The woman gulped. She was tough as a dried cowhide and not a bit afraid, but she was also smart enough to read a man and know when he wasn’t bluffing.
Leach was groaning and holding the side of his rapidly swelling jaw. His nearly hairless body was bathed in perspiration and his potbelly was heaving as if he’d run several miles. He disgusted Longarm, adding to the hatred Longarm already felt toward the mine owner for killing Kane and Ward. “Get dressed, Horace. We’re going for a long ride.”
The man tried to protest, but instead moaned piteously.
“I guess I broke your jaw,” Longarm said. “Too bad. Now, if you don’t want your neck broken as well, I suggest you just do as I say and no one will get hurt. Hell, we might even live to tell our friends about what happened tonight.”
“What about us?” the fat one demanded to know as she and her friend dressed.
“Well, you are a problem,” Longarm admitted. “I don’t suppose that I could trust you to just leave this place and keep your mouthes shut for about twelve hours.”
The woman’s hateful expression told Longarm that he couldn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut even twelve seconds.
“In that case,” Longarm said, “we’ll just have to tie you both up and leave it at that.”
“You ain’t tyin’ me up,” the woman hissed.
Longarm had a knife, and now he brought it out. “I think you’d rather be tied up with a gag in your big mouth than have your throat slit, wouldn’t you?”
The woman paled, and Longarm was greatly relieved to see that his bluff had accomplished its purpose. Keeping an eye on the moaning Horace Leach, he quickly bound the two prostitutes up, hog-tying them naked.
“I hope the fellas that find you ladies tomorrow morning are gentlemen,” Longarm said with a devilish wink.
When the dark one cursed him, Longarm filled her mouth with her own dirty underwear. “Now you,” he said to the blonde.
She shook her head, and Longarm was forced to bend her head back, pry open her jaws, and fill her mouth before binding it shut.
“I’m sorry you ladies are going to spend the rest of the night in such an uncomfortable and unladylike position,” he said. “But at least you’ll get through this alive, which might be more than either I or Mr. Leach here can predict with any certainty.”
Leach had been using opium, and Longarm could smell its sweetish smoke in the room. That was fine with him. A man doped up on opium was always far more passive than one who was boozed up and infused with whiskey courage. “Get dressed,” Longarm ordered. Leach fumbled with a bathrobe and then his slippers. to knock Leach unconscious and carry him to the waiting sorrel, or try to march the murdering bastard out of the house and across the sagebrush. Longarm decided that he could not trust Leach to keep quiet, so he walked over to the man and said, “I’m sorry about breaking your damn jaw but I got to add insult to injury.”
He pistol-whipped Horace Leach across the side of the head. It wasn’t something that gave Longarm any satisfaction despite the knowledge of what this man had done to Kane and Ward. Leach’s knobby knees buckled and he collapsed. Longarm picked him up, tossed the man over his left shoulder, and went back downstairs.
Twenty minutes later Leach was getting real heavy, but now the horse could carry the half-naked mine owner.
“Thank God, you made it!” Megan cried, throwing herself into Longarm’s embrace and hugging him with her one good arm as tightly as possible.
“So far,” Longarm said, “so good.”
He glanced over at Kirkwood. “Everything ready?”
Kirkwood nodded. He showed them a modified freight wagon loaded with sacks of grain and a pile of grass hay. The wagon had sides about three feet tall and it looked ready to fall apart, but Longarm was sure that Kirkwood had a lot of faith in the vehicle or he would not have used it at such an important time as this.
“Let’s go,” Kirkwood said, eyeing the mine owner with contempt. “Marshal, I still think you should have put Leach out of his misery back at the mine.”
“I want him to confess to the authorities in Carson City,” Longarm said by way of a quick explanation. “After he does, I think we can get some tough but honest lawmen down here to make some permanent changes for Bodie.”
“Now that,” Kirkwood said, “would be great. Load up!”
Longarm helped Megan into the wagon and covered her with hay. Then he tossed Horace Leach up, but not before he gagged the man. “Cover him well,” he said to Megan.
“What about you?”
“I’ll ride up with Kirkwood at least until sunrise.”
The liveryman nodded his approval, and then he took his seat and slapped his lines to the rumps of their horses.
“You tell Miss Riley about them sorrel horses?” Kirkwood asked as they headed north along the dim and almost empty main street of Bodie.
“Yeah,” Longarm lied, unwilling to jeopardize this man’s cooperation for the time being.
“Good. I’m glad to see that she has that much good sense,” Kirkwood said with satisfaction as they left the town and hurried into what would be a long, dark night.
When dawn finally sneaked over the eastern horizon some five hours later, they were still moving at a good clip.
“Say, Custis,” Megan called, “when can we come back to get all my horses?”
Kirkwood looked sideways at him and Longarm spluttered, “Soon.”
“They ain’t all your horses anymore,” Kirkwood declared. “The sorrels are mine now.” Megan popped up from under the hay. “What?”
“You agreed to give ‘em to me in exchange for me risking my neck.”
“I did no such thing!”
Kirkwood drew the wagon to a sudden stop. “All right,” he said, “both of you get the hell off this wagon and take Leach with you.”
“No,” Longarm said, eyes going to Megan. “Please, be reasonable.”
“I’m not giving him my sorrels! And I paid him for two other horses.”
“You can have ‘em,” Kirkwood said. “That palomino is wind-broke. Knew it all along, and the other is too small for a man. So take ‘em—but I keep the sorrels.”
“No!” Megan shouted.
“Get down,” Kirkwood said, grabbing up his shotgun. “Our deal is off.”
“Now wait a minute,” Longarm said, almost pleading. “Megan, they are just horses.”
“They’re a lot more than that to me!”
“Are they worth more than our lives? Than bringing Horace Leach and his ruthless friends to justice? Than avenging the slaughter of Ivan Kane and Hec Ward?”
Megan finally got hold of her senses and said, “No, I guess not.”
“All right then,” Longarm said with genuine relief. “This is done. Let’s stop haggling and go on!”
Kirkwood was petulant, but he very much wanted the sorrels so he drove on. They passed other wagons all morning, and almost all of them knew Kirkwood and hailed him as they passed, heading for Bodie.
“Here comes the stagecoach,” Kirkwood said about noon. He pulled his pocket watch from his vest. “And it’s right on time.”
Kirkwood waved to the coach, and Longarm did too. It passed in a great cloud of dust, and they would have thought no more of it except the thing turned around and quickly overtook them.
“What the hell!” Kirkwood shouted as the stage driver drew up alongside, almost running them off the road.
Longarm had only to look up at the stage driver and the man sitting beside him to understand what had made the stage turn around.
“You sonofabitch!” Wild Bill Riley shouted. “Where the hell is my daughter!”
Megan, upon hearing her father’s voice, popped out from under the hay and cried, “Father!”
When Wild Bill saw the bandage covering Megan’s wounded shoulder, he almost shot Longarm. It took quite some time to calm him down, and he might still have shot Longarm if they hadn’t convinced him that all of their lives were in danger.
“If they’re coming after us, let’s make a stand,” Wild Bill shouted, recklessly waving his gun.