'Push the gun over here!'
Longarm nodded, and his free hand brushed his vest, thumb hooking into his watch chain. To everyone in the mail car it appeared as a thoughtless move, but as Fergus reached for the six-gun, Longarm's hand dug into his vest pocket and instead of a watch fob, out came his solid-brass twin-barreled .44-caliber derringer.
Ida bit Fergus's wrist. The scalpel clattered on the table and Ida threw herself over backward, spilling across the floor. Luke jumped to cover her body with his own.
Fergus lunged for the Colt resting only inches from his grasp. His fingers closed on the big weapon as the derringer in Longarm's fist bucked solidly and a blue hole appeared just over Fergus's right eye. Fergus's eyes rolled upward as a dribble of blood crested the bridge of his nose and splashed to the table. Fergus's fingers drummed on the table and then quivered.
CHAPTER 13
'Dammit anyway!' Longarm swore. 'Why'd Fergus have to go and do a fool thing like that for?'
Longarm peered closely at the woman who had almost had her neck slit open. 'Are you all right, Ida?'
'Why... I think so.'
Luke helped his wife to her feet. There was a smear of blood on her throat, but it was clearly just a superficial wound. Ida was visibly shaken, but then, Longarm knew that anyone would have been upset after such a harrowing ordeal.
'Ida, honey?'
'I'm all right, Luke,' she whispered as her husband pulled a clean handkerchief out of his back pocket and pressed it to the scalpel cut at her neck.
'I'm going to take her back to the coach,' Luke said after Ida appeared to regain her composure.
'Good idea,' Longarm said in agreement.
'What about the body?' the mail clerk demanded when the couple had exited the mail car. 'Deputy, you ain't just going to leave it lying there on the floor with him staring up at the ceiling. Are you?'
'What do you want me to do?' Longarm asked with rising annoyance. 'Kick Fergus out the door and feed the coyotes and the buzzards?'
'Well, no, sir! But you can't just leave him lying there staring that way!'
'The hell I can't,' Longarm said, pulling the sliding door shut and slamming the latch down hard. 'I imagine that you have a lot of work to do. So do it!'
Longarm left the mail car for another coach, seeking warmth and whiskey and maybe even a pretty woman to remind him that there was still beauty in the world. He found two of the three fairly quickly.
'Excuse me, miss, but would you mind if I sat down here close to the stove? I'm so cold that I'm about to shake my teeth out.'
The woman turned and stared at Longarm with unconcealed apprehension. She was obviously taken aback by his rough, unshaven, and unwashed appearance.
'Miss, my name is Custis Long. I'm a federal officer of the law.'
Longarm reached into his pocket, rummaged around for a moment, and brought out his badge. 'See?'
'Yes, I see,' she said, finding her tongue and relaxing. 'And you do look damp and very cold.'
'I'm the fella that stopped this train a while back,' Longarm explained, easing into the seat beside her.
'But where is your prisoner?'
'Well, ma'am, he died real suddenly of poisoning.'
'Poisoning?'
'Yep. Took us all by surprise.'
'How terrible!' The woman leaned forward and studied him intently. 'Was it something he ate or drank?'
'I would rather not talk about it, if you don't mind.'
'I'm sorry. My name is Veronica Greenwald. I'm a schoolteacher and I'm on my way to Reno. I've accepted a teaching position there.'
'Reno is a nice town.'
'Have you been there often?'
'Four or five times. I'm on my way there now, as a matter of fact.'
'How nice.'
The woman smiled and Longarm felt warmed inside. Veronica appeared to be in her early thirties. She wore wire-rimmed glasses, and her blond hair was pulled back into a severe bun. Even so, she was very pretty. She had classic features, and her starched white blouse could not hide the fact that she was exceedingly well endowed.
'I suppose,' Veronica said, 'that you'll have all kinds of reports and things to write concerning the death of your prisoner.'
'I suppose.'
'Was he... was he really awful?'
'He was a liar, a horse thief, and a murderer.' Longarm said flatly. 'He tried to cut a lady's throat after she
