Longarm turned to regard Deputy Rick Trout with unconcealed contempt. Trout was a pretty boy with a starched silk shirt, three or four rings on his fingers, and a red silk bandanna knotted around his neck for no other reason than to look showy. And despite the beautiful ivory-handled Colt six-shooter strapped to the deputy’s narrow hip, Trout reminded Longarm of a French pimp.
“It’s the way the law works, sonny,” Longarm said.
“Well gawddamn!” Trout cried, glancing at the town marshal for support. “You may be with the federal government, but that doesn’t give you the right to lay down dumb rules! Ford Oakley is our prisoner. We captured and jailed him and now we expect to get paid!”
“Marshal,” Longarm drawled, eyes flickering to the older man, “either you order your pup to shut up, or I’ll shut him up. It’s your decision.”
“You big sonofabitch!” Rick Trout hissed, hand shading the butt of his pretty gun. “Marshal Long, I’ll shoot your balls off if you-“
Longarm took two steps, and then the back of his hand smashed into Trout’s face, crushing the deputy’s lips and turning them into bloody pulp. The foolish deputy staggered, hand clawing at his six-gun. Longarm backhanded him a second time, and Trout crashed over a desk and landed hard on the floor. Before the deputy could recover, Longarm planted his boot on Trout’s wrist.
“Owww!” Trout screeched. “Get off my arm! You’re breaking it!”
Longarm ignored the plea. He reached down and extracted the deputy’s sidearm. Then he unloaded it, scattering bullets across the hardwood floor.
“Here,” he said, returning the gun. “And if you ever get mouthy with me again, or go for that pretty gun, I’ll feed it to you … butt first. Do you understand me?”
Trout choked something through his mashed lips, and then he got up and scuttled out the door.
“Where in the Hell did you find something like that?” Longarm demanded. “Is that the best that you could hire?”
“He’s got a temper, but he’s not going to run on me when there’s trouble,” the town marshal said.
“He’s a menace,” Longarm argued.
“You didn’t need to hurt him like that,” Marshal Wheeler complained. “He may be green and mouthy, but he’s still my deputy and deserves some respect.”
“He’s dangerous,” Longarm said. “I’ve seen too many of his kind and they always end up doing something bad. Marshal Wheeler, get rid of him before he fouls your waters.”
“I’ll kill the sonofabitch first chance I get!” Oakley shouted from between the bars of his cell. “Mark my words, I’ll kill him!”
“Shut up!” Wheeler yelled. Oakley laughed.
Wheeler picked up the stub of a cigar and took his time lighting it. When he peered through the blue smoke, he said, “Marshal Long, my deputy and I were expecting that reward money now.”
“That’s just too bad,” Longarm said, collecting his authorization paper and refolding it before slipping it back into his coat pocket. “You’re plenty old enough to know the rules.”
Wheeler blushed with anger. “All right, if you insist on playing by the rules, let me see your badge and your papers. If the papers aren’t in order
…”
“They are in order,” Longarm said, showing the man his badge and then the papers issued by the Denver court.
Wheeler made a big show of reading the federal orders very carefully. Finally, though, he handed them back and said, “I guess you’ve got us over a barrel, Marshal Long.”
“I’m sorry you choose to look at it that way. Usually, I get a lot of cooperation from the local authorities.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Wheeler spat. “This is nothing but a bad deal.”
“Because, if you don’t deliver our prisoner to Denver, Rick and I don’t get a cent of the reward money. Furthermore, Oakley will return and we’ll have to watch our backs every minute.”
“You got that right, Wheeler!” Oakley called from his cell. “I’m comin’ back and I’m sending you and your deputy straight to Hell on a slab.”
“Shut up!” Wheeler cried, his face turning red with anger.
Oakley laughed and said, “You and Trout know damn good and well that I’ll come back here and call you both out. And when you do come out, I’ll gun you down in an open, stand-up fight so that no one can ever say that the best man didn’t win.”
“You’re not going to do anything of the kind,” Longarm pledged as he walked over to the cell and regarded his notorious prisoner.
Ford Oakley was a big, rough-hewn man. He wore baggy gray pants and a thick leather belt with an empty holster. His hands were immense and his nose had been busted and pushed off-center. He wore a turquoise necklace around his chest, and his shirt was almost completely unbuttoned. One eyebrow was badly scarred, and he was missing his right earlobe. He and Longarm were about the same size and weight. The main difference between them was that Oakley wore a thick mat of dark brown beard and there was an undeniable craziness in his eyes. Or perhaps it was simply a wild, unfettered recklessness. Longarm had observed that same look in other men’s eyes, but not often. When he saw it, Longarm knew that he was facing a very dangerous and ruthless enemy. The kind that would rather die than submit to the law or to another man. The kind that would spit in the eye of the devil and never take a back step, even in the face of certain destruction. Men like Ford Oakley were few and far between because they usually died young and hard. They feared nothing, and that was why they were the most dangerous things on earth.
“What the Hell are you staring at?” Oakley demanded, his teeth drawing back from his lips.
“I was just wondering how an animal like you must have felt when you killed that woman in Denver.”
