“Now wait jest a minute!” the freighter said, shaking his head back and forth. “I ain’t no lawman. You paid me to-“
“I’m deputizing you,” Longarm said. “And you’ll be pleased to know that emergency pay for a deputy is five dollars a day.”
“Five dollars?”
“That’s right,” Longarm said, making all this up. “I’ll pay you three dollars now and two more in about another fifteen minutes when I return with Seth Palladin.”
“Well, hell, I’ll do that for five dollars.”
Longarm paid the man three and then said to Miranda, “I’d rather you stayed here and kept an eye on our prisoners.”
“I’d rather come along with you just in case something goes wrong.”
“Nothing is going to go wrong, Miranda.”
She showed him her pistol. “I know, but just in case.”
“All right. As long as you stay out of harm’s way.”
“Fair enough.”
Longarm headed for the jail, where he expected he’d find Palladin. However, when he got there, the man was gone and the office was locked.
“You lookin’ for the marshal?” an old-timer sitting in a rocking chair asked.
“That’s right.”
“He’s over at the saloon. Likes to have a shot or two of whiskey in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Which saloon?”
“The Lucky Dog just up the street.”
“Thanks.”
“You better not let that pretty woman go in there or you’re just asking for trouble.”
“Miranda, you heard the man. I want you to wait on this side of the street and pretend to be looking in a shop window or something.”
“All right. But I can shoot straight and-“
“Just let me do this alone and we’re on our way to Pueblo and then to Denver.”
“Do we have to go back home so soon?”
“I’m afraid so.” Longarm relaxed a moment. “But I promise that I’ll take you on a hell of a nice vacation starting next week.”
That satisfied Miranda, and she stayed behind as Longarm angled across the street, making a beeline for the Lucky Dog.
When he reached it, he took a deep breath and stepped inside. Seth Palladin was easily the biggest man at the bar, and he was engaged in conversation when Longarm walked right up behind him, drew his gun, and said, “Marshal, you are under arrest for the illegal theft and transportation of Anasazi artifacts. Put up your hands!”
Palladin swung around with his glass of whiskey and tossed it into Longarm’s eyes, momentarily blinding him. Longarm’s gun went off, but he missed, and the side of his face went numb from Palladin’s fist. His knees buckled, but he lashed out with his pistol and managed to hit Palladin, probably saving his life as they fell to the floor. Palladin was trying to tear his own six-gun from its holster, and he almost did, but Longarm got a grip on his wrist and butted him in the nose with his forehead. It hurt, but not as much as it must have hurt Palladin, because the crooked lawman’s nose broke and bled profusely on them both. However, just when Longarm was starting to take command, someone struck him in the back of the head.
“Miranda!” he shouted, trying to cover the back of his skull from another blow while fending off Seth Palladin.
Miranda came charging through the door like the cavalry going to the rescue, and Longarm heard her gun bark, and then he heard a man shout in pain. He sledged Palladin in his broken nose again and again.
“Custis, stop! He’s finished!”
Longarm climbed to his feet. He saw a man slumped to his knees trying to plug up a bullet hole in his shoulder. Palladin was writhing on the sawdust floor, both hands covering his broken nose.
“Custis, are you all right?” Miranda asked, rushing to his side with a smoking gun clenched in her fist.
He felt wetness at the back of his head and a rising bump where the man with the bullet in his shoulder had slugged him.
“No,” he said, “but I will be by the time we reach Denver.”
“We got them all, didn’t we?” Miranda said, the barrel of her six-gun shifting back and forth between Palladin and the one she’d shot.
“I’d say we did, or at least the worst of them,” Longarm answered as he dragged himself to his feet and shouted, “Bartender, your best whiskey for me and my lady!”
“Yes, sir! Coming right up!”
He and Miranda had three straight shots before Longarm sent for a doctor to take care of Palladin and his wounded friend. Then, taking the bottle, they led the pair at gunpoint back to join the other members of the gang.
“Driver,” Longarm said, handing the freighter two dollars he was owed, “how would you like to earn another five dollars a day plus a twenty-dollar gold piece as a bonus for delivering us to the train station at Pueblo?”
The driver gave him a big, toothless grin, spat tobacco juice, and said, “Marshal Long, it would be my pleasure.”
Custis took another pull on the bottle of whiskey before he hog-tied Seth Palladin and his friend and helped them into the wagon with the rest of the gang.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said as a crowd of curious locals started to gather. “It’s just a damn sorry thing when a town has to see its own marshal whipped, arrested, and hog-tied.”
“I have a feeling that Durango will be a whole lot better off finding a new marshal,” Miranda told him.
Longarm nodded, and even managed a grin because he knew that his woman was not only brave and beautiful, but exactly right.