from being distracted. There had been times when he'd even wished she was fat or ugly. That would have made the job far less taxing.
'Well, Longarm,' the liveryman, whose name was Frank, said, 'I've seen you with a lot of handcuffed prisoners, but I never saw one as pretty as this!'
'Thank you,' Lucy said, smiling and batting her long eyelashes. 'You are certainly a flatterer.'
'Aw, shucks,' the liveryman said, blushing deeply. 'You're easily the prettiest thing I ever seen wearing handcuffs. What kind of a crime could a beautiful young woman like you have done?'
'She is accused of murdering her husband,' Longarm stated quite bluntly. 'And while the lady is definitely beautiful, I'm treating her just as I would any dangerous prisoner in transit. I need you to board and take care of our horses.'
'For how long?' Frank asked. 'They look right done in.'
'They are,' Longarm agreed.
'And I can see right now that they need new shoes. They're gonna throw 'em in the mountains if you don't let me tack on new ones.'
'How much?'
Frank scratched his jaw. 'For the two?'
'That's right.'
'I could do both for... oh, twenty dollars.'
'Fifteen,' Longarm said. 'That's the most they'd charge in Denver.'
'is that a fact?'
'It is.'
'Then fifteen is good enough,' Frank said, 'even though we have to pay more for shoes and nails and such than them big boys up in Denver.'
'I'll give you a dollar extra on the board bill if you grain both animals heavily.'
'Now, that would be just fine!' Frank said. He looked at Lucy. 'May I have the pleasure of helping you down, miss?'
'Of course,' she said, shooting a disapproving glance at Longarm. 'It's nice to know that chivalry still exists.'
Longarm felt the insult and let it go. He dismounted, stiff from the long hours he'd spent in the saddle. He untied his saddlebags and bedroll, then removed his Winchester carbine and turned to Frank.
'Is the Buckboard Hotel still the best for the money in this town?'
'That it is,' Frank said. 'But I don't know if they're going to be too happy about your bringing in a female prisoner. Especially one so pretty.'
'They're going to have to bend their rules and trust me,' Longarm said, 'because I'm not about to let Lucy out of my sight.'
'She's slippery, is she?' Frank asked, eying Lucy with a bold and approving eye.
'She can be, yes,' Longarm told the old liveryman. 'She made a break for it in Denver and almost broke my nose in the process. I don't trust her anymore.'
'Well for gawd sake don't shoot her if she makes another break for it,' Frank pleaded. 'Be a terrible waste of beauty. Be like stompin' on a pretty bird or butterfly or something'.'
'Right,' Longarm said. He took Lucy's arm firmly in hand. 'Come along, Mrs. Ortega. We'll get a room and deposit our belongings, then we'll find something to eat.'
'That would be nice,' she said in a tart voice. 'Your cooking leaves a lot to be desired. Everything is either scorched on the outside and raw on the inside, or else it's dripping in grease.'
Frank chuckled. 'Why didn't you let her cook, Longarm?'
'Maybe I will from now on.'
'I'm sure that Marshal Putman would like you to put her up in his jail,' Frank said, winking at Longarm.
'Yeah, I guess he probably would,' Longarm agreed. 'Maybe that is the simpler thing to do all the way around.'
'Oh, no!' Lucy cried. 'I'm not going to spend a couple of days rotting in some stinking jail cell while the marshal and his deputies leer at me.'
'Marshal Putnam is a family man,' Longarm said. 'I think maybe that would be the better arrangement, providing you don't have to share a cell with more than one or two other prisoners.'
Lucy took a step back and knotted her fists. 'You just try and dump me in with a bunch of prisoners and I swear that I'll kill you before we get to Yuma.'
'Like you did Don Luis?' he asked mildly.
Lucy couldn't throw a punch with her hands manacled together, but she did aim a wicked kick toward his crotch. Longarm was expecting that and he easily dodged the blow, grabbed Lucy around the waist, and gave her a rough shove toward the street.
'All right,' he said, 'we'll try the Buckboard Hotel. But if you give me the slightest bit of grief, I'll see that you're tossed in Putnam's jail until it's time for us to push on to Yuma.'
