Longarm gave the matter some consideration. He turned to Kirkwood. “I suppose you’ll want to leave.”
“Yep. You’ll all get killed.”
After ten minutes of strenuous debate, Kirkwood was talked into handing over his team of horses and the wagon. He would take the stagecoach back to Bodie, then pick them up in Carson City, where Longarm was to deliver them to a friend.
“Good luck!” he shouted.
As it turned out, they didn’t need luck until they were almost to the Mormon settlement of Genoa. By then, they could almost see the outskirts of Carson City.
“There’s only four of them,” Longarm said, looking back at their pursuers from Bodie. “We can handle that many among ourselves.”
Wild Bill was all for stopping or even turning around and charging the four onrushing riders. Longarm, however, was much more practical. He simply topped a low ridge and then drove down a little ways before setting the brake.
“They can’t see the wagon,” he told Megan and her father. “So we’ll just hike back up to the crest of the hill and catch ‘em by surprise.”
They were waiting and ready when the four hired gunmen from Bodie came thundering up the rise. Longarm jumped up and shouted, “You’re all under arrest!”
The horsemen, caught completely by surprise, drew their guns. Wild Bill emptied his gun first, but because of his eyes, hit nothing. Longarm got three of the riders, the last one nearly running him down.
Megan proved her worth and her marksmanship by emptying a fourth saddle.
“I got ‘em!” Wild Bill whooped as he squinted into the late afternoon sunshine at the riderless horses which had turned and were galloping back toward Bodie. “I got at least three out of the four, didn’t I!”
“Yes,” Longarm said, winking at Megan. “You did.”
“And my girl,” Wild Bill said, “she got the fourth.”
Longarm didn’t hesitate. “That’s right.”
Wild Bill grinned and heaved a sigh of contentment.
“I guess we did it then, huh.”
“We sure did, Father.”
The old tail-twister reloaded and then he squinted at Longarm. “Did you diddle my daughter in Bodie, Marshal?”
“I-“
“If you did, I’m going to shoot your goddamn balls off soon as I get my gun reloaded,” Wild Bill vowed, fumbling at his cartridge belt for reloads.
“He did not,” Megan said, stepping between the two men. “Father, he took very good care of me.”
“He let you get shot!”
“But he also saved my life, and now he’s going to see that Bodie is cleaned up forever.”
“Oh, yeah?” the old man challenged.
“Yeah,” Longarm said.
“How you gonna do that?”
Longarm walked over to the wagon and dragged the now-conscious Horace Leach out from under the hay. The man’s face was as round as a melon. He looked pitiful.
“This is the man that had your old friend Marshal Ivan Kane murdered as well as his deputy.”
Wild Bill forgot about his threat against Longarm, and hurried to reload his pistol all the while muttering over and over, “Then I’ll shoot his balls off!”
Longarm guessed, if worse came to worst and he could not save Leach’s balls, that wouldn’t be such an all-fired tragedy anyway.