"Give me your gun," Fergus repeated. "Hand it over now!"
"And then what?"
Fergus actually giggled. "Then you're going to jump off the train. If you're lucky, you'll live. If not, well, no one lives forever."
"And the others?"
"I'll lock them in this room and they won't be harmed."
"Don't believe him!" Luke cried. "In my heart I now understand that this man is a killer! He is possessed by Satan!"
Longarm pretended to disagree. "He'll keep his word because there is no reason to kill you folks."
"But a man possessed by the Devil needs no reason!"
"Shut up!" Fergus cried. "Old man, you shut up or I'll slit your woman's throat!"
A trickle of blood seeped down Ida's throat and stained her collar. But Ida Friedlander was a marvel of control. She didn't even whimper.
"For the last time, give me your gun!" Fergus shrieked.
Longarm slowly extracted his gun and laid it on the table. His mind was spinning like the wheels of a slot machine, but there was no hope of a payoff.
"Push the gun over here!"
Longarm nodded, and his free hand brushed his vest, thumb hooking into his watch chain. To everyone in the mail car it appeared as a thoughtless move, but as Fergus reached for the six-gun, Longarm's hand dug into his vest pocket and instead of a watch fob, out came his solid-brass twin-barreled .44-caliber derringer.
Ida bit Fergus's wrist. The scalpel clattered on the table and Ida threw herself over backward, spilling across the floor. Luke jumped to cover her body with his own.
Fergus lunged for the Colt resting only inches from his grasp. His fingers closed on the big weapon as the derringer in Longarm's fist bucked solidly and a blue hole appeared just over Fergus's right eye. Fergus's eyes rolled upward as a dribble of blood crested the bridge of his nose and splashed to the table. Fergus's fingers drummed on the table and then quivered.
CHAPTER 13
"Dammit anyway!" Longarm swore. "Why'd Fergus have to go and do a fool thing like that for?"
Longarm peered closely at the woman who had almost had her neck slit open. "Are you all right, Ida?"
"Why... I think so."
Luke helped his wife to her feet. There was a smear of blood on her throat, but it was clearly just a superficial wound. Ida was visibly shaken, but then, Longarm knew that anyone would have been upset after such a harrowing ordeal.
"Ida, honey?"
"I'm all right, Luke," she whispered as her husband pulled a clean handkerchief out of his back pocket and pressed it to the scalpel cut at her neck.
"I'm going to take her back to the coach," Luke said after Ida appeared to regain her composure.
"Good idea," Longarm said in agreement.
"What about the body?" the mail clerk demanded when the couple had exited the mail car. "Deputy, you ain't just going to leave it lying there on the floor with him staring up at the ceiling. Are you?"
"What do you want me to do?" Longarm asked with rising annoyance. "Kick Fergus out the door and feed the coyotes and the buzzards?"
"Well, no, sir! But you can't just leave him lying there staring that way!"
"The hell I can't," Longarm said, pulling the sliding door shut and slamming the latch down hard. "I imagine that you have a lot of work to do. So do it!"
Longarm left the mail car for another coach, seeking warmth and whiskey and maybe even a pretty woman to remind him that there was still beauty in the world. He found two of the three fairly quickly.
"Excuse me, miss, but would you mind if I sat down here close to the stove? I'm so cold that I'm about to shake my teeth out."
The woman turned and stared at Longarm with unconcealed apprehension. She was obviously taken aback by his rough, unshaven, and unwashed appearance.
"Miss, my name is Custis Long. I'm a federal officer of the law."
Longarm reached into his pocket, rummaged around for a moment, and brought out his badge. "See?"
"Yes, I see," she said, finding her tongue and relaxing. "And you do look damp and very cold."
"I'm the fella that stopped this train a while back," Longarm explained, easing into the seat beside her.
"But where is your prisoner?"
"Well, ma'am, he died real suddenly of poisoning."
"Poisoning?"
"Yep. Took us all by surprise."
"How terrible!" The woman leaned forward and studied him intently. "Was it something he ate or drank?"
"I would rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."
"I'm sorry. My name is Veronica Greenwald. I'm a schoolteacher and I'm on my way to Reno. I've accepted a teaching position there."
"Reno is a nice town."
"Have you been there often?"
"Four or five times. I'm on my way there now, as a matter of fact."
"How nice."
The woman smiled and Longarm felt warmed inside. Veronica appeared to be in her early thirties. She wore wire-rimmed glasses, and her blond hair was pulled back into a severe bun. Even so, she was very pretty. She had classic features, and her starched white blouse could not hide the fact that she was exceedingly well endowed.
"I suppose," Veronica said, "that you'll have all kinds of reports and things to write concerning the death of your prisoner."
"I suppose."
"Was he... was he really awful?"
"He was a liar, a horse thief, and a murderer." Longarm said flatly. "He tried to cut a lady's throat after she saved his worthless life."
"Oh, dear!" Veronica looked away. "I know that there are men that evil, but I've never met one."
"Consider yourself very lucky," Longarm said with conviction. "Where are you from?"
"Iowa. I was raised on a farm. I was raised by a farmer and fell in love with a boy who became a farmer."
"You're married?"
"No, Mr. Long. Three months ago a tornado came through our little town and killed my fiance. It wiped out our family farm and flattened our school, church, and most of Grover City's main street."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a disaster. I decided to go West and try to start over again. It was too painful to remain in Grover City. Fortunately, I was able to secure the promise of employment in Reno. I understand that the person I replace has contracted some sort of very serious illness and must for sake the classroom at once."
"I see."
They chatted for a few more moments, then lapsed into a comfortable silence. Longarm briskly rubbed his hands together trying to warm them. He leaned his head back against the seat cushion feeling angry and even a little depressed for having lost another prisoner. Fergus was the fourth man he'd killed while on this case; only Ned Rowe, of the gang members he'd encountered, had escaped with his life.
"I think," Veronica observed after about an hour, "that the storm is passing on."
Longarm gazed out the window and then at Veronica. "There is no doubt that the sun is going to shine again."
"Mat's an odd way of putting it."
"I just meant that your eyes are as blue and lovely as a summer sky and your smile is warmer than any sunlight."
Veronica blushed. "My, you are a flatterer!"
"I'm an honest man."
"Not entirely."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that just before you came, the conductor passed through saying that an outlaw had been shot by a deputy in the mail car."
"I see. Then why, Miss Greenwald, did you pretend not to know?"
"I'm sorry. I wanted to hear you tell me what happened." Veronica smiled. "Really, Mr. Long, why did you tell me that the prisoner was poisoned?"
"Because he was! He died of a very sudden and severe case of lead poisoning."
It wasn't meant as a joke, and Veronica did not laugh or even smile. She just blinked, her eyes large and luminous behind her glasses as she regarded her companion for a moment and then turned to stare out the window.
At Rock Springs, Longarm sent Billy Vail another telegram:
EN ROUTE TO RENO STOP NED ROWE ESCAPED NEAR LARAMIE STOP OTHER PRISONERS ALL CONTRACTED FATAL DOSE OF LEAD POISONING STOP REPLY TO RENO AT ONCE STOP