“Suit yourself, but the next time you get careless, I might decide not to save your sorry bacon.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“Marshal Long, I just realized that you’re every bit as big a sonofabitch as Ford Oakley. The only difference is that you wear a badge.”
“Well,” Longarm said, “there is that and the fact that I never raped women, brained a man like Paul Smith so hard he can’t think right anymore, murdered or robbed innocent people. Other than those acts, I guess maybe we do share some common traits.”
Deputy Trout didn’t say anything more after that, which was fine with Longarm. He drove up into the foothills following the road and bathed in the glow of soft moonlight. Longarm could smell the perfume of the pines, and he was even looking forward to seeing a part of the country that he had not seen before. The Ruby Mountains weren’t big, but they were said to be cool in the summertime and quite handsome.
To keep his spirits up and his mind alert, Longarm began to whistle. The horses leaned into their harness and started to pull as the medicine wagon jounced and bounced up the long, straight road out of the sagebrush country and entered the mountains. A pair of coyotes somewhere off to the south heard Longarm’s whistling and began to howl in mournful accompaniment. All things considered, Longarm felt confident. He figured that he would have at least a fifty-mile head start on any of Ford Oakley’s friends and that it would be enough to get him on that train to Cheyenne and then Denver.
By the time the sun came up to reveal the pines surrounding him, Longarm was thirsting for a cup of hot, black coffee. He could hear both Trout and Oakley snoring, and after considerable debate, he decided that he had better stop the wagon and drag the sleeping deputy outside. Their dangerous prisoner was bound hand and foot, but if he was the first to awaken, he might still be able to find a way to kill the worthless town deputy.
“Whoa up,” Longarm said, drawing the four-horse team to a halt in the middle of a shallow and gurgling stream that crossed the road.
The horses were thirsty, and Longarm let them drink their fills as he wound the lines around the brake and climbed down. He waded around to the back of the wagon, and unlocked and opened the door.
“All right,” he said, squinting into the darkness. “Wake up, Deputy Trout. It’s time that-“
Oakley’s boots shot out of the wagon and struck Longarm in the chest, knocking the wind from his lungs and causing him to trip and topple into the stream. The prisoner, despite his handcuffs, had somehow managed to untie his legs, and he threw himself out of the wagon. Oakley landed heavily on his shoulder and surged to his feet, his face a mask of congealed blood, eyes burning with hatred and boots swinging from all angles at Longarm’s face.
Longarm knew that if the prisoner did manage to boot him in the head, the game was over. Oakley would be able to disarm him and he’d waste no time exacting his revenge.
“I’ll kill you, Marshal!” Oakley screamed, trying to kick and keep his balance at the same time.
Longarm rolled and whipped his own legs out at the big man. Fortunately, the toe of his boot caught Oakley behind the knees and the prisoner crashed into the streambed. Longarm surged to his feet, drew his dripping gun up, and shouted, “Freeze!”
Oakley froze. He lay in the shallow stream and glared up at Longarm, his blood-caked face a murderer’s mask. “You got more lives than a cat,” he finally hissed. “But this trip is just beginning and nobody’s luck lasts forever.”
Longarm was sucking air, trying to fill his lungs. His chest felt as if it was caved in, but he wasn’t about to give Oakley the satisfaction of knowing how much he hurt.
“On your feet!”
Oakley ignored the order. He ducked his face into the stream and scrubbed it free of blood before he bothered to rise. “So what happens now, Marshal Long?”
“That depends on whether you’ve just killed Deputy Trout or not,” Longarm answered.
“And if I did?”
Longarm cocked back the hammer of his six-gun. “Then the game is over … and you lose.”
Oakley blinked and scooted back a little on his rump. “You’d execute me?”
“I believe it’s come to that point,” Longarm said, taking dead aim on the man’s nose. “Murdering Deputy Trout in his sleep would be the last straw, and I’d just feel bound to save the taxpayers some money.”
“Wait! I swear that I didn’t kill him!”
“We’ll see,” Longarm drawled, his breath returning but a cold anger forming in his chest. “If Trout is still alive, you can get back into the wagon and live long enough to be hanged. But if he is dead …”
“I’m not dead,” a groggy voice said a moment before Trout appeared. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Longarm said, snubbing back his anger. “Get out of there and climb up on the wagon seat. Now!”
“y …?”
“Just do it!”
Trout almost tumbled out of the back of the wagon. His eyes shifted back and forth between Longarm and Oakley as he read the story for himself.
“Yes, sir,” he said, looking plenty worried and very much awake now. “Yes, sir!”
“Now,” Longarm ordered his prisoner, “roll over with your hands outstretched over your head.”
“In this cold damn water?”
