task at hand. Testing his footing, he pulled himself into the compartment she’d just left.

A red-faced man, sweating from exertion, came up just then and said, “There’s a doctor coming down the line, looking for the worst cases. Were you a passenger?”