'No train or stagecoach?' she asked.
'Nope,' Longarm said. 'The way we're traveling, they would take us far afield. I've rented us a pair of good saddle horses.'
Longarm stared at the woman. 'You can ride a horse, can't you?'
'Of course,' she said.
'Then let's go, Miss... I mean Lucy.'
She thought about that for a moment, as if going or staying was her decision alone, then made up her mind. With a nod of her head, she came towards him, forcing Longarm to back out of the cell.
'Now, Lucy,' he said, removing a set of handcuffs from his belt, 'I'm afraid that I'm going to have to ask you to wear these.'
She came right up to him and said, 'You're afraid of me?'
'No, of course not!' He cleared his throat. 'It's just federal regulations that all prisoners wear handcuffs. if you were a man, I'd also slap a pair of leg irons on you, but...'
She stuck out her wrists and squeezed them together. 'Go ahead, put them on and then put on the leg irons.'
'Won't need to do the latter,' Longarm said, handcuffing her.
'No,' she insisted, reaching down with her manacled wrists and tugging up her dress to the knee as she thrust a shapely calf forward. 'Put them on!'
'I didn't even bring the damned things,' he said, losing patience. 'Now just follow me.'
Longarm wouldn't have turned his back, even on a woman prisoner, except that she had riled him and he wanted to show her that he was not in the least bit afraid of her hurting him or trying to escape. He led her to the jail officer's desk, where Lucy Ortega collected her handbag and meager belongings, then escorted her out of the jail and into the street.
'Ready to ride?' he said, untying their waiting horses.
'It would help if I had a riding skirt,' she told him. 'How am I supposed to ride in a full dress with a petticoat?'
'Hike it up,' he said, grabbing Lucy by the waist and lifting her up into the saddle with more effort than he'd expected. Lucy Ortega was not a willowy woman. She was full-bodied and strong. Longarm made a mental note to himself to remember that, with a weapon in her hand, Lucy would be quite formidable.
Lucy reached down and gathered up her reins. Longarm looked back over his shoulder and saw several of the jail guards grinning at him.
'You boys see something funny?' he asked in a challenging voice. 'Because if you do, why don't you let me in on it so I can grin like a fool too?'
The jail guards disappeared back inside. Longarm climbed onto a tall, rangy sorrel gelding that he called Duke and had used on many occasions.
'What is this mare's name?' Lucy asked.
'I don't know. First time I ever rented her.' Longarm studied the pretty roan. 'You can call her anything you want.'
'I'll call her Strawberry,' Lucy said, stroking the mare's sleek neck.
'Good enough,' Longarm said, noting how Lucy's hardness melted a little as she stroked the mare's coat. 'I can see that you like horses. Are the stirrups long enough?'
'Not really,' she said, hiking the dress up to her thighs. 'Would you be kind enough to lengthen them?'
'Sure,' he said, dismounting. 'We've got a long ride ahead of us and I'll buy you a riding skirt at the mercantile before we leave town.'
She smiled and kicked her feet out of her stirrups. 'That would be very kind of you.'
Longarm had to unlace the stirrup in order to lengthen it, and that took several minutes. While doing so, he had the woman's pretty bare leg right next to his face, and it occurred to him that Lucy Ortega had lovely calves.
'There,' he said. 'Try that.'
'Perfect,' she said.
'One more,' he said, moving around the horse to the off stirrup. He quickly unlaced it, and was starting to pull the stirrup down when Lucy suddenly jammed her foot back into the stirrup and kicked him in the face.
'Ya!' she cried, whirling the mare around, grabbing Longarm's own horse by the reins, and making a break for it down the center of the street.
Longarm swore and clutched at his bleeding nose. Maybe Lucy Ortega had broken it, but there was no time to find out because she was disappearing in one hell of a big cloud of dust. Up and down the street people were scattering in an attempt to avoid being run over.
Longarm spotted a horse tied at a hitch rail about twenty yards away and sprinted to it. He tore the reins free, then jumped into the saddle and took off after the woman fugitive. If Lucy had been a man, he would have pulled his six-gun and winged her in the shoulder.
Blood was pouring from his nose as he followed Lucy through town heading due east toward the Kansas plains. Fortunately, the horse he had commandeered was faster than Lucy's mare, and he managed to overtake her about a mile out of town. She was giving it her best try, however, and he had to admire her determination when he finally came abreast of her and grabbed her long reddish-brown hair and nearly jerked her out of the saddle.
