'You can't help me,' Agnes complained. 'I need a strong man.'
She looked into the coach, sizing Longarm up and then snapping, 'What about you, young man?'
'I'm not in good health,' Longarm said, not at all wanting to try to boost Agnes up and through the stagecoach door. 'Why don't you ask the stationmaster if he's got a box or a ladder that you can climb onto?'
'Humph!' Agnes snorted, clearly displeased with a suggestion that Longarm thought entirely sensible.
'I think that would be a good idea,' the reverend said cautiously.
'Very well! Find a ladder, Bertram!'
'I'll get you something,' the driver promised. 'We've got a big stepping box that comes in handy once in a while.'
Agnes colored a little because the driver's implication was that she was among a very few passengers who were either too fat or too infirm to get into the coach without extraordinary measures being taken in their behalf.
In a few moments, two of the stage line employees were dragging a heavy wooden structure that was built so sturdily out of two-by-sixes that it would have supported a milk cow.
'There you go, Agnes,' the reverend said. 'Ladies first!'
Longarm felt the entire coach lurch on its leather straps when Agnes stepped on board. The big, sour-faced woman almost lost her balance, and might have tumbled back out the door and crushed her husband if Longarm hadn't grabbed her chubby wrist and hauled her the rest of the way inside.
'Easy now,' he said as she collapsed on her side of the coach.
'Don't 'easy now' me! You sound as if you're talking to a horse instead of a lady.'
'Sorry, ma'am.'
'He meant no offense,' the reverend said as he spryly hopped up the loading ramp and popped onto the seat beside Longarm. 'Agnes, this is the legendary Deputy Marshal Custis Long.'
'Yes,' she snapped, 'the one that killed all those men on the road to Prescott and that has been sleeping with that tramp Willa Handover! You're going to burn in hell, Marshal!'
'Agnes!'
Longarm bristled and looked to the reverend. 'I remember a few passages from the Holy Bible and one of 'em says, 'Judge not lest ye be judged.' It seems that your wife has forgotten that bit of the gospel.'
Even in the dim interior of the coach, Longarm could see the way that Agnes swelled up in anger like a scalded toad while her husband seemed to shrink into the seat cushions.
'He's right, Agnes. We should not judge the sinner lest we be judged by the Lord for our own sins.'
'Shut up and save it for the pulpit, Mr. Cheshire. I don't appreciate having to travel with this... this wretched sinner.'
Longarm had heard about enough. It was all that he could do to bite his tongue and exit the coach.
'I'm riding up top with you,' he said, climbing up to join the driver.
'You're going to miss out on some good food.'
'It'll be worth it,' Longarm said, 'just to breath some clean air.'
The driver nodded with understanding. 'I didn't think you'd last very long down there with Agnes, but I figured we'd at least get out of Wickenburg before you come up from down below.'
'Well,' Longarm said, jamming a cheroot between his teeth, 'you figured wrong. Now let's go!'
The driver snapped his whip and the stage rolled out of town. Longarm was still so riled that he chewed his cheroot right down to a nub before they'd gone a mile.
CHAPTER 18
When Longarm finally returned to Yuma, he went straight to see Judge Harvey Benton and found the man presiding over his court. Longarm cooled his heels in the hallway for almost an hour before the bailiff led a disreputable-looking man out wearing a pair of handcuffs.
'Yuma Prison for drunk and disorderly!' the prisoner wailed. 'My God, what kind of justice is that!'
'It's the kind of justice that repeat offenders like you will get in his court,' the bailiff said without a hint of sympathy. 'What do you expect? This is the fifth time you've been hauled in here in the last two months.'
'But... but I didn't get drunk for three days straight this time! And I didn't steal but five dollars and change.'
'Well,' the bailiff said as they marched down the hallway, 'I guess you'll have plenty of time to sober up and change your ways. A year in prison might be the best thing that ever happened to you.'
'It'll kill me is what it'll do!'
'No, it won't,' the bailiff said. 'People come out of there a whole hell of a lot healthier than when they come in. Lighter, sure, but also healthier.'
'Oh, God!'
Longarm shook his head. He couldn't muster up much sympathy for the prisoner because a thief was a thief. Furthermore, Longarm had seen too damn many drunks go on rampages and kill innocent people. When honest men got drunk, they stayed honest, but a bad one always showed his true colors.
Longarm stepped into the judge's quarters. 'Judge Benton?'
