'You do that,' Longarm yelled back.
Longarm was aware of the attention that he was attracting as he strode down the boardwalk towards the marshal's office. It was almost as much attention as their caged prisoners were receiving.
When he came to the door of the office, Longarm drew his six-gun and took a deep breath. He placed his hand on the doorknob and started to open it and step inside, but suddenly he saw Marshal Haggerty's reflection in the front window and the man was moving awfully fast.
Longarm jumped aside, kicking the door open and flattening against the outside wall. A great blast of shot filled the doorway, shredding its frame. Longarm stuck his gun around the frame and fired once. The shotgun boomed a second time and Longarm dropped to his belly, scooted into the doorway, and fired again. His first two shots had been merely to distract, for he had not yet located his target. But now he saw the big marshal hauling his gun up to fire.
'Freeze!' Longarm shouted.
'Like hell!' Haggerty bellowed, as his gun thundered in his meaty fist.
But Longarm had already rolled and fired all in the same motion, and his bullet ripped into Haggerty's gut right over his belt buckle. The man's feet jittered on the floor and Longarm shot him again, this time through the chest. Haggerty's eyes rolled up into his head. His feet stopped dancing and he stumbled back until he struck his jail cell bars. Then he twisted as if he were trying to run and hide, and held himself erect against the bars of his cell.
Longarm came to his feet and stepped inside the office, watching Haggerty hang onto the bars and then begin to slide to the floor.
'Dammit, Haggerty,' Longarm complained, 'it makes me sick when a lawman goes bad. Hurts every one of us who tries to live up to the law. Do you understand what I'm telling you?'
Haggerty's forehead thunked hard against the jail cell, so hard that the bars rattled, and then he sighed and collapsed.
Longarm punched the expended shells from his sixgun and went over to the marshal's body. He extracted the cell keys from the man's pocket and opened both cells in preparation for receiving their wagonload of prisoners.
'Better not put you in one,' Longarm mused aloud to the marshal. 'Better to drag you outside for the under taker.'
And that's what Longarm did. He dragged the heavy marshal outside and a little ways up the street, then laid him out, saying to a gaping spectator, 'Go get the undertaker.'
'Yes, sir!'
Longarm paused to catch his breath. The marshal must have weighed a quarter of a ton. Longarm became aware of the big staring crowd, and he supposed that he owed them a brief explanation. If for no other reason, then so that Lucy would no longer be under suspicion.
Longarm spoke very loudly although this aggravated his still-aching throat. 'Folks,' he began, 'I'm a U.S. deputy marshal, and the sad truth of the matter is that your own marshal was in cahoots with Juan Ortega, Manuel Padilla, Renaldo Lopez, and Hal Brodie. They all plotted and took part in the murder of Don Luis Ortega.'
Longarm paused to let them absorb this startling news, then continued his explanation. 'The important thing that you need to understand is that Mrs. Ortega had nothing to do with her husband's death. The only one of the killers still alive is Ortega, and he's going to rot in Yuma Prison.'
The crowd stared, and Longarm batted dust from his clothes. 'So now that you all know what happened, why don't you all just go on about your business? Your undertaker has got work to do and you folks need to hire a new marshal.'
'How about you?' a man dressed in a fine black suit called. 'We'd pay you even better than the federal government.'
'No, thanks,' Longarm said. 'I got three weeks of paid vacation coming when I deliver those female prisoners to Denver, Colorado.'
'You'd be better off staying here,' the man dared to argue. 'But we respect your decision and we'll find an honest lawman this time.'
'Good,' Longarm said, heading back up the street to tell Putterman to unload the Yuma Prison girls and whatever they'd left of Juan Ortega.
The End
