'Well, it's pretty hot there. A whole lot hotter than Prescott.'
'It's hotter than hell,' Lucy muttered. 'It is hell.'
Longarm ignored her and concentrated on Maria. 'The good news is that you'll always be able to cool off even on the worst days by swimming in the Colorado River.'
'Except that it is probably dry this time of year, although it regularly floods in the springtime.'
'Lucy,' Longarm said, 'you're not helping things.'
'Sorry.'
'Maria,' Longarm said, trying to raise the maid's obviously depressed spirits, 'if you don't like Yuma, you can go on to California. There are some beautiful cities there.'
She nodded, but did not look cheered.
'All right,' Longarm said. 'We've got to get moving. The last thing we need to do is to miss that stagecoach.'
The two women were not very enthusiastic. But Longarm prodded them so hard that he was able to get them up and moving before the sun had fully lifted off the horizon.
'Where is this damned stagecoach line and why do they have to leave so early?' Lucy said snappishly.
'Because they want to beat the worst of the heat,' Longarm explained. 'The stage will hold over in Gila Bend for a few hours this evening, then proceed into Yuma overnight and arrive by mid-morning.'
'Another night without sleep.'
'Are you always so pleasant at this hour?' Longarm asked.
'I don't know because I've rarely been awake at this hour,' she groused. 'Are we going to have time for a cup of coffee or something to eat before we board the stage?'
'We'll find out when we get to the stage line.'
'Good,' Lucy said as they plodded along the almost empty street.
Longarm was thinking that it wasn't going to be a whole lot of fun traveling to Yuma with these women, but it was all part of his job. As bad as it might become, he never had any doubts that it was preferable to being chained to a desk.
As they were passing Howard's Mercantile, Longarm caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and a well-developed inner sense told him that it marked danger. Without thinking, he threw himself into the two women even as two gunshots broke the early morning silence and a pistol flashed twice from across the street.
Maria cried out in pain and Longarm rolled, trying to shield them and at the same time drag his gun up and fire at their ambusher.
But the man was gone, probably into the alley across the street. 'Maria, how badly are you hit?'
The Mexican maid had fainted. Longarm and Lucy both tore her blouse open and saw that a bullet had grazed her ribs.
'It's just a flesh wound,' Longarm said with relief. 'Lucy, take care of her while I try and get that sonofabitch!'
Longarm jumped up and raced across the street. The gunfire had roused the town and people were poking their heads out of hotel windows. A pair of drunks reeled out of an all-night saloon, and then reversed direction and almost tore the batwing doors off scrambling to get back inside. Where had their ambusher gone? That was the question that filled Longarm's mind as he shot into a narrow corridor between two buildings and then pounded into an alley. He heard the sound of receding hoofbeats, and swore in helpless silence because there wasn't a horse on the street that he could use to chase after the ambusher.
'Damn!' Longarm swore. Who in the hell had tried to kill him? Had it just been someone out of his past, or had someone actually followed them all the way from Prescott?
Longarm had no idea. All he knew for certain was that the sonofabitch had missed and hit Maria, and now she would be so scared that she might even refuse to testify.
Longarm holstered his six-gun and hurried back to the main street. Maria was just starting to rouse.
'We need to find a doctor,' Lucy told him, her voice strained and anxious. 'The bullet might have broken her rib.'
Longarm stood up and yelled, 'Someone call a doctor! We got a woman that's been shot!'
Longarm crouched down beside Maria, who was beginning to twitch a little and come around. 'Easy now,' he said in his quietest voice.
'She's not a horse,' Lucy said. 'Just... just let me attend to her.'
'Fine,' Longarm said, 'but we simply can't afford to miss that stagecoach to Yuma. We've got enemies here and that's why we have to get out of this town.'
'But Maria has been shot.'
'She's been nicked,' Longarm corrected. 'And if we stick around here another day for tomorrow's stage, whoever did this might decide to take another shot at me and maybe wound you or Maria.'
'What makes you think that the man who fired was aiming for you?' Lucy asked.
The question brought Longarm up short. 'You're right,' he conceded. 'It could have been any of your late husband's relatives or even Miguel Rivera, the man she says fired the fatal shot.'
'Yes,' Lucy said, 'they'd want to kill Maria if they realized why we were taking her to Yuma.'
